Talk:Tai chi/Archive 1

message: I agree that the "Wudang style" article should be removed. It isn't recognized as a major style by the families, and is likely a repackaged version of Chinese govt. Yang or Ch'en style.
Also, why is the Ch'en style article boasting about their martial ability to the exclusion of the other styles? It is fine that they are known for martial training, but the wording in the article suggests that they have more than the other styles, and that isn't strictly speaking true. All of the styles are very good for martial arts if trained the proper way. It would be equally rude if the Yang, Wu/Hao, Wu and Sun articles had sentences saying how they've all improved on Ch'en style and each other, for example. In traditional Chinese martial circles such statements just aren't made.
Comments?
-T'ai Chi Teacher
I softened the offending sentence in the Chen article, without neglecting their undisputed martial emphasis.
I also softened the Wudang article somewhat, making it more of a description of the relation between the Chang San-feng story and the theories of Neo-Confucianism, without deleting refrence to the minor style (in terms of the number of practitioners, at least) of "Wudang T'ai Chi."
-TCT
----
Wu Quanyou was awarded the Han surname 吳"Wu" (approximating the pronunciation of the first syllable of his family's Manchu surname) in recognition of his exemplary military service very late in his life, and the Wu family have used it ever since when referring to him. This is the story I have been told by his great-great grandson, Sifu Eddie Wu. See http://www.wustyle.com
Fire Star 13:56, 8 Mar 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: I have added an alternative medicine section to the article plus supporting research.  Tai Chi as you very well know is a very popular form of exercise and meditation.  Perhaps we should change the name of this article to Tai Chi?  The current title is stupid. -- John Gohde 01:38, 1 Jun 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: No, the name of the martial art is Tai Chi Chuan. I realise that many of those who practise it purely for health reasons abbreviate it to "Tai Chi", but Tai Chi is a disambiguation page. There's a note higher up this page if you're interested. -- Jim Regan 01:53, 1 Jun 2004 (UTC)

text: Ah, I just noticed that it's a redirect. Maybe you should change it into an article about the AM uses. (You'd have to have some disambiguation, but I don't see that as a problem). -- Jim Regan 01:57, 1 Jun 2004 (UTC)

text: How do people feel about having that Complimentary/Alternative Medicine Box on the article?  Before you respond you might like to know that the person who added it, Mr Natural Health, is currently in arbitration  for adding these boxes to many tens of articles.  However, I am not sufficiently interested in Tai Chi to guage whether this instance is useful.  Personally, I feel it's of dubious value. --bodnotbod 01:20, Jun 25, 2004 (UTC)
It was removed. T'ai Chi has a lot of potential to help people help themselves, but as a professional T'ai Chi teacher representing a prominent (and conservative) T'ai Chi family I don't call it a form of alternative medicine. Therapy, perhaps, for the right person. Training, certainly. Many of us don't like to be associated with the New Age "natural" holistic crowd, as they don't seem (at least to us) to really know what they are doing. Fire Star
I've put together an article using pinyin at Taijiquan (pinyin article). Fire Star 16:44, 5 Oct 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  Comments 

message: Hi Taichiseeker. We currently have two versions of the same article (T'ai Chi Ch'uan and Taijiquan (pinyin article)) in order to avoid problems between those who prefer pinyin and those who prefer Wade-Giles. They are cross-referenced, so it is easy enough for someone who wants to check the other version to switch back and forth. This helps to avoid the inelegant and confusing mixture of different romanization schemes in the same article, a problem endemic to articles relating to Chinese culture. I hope this helps. Fire Star 16:44, 8 Oct 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: Unfortunately, T'ai Chi became well known to the English speaking world in its Wade-Giles form. Most people, schools and publications still use the Wade-Giles form or at least a derivative of it. As well, a significant portion of the writing in English, translation and original, still uses Wade-Giles. I tried having both for a while. Myself, I don't like either system, but we are stuck with them. Fire Star 14:59, 24 Apr 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: [[Romanization]]

message: Anyone know what this "world championship" event is?
http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/prweb/20041216/bs_prweb/prweb188826_1
*7th Chung Hwa Cup International Tai Chi Chuan Championships was on December 4-5 in Taiwan and sponsored by the International Tai Chi Chuan Federation Headquarters  (website http://www.cttaichi.org.tw  )   Pictures of Josh Waizkin at the event are at his website http://www.joshwaitzkin.com/news.html Petersam 20:52, 18 Dec 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: Well, it seems like just another tournament. The winners may call themselves "world champions," but that doesn't mean the rest of the world will recognize them as such. I had a chance to ask the late Master Wu Ying-hua (Wu Chien-ch'uan's daughter) about the relative importance of tournaments to T'ai Chi training. She repied: "It is a nice hobby and a good way to promote your school, but it has no bearing on whether or not you are actually learning T'ai Chi Ch'uan. T'ai Chi Ch'uan's focus isn't competition, you do it for yourself, not other people. You could be highly accomplished and never have entered a tournament in your life." Fire Star 21:25, 18 Dec 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: World championship event

message: I have removed this link from the article:
The Taiji Lineage Project by Oliver Richman
The site appears sloppy and is riddled with duplicates (due to multiple romanisation schemes) and inaccuracies in its designations of Chinese names and who studied with whom over the years. I will be happy to provide citations on request.
The website says that the project is open to input from lineage holders in the various T'ai Chi Ch'uan family lineages (which I am), but even though I have been in email contact with Richman and provided my references he was dismissive and informed me offhandedly that he didn't intend to update the site. If anyone one else is dead set on including this link, perhaps at the bottom of the article, it should have a caveat appended. Fire Star 16:37, 25 Jan 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Lineage project 

message: Which is better for naming a Form/Posture/Movement page: "24 Form T'ai Chi Ch'uan" or  "T'ai Chi Ch'uan 24 Form"? I might be adding more pages for 42, 48, 37, and others Petersam 01:40, 26 Jan 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Either one is fine with me, since they'll be linked from the main page most people finding them will go from there. I've seen them designated both ways by different schools. I think I like the sound of "T'ai Chi Ch'uan 24 Form" better, but it is entirely subjective on my part. We should have a redirect from whichever version isn't the primary title, however. Fire Star 02:21, 26 Jan 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Since the other Form pages (103 form Yang family T'ai Chi Ch'uan and 108 form Wu family T'ai Chi Ch'uan) have the nn Form before T'ai Chi, I will continue to do the same. Petersam 23:47, 26 Jan 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Name of Form/Posture/Movement pages

message: "Supreme ultimate" sounds kinda boastful, but according to B.K. Frantzis (in his book "The Power of Internal Martial Arts") it's actually Taoist religious jargon. Quoting: "Tai chi is the taoist philosophical term for that place of nonduality from which the specific opposing yin and yang forces of any modality exist in a potential undifferentiated state before they seperate into some form of opposite (dual) manifestation"
:The concept owes a lot to the Neo-Confucian school as well. Bruce is actually quoting a passage common to many of the family T'ai Chi classics. T'ai 太, is a superlative of "big," meaning "bigger than big" and Chi 極 in its meaning of "an ultimate goal of life" is a rebus of a man standing on the ground reaching for the sky, for Heaven, with his hand and his mouth (word and deed), in addition to the tree radical on the left which also implies that which is beyond the average human's grasp. So it is a bit boastful in a martial sense, but mostly it implies that T'ai Chi Ch'uan is a transcendant art form in a Taoist/Neo-Confucian sense. Fire Star 18:58, 26 Feb 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Meaning of "supreme ultimate" 

message: As you will see from the page history, we have a dynamic range spammer who has been vandalising the external links section. From what I can guess, they are on the west coast of North America, and I will probably protect the page during the "business hours" of that part of the world for now. If anyone wants to legitimately edit the article, please contact me or another admin and we can unprotect the page for you. Fire Star 04:43, 17 May 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Spamming