Newsgroup: it.sport.arti-marziali
Titolo: From Taijiquan to Taiji

un buon thread a
http://www.emptyflower.com/cgi-bin/yabb/YaBB.cgi/YaBB.cgi?board=Xing;action=display;num=1085509447;start=
in particolare i post di Tom p.e.
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Sophia Delza studied Wu Jianquan's taijiquan with Wu's son-in-law, Ma
Yuehliang, in Shanghai in the late 1940s.  Her writings suggest her central
focus was on taijiquan as an artistic/aesthetic form of exercise and
meditation.  However, her writing also endorsed the importance of
understanding at least basic martial application to appreciate the structure
and rationale of the postures and transitional movements.  On the other
hand, I haven't seen any reference that she actively taught applications or
even push-hands, let alone sparring.
The earliest Westerner to study taijiquan that I've ever seen a reference to
is an American professional wrestler named William Wyney, who also studied
Wu style taijiquan in 1919.
From the July 1999 issue of Wushu Kungfu magazine:
"William Wyney, an American wrestler, traveled to China in the early years
of the century. He went from martial artist to martial artist, challenging
them to test his skill, and beating them all. Then he challenged the taiji
practitioners in Shanghai. This was before taiji had split into the now
traditional five distinct styles, and the taiji community chose Wu Jianquan
to respond to the challenge. Wu won, and Wyney became his student. "  A
photo of Wu's taijiquan group with Wyney seated on the right end of the
first row can be found in the Wu style book by Ma Yuehliang and Wu Yinghua,
translated into English by Zee Wen.
As far as the transition of taijiquan from a focused martial art to more of
an aesthetic practice embodying traditional Chinese philosophy and health
practices, I would look to a couple of different points in time.  One is the
fascination with Yang Luchan and taijiquan of Wu Yuxiang and his two older
brothers.  Wu (and later his nephew Li I-yu) wrote the Yang-style "classics"
(probably sometime in the late 1850s or early 1860s).  But Wu and his
Yongnian coterie still regarded taijiquan as a profound martial art.
Yang Luchan and Yang Banhou are remembered both for their martial skill and
for training Imperial battalions.  Yang Jianhou, Banhou's younger brother
and Cheng Fu's father, was known for his martial skill.  But Jianhou in his
later years is also known for training Manchu nobility whose interest in
taijiquan was more for aesthetic and health motives than fighting or
defending themselves.  The first generation of Quan Yu's students, including
his son Wu Jianquan and Wang Maozhai (of the Beijing or "northern Wu"
lineage from Quan Yu), marketed themselves to the literati and opium-addled
upper classes of late Qing/early-20th-century Beijing.
So I would look to 1890s Beijing as the beginning of the transition, which
eventually culminated in Xu Yusheng's martial arts/physical education school
(forerunner of today's Beijing P.E. University), which in 1911 (or so, right
after the fall of the Qing Dynasty), engaged Wu Jianquan, Yang Cheng Fu and
Yang Shaohou as taijiquan instructors.  This was the time when a Beijing
scholar, unemployed with the fall of the Qing, wrote down his memoir of
training under Yin Fu and his recollection that Dong Hai Chuan didn't
mention anything about the Yijing until very late in his life.  This kind of
intellectual fermentation about philosophy, health and the martial arts
produced Sun Lutang's (in)famous books on xingyi, taiji and bagua.
------
di Bob p.e.
------
Well, I am sort of beginning to taste a bit of the crow i cooked over the
last couple of years.
I've been a bit touchy on those New Age types that practice taiji for health
or enlightenment and I have to say, from a historical viewpoint, once you
include Daoism as part of the foundation of the art, their pursuit is as
legitimate and valid as those who pursue the art for its martial emphasis.
Consider what Gang Gewu recorded in his book:
1881 The 7th Year of Guang Xu:  Qing Dynasty
Li Yiyu compiled Tai Ji Quan Pu and  published it in handwritten form.  The
book is a collection of 16 articles  and illustrated forms, most of them
works written by his teacher Wu Yuxiang and himself.  It includes the line,
"What's the purpose of learning Quan?  For health maintenance and
longevity."  This shows that Tai Ji Quan had already taken health
maintenance as its main function.  The Spring and Autumn of Chinese Martial
Arts:  5000 Years., pp. 74-75.
Also consider this excerpt from below:
These Roth refers to as "macrobiotic hygiene" texts, belonging to the
tradition of popular Taoism and it preoccuptaiton with health and longevity.
For him, however, this tradition had made the means of mystical practice its
end.  Augment by dietary and sexual regimens, they "huff and puff" to
preserve their vital breath and essence purely for the sake of physical
well-being and prolonging life.   The Chuang Tzu regarded these methods of
health and longevity as being only secondary, inferior to the inner
cultivation of the numinous self, the "mind within the mind" in a
cosomological sense.,
In this mystical technique, the human physical body, including the 4 limbs,
the mind, and attention to and control of breath, are all seen "to square
up, or to align"  (cheng) with the universe which is seen as a body writ
large.
___________________________________
Well, I kinda think that any martial arts system that has its basis in
Daoism (even a part of it) includes in its balance the self or inner
cultivation development.
I don't need to write a thesis but I can find these elements in Bagua, Xing
Yi, and yes, even in baji and pigua.  Particularly in baji we have a
breathing training exercise, Eating the Sun, (helps reverse breathing and
also still has fighting applications) based on  hun yun qi gong.
I know this boils down to balance and I think what is disturbing about Tai
Chi as opposed to Tai Chi Chuan is that you can't short circuit "inner
cultivation" by avoiding the degree of intense physical training coupled
with a good understanding and practice of the Quan part of the art.
Because of its initial appearance of slow, relaxed, mythological base, Tai
Chi has the tendency to be a great escape [Easy Rider, Tai Chi being played
in the background of the Hippie Commune] for many a head case (which are
also found in any of the arts) and their instant "enlightenment" within
months of play (not training) leaves me cold.  If I meet one more New Ager
who tells me they can read my qi and now understand the mysteries of the
universe after playing taiji over the last 7 months, I'm going to die.
So yes, Inner Cultivation is indeed a legitimate pursuit of the art but it
must include a very broad definition and for sure you never want to start
your training on this note.
Just another academic view LOL--which isn't required if most of the masters
past were illiterate.  But as one Chinese historian and researcher of the Yi
Jing told me, "Illiteracy is irrelevant in the transmission of religions
like Daoism and Treatises like the Yi Jing.  How many Christians do you know
that have read and understood the depths of the bible?  How many illiterate
Christians live out the scriptures?"  He answered the question he asked
rhetorically "Historically, millions.  The principles are found in living it
not simply reading it."
____________________________________
Harold D. Roth, Original Tao:  Inward Training (Nei-yeh) and the Foundations
of Taoist Mysticism. New York: Columbia University Press, 1999, xv, 275 pp.
Hardcover $29.50, ISBN 0-231-11564-4.
Harold D. Roth, Profess of Religious Studies and East Asian Studies at Brown
University
Going back to what A.C. Graham regards as "possibley the oldest mytical text
in China," Harold Roth calls to our attention the Nei-yeh or Inward
Training, an ancient text for circa 350 B.C. and the "mystical" intent of
the "Original Tao."  The book original Tao is the Nei-yeh in both its
Chinese version and English transation, the two spaciously set side by side
for readability and comparision on adjacent pages.
Roth's "textual archeology" builds on the advances that have come out of the
archeological discoveries, over the last 25 years, of ancient texts,
(written on bamboo strips and silk), beginning with the manuscripts
uncovered in the Tomb of a son of a Marquis of Tai at Ma-Wang-tuiin
south-central China in 1973, and at other sites such as Ting-chou in Hebei,
Yin-ch'ueh Shan in Shandong, and Chang-Chia Shan in Kuo-tien in Hupei.
According to Roth, the Nei-yeh was buried, both literally and by academic
neglect, as a mystical text within a group of seventy-five other texts that
collectively are known as the Kuan Tzu,which hitherto has been better known
as a collection of sort treatises on political and economic thought.
Roth's thesis is that long before "Taoism," the Nei-yeh, like the Lao Tsu,
was essentially a people oriented manual on governing the famil and the
state by "active non-action,"  wu-wei, both allowing and assisting people to
be their natural (tzu-jan) best selves.
Common strands are also found between the Nei-yeh as "Original Tao" and
other "Taoist texts dealing with medicine, such as those discovered at
Ma-wang-tui along with Lao Tzu.  These Roth refers to as "macrobiotic
hygiene" texts, belonging to the tradition of popular Taoism and it
preoccuptaiton with health and longevity.  For him, however, this tradition
had made the mans of mystical practice its end.  Augment by dietary and
sexual regimens, they "huff and puff" to preserve their vital breath and
essence purely for the sake of physical well-being and prolonging life.  The
Chuang Tzu regarded these methods of health and longevity as being only
secondary, inferior to the inner cultivation of the numinous self, the "mind
within the mind" in a cosomological sense.,
In this mystical technique, the human physical body, including the 4 limbs,
the mind, and attention to and control of breath, are all seen "to square
up, or to align"  (cheng) with the universe which is seen as a body writ
large.
Roth sees this inner cultivation as unending "process of deconstructing the
structures of experience," so that the mind within the mind, the innate
luminous within us, can come tothe fore, free and unobstructed, to resonate
with the universe.
In preliterate societies, communal values were often acted out in bodily
movements such as dance.
In ancient Greece, when Theseus discovered the way out of his labyrinth, he
danced.  Long before they were "Confucianists," claims Robert Eno, the
ruists were "DANCE MASTERS" and "CHOREOGRAPHERS" in the rituals of communal
life.
------
YM

Hello, Yuen-Ming!
You wrote  on Sat, 29 May 2004 08:26:35 +0800:
TX YM. Leggerò con calma, ma la considerazione che Roth interpreti il Neiyeh
(e il Laozi) "essenzialmente come un manuale orientato al governo della
famiglia e dello stato tramite il wuwei" mi pare completamente errata.
Vero che il suo, comunque, non è che un ulteriore sguardo accademico sul
Taoismo.
In rete, hanno ora pubblicato la traduzione di Roth del Neiyeh, penso sia
molto interessante, ma, come sempre, consiglio di leggere il libro, che per
me resta uno dei migliori lavori occidentali sul Taoismo classico sia per
l'aspetto linguistico (critica del testo, ecc...) che per l'analisi di
concetti che che Roth trae dalla comparazione del testo con i classici
Daodejing e Zhuangzi.
http://www.panlatrevo.com/texts/neiyeh/
Attenzione, che l'introduzione al testo pubblicato non è di Roth ma di
*Kirkland (???!!!)* forse questo ha tratto in inganno i partecipanti al
thread.
Ciao.

Hello, Southerne!
You wrote to Yuen-Ming on Sat, 29 May 2004 10:09:38 +0200:
 S> Attenzione, che l'introduzione al testo pubblicato non è di Roth ma di
 S> *Kirkland (???!!!)* forse questo ha tratto in inganno i partecipanti al
 S> thread.
Hem...saltatela piè pari :-/
With best regards, Southerne.  E-mail: 
not...@to.do