Hello everyone I am an avid practitioners of martial arts. Started with Judo and Jiu Jitsu. Then my health and phisical condition degraded due to external causes. I switched to Aikido for three years and now Tai chi chuan, which I am now strongly committing to.

Aside from obvious positive effects (balance and agility) I wonder what you all think about inner martial arts.

I tend to ingest as little taoist folklore as I can, not because I think it’s not interesting, but I want to avoid the exotic sounding mysticism tailored to impress westerners as a kind of new age marketing strategy. Fortunately, my teacher is a medical doctor working in the field of work related injuries.

I know I love Tai Chi Chuan and I truly mean to get better at it, but I can’t ignore all the… weird stuff connected to it (no, Mr. Grand Master, I refuse to think that you single handedly pushed 10 people by the power of chi mastery). At the same time, I’ve been impressed by how, sometimes, finding adequate balance can make you able to sustain a strong push without even making active use of muscular strength.

So Il just wondering how you feel about this (or the other) inner martial art.

For me, it’s a demanding and rewarding practice, full of great health and self discipline benefits and a few truly impressive perks, but with a…weird decorum I can’t begin to understand.

  • Cadenza@lemmy.worldOP
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    2 months ago

    But this, I can’t explain : https://youtu.be/4yv34VZGeqs. Do people really believe in this? Can suggestion be that impressively strong?

    That guy is my teacher’s master and he deeply respects him as an incredible martial artist. And my teacher and several students seem to follow a 0 bs policy.

    But… how can not one question this… kinda grotesque scene?

    The human mind impresses me everyday.

    • TheAgeOfSuperboredom@lemmy.ca
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      2 months ago

      That video!! Yeah, I don’t believe it either. Sort of reminds me of doing Kung Fu as a kid. We’d do public demonstrations and would sometimes ham it up a bit for the audience. I wonder if that’s what’s going on.

      Have you practiced push hands? There’s a neat effect I can only describe as sort of being able to bounce off the other person. You can get some decent air with it! I also wonder if there’s a bit of that going on with a lot of exaggeration.

      • Cadenza@lemmy.worldOP
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        2 months ago

        We will start practicing push hands this year! We’ve just learned the moves individually. It’ll be interesting to practice then. Thank you!

    • Eheran@lemmy.world
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      2 months ago

      Hahahahaha how can you take anyone like that serious? People really are amazing and considering how many vote for Trump for probably the same basic reason I should absolutely not laugh about this. It is dead serious having to deal with this kind of human behavior.

      • Cadenza@lemmy.worldOP
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        2 months ago

        That’s the thing. That person may also truly be one of the best practitioners of the discipline. I’ve hypothesized maybe there’s two sides to his activity : private teaching and public… shows?