I started Tai Chi 12 years ago and then had to quit after knee surgery. Life intervened and now I am 76 and am taking it up again because at my young age I need to stay limber and move every day. This is a big help and whether I master it or not it is serving a useful purpose. And I enjoy your presentation. The mirror image trick you did with the camera was immensely helpful. I followed along and grasped it almost before going to the break-down of the movement. Thanks for doing this for us. Sorry I am late to the party, but better late than never. Thanks for not taking these down.
The first martial art that interested me was tai chi. I took a class about 40 years ago. Recall it met perhaps 8 times. Lingering interest over the years. Finally doing something about it. In this series you are providing a wonderful, and thorough, opportunity to learn and institute the practice into daily life. Enjoying the serendipity of picking it up in 2023, so the dates coincide.
My first martial art was Krav Maga! However, after the quarantine made attending my gym practically impossible, I discovered this series, and I've been learning Tai Chi ever since. :)
Shotokan Karate was my first but never liked to kiai or Kata. Later in life I wanted to revisit some Kata's at home thru TH-cam and started to like it. Now I saw your Tai Chi and giving myself a challenge to learn it and find it really relaxing compared to hard striking like Muay Thai.
My first martial was Kyokushin Karate - my Uncle did it and Mum decided it was a good way for me to learn discipline and resilience. I remember getting hit with the shinai a lot 😅. But I’m very grateful for all the lessons I learnt at such a young age.
Thanks for this video. One of my favorite movements, it’s very therapeutic. Once I had a tai chi instructor tell me I couldn’t do tai chi over the internet which annoyed me, but it’s taught me to trust myself because you were the first teacher I found!! All the best.
I don't know if you're still keeping track now, but for me it was karate. I'd also like to thank you for keeping this up here, it's helped me stay active during the COVID 19 quarantine.
Bit late to the party, but I studied Taekwondo for about a year when I was in high school. Tai Chi is the first one I've been really interested in learning, though- there's something about the movement of it that I've always been drawn to
I went with a friend to his judoclub when I was around 18... tryed a bunch of different arts during the following years but never managed to commit to one... with your help I have continued to do tai-chi for a few years now and it is great!
Question 1 & 2: both answers are Tai Chi. I love the graceful movements. Kudos on the new mirror image method! Great idea for both you and us. It is easy to tell that you are in mirror image because that big black thing moves to the opposite side. And you don’t have to say the opposite instructions of what you are doing. Win-win!
Read the tao di jing and was obsorbed so started looking at taoism and really stumbled across tai chi from there. So new to martial arts and this video sequence is the beginning for me.
I studied Tae Kwon Do when I was in my twenties. Since taking up this kind of training I see now that I would have greatly benefited if I had studied something like qi gong or tai chi along side of that. I love your classes and this is great tips on this one in particular about the form. Thak you so much for this series as it is a real insight into the long form.
Never wanted to study Martial Arts, So Tai Chi is my first .. After being in a serious car accident and having almost every bone including a fractured neck.. I am blessed to be walking and talking.. and Tai Chi. is helping me regain my balance..and strength every day.. among other things.. So thank you David.. for taking time out of your life to help me..
Kat I am so grateful I can share something others can use. I've had several students who have used Tai Chi to heal from devastating accidents - even one student who fell from a construction site and wound up with a metal rod driven through his head. But the Tai Chi helped them walk, work out, enjoy life and all but eliminate the pain.
I took a Tae Kwon Do class to satisfy one of my mandatory PE credits in college. I took it up again later as a father/daughter activity - she didn't like it but I stuck with it long enough to get a first degree blackbelt (and almost my second degree blackbelt). That was over 20 years ago but, as you know, forms are key to practicing TKD and familiarity with them bolstered my confidence when I took up your Great Courses videos.
I took up TKD myself about a year ago and was really enjoying it. I was about to test for my red belt - and then the dojang I was going to closed! (Still in mourning.)
Great explanation of the hand positions. Very helpful! Doing the movement again at the end is helpful, too. I went to a judo class at the YMCA when I was 10. I was matched with a guy much bigger than I was. I quickly got tired of being thrown around by this guy, so I didn't renew the class. I just turned 53 and have started Taiji for physical/mental fitness as I age. Been working out almost daily on the elliptical/stationary bike/light weights, but Taiji has noticeably improved my stability in the way that I move overall, more so than just the other exercises alone.
My first martial art I studied was Tang Soo Do, for about twelve years, after which I transferred to jujitsu. I have done yoga for many years and my children do judo. It is fascinating to merge these arts together in learning Tai Chi- so many similarities, yet so many different nuances. I find that this 100 Days of Tai Chi series so wonderful! High quality and thoughtful teaching.
Angela thank you for the kind thoughts! I totally agree that there is a fascinating overlap of all these different disciplines. Parallel in many ways, yet beautifully divergent in others. So happy to know you are enjoying the series!
I took a 6 week course in Tai Chi 35 years ago but unfortunately couldn't understand the instructor..This is the martial arts I always wanted to learn how to do. Great explanation on the hand movements..thx
I know what you mean - I've actually had a lot of students over the years who had been involved in other martial arts styles who said that after they discovered Tai Chi they realized it was the martial art they were looking for all along!
I wrestled in Jr. High and High School until I hurt my back slipping on ice and falling off a porch. While in college, a friend taught me some Wing Chun Kung Fu and we would spar in the dormitory. Last semester in college I worked second shift at a sawmill with a guy whose dad was a retired pro boxer. He did some training with us and my friend in I would spar bare handed on our lunch breaks at work. I really started studying Tai Chi this year after finding a website with videos I could follow, and I have a couple of your DVD's and one of David Carradine's. I got interested in martial arts watching Bruce Lee as "Kato" in the Green Hornet when I was a kid.
Thanks for the hand explanation, especially the fist. I meant to ask you if these were loose fists we are doing in the form or tight fists. Appreciate the confirmation that they are loose.
5 Elements tai ji with Chungliang Al Wong. Maybe you are familiar with his work at the Esalen Institute. A yang based form, not a martial arts approach. I've always wanted to learn the 108 (105) Your 100 days is a great approach. It would help me so much if you were connecting the couple of moves before the new move. (I realize you are on episode 98 or so, but I'm just past the first section. Thank you so much for all these episodes!
Tae Kwon Do when I was 5, then Shaolin KungFu and Silver Light in highschool. Silver Light is Indonesian-based martial art with muscle and mind control to generate Qi. Later also learn Kateda (karate tenaga dasar), another Indonesian type of martial art with muscle control to increase Qi. Recently, I learned the benefit of TaiChi and QiGong from podcast and would like to go deeper into that.
Wow - I can tell how deep your interest goes. That's really cool. Tai Chi and Qigong are definitely a rick tradition of energy work. It's why Tai Chi is called an "internal" martial art.
My first martial art was kung fu when I was in college. But I always wanted to learn tai chi, both as a martial art and for health and exercise. By the way I don't know why I never did, until now.
I can't remember the first martial art I wanted to study. It was probably either judo or karate. But the first art I actually did study is tae kwon do. I am continually fascinated by other martial arts: how much they are all alike, and how much they are different. As with other martial arts I have studied, I found that when I started studying tai chi, I had to unlearn what I had learned to a good extent. Different styles have different foci, different approaches, different emphases, and just basically different ways of arriving at a similar destination.
First martial art: Yang tai chi, from Dr. David Jones, my anthropology prof at UCF back in the early 80s, who taught a weekly class in his lovely yard in the woods. I didn’t learn much, other than Embrace the Moon. Not Dr. Jones’ fault - it turned outaekwondot I’m just a slow learner of physical skills. Tai chi was the first and only martial art I had any interest in learning, from back in the 70s when the US and China opened relations and we started seeing film of people doing tai chi in the parks.
Tai Chi is like a really good friend - the kind that you can not talk to for years, but when you finally reconnect you find it's like you never went away.
Is Olympic Wrestling a Martial Art? That would be the first I wanted to learn. The first I actually learned was when I picked up a DVD from Barnes and Noble about ten years ago. Your DVD, I still have it and pull it out once in a while because of the amount of good stuff on it. I love it when you and Daisy Lee practice together. Been playing taiji and qigong ever since, always a beginner...
For sure Olympic wrestling is a martial art - wrestling is now considered a top skill for modern MMA fighters. I love it that you found one of my dvds in Barnes and Noble - I really had fun working with Daisy. She is a wonderful person. :-)
David this is the first Tai chi I have ever tried. I found you of the great course book. I an behind in the 100 day series. I wondered if I should cluster some days to catch up? I’m a work in need of progress....SandyLee
SandyLee - sorry not to get to your question sooner! I'm so glad you are enjoying the series, and I wanted to encourage you to take your time and enjoy the process. We've got another 40 days to go, and you can absolutely catch up without rushing. Take each lesson and just enjoy it. And even after this 100 Days series is over, I'll still be making videos for this channel for a long time to come!
Roberto I've found that every martial art expresses both the Spiritual and the physical in some way. Over time, some martial arts styles just seem to emphasize one or the other. For me, the coolest thing about Tai Chi is since it's based originally on balance and harmony - it more consistently emphasizes both equally.
As a girl, I was never exposed to martial arts in the 1960's and 70's. As a middle-aged woman, I'm learning tai ji for the first time, not for martial arts applications (I'm just 5 feet tall, 102 pounds), but in order to maintain health of mind and body. My primary goal is to remain healthy enough to keep up with grandchildren--whenever my daughter decides to become a mother :)
The wonderful thing about Tai Chi is that can do so many things - and do them better than many of the alternatives. It really is an excellent health activity that will keep you young.
Serge you are so welcome - I'm glad you're enjoying the lessons. There's actually a lot of similarities between Tai Chi and Judo. Do you still train in judo today?
in fact, it was years ago when I was child. Young adult I also practiced some karate, but that more than 20 years ago ... And I started taichi five years ago. I am practicing tai-chi yang style, the 24 form and learning the 37 form (Chen man Ching) but still need to learn /deepen my understanding of moves... very interesting for me to see other presentation / explaination of the moves. 2 questions by the way : 1) could you explain the notion of “compression/release” with some practical / concrete exercice to feel it ? 2) and will you speak about fa-jin during these “100 days of tai-chi” ? Best regards
Interesting - there are really a lot of similarities between Tai Chi and Aikido. The actual style of Tai Chi as a martial art is more like Aikido than any other.
Mark - one of the things I cut out of the video was me saying that as a kid the first martial art I ever saw was on Kung Fu the tv show with David Carradine. I wanted to shave my head right then and move to a monastery.
Have you ever seen or know of any studies on how Tai Chi may affect blood sugar? I have what my Dr. called type 1.5 diabetes. That is I produce normal amounts of insulin but it does not control blood sugar So I have to take medication. I do some other exercises that help lower blood sugar so I can take lower doses of my medication to limit the unpleasant side effects, but would prefer to just do Tai Chi. Thank you.
Jack - yes there are some excellent studies on the positive effects of Tai Chi on diabetes. In many cases people have been able to reduce their insulin (CAUTION: you should never do this without talking to your doc). I love this question - I'll talk more about it in an upcoming episode and give you some links as well.
Sorry if this is already covered-- there are 72 comments, too many to read through all. So, he says when you step backwards there is no channel, but doesn't say why. If there's a reason, I'm open to it, but I'm inclined to disagree. The main point of having a channel is stability, and I don't see why you want to be less stable going backwards. Afaik the movement of Repulse Monkey is the exact reverse of Brush Knee with palm strike. When I do Brush Knee, or most any movement with bow stance, I don''t have such a huge channel as he briefly demonstrates, but I definitely have a channel, and then Repulse Monkey is the same. Modest channel, maybe 2-3 inches. Your thoughts? Also-- he talks about "twisting" both the waist and hips at the end of the movement. I definitely disagree with this. I know there is a lot of confusion about this, but for me it's clear that the spine and hips must be differentiated. In fact, each vertebral joint needs to be differentiated. So he's really not twisting the spine; he's just turning the hips, turning the whole torso en bloc. (Actually it's UNtwisting. Twisting is the windup, untwisting is the fajin). I know some people think this is right, but the way you get power out of winding up and unwinding is one joint at a time, starting with somewhere up in the thoracic spine, working down one vertebra at a time to L5-S1 and finally the hip joints. If you turn the torso as one unit, you're only getting rotational power from the hip joints, when there are another 10 or more joints available.
Thank you for such a great question. Actually, it seems like you have two questions, but let me answer the first one about the channel. in yang style, we see repulse monkey as a series of empty steps (xu bu ). The empty step does absolutely have a channel, it’s just that it is half the width of the channel in a Bow step (gong bu). By the way, the empty step is also half the length of a Bow step. A curious thing about the repulse monkey pattern in Yang style is that it is actually a zigzag pattern rather than a straight backwards retreat. So the way this happens is that as the front foot steps backwards, it moves in towards the supporting foot, and then outwards slightly to create that narrow channel. strictly speaking, therefore the channel disappears momentarily. However, it’s only during the stepping or transitional moment. The weight then shifts onto that stepping foot entirely. It becomes the new back foot, and so on and so on. You don’t always see this clearly with every practitioner, but theoretically, the pattern is always there. Hope that helps!
I started Tai Chi 12 years ago and then had to quit after knee surgery. Life intervened and now I am 76 and am taking it up again because at my young age I need to stay limber and move every day. This is a big help and whether I master it or not it is serving a useful purpose. And I enjoy your presentation. The mirror image trick you did with the camera was immensely helpful. I followed along and grasped it almost before going to the break-down of the movement. Thanks for doing this for us. Sorry I am late to the party, but better late than never. Thanks for not taking these down.
The first martial art that interested me was tai chi. I took a class about 40 years ago. Recall it met perhaps 8 times. Lingering interest over the years. Finally doing something about it. In this series you are providing a wonderful, and thorough, opportunity to learn and institute the practice into daily life. Enjoying the serendipity of picking it up in 2023, so the dates coincide.
My first martial art was Krav Maga! However, after the quarantine made attending my gym practically impossible, I discovered this series, and I've been learning Tai Chi ever since. :)
Shotokan Karate was my first but never liked to kiai or Kata. Later in life I wanted to revisit some Kata's at home thru TH-cam and started to like it. Now I saw your Tai Chi and giving myself a challenge to learn it and find it really relaxing compared to hard striking like Muay Thai.
My first martial was Kyokushin Karate - my Uncle did it and Mum decided it was a good way for me to learn discipline and resilience. I remember getting hit with the shinai a lot 😅. But I’m very grateful for all the lessons I learnt at such a young age.
I began with Tai Chi Chuan and continued with it since 1985. I love it.
Thanks for this video. One of my favorite movements, it’s very therapeutic. Once I had a tai chi instructor tell me I couldn’t do tai chi over the internet which annoyed me, but it’s taught me to trust myself because you were the first teacher I found!! All the best.
(And the best! )
I don't know if you're still keeping track now, but for me it was karate. I'd also like to thank you for keeping this up here, it's helped me stay active during the COVID 19 quarantine.
Bit late to the party, but I studied Taekwondo for about a year when I was in high school. Tai Chi is the first one I've been really interested in learning, though- there's something about the movement of it that I've always been drawn to
A couple of years late but my first was Kyokushin then Shotokan. Todays explanation of the subtle differences with the hands was great thanks.
I went with a friend to his judoclub when I was around 18... tryed a bunch of different arts during the following years but never managed to commit to one... with your help I have continued to do tai-chi for a few years now and it is great!
Question 1 & 2: both answers are Tai Chi. I love the graceful movements.
Kudos on the new mirror image method! Great idea for both you and us. It is easy to tell that you are in mirror image because that big black thing moves to the opposite side. And you don’t have to say the opposite instructions of what you are doing. Win-win!
Read the tao di jing and was obsorbed so started looking at taoism and really stumbled across tai chi from there. So new to martial arts and this video sequence is the beginning for me.
I studied Tae Kwon Do when I was in my twenties. Since taking up this kind of training I see now that I would have greatly benefited if I had studied something like qi gong or tai chi along side of that. I love your classes and this is great tips on this one in particular about the form. Thak you so much for this series as it is a real insight into the long form.
Never wanted to study Martial Arts, So Tai Chi is my first .. After being in a serious car accident and having almost every bone including a fractured neck.. I am blessed to be walking and talking.. and Tai Chi. is helping me regain my balance..and strength every day.. among other things.. So thank you David.. for taking time out of your life to help me..
Kat I am so grateful I can share something others can use. I've had several students who have used Tai Chi to heal from devastating accidents - even one student who fell from a construction site and wound up with a metal rod driven through his head. But the Tai Chi helped them walk, work out, enjoy life and all but eliminate the pain.
I took a Tae Kwon Do class to satisfy one of my mandatory PE credits in college. I took it up again later as a father/daughter activity - she didn't like it but I stuck with it long enough to get a first degree blackbelt (and almost my second degree blackbelt). That was over 20 years ago but, as you know, forms are key to practicing TKD and familiarity with them bolstered my confidence when I took up your Great Courses videos.
I took up TKD myself about a year ago and was really enjoying it. I was about to test for my red belt - and then the dojang I was going to closed! (Still in mourning.)
Great explanation of the hand positions. Very helpful! Doing the movement again at the end is helpful, too. I went to a judo class at the YMCA when I was 10. I was matched with a guy much bigger than I was. I quickly got tired of being thrown around by this guy, so I didn't renew the class.
I just turned 53 and have started Taiji for physical/mental fitness as I age. Been working out almost daily on the elliptical/stationary bike/light weights, but Taiji has noticeably improved my stability in the way that I move overall, more so than just the other exercises alone.
I think of Tai Chi like the secret sauce that turns all other workouts from dry to yummy!
Tai Chi is my first martial art. Many years ago I wanted to study Aikido after reading George Leonard but didn’t pursue it.
My first martial art I studied was Tang Soo Do, for about twelve years, after which I transferred to jujitsu. I have done yoga for many years and my children do judo. It is fascinating to merge these arts together in learning Tai Chi- so many similarities, yet so many different nuances. I find that this 100 Days of Tai Chi series so wonderful! High quality and thoughtful teaching.
Angela thank you for the kind thoughts! I totally agree that there is a fascinating overlap of all these different disciplines. Parallel in many ways, yet beautifully divergent in others. So happy to know you are enjoying the series!
the first martial art I studied was Tai Kwon Do, but always wanted to learn Tai Chi
Jiu Jitsu as performed by this tiny young woman many years ago who suddenly became like a powerful lion. I was so impressed.
I took a 6 week course in Tai Chi 35 years ago but unfortunately couldn't understand the instructor..This is the martial arts I always wanted to learn how to do. Great explanation on the hand movements..thx
I know what you mean - I've actually had a lot of students over the years who had been involved in other martial arts styles who said that after they discovered Tai Chi they realized it was the martial art they were looking for all along!
I wrestled in Jr. High and High School until I hurt my back slipping on ice and falling off a porch. While in college, a friend taught me some Wing Chun Kung Fu and we would spar in the dormitory. Last semester in college I worked second shift at a sawmill with a guy whose dad was a retired pro boxer. He did some training with us and my friend in I would spar bare handed on our lunch breaks at work. I really started studying Tai Chi this year after finding a website with videos I could follow, and I have a couple of your DVD's and one of David Carradine's. I got interested in martial arts watching Bruce Lee as "Kato" in the Green Hornet when I was a kid.
Jack L. Mort (I like your birds.)
Thanks. Those are Lorikeets. My wife took that picture with her cell phone at the zoo in Columbia SC last summer
Thanks for the hand explanation, especially the fist. I meant to ask you if these were loose fists we are doing in the form or tight fists. Appreciate the confirmation that they are loose.
5 Elements tai ji with Chungliang Al Wong. Maybe you are familiar with his work at the Esalen Institute. A yang based form, not a martial arts approach. I've always wanted to learn the 108 (105) Your 100 days is a great approach. It would help me so much if you were connecting the couple of moves before the new move. (I realize you are on episode 98 or so, but I'm just past the first section. Thank you so much for all these episodes!
Love the hand explanation. Thank you
Tae Kwon Do when I was 5, then Shaolin KungFu and Silver Light in highschool. Silver Light is Indonesian-based martial art with muscle and mind control to generate Qi. Later also learn Kateda (karate tenaga dasar), another Indonesian type of martial art with muscle control to increase Qi. Recently, I learned the benefit of TaiChi and QiGong from podcast and would like to go deeper into that.
Wow - I can tell how deep your interest goes. That's really cool. Tai Chi and Qigong are definitely a rick tradition of energy work. It's why Tai Chi is called an "internal" martial art.
My first martial art was kung fu when I was in college. But I always wanted to learn tai chi, both as a martial art and for health and exercise. By the way I don't know why I never did, until now.
I can't remember the first martial art I wanted to study. It was probably either judo or karate. But the first art I actually did study is tae kwon do. I am continually fascinated by other martial arts: how much they are all alike, and how much they are different. As with other martial arts I have studied, I found that when I started studying tai chi, I had to unlearn what I had learned to a good extent. Different styles have different foci, different approaches, different emphases, and just basically different ways of arriving at a similar destination.
First martial art: Yang tai chi, from Dr. David Jones, my anthropology prof at UCF back in the early 80s, who taught a weekly class in his lovely yard in the woods. I didn’t learn much, other than Embrace the Moon. Not Dr. Jones’ fault - it turned outaekwondot I’m just a slow learner of physical skills. Tai chi was the first and only martial art I had any interest in learning, from back in the 70s when the US and China opened relations and we started seeing film of people doing tai chi in the parks.
Tai Chi is like a really good friend - the kind that you can not talk to for years, but when you finally reconnect you find it's like you never went away.
Is Olympic Wrestling a Martial Art? That would be the first I wanted to learn. The first I actually learned was when I picked up a DVD from Barnes and Noble about ten years ago. Your DVD, I still have it and pull it out once in a while because of the amount of good stuff on it. I love it when you and Daisy Lee practice together. Been playing taiji and qigong ever since, always a beginner...
For sure Olympic wrestling is a martial art - wrestling is now considered a top skill for modern MMA fighters. I love it that you found one of my dvds in Barnes and Noble - I really had fun working with Daisy. She is a wonderful person. :-)
I dabled with Bujinkan Budo Taijutsu for a while.
David this is the first Tai chi I have ever tried. I found you of the great course book. I an behind in the 100 day series. I wondered if I should cluster some days to catch up? I’m a work in need of progress....SandyLee
SandyLee - sorry not to get to your question sooner! I'm so glad you are enjoying the series, and I wanted to encourage you to take your time and enjoy the process. We've got another 40 days to go, and you can absolutely catch up without rushing. Take each lesson and just enjoy it. And even after this 100 Days series is over, I'll still be making videos for this channel for a long time to come!
Karate was the flavor of the day In the 70s, Tai chi want to learn since it combines the spiritual and physical.
Roberto I've found that every martial art expresses both the Spiritual and the physical in some way. Over time, some martial arts styles just seem to emphasize one or the other. For me, the coolest thing about Tai Chi is since it's based originally on balance and harmony - it more consistently emphasizes both equally.
First studied martial art was Tae Kwon DO. First one I wanted to study was the same,.
As a girl, I was never exposed to martial arts in the 1960's and 70's. As a middle-aged woman, I'm learning tai ji for the first time, not for martial arts applications (I'm just 5 feet tall, 102 pounds), but in order to maintain health of mind and body. My primary goal is to remain healthy enough to keep up with grandchildren--whenever my daughter decides to become a mother :)
The wonderful thing about Tai Chi is that can do so many things - and do them better than many of the alternatives. It really is an excellent health activity that will keep you young.
Hello, thanks a lot for thé vidéos ! Much appreciate. My first martial art was judo.
Serge you are so welcome - I'm glad you're enjoying the lessons. There's actually a lot of similarities between Tai Chi and Judo. Do you still train in judo today?
in fact, it was years ago when I was child. Young adult I also practiced some karate, but that more than 20 years ago ... And I started taichi five years ago. I am practicing tai-chi yang style, the 24 form and learning the 37 form (Chen man Ching) but still need to learn /deepen my understanding of moves... very interesting for me to see other presentation / explaination of the moves. 2 questions by the way :
1) could you explain the notion of “compression/release” with some practical / concrete exercice to feel it ?
2) and will you speak about fa-jin during these “100 days of tai-chi” ?
Best regards
I practiced karate when I was a young kid in the 90's. I quite enjoyed it until classes got too expensive for my mom to afford.
It's so ment for me to see this today is November 1st 2024
Tai chi was my first and only martial art but I wanted to learn Aikido
Interesting - there are really a lot of similarities between Tai Chi and Aikido. The actual style of Tai Chi as a martial art is more like Aikido than any other.
Never serious study until your Great Courses on Tai Chi but of course we all dreamed of Jeet Kune Do after all those Bruce Lee movies.
Mark - one of the things I cut out of the video was me saying that as a kid the first martial art I ever saw was on Kung Fu the tv show with David Carradine. I wanted to shave my head right then and move to a monastery.
My first martial art was karate upto second dan
Kyukushin, not sure about the spelling
Judo, in Japan 1958-1962. Same answer.
Curtis Spangler #Respect!
Have you ever seen or know of any studies on how Tai Chi may affect blood sugar? I have what my Dr. called type 1.5 diabetes. That is I produce normal amounts of insulin but it does not control blood sugar So I have to take medication. I do some other exercises that help lower blood sugar so I can take lower doses of my medication to limit the unpleasant side effects, but would prefer to just do Tai Chi. Thank you.
Jack - yes there are some excellent studies on the positive effects of Tai Chi on diabetes. In many cases people have been able to reduce their insulin (CAUTION: you should never do this without talking to your doc). I love this question - I'll talk more about it in an upcoming episode and give you some links as well.
Thank you. BTW, I really appreciate these videos.
My first martial arts was tai chi.
Tai Chi
Tai chi
Okinawan Shorin Ryu Karate, wanting to learn a martial art for self defense.
That's the O.G. of karate right there! Awesome!
Sorry if this is already covered-- there are 72 comments, too many to read through all. So, he says when you step backwards there is no channel, but doesn't say why. If there's a reason, I'm open to it, but I'm inclined to disagree. The main point of having a channel is stability, and I don't see why you want to be less stable going backwards. Afaik the movement of Repulse Monkey is the exact reverse of Brush Knee with palm strike. When I do Brush Knee, or most any movement with bow stance, I don''t have such a huge channel as he briefly demonstrates, but I definitely have a channel, and then Repulse Monkey is the same. Modest channel, maybe 2-3 inches. Your thoughts?
Also-- he talks about "twisting" both the waist and hips at the end of the movement. I definitely disagree with this. I know there is a lot of confusion about this, but for me it's clear that the spine and hips must be differentiated. In fact, each vertebral joint needs to be differentiated. So he's really not twisting the spine; he's just turning the hips, turning the whole torso en bloc. (Actually it's UNtwisting. Twisting is the windup, untwisting is the fajin). I know some people think this is right, but the way you get power out of winding up and unwinding is one joint at a time, starting with somewhere up in the thoracic spine, working down one vertebra at a time to L5-S1 and finally the hip joints. If you turn the torso as one unit, you're only getting rotational power from the hip joints, when there are another 10 or more joints available.
Thank you for such a great question. Actually, it seems like you have two questions, but let me answer the first one about the channel. in yang style, we see repulse monkey as a series of empty steps (xu bu ). The empty step does absolutely have a channel, it’s just that it is half the width of the channel in a Bow step (gong bu). By the way, the empty step is also half the length of a Bow step.
A curious thing about the repulse monkey pattern in Yang style is that it is actually a zigzag pattern rather than a straight backwards retreat. So the way this happens is that as the front foot steps backwards, it moves in towards the supporting foot, and then outwards slightly to create that narrow channel. strictly speaking, therefore the channel disappears momentarily. However, it’s only during the stepping or transitional moment. The weight then shifts onto that stepping foot entirely. It becomes the new back foot, and so on and so on. You don’t always see this clearly with every practitioner, but theoretically, the pattern is always there. Hope that helps!
I spent 20+ years in GoJu.