A reader has written in as below:
[Tabby] you invested heavily in going to China to practice I chuan and wonder…well, what of it? Have you dropped it? Do you do it separately? Is there any way it connects to your taiji practice
It's quite true that I trained intensively in Yi Quan, on two separate trips to China (though in fact I had studied it long before in its Japanese incarnation of Taikiken but never blogged about that). So it's a fair question, what's the relation if any?
Well Yi Quan is a great art, and Master Yao Chengguang is a great kickass combative master. As for the practice in fact it's very similar to Tai Chi as Tai Chi is normally practiced. I have blogged about this before in the form of my translation of a Chinese magazine interview with Master Yao.
He says there:
Isn't the Taijiquan principle of “movement like reeling silk” in doing their form also the key idea of Yiquan’s shili practice? But their attempts to seek hunyuanli (omnidimensional power) from their large scope of movement is not nearly as effective as Yiquan’s use of short concentrated movement.
That's basically true. If you do (most types of) Tai Chi with the same slowness and precision and concentration of Yi Quan's zhan zhuang, mo jin, and shi li work, it would come to much the same thing. So normally I would say, along with Master Yao, that Yi Quan and Tai Chi are variants on the same theme and it's just personal choice if you enjoy long standing and hard sparring go with Yi Quan, while if you like the relaxed form practice and push hands go with Tai Chi.
Only thing is, my type of Tai Chi, which is specifically ZMQ37 as taught, crucially, by Benjamin Lo, is truly different. I don't say that meaning to be parochial or chauvinistic. God knows I have really tried to shop around and play the field, if anybody could ever claim the title for that it should be me. I tried to find something better. Yuh gotta believe me! There's tons of stuff I've never even blogged about. And I do not show my full push hands capabilities when working with most people, because of ZMQ's admonition - invest in loss.
But let's put combative effectiveness aside. That's too big a topic. And let's put all other considerations - appearance, pedigree, fitness, any other thing that might be thought related to martial arts practice, all aiside.
Let's discuss solely one thing that is rarely mentioned in the same breath - pure pleasure. I have found that while the sensation of Hunyuanli from extended intensive Yi Quan practice is extremely interesting and pleasant variety of ki energy, the ecstatic sensation from doing ZMQ37 correctly (crucially, with exact performance of Lo 5 principles) is simply incomparable. It is the 2nd best feeling you could experience in a human body and I've tried just about everything from low to high. (Actually if you subract all the goddamn hassles that come along with sex, then net-net the ZMQ37 practice is probably the top best feeling you can have)
But I don't blame people for practicing other things. They may have other goals, but even more central point - it's just too difficult to do it the BL 5-principle way. It's frankly almost impossible to get it even with sustained correct teaching and dedicated personal practice. Still very likely you will miss it. It's only by accident that I stumbled over it. Therefore I'm not really such a nut rider for ZMQ or nearly as much a pimp for this style as you may think or assume. Do what you like, keep your own fantasy fired up as long as you can. And this whole post is pretty much piontless..
Just random chatter.
