Then the other day, he was trawling through some online Xingyi vids, and came across some well known instructor, we'll say Instructor X (IX) showing some basic moves. Then my reader wrote to me expressing doubts about IX, wondering whether IX isn't too tense? Just muscling through? not doing things right according to RXE principles? and so on. I looked at the clips and found IX is fine, at least to the degree you can see anything "internal" from a video, nothing to criticize there. Just a somewhat different movement pattern and rhythm from what I show for Xingyi basics.
Thus encouraged, my reader decided to try out that alternative flavor, take it on a road test (just from looking at the clips, not signing up for actual training under IX or anything). Then my reader reports back saying basically along the lines of: wow you were right, that guy's way is really good, I was really feeling it, etc.
I wrote back along the following lines, sticking to the immediate points my reader had raised about IX:
Yes that's why I validated IX's version. It's fine, it just has a different external rhythm. Xingyi is inherently staccato, with an alternating rhythm of energy build and discharge. I think in some earlier post or vid or book I compared it to the CROSSBOW. That's the model for Xingyi rhythm - broken yet powerful. I don't know about this particular guy, but based on what I saw I have no reason to disqualify him at all, before actually playing some unbalancing which is the more reliable way, really the only way, to diagnose tension. It may seem counter-intuiltive, but Ben Lo always says that tension and relaxation can visually appear the same, like identical twins. Guo Yunshen said this too: "Sometimes a hard boxer will appear soft, as a pretense [and vice versa]." From the outside you can't always tell. But when you touch you know it.
So all that (above) is the specific background about IX and youtube and my reader. Now I will leave the direct exchange with my reader and move to my deeper commentary on the larger issue this very typical exchange brings up. (The following points apply mainly to my Tai Chi teaching because I haven't been openly teaching or writing about or showing Xingyi before this year 2014, but exactly the same thing will now start to happen with the Xingyi also, as in the above exchange, so it's perfectly general).
The broader and more interesting point is that my reader tried a different type of movement, even one he'd initially thought non-optimal or even "wrong" and found out WHOA IT'S GOOD.
That reaction is what he can always expect from now on. This has happened over and over, that somebody very experienced yet who hadn't ever really felt the deep/true internal stuff tries my stuff. WOW they get all blown away... then by chance, naturally in daily life, they run into Sifu ABC, or Style CDE, seminar video FGH... whatever. Can be anything related to Kung Fu or even something totally different, or any kind of Qi Gong or whatever.
Next thing you know, I get The Mail:
HEY I TRIED SIFU ABC's STUFF IT'S FANTASTIC, WHAT I FELT! IT'S EVEN BETTER THAN YOUR STUFF, SCOTT. I'M MOVING ON TO THIS NEW THING BUT HEY, MAN, THANKS A LOT FOR WHAT YOU SHOWED ME...
Basically all I do is give people "permission to relax". That's all it really boils down to. And once that's been wired in, it doesn't matter what they do. They might see a Praying Mantis video (the Kung Fu style or hell, even the actual insect itself in action, same point appiles) they try a few moves and WHAM WOW FUCK! THIS IS AMAZING...
It's because:
(a) they got the initial point, from me if I may say it, and now their energy is primed to respond and they've learned to perceive it;
(b) the energy kind of likes new moves from time to time, kind of a honeymoon thing there;
But what I will assert is that had that same person (usually with many prior years or even decades of trying all kinds of stuff without feeling much) seen that same Mantis clip (or whatever) BEFORE getting some bit of insight from my stuff, my guess is, 9 times out of 10, nothing would have happened. They would have just flapped their arms a few times, and shrugged: OH OK, JUST REGULAR KUNG FU... *YAWN*
Therefore I dare to assert, that was my value added, even if they eventually do move on to something else. I don't mind the moving on. As it is written in Ecclesiastes: To everything there is a season and a time to every purpose. It's fine and natural.
But the funniest thing is how many such cases then write to me 6 months later saying they've gone back to mainly doing my stuff because, for some mysterious reason, the "honeymoon charge" they got from system ABC or Mantis Breathwork or Midnight Pancreatic Inverse Intubation Method or whatever/etc. just didn't hold up over the long term... ahahaha! I enjoy those the most (I'm bad).
In the long run, as I've said many times, you don't need me or IX or the praying mantis or anybody. Be water. Later merely when buttering your toast, brushing your teeth, or just laying in bed you can use your mind at any time to charge your entire body with that blowout cosmic blast furnace. Forget both me and them, just merge with the universe on your own.