Seacoast Tai Chi Kung Fu

so, i have a dilemma:

 the place i'm at here in pa, there's a so-called "tai-chi qigong" class, and they teach the brocades and all 108 moves.

 problem is, there's no strength in any move they make, and only 1 of them even acknowledges that the chakras, or meridians have anything to do with releasing the body's energy. i've even been scolded by the lead instructor for trying to keep my center, well, centered, and for not extending my arms outside of my body. and then there was the lady who told me that this tai chi was for "meditation, not for martial arts"...

so which would be worse, to just stop going, and have to learn on my own, or to keep going and learn the moves but lose all the power i've built up; noted it's not really much after only 3 months, but just curious.

i've never heard of tai chi NOT being a martial art...

and my personal opinion is to keep "holding the ball"!!! 20minutes at least every day! It'll keep your internal energy flowing freely!! If you stray you'll be surprised how quickly you lose it!!! Trust me, once you have it you have to nurture it(just like John says)! It goes a lot faster then it comes!!!

There's so much to it, so I'm sure if you keep in email contact with Laoshi he'll tutor you with your progress! He's really a one of kind teacher, so if I was you I'd do my best to follow his instruction via internet. I'd probably join another school just because, but I'd keep close contact with him if possible.  

Oh, and as far as the lady that says it's for meditation not martial arts.....ignore her & know that a warrior meditates in all actions! LOL... So unfortunately, for her,she'll probably never have the chance to feel the power of Tai Chi even in it's meditative sense, but then again most people won't. You have to be open to it & allow it happen. That's a lot harder then it sounds!! I think most schools just don't know any better because their teacher's before them conformed to the masses & detrimentally altered the art form! 

Wow... I'm super wordy tonight. LOL Yea so there's my 2 cents!! 

ok, so why is the font on my last post so tiny??? I tried fixing it, but I have yet to figure out how!! any suggestions? 

That's funny....I was wondering the same thing. I dunno, I guess we'll see how this ones shows up :) Try pasting it into your follow up post and see how it show up. If it's right copy and paste it back to the original (just a wild guess).

So ya, pretty much what she said. Hold the ball, hold the ball, hold the ball. Every day for at least 20 to 30 min which I know can be a PITA but you need to do it. At least for a while anyway. Skipping will happen but it badly hinders (time wise) your conditioning.

And yes, ignore that lady and pretty much everything else there apparently. I would go if it is free and if you like it.It won;t hurt but I don't think it will help much either. I think John would just say it was a waste of time.

Jim

Apparently when the font changed to Comic Sans it drops the size as well. It could just be a bug too. This forum software is pretty old and has no updates.

Anyway...I just copied it into Word and changed it to the right font and size and pasted it back.

Sorry,

Jim

Congradulations! Daniel , you at least know you are in a dilemma, whereas many, many so called Tai Chi instructors and long time Tai Chi practitioners are so pride of the crap they know.The Tai Chi you know is 10 times what they know.

My advice is to keep hold the ball, do all the drills we did her. We can talk on skyp and I can help you that way. Too bad you finished here.

World Tai chi Qigong Day is iniated by some body who doesn't know real Tai Chi. The reason I say this is because he mixed Tai Chi and Qigong, the 2 things should be mixed together. That means the person didn't practice enough to know the difference. Holding the ball looks similar as some forms of Qigong practice but the purpose is different. We want to have an very loose body so it can be very hard when it is needed. Qigong is to develop so called qi to do things, as they believe it could do. Hard Qigong is to develop a body that can't break by cold weapons as they claim. 

I personally don't want to be with them. Because if I say my mind many people will be unhappy, but I can't not hold it down. 

I pulled my videos out of youtub for the same season that I don't want to be with people who pretend to know Tai Chi.

 Take care there, Daniel.

You know John you really are the BEST!!  I miss class soooo much!!!

Well just wanted to say I got a vehicle finally!!!!! Granted it still needs work before it's safe to drive any amount of distance, but I'm getting closer!!!!!!!! So with that said I plan on being back SOON!! I can't wait!!!  

Oh, I wanted to ask you: Are you planning on writing anymore of your wonderful articles????  Hope so!!!

See you soon! 

~Jenn  

well, i am certainly honored that everyone replied to my post!

thank you john, and everyone who had some wisdom to share or add.  recently i decided i should increase my kung fu of tai chi and will continue to practice the small bit i learned while i was in portsmouth. does anyone know if the books written by mr. chen have been translated into english? or will i have to learn to read chinese too?

thanks for your consideration, and for accepting me as a student and fellow learner while i was up there.