Pushing legs

From a taijiquan perspective, I need to start thinking about bjj as pushing legs. Sure, you, random reader who studies taijiquan, say “pushing hands is not meant to be literally pushing hands”, and you, random reader who studies bjj, say “huh?”. Suffice it to say there is a similarity. However, when I try rolling, almost immediately [...]

Josh Waitzkin interview

Here is a great interview I found on EmptyFlower.net in a thread called “Attacking during the blink”:

He talks about breaking down the complexities and making smaller circles and fancy techniques not being “it” and condensing biomechanics, bringing things from the conscious mind to the unconscious, speeding up perception (slowing down time) at will, and more.
AND, [...]

Josh Waitkin’s taiji book? Genius applied to multiple domains?

I was responding to a Formosa Neijia blog post about doing limited moves vs. knowing many and referenced Fedor Emelianenko as a genius:

On throwing out techniques - if you take a combat sports master from the “freest form push hands formats” of combat sambo and Pride mma like Fedor Emelianenko (probably the greatest ever) - [...]

Yoga and qigong: relationship of chakras to dantians

I’m getting more interested in the similarity of yoga and qigong. It’s interesting that some of the concepts are very similar but don’t quite match up. For example, there are seven chakras that seem to have some relationship to the 3 main dantians.
1. Upper dantian - could be the crown chakra, the third eye chakra, [...]

just said">Ways to apply what I just said

Some examples for me to test my 80/20 theory. Entry to inside for judo throws. Cloud hands movement - left hand to inside of other person’s right arm, ward off to rollback to pull down. Right hand is starting its ascent at same time. Turn to do ippon seoi nage. That is so easy to [...]

Wardoff, rollback, press, and pull down

In the spirit of jkd, I wonder what the “essence” of taijiquan I want to absorb would be. I believe it’s wardoff, rollback, press, and pull down in the context of a constant flow of adhere, stick, connect, follow. Not push because it seems non-essential. Not bump or elbow for the same reasons. Not split [...]

World Tai Chi and Qigong Day

I don’t know anything about it but today is World Tai Chi and Qigong Day.

CMA and qigong

A hypothesis forming in my mind about CMA and qigong is that most Chinese martial arts would typically have barely scratched the surface of what qigong can really offer. There are a few reasons I have this hypothesis:
1. a full understanding of qigong seems incredibly complex and difficult
2. someone who is busy as a bodyguard [...]

Taijiquan battle plan?

Great thread here. This guy has a very good blog called “First Principles” that I need to go back and read a lot.

Core or dantian?

Last night I did a few taijiquan movements and I noticed if I concentrated on movements initiating from the dantian, the qigong aspect was much stronger. Which leads to some confusion about whether I’m really doing “core” movement, whether it is “internal” qigong induced movement from the dantian, or both. I think it’s both, but [...]