Taiji is boring to watch

[jon]

Kind of a silly topic but thought i would see what others thought anyway.

We do a lot of demo's at my school and one thing i cant help noticing. Taiji is *really* boring to watch by and large.

I mean i practice the art and i downloaded a clip of a guy doing the same form i practice and i was bored about 2mins in.

I try to watch the other schools TC masters as well and even when i can see great still i still cant help thinking - boring.


Its the opposite to actualy practice, to practice feels wonderfull but to watch just feels... yeah you know what im gonna say, boring.



Is this just me?
Am i really that impatient i cant even handle watching other people performing the art i actualy practice? Bagua i can happily watch all day.

Also if others do demo's of Taiji how do you get around this aspect?


Old people seem to be the opposite, they seem to be able to watch it for hours on end.

Try watching the video on Erle's site where he trys to discribe in painfully boring detail the long Yang form. Its quite possibly the most mindblowingly fustrating thing ive ever tried to sit though. I couldnt even watch the first few postures without tearing my hair out.

[TzuChan]

I agree with you dude

[miscjinx]

It is boring to watch the forms done poorly.

I had a Chen style teacher who had it. It being internal strength, peng jing, neijia, etc. I could see it. I could sit and watch a long time as he did the form. It was fascinating to watch. I would try to figure out where the power was coming from and how the whole body moved to get a movement.

I learned a great deal from watching him.


Now, bad taiji people are totally different. The standard tai chi class that I have seen is boring to watch. There is no real power to be seen and the whole body isn't moving to power the movements. Bad taiji is not fun to watch. The more experienced and "higher" level the person, the less fun it is to watch bad taiji.

~ Eric Putkonen

[Daredevil]

I agree with Eric there above.

When done with skill Taijiquan is interesting to watch.

Of course, the only good Taiji I've seen has been Chen-style, which might be more aesthetically pleasing anyway because of the twining and spiralling. I'm probably blatantly wrong in that assumption or then I just find spiralling, twining and endless circles fascinating. :)

[guohuen]

What's Elton John got to do with this?:confused:

[Repulsive Monkey]

Obviously they are not Masters then. When you watch a genuine Master do a form there is nothing quite like it to watch. You learn volumes than someone merely doing an emprty shell of a form. I think you ought to join a decent Taiji school.

[foolinthedeck]

i always thought that
good martial arts were like olives.
they look gross, they taste 'bad' but u can cultivate a taste for them and understand the intracacies of flavour.

bad martial arts are like cheap wine, they taste great and get you drunk quick but leave you with a bad hangover - no one ever cultivated a taste for cheap wine.

(i may have paraphrased all this from the Tao of JKD)

most things which are really good, look bad. and vice versa. it could be this, or i could just be a fool.

[Prairie]

I've seen lots of folks performing forms from all sorts of styles that I've found boring to watch. This includes taijiquan, other CMA and non-CMA.

I think this says more about me than it does the form being done or the person doing the form. Maybe I just don't like forms much.... this is the honest truth.

I do tend to find forms performed by skilled people more interesting than those done by lesser skilled people. I expect that a large part of the reason is that I'm intent on learning something from them.

[JAZA]

I think the problem is not good or bad Tai Ji, but that we are a TV generation accustomed to watch adrenalin action.

[wujimon]

Personally, I think it's really up to the individual watching the form. I love to watch taiji and I can sit and watch it for hours on end. If I were to just watch for the sake of watching, I'd probably get bored quick, but I tend to watch for the sake of learning/analyzing.

I think if one were to watch and try to analyze the movement of the hips, look for whole-body integration and how the moves flow from one to the next,etc etc, then taiji can be very interesting and very fun to watch.

But like everyone else said, bad taiji is horrible to watch! That I can agree with :)

[Laughing Cow]

Agree with everyone so far.

Good taiji is a pleasure to watch, bad taiji (ergo my own) ;) Aaaaargghhh.

But I think the same can be said for anything may it be music, paintings, etc.

[CEB]

Originally posted by jon
...
Its the opposite to actualy practice, to practice feels wonderfull but to watch just feels... yeah you know what im gonna say, boring.

....

That is the way I am with golf.

[dfedorko@mindspring.com]

I am with you but Tai Chi Chuan should never be boring. Understand that this Master(?) learned the form from some one and that's what/all he knows. Being able to know the differences makes you a better practitioner. Have a good week.

[jon]

Im finding it a 'little' strange that everyone keeps assuming im only exposed to poor Tai Chi.
Ive seen *many* perform and many with great skill, i do enjoy watching profiencent players much more than i like watching poor ones but then again thats true of any endevour and should not even really be a point of debate.

The other thing i find odd about this line of thinking is if i came on here and said such and such was a poor performer do you think they can fight? It would probarly be the same people telling me that i would have to touch there hands to know.

I realise it was a bit of a harsh post but i was partly just trying to prompt for responses. Im a little dissapointed that there is such ability to jump to poor conclusions in this thread.



I think its sad that Taijiquan is often performed 'so' slowly and usualy without power.

One of the things my sifu loves to do in performances is to start a set very slowly and pausing briefly at the extension of each movement showing off the postures. Then after a couple of minutes of this he will suddenly get faster and faster untill he is doing the set at a fast rate of speed with the skipping footwork and fajing thrown in.


Anyway thanks for the comments so far but please no more rubbish about how i must not be watching good Taiji.

[jon]

Another thing i wanted to touch on brought up by wujimon

"I think if one were to watch and try to analyze the movement of the hips, look for whole-body integration and how the moves flow from one to the next,etc etc, then taiji can be very interesting and very fun to watch."
* This is a great point and hits into the heart of what i see as the issue.
Please bear in mind im talking about public performances here.

Im sure this is what most of us do and have a grand time watching, the thing im worried about is the members of the general public.
We run a 'martial' Taiji school and its very hard to convince members of the general public (who know nothing about martial arts other than what they have seen in the media) that your a martial arts school when your standing there all limp moving at a rate of one posture per five mintues and never exerting any overt or obvious force.

I often perticipate at demonstrations in which multiple styles perform. You should see how quickly people dissapear when someone starts doing a Taiji form.

My usual trick is to demonstrate a part of the form at standard slow speed.
Then show an element of it in slow motion with a partner, then switch it up to full speed.
Then i usualy like to finish with some free form combat drills so i get my partner to basicaly just do what he wants and i try to work with what he gives me.

By and large this approch works well and for the most part people cotton on pretty quickly to how your applying the form.

Still there is not always time for such elaborate stuff and often there is just enough time to get a two minutes set out. So what do you do now? Slow and steady and risk having no one belief your actualy teaching combat? Only combat and then have people not even realise that what they just saw was strait out of a form?


Its perplexing :(

[Laughing Cow]

Jon.

I also don't understand why most people demo TJQ forms at training speed.

Cheers.

[miscjinx]

Jon,

I'm afraid it is you who are making the snappy assumptions. From the post I made and the ones I've read, I haven't seen any assumption that you're "only exposed to poor Tai Chi". Every is not saying this, we seem to be saying we enjoy watching good taiji and bad taiji is not fun. You yourself then assumed that meant you must be watching bad taiji by what others say. No such comment was said...perhaps you don't like watching even good taiji.

"to touch there hands to know" - there is a difference between watching good taiji and trying to figure out what they are going and actually getting a hand on them to feel what they are really doing. However, most people don't want people touching them as they practice taiji. You would really have to touch to know, IMO. That was never mentioned and again you are making an leap of assumption to get to this point.

"Im a little dissapointed that there is such ability to jump to poor conclusions in this thread.

Be careful, the ability to jump to poor conclusions may be yourself in this instance.

That may be you, not

[jon]

Point taken, i didnt mean to be quite so fickle.

It was the impression i was getting from the way the thread was progressing. I was not pointing fingers or trying to imply that everyone was incorrect. I just didnt want the thread turning into that particular discussion.

Im really interested in what people do for there schools demonstrations and if people feel that the general public enjoy watching Taiji as much as we practioners do.
If they dont is there something we can do to try to counteract this?

Still thanks for your post, your original post i actualy really liked. It was more comments like this one which i was complaining about.
"Obviously they are not Masters then."
I find such comments a little foolish to say the least, rude to say the worst.

[No_Know]

miscjinx, but if you all are saying,"we seem to be saying we enjoy watching good taiji and bad taiji is not fun." And jon is bored with the taijichuan he sees. Wouldn't he have to be exposed to bad taijiquan?

The exposure indicated was video clips, class and demonstrations...

But jon seemed to agree with your post therefore that's done.

To jon, you seem to be looking for how to Prove your validity to a crowd. But you no_know how to in two minutes or less.

How about having a small group or a single person going "slow," and the rest doing the same form or the same form at different sections with a second member in front. The members in front are at various positions a person can get in in a fight or aggressive situation.

This basic concept should be able to convey whatever Martialness to your school's Taijiquan.

Tell the audience it would be faster and that these are merely samples but tthey can get the idea of some of the possible applications of Taijiquan for fighting/selfdefense...

Also, as to they might not buy the slow for powerful or useful. You might use the examples of ocean waves and trees.Ocean waves are made of water and move slowly. You see them comming but it can be hard to move out of their way; they can wash past you and over you; they can hit you knock you dover, knock you down ;hit you at the top and lift you and take your footing. If you hit at it, it dismisses your attack and hits you anyway. This is what you can get out of combat taijiquan.

Regular gun bullets don't go through trees. Trees have to be chopped down. They are hard and solid but they can bend like grass. Their hardness comes from softness.


That last but might help but I don't think you practice that. I think you think faster so called normal real situation speed should be practiced at least along with the slow if for not anything else but to instruct/show.

My Tree examples is about practicing "slow" exclusively, all the way through for longer than you think is necessary perhaps. But you might find that angle useful to get a point across, jon.

[jon]

No_Know

Thanks for a good post :)
Ill have a think about what you say, seems to be some wisdom in there.

Regarding fast or slow: Im not against practicing Taijiquan slowly, or applying it slowly. I like to go by the general rule set i was shown, that ruleset reads 'if the opponent moves fast, i move fast - if they move slowly, i move slowly'.
Hence im against the idea that Taiji is set at any speed really, to me its nature is adaptation and it should not be seen as either fast or slow but simply able to blend with whatever its given to work with.

Still i liked your demonstration ideas although there is not always a mike available for speaking to the crowd. Still when there is one the whole process is obviously much easyer - except for the whole debating who is going to do the annoncing part :)

[JAZA]

Jon, read my opinion is the only one not talking about bad TJ.
Not being egocentric I think is the real reason why TJ is boring to watch the same way as opera or ballet.

[GeneChing]

... ok maybe bad kung fu movies can be fun if you turn it into a clever drinking game. But generally, bad stuff equals boring visuals. This is one reason why I'm opposed to group musical taiji.

But on to the good stuff, it's interesting for a while, but I usually get it in a few moves, so it has it's boredom factor as well. But I don't think that taiji is really meant as a performance. It's like watching someone meditate. Part of the power of the practice of taiji is that it is long slow and boring, so it's easy to mess up when your mind strays. In fact, I'd argue that most taiji forms are designed to mess you up by making your mind stray by boring it. One tricky part of taiji is not to get bored - to stay active in the movment throughout the form. Now this leaves little for a spectator, but like meditation, I don't think it's really a spectator sport.