Kung Fu-Tai Chi Magazine?

[Shooter]

thumbed through this month's issue today...

You gotta be kidding me.

No wonder TCC has such a weak reputation.

Is that the best material Kung Fu Magazine can find in presenting it as practical martial art?

Why not invite articles from people who actually test the theroies under pressure and can speak with some empirical understanding? Why not feature some articles showing how TCC's fighting method can be made accessable to the average player?

[PHILBERT]

Would you like to buy some Girl Scout cookies? (http://forum.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&threadid=29439)

[bamboo_ leaf]

I think most of the articles are sent in by their authors. The magazine only servers as a forum.

Yep, you would think that those wanting to read things more in their intrest would submit some of their own work. ;)

its kinda like all the people complaining about not seeing taiji in the sport contest that they never enter themsleves. :cool:

[GeneChing]

...you guys beat me to the punch (or in this case, the push (http://ezine.kungfumagazine.com/ezine/article.php?article=494)). Here are our writer's guidelines (http://ezine.kungfumagazine.com/about/guidelines.php) I've posted these many times before, but for all the comments, nobody seems to back up there tough talk (I almost never get substantial articles from complaining forum members). :rolleyes:

Also I'd like to point out that of the five articles on Tai Chi Push hands in our May June 2004 (http://ezine.kungfumagazine.com/magazine/article.php?article=486), only Shen is not an international level push hands champion. For that matter, Waters is a champ and she once broke her spine (her pursuit of Tai Chi arose in part from that therapy). Now if becoming a push hands champ after surviving a spinal injury isn't "testing theories under pressure", I'm not sure what is. As for empiricism, you can really throw that out the window once you reach a certain age, or if you've sustained any sort of injury/disability. For all those who promote MMA, reality fighting, etc., and put down Tai Chi for it's lack of empircism, we'll get you in the end. You won't find MMA in the old folks home. If you want to practice that all your life, die young. :p

[Chang Style Novice]

Let me add my voice to those calling for shooter to write an article for KFQG (or KFTC or whatever) magazine. And for Gene to publish it. Given his posts in this forum, it sounds like he's got a really interesting angle on the whole thing, and one that might spur a bit of controversy among readers, too.

Plus, I want to read it myself.

[TaiChiBob]

Greetings..

Have you considered gleaning some of the contributions made in these forums and having a Department in the Mag. ? It could entice some readers to get involved in the forums, nad there has been some outstanding dialogues on various subjects in the forums..

Just a thought.. Be well..

[GeneChing]

TaiChiBob, that's a good comment. We do get articles from forum members every once in a while (but really very few, considering how much some of us write here on the forum). There's two issues with publishing stuff from here in the print mag. First is that the nature of posts and threads don't really lend itself to cohesive articles. They have to be rewritten into a 1500-2500 word article, instead of the free form diaolog we entertain here. Second is that we try to keep our two publication mediums unique and distint (although complimentary) and the forum is really the most unique to the web. Once you get past the trolls and other maladies of the web, this forum is really special for a CMA magazine. Do you find the other MA mags offering a forum like this where you can actually discuss stuff like content with the publishers themselves? We even have a forum dedicated to this (http://ezine.kungfumagazine.com/forum/forumdisplay.php?forumid=17). In fact, that's sort of our interactive letters section, which can be way more engaging than letters printed in the mag, when you think about it.

So in a nutshell, we do glean ideas, but not specifics really. There's enough leading people here from the print mag, so if they want to play, we welcome them.

[TaiChiBob]

Greetings..

Thanks for the reply.. and, thanks for the good work.. it can't be easy to moderate the forums and the articles in the Mag, so i figure you can't please everyone all the time.. and, what you offer is a decent alternative to some other formats.. Aside from that, have you considered a recipe of the month, a page with a recipe, its history, its efficacy, its uses, etc.. it could be herbal, or just good martial diet sense.. I am always looking to expand my cook-book...

Thanks,
Be well..

[Banjos_dad]

I liked that issue okay, but there are always a few things that bug. I guess you can't please everyone all the time [eh Gene? ;) ] but when you broaden your definition of 'self-defense' to include preventing yourself from falling off a freakin ladder that is really WEAK. Sorry!

On the plus side, I look forward to every new issue of your mag because it's so much better than IKF magazine, which I stopped reading. All the people who get rejected by KFM get their stuff published in IKF. I respect Robert Young, Dave Lowry, & many of their contributors. But that's overshadowed by all the features on 5 year old taekwondo blackbelts, etc, the same like 2 karate pointfighters etc. I guess it's not for me.

But to say being able to stand on a ladder is self defense...maybe someone should switch schools if they want to feel better about what they're learning.

As a northenr shaolin guy I really appreciate Gene's Shaolin Temple connection & firsthand experience with what he's talking about.

With the Kung Fu Cavewomen they're from the Bay Area aren't they? It would be kind of a snub not to include them maybe? I saw them perfom here with Somei Yoshino Taiko & they have crazy skill performing!

I guess the point of this reply is, they can't all be Shaolin specials. What if I wore PJs & couldn't fight. I'd be hurt if all the articles in KFM were on external kung fu & sparring :cool:
Thank god that's not the case...Anyway, I think if people compare the content overall between the magazines in English you can find on most news stands, KFM has more & better content. People may disagree. I'm not trying to stir anything up.

That guy with the nunchakus though. Yeah, nice gi top. It's a big world I guess.

Careful with those ladders now folks :(

[GeneChing]

You guys bring up a good point on what defines CMA and self defense in general. This is a huge issue, especially from my standpoint. How one defines a CMA is at the heart of most of our criticism - it's something we always juggle and a clear example of why we cannot please everyone. Take these two prior posts. A lot of people define self defense only as being able to defend yourself against an imagined attacker (sorry for the over genralization b-j). Personally I find that really narrow. It is a fairly rare occurence to be attacker so, and in many of those situations, CMA won't help you more than dumb luck. At the same time, is falling off a ladder an example of self defense? When I was younger, I would have said that it wasn't. But as I get older, and as my friends and family get older, I've changed that opinion. Is it valid for a 80 year old man to practice Tai Chi? Of course. Can he use it to fend off a mugger? Only if he's really, really good. But then there's that ladder. Now for the TCB's post - he's interested in more recipes. We did recipes in 2000 and they were disasterous. So few people wanted to read that. For them, it was outside of the martial arts realm. We still do recipes in our horoscopes section as part of a dietotherapy feng shui thing. They are small so the people that complained before overlook it. Is what you eat part of martial arts?

Thanks for you comments! We really like the feedback. We've been doing them down on our kung fu magazine forum (http://ezine.kungfumagazine.com/forum/forumdisplay.php?daysprune=1000&forumid=17) so it's refershing to do one up here on the main forum.

[Banjos_dad]

Shades of Sifu Z...why should you need to have practical content in your art if you live in a modern city & can summon the police.?
--Sure. "Sorry officer for getting my blood all over the police report...I'm sure it won't slow the certain apprehension of the person that smacked me up...Yeah, he went thattaway, about an hour ago...I'm sorry I can't give a description, but I can't fight & therefore had no choice but to allow my assailant to knock me out..."
It's okay not to fight, but what is a cMa with no M???? A ca from CA.? No offense both of my parents are from there.
Gene, I know that Buddhists philosophy stresses not doing evil to other (here I mean in the sense of physical abusing them). But it's also true that, there are timed when yes, a physical defense response is called for and justified.
Imagine being a 5-year-old Haole boy living in the slum outside Waikiki. In 1971 at the height of Vietnam conflict. I did have some friends, but still those were some mean streets for me & my sister too, who was even younger for God's sake!! My parents didn't give me an6y instruction in fighting or self defense because they were kind-of pacifists...So people whupped up on me at will mainly for being white.
I don't want to hear about people teaching "martial arts" with no fighting value. Why don't those teachers just go ahead and cripple their students, because they're teaching them how to get their @ss beat by someone whose teacher actually knew a thing or two, or even an untrained street fighter.
If someone wants to try and teach people CMA with no fighting application, they're definitely NOT doing anyone a favor.
It's okay for people to take MA for fitness purposes. It's okay to take a vow of non agression or whatever. It's okay to define exercise as 'self defense' against lifetsyle-related illness like obesity, smoking, sedentary lifestyle, and well okay, let's say defense against murderously tall ladders.
But at that point you should call it yoga or something else. Because if you're learning something that doesn't improve your fighting skill, how 'martial' is it?
BTW perhaps people would be surprised at how effective CMA, learned from a qualified teacher & executed properly, can be.
I used to think that everyone realizes their own mortality at one point or another, and that changes their perspective. I don't see how someone, having recognized their own (and everyone elses) mortality, could pass on a non-fighting art to people who think they are going to learn how defend themselves in a struggle (with humans not furniture). It's okay to teach non-fighting arts...but people need to be aware that that's the case, and calling it CMA just obscures the fact of the uselessness of what they're learning.
I hate to criticize KFM. Like I said in my last post it's way better than what else is out there, for my purposes (The Journal of Asian Martial Arts is good too, but it's quarterly & expensive, & harder to find here in town than KFM. And the scope of subjects they cover is a little wider than I need).
I'm sorry Gene. I really like what you all are doing and I look forward to your articles every issue. It's probably hard to tell from the tone of this post but I look up to you as someone in the know and connected, and someone willing to share some of the less well-know aspects of kung fu.
I'm not a tai chi chuan skeptic, although I used to be...not anymore. I have felt the power of Chen style, fighting tai chi. I am going to begin learning Chen style the next time that class cycle begins, so I'm not a 'hater' by any means...I hate to see things represented differently than what they actually are.
I hate to see people get suckered into doing something less effective than perhap they need, just because they're new to MA & don't know what to look fr or what they want. Teaching inneffective MA of any kind is a terrible sin because your putting other people's well-being at stake.
There's so many people teaching BS "arts" already. At work I have had occasions to gong sau & I am a firm believer in -- walk softly & carry a big stick...A Shaolin stick is ironwood...A Nerf stick may be useful on a ladder, but in a fight it will probably wind up inserted in it's owners rear...Maybe it teaches how to accept the pain when you're receiving stitches in the emergency room.
People can study what they want to , I'm basically training time is precious. "Inch time, foot gem." I'll be using my inch of time to study an art I can have faith in. If I fall from a ladder it's because I'm careless. If someone defeats me in a fight, it's because they're a better fighter or better trained than me.
Please forgive me. I know not fighting is as important as fighting. But people do need to learn how to fight. It's like swimming. You can swim, or you can't. If I was going to take swimming lessons, I would need to know that the techniques actually worked, if for some crazy, nutty reason I entered the water (falling off a G_D_'d ladder)
:mad: :rolleyes:

[scotty1]

Good post Banjos_dad. :)

[GeneChing]

Thanks for the props and please don't apologize for your opinion. I totally respsect what you're saying.

I hear what you're saying, but I'm not really sure how this relates exactly to the last issue. While I certainly see a usefulness to Tai Chi as a therapeutic art with martial roots, the whole point of the tai chi cluster of articles was to present Tai Chi as a combative and get away from Tai Chi that lacks fighting. Read Gigi Oh's Publisher's note again. Our cover story was on Ren Guangyi, a noted Chen stylist, and of all the tai chi people in the USA now, he's is one that places a huge emphasis on tai chi as a fighting art. As for the other articles, Shen's was pretty heady theoretical, I'll grant that. Shear's was making a parallel point to yours about "self defense roots". Water's was more postural theory in english terms. Knecht's was discussing some of the energy theory in a more practical way - sor tof an applications version of Shen's if you will. Everyone, except possibly Shen, was discussing push hands from different angles, and while push hands is not the 'be all, end all' of self defense, it is certainly relevant. So in essence, if I'm reading your correctly, your point about Tai Chi being for fighting is exactly what we were trying to address.

Ironically, I was working with a patient over the weekend and we got on the subject of what I do - when she heard "Kung Fu Tai Chi" she didn't know that Tai Chi even was a martial art. Now for some background, she was an intelligent person, had studied a bit of tai chi, but mostly did yoga now. I mention this to illustrate a point. Most serious practitioners understand Tai Chi as a martial art, but in American pop culture, that point is lost. Now since we sell on newsstand, that is a significant hurdle for us. I mean when our very title confuses American readers, you can see how we have to approach this from a more popular standpoint. The tai chi cluster in our last issue was a step towards that. We'll make more strides soon, keep reading... ;)

[Shooter]

Well, Gene, that's kinda my beef with the magazine.

I would think that an article like, "Taiji Quan as Self-Defense" or, "Taiji Push Hands & Combative Principles" would offer up something more insightful than what was contained in those two articles. There's no information on how players can structure their training to address the real.

Push-hands isn't fighting. It's a way to develop the attributes which allow TCC to remain 'not fighting'.

The thing is, very few people will take their push-hands skills out of the incubator and put those attributes to work against a skilled fighter who doesn't care about TCC. Sparring with trained fighters is one thing, and getting into their ring with them is another thing altogether...not to mention training TCC with a commited training partner who knows how to throw down and knows how to simulate common types of violent assault.

That's where I've focused a lot of my own training as a coach and Tai Chi boxer. I've never tested my TCC against an international push-hands champion though. :p

[GeneChing]

You should seek out Ren Guangyi or his students and take this criticism to them. Surely they'd have an answer. Who knows, you might be able to get in the ring with Lou Reed. :p

I understand your point and it's a point well taken, but there's also room for the other side of the coin. My mom used to take tai chi at senior center. My mom is never going to throw down in the ring. Is that wrong? Is that not tai chi?

[Shooter]

Gene, fair enough. But I was talking about these 2 articles;

"Taiji Quan as Self-Defense" and"Taiji Push Hands & Combative Principles"

They don't offer anything practical.

[GeneChing]

So there's two out of five that you felt weren't practical. Must everything be practical? OK, we don't have to go there ;)

Schear's piece was getting at the whole 'redefinition of self-defense' concept - trying to broaden the idea beyond street fighting, so it might not be practical for the ring, but it would be very practical for people like my mom. As for Knecht's piece, he was looking at a few of the classic energies of tai chi. Now admitedly, he was using the lens of push hands to examine this - thus the title "Taiji Push Hands & Combative Principles" but I think you'll find those same energies discussed in external schools specifically for combat. His description is a bit verbose, but it's really hard to describe these energies. Better to just show them. I would say these are quite practical, but perhaps difficult to communicate. They are fundamental in many fighting theories. But I'll grant you that these articles leaned heavy on theory. Maybe next time, we'll get some hands on exercises out of them. Like I said, you can't please everyone. Keep in mind, and this is in part the reason for the example of my mom, that in tai chi theory, you first begin finding your own center. Before that, it's not really useful for anything, much less fighting. Since you're already fighting, you must be beyond this, but don't forget when you were a beginner. Don't forget there will always be beginners. Not everyone will reach that level, but you can't fault them for that. If it were easy, it wouldn't be kung fu.

BTW, we just been asked for reprint rights for Gigi's Publisher's Corner, mentioned above. Some UK Tai Chi newsletter want to reprint it. :D

[Banjos_dad]

Gene,
From the 24th line of the 1st paragraph of J Shear's article, "Most people go through their entire lives without ever facing an attacker on the street, and effective self defense weapons such as pepper spray are readily available."
Although he says two sentences later..."Nevertheless there are very practical reasons for preserving the self defense aspects of the art and integrating them into one's teaching."
I went to public school myself.


I'd like to know about "Sleeping Qigong." Or Chen style tai chi swordplay.

[GeneChing]

I'm afriad I can't think of any articles abou those two subjects offhand (I'm sure we've done something on Chen sword, but I can't think of when...) We do offer these videos resources - sleeping qigong (http://store.martialartsmart.net/prjt004.html) - Chen Tai Chi Sword (http://store.martialartsmart.net/prsl004.html).