http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dmws53vxjrc
This is world champion taiji player Gao Jia-min performing the 42 combined form. I think she looks great and her performance is top notch (obviously). But I was surprised to find the following quotes from her about her training:
To try to help her relax and gain more patience, she studied Chinese calligraphy, thinking it would help her relax. “It did calm me, but it was quite a challenge for me to do calligraphy over a long period of time,” she insists. “Personally, I have since discovered that the principles behind good calligraphy and good taichiquan are very similar. One in the same.”
For beginners, Gao believes that besides relaxation the most important aspect is the student’s basic stances and physical structure. You just don’t start doing Taichi, according to Gao. Proper coaching and monitored training is extremely important. “Proper conditioning is essential to beginners, no matter what their aspirations,” she maintains. “I stood in the ma bu (horse stance) for many hours in the beginning, and still do to this day. Leg strength is crucial in building a strong foundation and protecting yourself against injuries.
The next primary step for the beginner is to practice zhangzhuan (standing meditation),” she notes. “It is important for the beginner to sense their qi. In Zhangzhuan, I’ve always felt and sensed qi, and because I practice standing it has speed up my ability to sense and utilize my qi in taichi practice.
This brings up several interesting points. One, this isn’t the first time I’ve heard that there’s a connection between calligraphy and taiji. Second, doing mabu for leg strength is pretty hard core — I’ve certainly never heard of traditional taiji guys doing that for training. And three, her emphasis on zhanzhuang for qi development is certainly not what you’d expect from a wushu taiji player.
These three points seem to point to much more depth than wushu taiji is usually given credit for.
Thoughts?
19 responses so far ↓
1 Hermann // Feb 13, 2007 at 8:13 am
Of course, quite nice, but the difficulty with the 42 combined form IMO lays with the expression of the different styles in one set, which was not so convincing, but really much better than what you usually see.
Without having studied the characteristics of each style, it is really hard to show this.
The best performance of 42 combinded form I ever saw in person (at the 1st intern. Taiji coaches seminar in Taibei, autumn 2005) was of Zhan Mingshu 詹明樹, who has won several Asia Games titles. But I don’t know of any vid online. Do you?
2 Q // Feb 13, 2007 at 9:37 am
I’ve heard stories of Chen Youze (Chen Qing Zhou’s eldest son) being forced to hold a nasty single weighted leg stance (w/ a sharp pencil underneath the empty foot) for a ridiculous amount of time (basically until he collapsed) just to train leg strength, so training the mabu for hours doesn’t sound strange at all. That’s as traditional as it gets as far as I’ve been told. Another one of CQZ’s indoor student also had iron legs according to a fellow student of mine. My companion to China met that guy and touched the guy’s leg when the student tensed it. He said it felt like the student’s leg was covered by a sheet of metal, that there was no give at all when you push.
3 tim // Feb 13, 2007 at 1:52 pm
You know, my experience has been that in _coaches from China_ the line between wushu and traditional is not so clear. I met a guy, not too long ago, who is a known wushu coach. Old school. Also a mantis guy. He was talking to some of his students, about moving the jin out from the dantian in an unbroken line, and even after hitting the target, continuing to let the jin connect. I.e. , don’t just block the arm and then let it “stop.” Of course when he realized that I understood what he was saying, he smiled at me and stopped talking.
Also, there was an inteview in Inside Kung Fu recently of some guy, Ma, a Muslim and former national champ. He said basically that he would have rather have practiced his family style, but that the Communists wouldn’t let him so he did wushu. And he was quite adamant that sanda and MMA were the way forward.
As to the zhan zhuang comment I really like it. But one of the problems going forward is that anyone who uses the terminology of qi is going to have a difficult time convincing fighters to take them seriously. At least over the internet.
Not like the Chinese guys I met who use it “for real” really cared…they’d just hit you, and then you know, shoot, this stuff really works.
4 baichi // Feb 13, 2007 at 3:26 pm
I don’t think the mabu training is very weird. Practioners of the village and Beijing Chen-style lines usually don’t do the classical mabu, but the stance training is equally demanding, if you have a serious teacher. Usually you would use lanzhayi or the danbian position, the teacher would then correct your posture and you would try to hold it as long and as correct as possible - which usually would not be more than a few minutes after the corrections. Chen Xiaowang once said “a bad Taiji position can be hold for hours, a good one only for three minutes”. I did that kind of training, he sure knows what he is talking about
In addition to that, students of CXw also seem to practice a version of the mabu where you ’sit’ against a wall, but only one point of your lower back makes contact, while your thighs are parallel to the ground, and your calves at a 90degree angle to the thighs. Very exhausting…
5 chessman71 // Feb 13, 2007 at 7:13 pm
Hermann,
As you know, Zhan’s uncle is the president of the largest taiji org in Taiwan. I tried to study taiji with him last year, but it was a complete waste of time. Two hours of nothing but talk every Saturday morning. The usual “taiji happy hour” in the park.
I hear that nephew Zhan is good but he doesn’t know half of what is listed on his web page. he has every taiji form known to mankind listed on his curriculum.
Q,
Interesting story. Maybe more people need to get sharp pencils.
Tim,
I agree that the line between wushu and traditional isn’t so clear, especially in the older wushu training programs. Back then, there was a real blend going on and the few people that I’ve met who trained that way back then were pretty solid.
About fighters not getting the qi talk, you’ll notice that I’m fairly hard on “fighters” dismissing elements of IMA that they don’t immediately grasp the utility of. I used to toe the “only for fighting” line too but it caused me to overlook lots of stuff that would have advanced me beyond where I am now. So I ignored it to my detriment. Lots of “fighting” people do that, too. So if they don’t get that, then that’s too bad.
Baichi,
I still haven’t heard of anyone actually doing traditional mabu as a way of training leg strength for taiji. Holding postures in the taiji form is great, but if I remeber correctly, Gao talked about holding mabu for 45 minutes or so. That seems to go beyond the ordinary.
But my point was look at the serious traditional training that Gao endured. She even seriously does zhanzhuang for qi development. That IS NOT what we normally think of when people think wushu taiji.
Doesn’t anyone think that is surprising?
6 wujimon » Blog Archive » Wushu Taiji Training // Feb 13, 2007 at 11:09 pm
[...] Formosa Neijia outlined some training methods of wushu taiji medalist, Gao Jia-min: [...]
7 wujimon // Feb 14, 2007 at 12:02 am
Hey formosa.
I did a little write up of my own experiences with wushu taiji training and to answer your question, No, I was not surprised by her training methodology. I went through similar things in regards to zhan zhuang, but we did not hold mabu for 45 mins. In my wushu training, we did hold mabu for quite some time, but not 45 mins.. more like 10-15 mins.
8 Hermann // Feb 14, 2007 at 7:52 am
Hi Dave,
yes, you are right, the head of Taiwan’s biggest TJQ association (he is in the guiness book of records for 10000 people doing his 13 posture Yang variation) is not woth studying, though rumor has it you could learn some mastery with gaoliang. He is also openly discussed, like any politician would be.
As to the nephew, he is rather arrogant, and his curriculum is all derived from mostly Yang. For sure, he studied also some Sun, Wu and Chen, at least so much basics that he really could show the characteristics in the combined form in a clear and most impressive way.
But as I’ve heard, not much roots, no good pushing hands, not to talk of applications. Trained only for the purpose of winning medals at Asia Games form competion.
Traditional Martial Arts or Wushu?
No question there, and no wonder you only waisted time.
And Dave, remember the Wang Zihe video: They do lots of basic training in mabu, but of course a traditional Yang school, not wushu.
9 chessman71 // Feb 14, 2007 at 8:57 am
Hermann,
Aiyo! You’re right! They do. I had forgotten that. That’s just another reason that I like the Wang Zi-he group. Actually, their whole basic training system seems well-thought out. I looked up the books on them that you mentioned BTW. Wow, they were expensive so I didn’t buy then, but they were beautiful books.
Agreed about Zhan. He often showed up on Saturday morning looking like he had a hangover. Reminded me of the stories of training under the old masters here as they would push and punch people around while they were drunk. Except as you say, we didn’t do any push hands or applications in that school. Haha.
10 Chad // Feb 14, 2007 at 9:50 am
Tim,
Was the guy in Ikf named Ma Chou?
11 tim // Feb 14, 2007 at 10:13 am
Chad,
I can’t remember now. He was from western China, and I seem to recall the article said he was a contemporary of Jet Li’s, and also had won some national titles.
12 Q // Feb 14, 2007 at 12:51 pm
Standing in horse stance for wushu people doesn’t sound strange because really strong legs are required for a lot of their movements. It’s just that some important aspects of traditional martial art are useless to scoring high in wushu competitions and get neglected as it takes time away from training things that do. It’s similar to only training an iron palm thinking that will make you invincible, but you’ll probably still get your butt kicked by a boxer because he’s not stationary like the bricks you break.
13 Commentary on “Wushu Taiji Training” III « Taiji@Stagmont // Feb 15, 2007 at 2:01 pm
[...] Training” III February 15, 2007 Posted by zenmindsword in Commentaries, Taolu, Martial. trackback I had a look at Formosa Neijia’s post(http://formosaneijia.com/2007/gao-jia-mins-wushu-taiji/#comments) where the video was posted. As a non-discriminating viewer I would applaud her performance as beautiful. [...]
14 Jose de Freitas // Feb 27, 2007 at 10:14 pm
I did quite a few seminars with Li Qiao Ling. She is a student of Liu JingRu in Bagua, and obviously many others, but since Bagua was what we were training I don’t remember (she is a coach at Beijing Phys Ed Univ).
Boy, did she bust our ass in those seminars. They were to some extent the perfect seminars: not more than 5 students, 7 or 8 hours a day, 4 days long. We did A LOT of stance work, sometimes holding stances for 10 minutes, one after the other for a two hour period, and she told us that her teachers, mostly wushu people, fully expected her to be able to hold any of the stances including some pretty wild ones for at least 30 mn. She also had a fine grasp of applications - admittedly I am not a very good “fighter” (nor interested in being one) but I do have 20 years of martial arts training and her applications were pretty good to me.
The fact that they’re wushu doesn’t mean they don’t train hard…. nor does it mean that there hasn’t been something of a resurgence in traditional martial arts methods in the wushu comunity.
Best
15 chessman71 // Feb 28, 2007 at 12:54 am
Jose,
Good points. 30 minutes for some stances? Wow, that’s a long time. I couldn’t do that. Inspiring.
16 Paul // Mar 17, 2007 at 12:05 pm
I’m happy I found this forum. Been studying Chen taijiquan in China for a little over a year and a half. Here are the first few movements of Xin Jia Yi Lu - what do you guys think? Critisize, praise, but don’t shoot down in flames if you can; I’m easily discouraged.
Cheers, P
17 Paul // Mar 17, 2007 at 3:23 pm
Sorry, here is the link:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v_GdY_zqZ-A
I posted the link in the Chen section as well.
Cheers, P
18 Morgan Buchanan // Sep 21, 2007 at 11:51 am
Yang style taiji mabu as a internal exercise is shown in the back of chen yen lin’s taiji combined form, sword, sabre and stick book that came out in the 1930’s i think. also there is ye dami’s lineage who do a lot of taiji mabu - current master who teaches this is cai songfang.
19 Ian // Oct 22, 2007 at 12:39 pm
hi I was just doing an internet search for Gao Jiamin and found this, it’s pretty cool. I’m a student of Master Gao’s here in Portland Oregon. I’ve been been studying under her and her husband (yu shaowen) for just about 6 years now. I learn Taiji and external wushu, but the taiji is basically master Gao’s domain, especially for the higher students and master Yu sorta takes a step back.
In class we don’t practice the ma bu at all other than within the forms, their program is designed for all different skill levels and they aren’t trying to scare away the 60 year olds by expecting them to start hard core leg work outs. (although I remember my legs being pretty sore for a few months when I first started)
at the beginning and end of every class though we spend about one minute doing standing meditation, and we are encouraged to do more at home. I’m rather sheltered when it comes to martial arts, so when I went on a year long trip to china to travel around I got a lot of criticism, polite as it was, that I was obviously taught by a competition coach and not a traditional teacher. I took it in stride because at that point I’d stopped practicing for at least 6 months, but I was exposed to many different styles and so understood that I had learned a certain way of doing taiji.
But on the other hand we often have people from china come and visit our school to give seminars, and they are usually phenomenal, and teach the traditional methods. A regular Chen master has been astounding our push hands students and qi gong students, for years every time he comes he shows one thing or another that people tell stories about for years. I’ve heard many of them from the real old students who have been there much longer than me.
and also when ever master gao is talking with us she gets very deep into the theory behind it, explaining qi and jing and all of that, not simply “move your hand here” but “this is what you should be feeling while you do this move”.
Every time she demonstrates something though even her old students stop what they are doing to watch. at our school we learn the most common styles, sun, wu, the other wu, chen and yang, yang probably being the most emphasized and chen second most. she regularly shows her amazing knowledge of it all and I always feel so lucky that I happen to pick their school randomly out of a phone book. hmm, seems I’ve rambled on a bit
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