We take refuge in pride because we are afraid to tell the truth to ourselves.

 

 (Kakuzo Okakura) 

In order to fully understand the ramifications of the form movements, it can be quite useful to apply the form.
When a tai chi person possesses a poor sense of application, this tends to reflect their overall limited understanding of the art.
The form was designed with combat in mind.
If you lack the ability to use the form, what are you practicing?
What mistakes might you make?

Students often find form application to be exceedingly difficult because they lack the martial background and spatial awareness to see the possibilities within the form.
People sometimes import ideas from other martial arts, but these do not sit well with the form and lead to a singularly non-Chinese approach emerging.

A useful way to get a sense of potential form application is to train 2 person sets or drills.

There are 5 levels of Tai Chi Instructor in the UK these days:

1. Health-only Tai Chi Teacher
   - 5 years experience
   - these are the majority
   
2. Tai Chi Chuan Instructor
   - equivalent of 3rd dan black belt in any martial art
   - 5 years experience
   - these people are less common
   
3. Tai Chi Expert
   - 15 years experience
   - 10,000 hours tai chi chuan practice
   - 10 years teaching experience
   - fewer to be found
   
4. Tai Chi Master
   - 25 years experience
   - 30,000 hours tai chi chuan practice
   - 20 years teaching experience
   - pretty rare
   
5. Tai Chi Grandmaster
   - extremely rare

Peter Southwood has graded Sifu Waller as being a Tai Chi Expert based upon his practice quality and experience.

The ability to lift heavy weights, run, swim or workout in the gym may well improve your overall fitness level.
But this kind of fitness only helps to a certain degree in internal kung fu training.

A student must learn how to use their body in a very different way.
The body needs to become agile, flexible, adaptive, sensitive and strong.
Engorged biceps are not going to help.

Remember that your aim is not to make an impression.
You can accomplish this by looking at various ways to lessen your presence:

1. Attire
2. Deception
3. Keep to yourself
4. Possessions
5. Slow
6. Soft
7. Sound
8. Talk

There is no real consensus as to what constitutes a 'Tai Chi Master'.
Peter Southwood suggested the following guidelines:

•  30-40 years martial arts experience
•  25 years tai chi chuan experience
•  20 years teaching experience
•  30,000 hours of tai chi practice
•  Stage 5 skill with all forms
•  Capable of teaching other Instructors

Some tai chi principles can be applied in baguazhang but the latter involves more movement, stepping and walking. In bagua you primarily have to remember to move or step when attacked but in tai chi you only step when necessary. Sometimes it's hard to switch between the two. Sifu often shows examples of equivalent tai chi postures and this really helps to differentiate the two approaches.
 
 (Rachel Waller)

4 ounces of pressure is easy to say but quite difficult to employ in actual practice because it means stopping every time you encounter resistance.

You must be like sand or water; offering no resistance in your own body and not working against resistance in others.
How is sand or water powerful? Momentum and weight.

What are the 16 treasures?

No, we are not simply going to give you the answer. Finding out for yourself will be vastly more rewarding.

Any tai chi instructor is capable of telling you.
They are the 16 key facets that underpin everything else you do.
16 things that make tai chi work.

All of out students are taught the 16 treasures.
But only the thoughtful, sensitive students sees them.
Without an understanding of their worth, the student may just walk straight past. Then, what has been learned?

Tai chi form begins as a robotic sequence of movements and gradually transcends its original form. Movements become increasingly subtle and internally convoluted, and their power increases.
Instead of being limited by form, the practitioner merges with it to become formless.

This journey does not happen by itself.
Beginners spend ages locked in patterns of tension and external movement, never realising that the form can and should progress.

How does form move from basic to advanced? Neigong.

Lessons are taught in a small group involving individual, partner and group practice. Students are all at different stages of learning the palm changes. Each person receives tutoring and correction appropriate to their level of practice. Partnering helps me to see how a palm change can be used and where to focus attention.

 I think that it is good that the student who wishes to learn bagua with our school is asked to show competency for the first palm change. This is on top of their tai chi training. The palm changes are hard and you have to be serious to learn them. It isn't like just learning another new, fancy form.

 (Rachel Waller)

I enjoy learning bagua. It is much more spatially challenging than tai chi. I think learning it concurrently with the tai chi is helpful because it encourages you to see things more martially.
 
 (Rachel Waller)

A martial artist gains significant strategic advantage by remaining invisible.
When assailants do not know that you possess combat skills, they are not concerned by you.
They are apt to be over-confident.

Traditionally, the martial artist was trained to be modest and bland.

There are three rules in partner work:

1. Stay calm
2. Do not rush
3. Do not use tension

If you ignore these, your kung fu simply will not work. Try as you might, nothing will be successful.
Internal kung fu only works if you follow these basic guidelines without deviation.

Most martial arts cultivate aggression.
It is a natural, human, easy response to violence/confrontation.

Tai chi does not use aggression.
It calls upon the student to be emotionally calm and composed.
This is not so easy, but is far healthier: physically, psychologically and emotionally. 

Tai chi does not deal with abstract concepts.
In self defence, failure to evade an attack means that you will be compromised, hurt or injured.
There is no room for abstraction.
We must deal with the really real. 

A punch is not theoretical. It is tangible. So is the pain when you fail to deal with it successfully.

Businesses seek to make money. They accomplish this in many ways.
One method is 'abstraction'.

Instead of handling money with your hands, you are encouraged to use 'electronic' methods of payment:

1. Credit card
2. Debit card
3. Store card
4. Standing order
5. Direct debit
6. Mobile phone contract

These all serve to distance you from the transaction itself.

Zen is concerned with what actually exists. What is right in front of you. 
In this sense, it is not in any way philosophical.

Reality can be experienced directly.
It is tangible.
The danger with thinking too much is that it serves to distance you from what is real.

Freedom means the ability to move easily and readily; without preparation or preamble.
In any direction.

You cannot have a fixed plan in mind.
You must adapt, change and improvise.
Flow smoothly with the changes, move with what is happening, avoid conflict and resistance.

A person who lacks spontaneity is often like a robot; a conditioned machine.
They are dull and zombie-like.
They say the right thing at the right time.

But they are mannequins; smiling pretty and appropriately, but the eyes are not alive.

Spontaneity is a major theme in the internal arts.

Strangely, so few people are capable of this, or really understand its meaning and value.

The vulgarity of 'show' is lost on modern people.
We are encouraged to parade our talents.

Read the Book of Tea or In Praise of Shadows.
The modern trend of showing-all is depicted as being shabby and vulgar.

Then read further back in history; to Chuang Tzu and Lao Tzu.
Showing-off is seen as highly foolish; reflecting a desperate need for approval, for recognition.

Look very closely into the eyes of people around you.
The muscles around the eyes and within the eyes are so revealing.

A healthy eye echoes the inner condition of the person: alert, free and child-like with curiosity and unchecked emotion.

An unhealthy eye is blank and fixed.
The spirit is walled-in behind a protective visage of fear and paranoia.
Frequently, the individual is so tense that their entire face becomes a mask; incapable of genuine, spontaneous expression.

Shen can be seen in the eyes: life, vigour, alertness.

Equally, the lack of spirit is frequently evident: dullness, fear, defensiveness, laziness.

Laziness is the affliction of modern society.

The Western world is enslaved by its comforts and conveniences.

There are 5 levels of Tai Chi Instructor in the UK these days:

1. Health-only Tai Chi Teacher
   - 5 years experience
   - these are the majority
   
2. Tai Chi Chuan Instructor
   - equivalent of 3rd dan black belt in any martial art
   - 5 years experience
   - these people are less common
   
3. Tai Chi Expert
   - 15 years experience
   - 10,000 hours tai chi chuan practice
   - 10 years teaching experience
   - fewer to be found
   
4. Tai Chi Master
   - 25 years experience
   - 30,000 hours tai chi chuan practice
   - 20 years teaching experience
   - pretty rare
   
5. Tai Chi Grandmaster
   - extremely rare

Peter Southwood has graded Sifu Waller as being a Tai Chi Expert based upon his practice quality and experience.

Has society become less dangerous?
Has the need for personal safety lessened?

The skills of the internal martial arts can be used in modern life.
They have not faded or dated.
Non-conflictive solutions.
Flowing rather than fighting.
Making space.
Allowing.
Moderation.

We are faced with stresses, conflicts and threats in everyday life.
You need to be sharp and alert.
Kung fu teaches this.

In seeking to harness the health-giving aspects of tai chi and to share them with the masses, the Chinese government broke the back of the art.
If only they had called their new art something else entirely...

To name the 24 step 'tai chi' is a sad joke.
To equate modern competition forms with the art of Yang-the-invincible is outrageous and sadly absurd.

Why did the Chinese destroy tai chi?
This is a great mystery.

Was it deliberate?
Do they even realise what they have done?

Tai chi was once vaunted as being the greatest system of kung fu in China.
Yet 150 years later and the art lies in ruins.

You can see a student slowly begin to understand.
The confusion fades and they become more confident.
Connections and associations are made without prompting.
There is an inevitable humility.

The student starts to respect the art and gains some inkling of what the instructor is seeking to do.
They see these charlatans teachers with limited experience and no depth, and the student becomes contemptuous; finally recognising the lack, the shallowness evident in so many modern expressions of the art.

The beginner is daunted by what they can see of the syllabus.
Yet, how much more would they be cowed if they understood the true nature of all that work?

In hindsight, the syllabus seems less complex, the various stages necessary and obvious.

Yes, there is much to learn.
So much more than you may imagine.
But not as much as you may choose to learn.

You eventually reach a point where you have enough form, exercises and drills.
Then, you turn inward and really figure them out.

Only the more shallow exponent continues to reach outward in the hope of answers.

The staff was carried by monks and travellers throughout the world for many centuries. It is a natural weapon, being only a tree branch or trunk.

The bamboo staff is such an ideal weight; so light and yet flexible and firm.

In the UK it is legal to carry and use a walking stick as a person ages. An umbrella is an obvious alternative.

A sword is an offensive weapon. A staff is a defensive weapon.
How so?

A staff can serve many purposes: a prop, a walking stick, an aid when reach for things. It can also be used in combat.

A sword has only one purpose: to maim and/or kill.

Some people argue that staff and sword are interchangeable. This is not so.

Staff applications depend to some degree upon the length of the stick.
All staff can be used to poke or jab.
However, a long staff needs two hands to do this.

A short staff can strike in a very 'flicky'/sharp manner, but a long staff is too heavy and unwieldy for this.

A long staff can deliver a horizontal blow using the waist. A short staff lacks the necessary length or leverage to accomplish this.

A long staff is more akin to a spear or a pole. A short staff is like a whip.

Given that a sword can cut the flesh, it quite different to a staff. A sword pierces/stabs, slices and hacks. A staff does none of these.

The bamboo staff is a wonderful weapon to train with.
It is light-weight, strong and versatile.

It can be used single hand or double.

Measure the length according to your own height.
Saw the staff at navel-height.

Dress in bland, dull colours and outfits that do not draw any form of attention.
Avoid anything that catches the eye or makes you stand out.
Your aim is to be background, not foreground.

Wear loose, comfortable clothing that enables freedom of movement, and footwear that allows for rapid, nimble footwork.

If you are seeking to train the sword, you may want to consider playing with very sharp knives for a while...

Practice moving with the blade.
Stick and slice and hack.

Now, ask yourself: could you honestly stick this in another living human being?
It the answer is no, then good.
You are sane, healthy and perhaps well-adjusted.

Reconsider your desire to train the sword. A sword is simply a very big knife.
If you are unwilling to stab somebody, put the weapon down.

Self defence remains a sticky issue.

If your home is invaded by a burglar and you injure the intruder or kill them whilst attempting to protect your family, you may be deemed a 'criminal'.

If you travel to a foreign land in the service of the military and kill many strangers in battle, you may be called a 'hero'.

Every martial artist should understand Newton's Laws of Physics.
To proceed without this knowledge is foolish.

Any martial art uses the human body.
The human body is subject to the laws of physics.

Now, watch what people are doing...
Allowing an object to continue moving, unimpeded?
F = M x A?
Force against force?

Is this really what martial artists typically are doing?

Yielding is a most misunderstood quality.

It is not giving-in, collapsing or weakness.
It is about giving the opponent room to over-reach, over-commit, miss.
It is about making space, re-positioning.

All applications contain some facet of yielding, even if the reality is simply not opposing force.

A journey of a thousand miles may indeed start with one step. But are you really going anywhere?
This is an important question.
Although your physical position may alter relative to external objects, are 'you' actually going anywhere at all?
Do you understand?

Tap your chest. You are here. Now walk across the room. Tap your chest again. You are still here.
Your body may have moved across the room, but 'you' haven't gone anywhere at all.

If you realise that your body occupies the same space at all times, then you see the form and your relationship with an opponent quite differently.
This is what 'central equilibrium' is really about.

The form is merely exploring variations of the three dimensions. You turn the waist, shift the weight, move the hands, the legs, the eyes. 
But you essentially remain exactly where you are. 

It takes courage to face an opponent with a receptive heart and a willingness to accept, to yield, to be sensitive, and to be decisive.
Faith is necessary.

A student may fail many times before they have the heart to do what they have been told to do.

When thinking stops, the art begins.
Self-consciousness and though are impediments to the way.

Internal kung fu cannot be approached like karate or judo.
It is simply not the same thing.

Sure, commonalities exist.
But so much differs.

Tai chi and baguazhang are infused with taoist insights and discoveries.
But only the earnest student succeeds in this regard.
The lazy person uses force, or ignores the precepts of the art, bastardising it to suit their own lack of faith.

Having completed a puzzle, you may understand how the pieces all fit together and why.
Some of your breakthroughs occurred through methodical reasoning.
Others were intuition, and cannot be rationalised.

Mistakes can also lead to understand.
It can be useful to know what does not work.

When Sun Tzu speaks of invisibility, he is speaking about moving without attracting the attention of your opponent:

1. Concealment
2. Covert
3. Disguise
4. Espionage
5. Hidden
6. Misdirection
7. Secrecy
8. Stealth

Sun Tzu wrote a whole section on spying.
From a self defence perspective this is very useful.
You do not need to become a spy, but you can learn how to avoid being noticed.