The History of Tai Chi Part 2
In the previous episode, we started the history of Tai Chi, recognizing that little was in fact, factual, and that there was little point in attempting to substantiate the insubstantial, as history tends to lean heavily towards the partial and the subjective.
And so we ended up about to launch into the -totally unsubstantiated - two-minute version of the History of Tai Chi Chuan.
A version that takes into account a world suffering from attention deficiency and a world raised on a diet of social media updates and twitter length items. Therefore the Teapotmonk presents....
The Twitter History of Tai Chi in 5 Stages
Stage 1: The Mongoose
In the beginning, the world was composed of 10,000 things, mostly serpents and mongooses fighting each other in an unobserved manner. Later, a few human beings occupied the planet, mostly stiff and awkward types practicing single martial postures, bringing to mind those displayed by John Saxon in Enter the Dragon.
Stage 2: The Pritt Stick
Onto this stage comes Chang San Feng, possibly the most renowned mongoose observer of his time, and a dab hand at sticking together otherwise fragmented John Saxon like postures. With his trusty orang-utan buddy, CSF fuses the moves into a single simian form and changes forever the nature of the internal arts and the private life of the average mongoose.
Stage 3: The Peeking
Several centuries later, in The Village of the Chens, the legacy of Chang San Feng was held hostage until a certain outsider named Yang Lu Chan ‘the invincible’, peeked into the Chen training halls, video-taped their secret routines and uploaded them onto YouTube and at last the secret was out. When the Chens were sent an anonymous email with a link to YLC's video channel, they dragged him into their lair where - he reputedly 'whupped' the entire clan with one little finger and thereafter changed the direction of Tai Chi forever.
Stage 4: From Invincibility to Commercial Viability
The Video-Peeker's Grandson, Yang Chen Fu - a large and somewhat rotund figure - was burdened with the responsibility of continuing the lineage, so he peeked and learnt from the violent clashes of the Chinese Boxers and Foreign firearms so prevalent during the period. Discovering to his surprise that his generation had inherited little of his grandfathers invincibility, and without even sending a tweet to the Chen's - he unilaterally shifted the balance away from Tai Chi Chuan - as the Ultimate Martial Fist - to that of simply ‘Tai Chi’ the Ultimate exercise regime for all shapes and sizes.
(Now Available on DVD from all good stockists)
Stage 5: Shifting Sands
After this, the world shifts continues to evolve, and some practitioners decide to evolve with it, whilst others carry on bending spears with their necks and pretending they are still in the 18th century.
Some bits of Tai Chi flee political change by going West. Some bits stay in Asia. Everything changes, however, because it is in the nature of things to do so. In fact, some argue that Tai Chi is built on such foundations and is destined to effortlessly adapt to another time, language, culture and society.
Sadly, such evolution is then criticised for the next 50 years for having adapted from the Chen Lair, and stiff and unbending types all over the world fight to re-establish things the way they were, back before the time of the peeker, back before Mongooses were observed; with the aim of shielding us from the Weapons of Mass Information.
And thus ends the twitter history of Tai Chi Chuan.
In part 3 of the history of Tai chi Chuan, we add a more literal an account of how Tai Chi moved west and the legacy those immigrants who brought it with them, have left with us.
See you there.
And so we ended up about to launch into the -totally unsubstantiated - two-minute version of the History of Tai Chi Chuan.
A version that takes into account a world suffering from attention deficiency and a world raised on a diet of social media updates and twitter length items. Therefore the Teapotmonk presents....
The Twitter History of Tai Chi in 5 Stages
Stage 1: The Mongoose
In the beginning, the world was composed of 10,000 things, mostly serpents and mongooses fighting each other in an unobserved manner. Later, a few human beings occupied the planet, mostly stiff and awkward types practicing single martial postures, bringing to mind those displayed by John Saxon in Enter the Dragon.
Stage 2: The Pritt Stick
Onto this stage comes Chang San Feng, possibly the most renowned mongoose observer of his time, and a dab hand at sticking together otherwise fragmented John Saxon like postures. With his trusty orang-utan buddy, CSF fuses the moves into a single simian form and changes forever the nature of the internal arts and the private life of the average mongoose.
Stage 3: The Peeking
Several centuries later, in The Village of the Chens, the legacy of Chang San Feng was held hostage until a certain outsider named Yang Lu Chan ‘the invincible’, peeked into the Chen training halls, video-taped their secret routines and uploaded them onto YouTube and at last the secret was out. When the Chens were sent an anonymous email with a link to YLC's video channel, they dragged him into their lair where - he reputedly 'whupped' the entire clan with one little finger and thereafter changed the direction of Tai Chi forever.
Stage 4: From Invincibility to Commercial Viability
The Video-Peeker's Grandson, Yang Chen Fu - a large and somewhat rotund figure - was burdened with the responsibility of continuing the lineage, so he peeked and learnt from the violent clashes of the Chinese Boxers and Foreign firearms so prevalent during the period. Discovering to his surprise that his generation had inherited little of his grandfathers invincibility, and without even sending a tweet to the Chen's - he unilaterally shifted the balance away from Tai Chi Chuan - as the Ultimate Martial Fist - to that of simply ‘Tai Chi’ the Ultimate exercise regime for all shapes and sizes.
(Now Available on DVD from all good stockists)
Stage 5: Shifting Sands
After this, the world shifts continues to evolve, and some practitioners decide to evolve with it, whilst others carry on bending spears with their necks and pretending they are still in the 18th century.
Some bits of Tai Chi flee political change by going West. Some bits stay in Asia. Everything changes, however, because it is in the nature of things to do so. In fact, some argue that Tai Chi is built on such foundations and is destined to effortlessly adapt to another time, language, culture and society.
Sadly, such evolution is then criticised for the next 50 years for having adapted from the Chen Lair, and stiff and unbending types all over the world fight to re-establish things the way they were, back before the time of the peeker, back before Mongooses were observed; with the aim of shielding us from the Weapons of Mass Information.
And thus ends the twitter history of Tai Chi Chuan.
In part 3 of the history of Tai chi Chuan, we add a more literal an account of how Tai Chi moved west and the legacy those immigrants who brought it with them, have left with us.
See you there.
The podcast Talking Tai Chi with the Teapotmonk is embedded on this page from an open RSS feed. All files, descriptions, artwork and other metadata from the RSS-feed is the property of the podcast owner and not affiliated with or validated by Podplay.