Which Tai Ji is authentic? Check what words they use for each form, and what characters they use to represent the sounds. This is crucial: there are some quite clearly authentic characters.
For example, comparing the words for Backward Brush Knee, Open Fan, and Yun Shou, these actually mean
- roll your hips backwards ... not ‘monkey’
- lightning shoots through the back, qi circulating
- transport left and right ... not ‘cloud hands’.
The words will affect the style: if you call Backward Brush Knee ‘monkey’, then you will distort the movement. Also, if you call the transporting one ‘cloudy’ or ‘smoothing’, you will be either vague or will put your hands out as if smoothing wallpaper.
When someone presents ‘authentic Tai Ji’, you should ask: who developed this, where and why? What is Tai Ji anyway? What is it for? Why did the Chinese develop it? Why did they choose these words and images?
It is crucial to respect and work with the internal part first. If you work only from the outside you will never get the internal part. Whereas, if you develop the internal part first, then you can make the external part more precise later. And don’t just mimic Chinese pictures: taking them to extremes you would need to have a Chinese face and short legs!
So, what is Tai Ji? Tai Ji prepares for fighting, it gives good breathing and stamina, then you can go and learn fighting techniques. Tai Ji was never intended as a fighting technique in itself.
Different schools have exaggerated different points, some originally good, some rubbish, but all distorted if too much emphasised. Everything you exaggerate becomes a mannerism, and you throw the whole out of harmony.
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