There’s a debate that often returns and keeps repeating itself, a discussion about if you can combine different styles or not. One or two or several styles? Is it good or detrimental to building different skill sets. There are some different opinions and both sides, yay and nay, have good reasons for their opinions.
Mixing the ingredients together or keeping them separated?
Something though that is often missing in those discussions is about that learning and practicing different arts is not the same as combining two arts together. Some people say that any art you put Tai Chi Chuan into will become better, but every other art you put into Tai Chi will be detrimental to Tai Chi. That statement has a lot of truth in it. But still, does practicing another art mean that you need to combine them, or that you automatically will put anything of one into the other? How well can you separate the styles you learn? And the answer to this question is hard to generalise, I find this very much of an individual thing. Some people can, some people can not, and some people don’t care very much about this at all.
But the fact is that people tend to mix things together and only partially understand the second or third style they practice. Their arts tend to become coloured by each other. I do believe that if you learn styles and methods that are very different, you must also learn how to keep them clearly separated. Every and each style has a unique body method, a unique way to use the body to move and to generate power. Every style also has unique practicing methods to build a certain body method. So each and every style could be called a unique set of conditions. If you want to understand a style and reach the full potential of that style particular style, you must keep it separated from everything else. All of the ingredients of an art, the conditions could with an analogy be said to shape a certain dish with its own texture and flavour. You don’t want to destroy that texture and flavour by mixing in ingredients that don’t belong there.
So how about practicing different arts without mixing them together?
So mixing up things is not good if you want to keep the conditions of an art intact, the conditions that together can teach you something about things like movement and power generation. Something you will lose if you don’t understand to keep these conditions together as they are meant to be. But then, how about practicing different arts at the same time? This is actually another question. My teacher believed that you can practice internal arts together but you should leave external arts alone. His analogy also had to do with flavour. He said that practicing Tai Chi, Bagua and Xingyi and similar arts is like combining spices that goes together in cooking. Or maybe like my wife speaks about perfumes (yes, she can make them, she is a perfume specialist), that when you smell a perfume, you can find that there are scents that bridge each other, overlap each other. So they can work together as a whole. The methods of the internal martial arts do something similar, they can be different but they overlap each other, forming bridges by using similar principles and concepts. There’s a grey zone between different arts though, some external arts are more “internal” in nature and might overlap the three big Neijia sisters even better than with other external arts. But still, some external arts use very different body methods, they often rely on developing muscular strength and use of muscular strength to generate power. They can make the body tense or use tough conditioning exercises that weakens the body’s sensitivity. An art like this in combination with an Internal art is like combining fragrances or flavours that absolutely don’t match well together or blend with each other. It’s like trying to keep water and fire together, it can’t be done as they must destroy each other. The methods in internal arts depends on relaxation, deep natural breath, a calm mind and sensitivity. Through practicing to relax shallow muscle groups, intrinsic muscles are strengthened and used. Core strength is developed and power is generated from the use of coordinated whole body movement and not from body parts working detached from each other.
Martial arts that are too far from each other can not be combined as the body methods won’t match. Developing one body method will be detrimental to the other body method. This is not about techniques or any shallow strategy, but because of that the development of the body in the two different styles goes in completely opposite directions. Switching between arts is not just about technically doing something different like a technique from another art, but instead you need to switch from a whole set of conditions to another set of conditions. As I said before, this means that you need to develop a “pure” body method. So you need to develop a Xingyi body method before being able to use pure Xingyi method. And you need a “pure” Bagua body method before being able to use pure bagua method. Then if you want to switch between them, you need to keep the set of conditions clearly separated from each other.
So the question is if one set of conditions can be combined with another set of conditions. And if it takes a very long time to develop one set of conditions, how long will it take to develop and understand another set of conditions? Personally, at one time, I studied both Baguazhang and Xingyiquan together with my Taijiquan. I like both of those arts very much. I like Xingyi better than Bagua, but I have practiced much more Bagua than Xingyi, in fact several different styles. But there was a point when I decided to drop these other two arts completely and only focus on my Tai Chi Chuan. I won’t tell anyone to do this or that, but personally speaking I felt the need to focus on my first and main art. Some of the Bagua styles I have practiced were even too different speaking about body mechanics. I became too tense and I had to practice my Tai chi even more diligently to regain a deeper level of relaxation. But most I believe that my problem about keeping these arts in my repertoire is more one of the mind. When you dig deeper into different arts you will discover that the mindset is very different. For instance, when I practiced Xingyi, I used my eyes differently and my intent was more intense. Tai Chi relies solely on emptiness, the mind should just be blank. I can switch somewhat easily between the different body methods of the different arts, but I can not switch my mind as easily. And in some way, it’s the Tai Chi mindset I feel most comfortable with. It’s like being home. Turning on the Bagua or Xingyi mindset was like taking on a coat and go outside. I don’t know if anything of this last part made any sense, but this is how I feel about these arts. In the end, practicing this or that, or one or many styles, boils down to the mind and how well your heart resonate with the different ways of using it.
Thoughts On Tai Chi 