…Intermission…

I am sorry that I have to let you wait for promised articles. This has to do with workload. I don’t know when I will have time to work on new posts, continue the series about punching and so on. The long type of articles (mostly +2000 words) that I have often posted on this blog, they often take about 2 to 3 hours of writing, and with lots of thinking before actually writing. Earlier, I have posted some types of shorter posts, but I have decided to not write the type of short posts you can find on other blogs.

However, I will make an exception here and now and offer you some entertainment instead. I am grateful that I have a few loyal followers and appreciate every time you chime in. Don’t expect another post in the upcoming two weeks. But I will try to make it happening soon.

Anyway, good luck with your training, those of you who practice Chinese martial arts and Tai Chi. I hope to see you again here soon. Here’s some videos to cheer you up with.

(What did you think about my selection? Feel free to tell me what you think in the comments section.)

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About the Future of this Blog and an Upcoming Q&A Interview Series Starting Friday

Tags

Interviews, Ken Gullette, Tai Chi blog

I will spend some time around Christmas to look at old posts in this blog, update them, change and fix a lot of grammar mistakes. Sometimes when I read my old posts, I feel embarrassed when I see all of the mistakes. Maybe I have improved my English so I recognise more mistakes now. Sometimes I correct things but often I don’t have time to look closer at the posts. Actually, I didn’t start this blog for others to read. When I started this blog it was more or less just a place to put down my own thoughts for my own sake. I’ve been doing more than 30 years of constant thinking about the art of Tai Chi Chuan. I’ve studied the art, read things, communicated with people, met people and I never let one single day go by without practicing, trying to improve my skills and also doing some thinking about the art. So there’s a lot of opinions and ideas going around in my brain. When I started this blog, I needed a place to collect them, write them down so I don’t need to think about them. This was the original reason to start the blog, it was just a way to fill a very basic need. But I wrote it in English to get another way to practice my English language skills. And you know, in my country, there is a very little interest about these things, so just in case anyone would find something useful, I would write it in English to make the information more accessible. I started this blog in 2013. After more than a year of blogging, I let it rest for a year, mostly because I just got too busy with other things, and then I slowly returned to writing down things. And as you see, now I update the blog more often than I have done for a very long time.

Now when I have already put down my most important ideas and thoughts, I have a little bit different ideas about how to continue working on the blog. What I want achieve is a little bit different. I would like this blog to become a sort of a goldmine of information, facts and even interviews and more that people can appreciate and really use in different ways. I am also planning to lighten it up a bit. It will become more accessible, more interesting and hopefully more entertaining as well.

Amongst other things I plan to do, I am going to do a couple of interview series. First I will do a Q&A series with some well known people in the world of IMA. I think you will find some of the answers interesting. I will start to publish this series before Christmas and publish one Q&A interview every Friday. So between all of those philosophical, abstract and theoretical thoughts, you will have something more digestible and entertaining to look forward to. The approach in this interview series will be mostly about general and similar questions for all of the participants. So I won’t get much in depth, but I believe it will be a nice way to get to know some people in the IMA world better and to get an insight about their view on Martial Arts and on what they do.

So please visit my blog again on December 21, the upcoming Friday this very week when the first interview will be published. Then you will meet my first interview target, Chen Tai Chi expert Ken Gullette.

Eight YouTube Channels Worth Following

Tags

Video, Videoclips, Youtube

It has been interesting to follow the development on YouTube and similar video streaming pages when it comes to the exposition of the art of Tai Chi Chuan.  (Updated 2020)

The peak of sharing and caring was probably around from twelve to eight years ago. Most of the interesting clips, especially when it comes to videos with older masters, are published around that time. The latest few years I suspect that Social Media and Facebook have changed how video clips are shared on the Internet. Facebook pages and groups makes it more easy to keep vids meant for a special group or a school inside and available only for the same community. I think the development is somewhat a pitty, that this makes it harder for people outside a small group to see what is happening in the Tai Chi world today. The recent years Martial Arts has been become more closed and separated into communities. This is not the development I personally would like to see. Traditional Tai Chi enthusiasts (with a focus on the word “traditional” is already quite a small group of people. Good to see that there are still a few old style forums and bloggers who have a more open approach on sharing their thoughts and ideas.

(Edit 2020: What I wrote above has changed according to the situation today. And to the better actually.)

Anyway, below you find a few Youtube Channels worth taking a look at and follow. Some of them are not very active or not active at all. But you’ll find a lot of good, interesting and genuine things to watch here and through YouTube’s suggestions while watching videos you can dig deeper and get more suggestions. These YouTube Channels are by no means exposed here in any particular order. But I believe that people who wants to broaden their views will find something interesting here.

Edit, 2020 update: The Covid-19 pandemic has changed the game and the terms for YouTubers. I felt that the last listing didn’t match the channels today. Some how those who were very active has toned down a lot. And a few others have really improved a lot. The top 3 Tai Chi / IMA channels are all new adds. 3 channels from the old list have been taken down and are now placed under “bonus channels.”

Please feel free to give your own suggestions in the comments.

 

Topp 8 Tai Chi / IMA Youtube Channels

 

Hai Yang

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCBowHwlMPzQ5ajJ2f5v9CYA
Canadian based Master Yang Hai is maybe the person who has succeeded the best to turn the Covid-19 situation into a real opportunity. His channel hasn’t been very active for a long time, and suddenly he gives us lectures which is true gold for the person who hasn’t yet discovered or understood this treasure chest of culture, history and terminology. Yang Hai explains these things so everyone can understand.

 

Monkey Steals Peach

https://www.youtube.com/c/MonkeyStealsPeach/videos
Monkey Steals Peach has made its own exploration in Chinese Martial Arts, travelled around and filmed local Martial Artists in small areas. Due to the situation, Monkey Steals Peach Channel hasn’t been very active in the last half year, but there’s lots and lots of interesting videos and they still keep coming.

 

Mu Shin Martial Culture

https://www.youtube.com/c/MuShinMartialCulture/videos
Mu Shin Martial Culture displays a wide range of different videos, from instructional videos and documentaries to an in-depth podcast. This channel is one of those that has really improved du to the situation in 2020.

 

The Martial Man

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCe9cCExZ6ycRwSPw1W3MdCQ
Martial Man Kieren Krygier has the best MA interview series on the internet. Kieren has a focus on internal arts and internal aspects of Martial arts, but there are some harder stuff to watch here as well. What is great with this channel is that the interviews are not just about talking, but about showing the arts and explaining the arts through demonstrations of their functional use and applications.

 

Ian Sinclair

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCYDlWzQyFMagrjt8Q3FW6ZA
Ian is just as good as an entertainer as he is as a philosopher. A pretty decent practitioner with a depth that is unusual to find. Many talkative and lately also discussions with students make Ian’s videos personal and enjoyable.

 

Practical method

https://www.youtube.com/user/Practicalmethod
Chen Zhonghua is a generous teacher who gives away a lot in his seminars and publish a lot of clips from them showing his Chen Practical method, a Chen T’ai Chi branch developed by his teacher Hong Junsheng. The body method is a bit different from both more common Chen schools and other Tai Chi styles, but even if some things might seem too different for your own perspective, there are surely still a lot food for thought to discover here.

 

Tea Serpent

https://www.youtube.com/user/TheaSinensisSerpenti
Tea Serpent collects all kinds of Martial Arts styles and across China. Here you’ll many rare and strange styles to watch here, things you would have hard to find.

 

DPGDPG

https://youtube.com/user/DPGDPG/videos
This channel was active ten years ago so don’t suspect any new videos, but this is the channel you want to take a look at if you want to have a look at older famous Masters and their students. Many old videos with a quite high percentage of black and white clips is to be found here.

 

Bonus Tai Chi Channels

 

Johns Wang

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCLKtKW6DtNNBhOmDYlND4Qg
John Wang is a second generation Chang Tai Chi stylist and Shuai Jiao wrestler. Here you’ll find many short clips that cover single techniques. You can learn a whole lot of methods from watching teacher Wang.

 

Master Wong

https://www.youtube.com/user/138mws
Master Wong represents the lighter side of Martial Arts. He is an entertainer who shows practical techniques from Chen Tai Chi and Wing Chun. He has strong opinions and a strong way to communicate them.

 

Enter Tai Chi

https://www.youtube.com/user/entertaichi
This not my own cup of tea really, but it’s a channel with instruction videos that should be useful mostly for beginners. I don’t agree with many things that is said and sometimes what is shown is only partially understood. This could have something to do with the mix of styles that is taught in the school. But I wouldn’t suspect anything else due to the fact that the teacher is quite young. Still, the instruction is clear and cover much of basic principles and methods.

Tai Chi Resources

Just a notice that I’ve added some links to resource pages to the blog. You find them in the side-bar to the right, below the comments and links to other blogs. I’ve been thinking about doing this for a long time, but it just hasen’t happened yet.

Amongst my favorite links you’ll find Brennan Translation. In a time span of just a few years, Mr Brennan has translated the vast majority of Tai Chi and Tai Chi related classics. This is a page everyone who has a serious interest in this art should know.

Another top favorite is The Rum Soaked Fist Forum. This place developed from the old Empty Flower Forum, originally on the late David DeVere’s own homepage, has some very special members. Some of them are really, really, good long-time practitioners who deserves a whole lot of respect and yet they make very little fuzz about themselves or about their skills. Amongst the other ones, who are less skilled and not seniors yet, you’ll find yours truly under the name “Bao”. It’s an honor to be a part of this community. If you do a little bit of search, you’ll find much said about every possible aspect of this art.

I can also recommend another page that few seem to visit nowadays, The Qi-Journal. Here if you deep into the page you’ll find interviews, translations and many other interesting things about Tai Chi and Qigong.

There a few more links in the side-bar and I’ll try to add a few more later. Don’t forget to check the blogs as well. If you know pages you believe should be highlighted or you think I have missed, please feel free to add them to the comments below. You can also suggest more blogs and other related pages.

Thanks, David

Short notice

I will take a short break from this blog. I will try to publish some thoughts and vids the next few weeks, but the translation of the classics will probably have to wait. Just letting you know that so you don’t get tired of waiting for more.