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Tai chi reduces blood pressure better than aerobic exercise

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Re: Tai chi reduces blood pressure better than aerobic exercise

#141

Post by mbivert »

krisoft wrote: post #139
mbivert wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'm suspicious of this definition and doesn't match how I use the word "thinking". But I see that if you have this definition then tautologically newborns don't do it. Let me rephrase the argument then: if you've been meditating at least a little, you'll know that the thoughts running through your mind simply cannot occur in the mind of a newborn. When those thoughts go away, your mind go quiet, hence it's reasonab…

> if you've been meditating at least a little, you'll know that the thoughts running through your mind simply cannot occur in the mind of a newborn That is interesting, because i would have used the same example of meditation but to argue in the opposite direction. People intentionally need to learn how to meditate. Calming your mind takes practice and effort. The default state of being seems to be not the meditating…

I agree that we can't assume that their head is a calm place. It's probably still safe to argue that the range/intensity of emotions/feelings they have is noticeably below those adults (e.g. lust).

If you agree, then I'd shift to a weaker statement: they have a stronger potential [than adults] for being calm, but with little to no conscious incentive to exploit it, in general.

That is, assuming calmness is proportional to emotions/feelings.

Out of curiosity, I've googled "emotions innate": there doesn't seem to be a status-quo [0][1]. AFAIK, imitation is crucial for learning, but I'd be surprised if nothing had been left from the mother's womb.

[0]: https://www.nyu.edu/about/news-publications/news/2017/februa...

[1]: https://old.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/3z50ur/are_emot...

Re: Tai chi reduces blood pressure better than aerobic exercise

#142

Post by yencabulator »

lagadu wrote: post #117
tmtvl wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Poe's law is strong with this one. The Superman bit makes me inclined to believe this is just a joke, but I know there's real believers out there.

It wasn't the "forgotten breath techniques that allow you to survive in space and travel backwards through time"?

Well, the good news is that if someone re-discovers them later, they can then teach them to us at this time.

Re: Tai chi reduces blood pressure better than aerobic exercise

#143

Post by bobbruno »

leashless wrote: post #128
nandkeypull wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you can find a competent instructor from a lineage that preserved the fighting applications of tai chi, you can see some pretty interesting grappling and joint-locking techniques. It's not all snake oil. One example (Yang-style tai chi): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kp2jWeaKrqI

Here is a pretty good example of a very large trained fighter and a very excellent and much smaller tai chi guy going at it reasonably hard (like maybe one of them walks away with a concussion type hard). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7D5DGpORANE I think that's a pretty good example of what "people who can actually fight well use tai chi techniques" looks like. A lot of force is going into those throws, bodies are…

That "very excellent tai chi fighter" is, if I'm not mistaken, Chen Ziqiang - son of Chen Xiaoxing and nephew of Chen Xiaowang, part of the family that the Chen style comes from. He's the current master of the original Chen village school of Taijiquan, one of the biggest winners of Chinese push hands and wrestling championships (for his weight) and one of the most serious practitioners I know. I've been there and seen it, it's lots of heavy exercises, hours of daily practice and sparring.

He is indeed excellent, but if that is the level it takes to use Taiji in practice, you won't find many people in the world who can.

Re: Tai chi reduces blood pressure better than aerobic exercise

#144

Post by bobbruno »

noufalibrahim wrote: post #67
corysama wrote: post #44

Long ago, maybe before the consumer internet, I saw a video claiming to showcase people who studied tai chi as a fighting art instead of just exercise. It was a lot of being able to follow the other person's movements to the point that "Fighting a tai chi master is like wrestling with an empty jacket". There was also a demonstration where a master pushed a student's middle finger back using an open palm. No matter ho…

Very sceptical of such claims. It's quite easy to ascertain them too. You pressure test the system (or your variant of it) in a lab (ie. in a fighting ring). If it can hold up against fighters of a certain level of skill, you can, in a way, claim to be atleast as good as them. Otherwise, you're not. The book "Professor in the Cage" goes into this distinction at length. It's an interesting thing to consider for people…

There is a slight problem with that - it doesn't invalidate the idea of testing, but you do have to think about it. Taiji is not ring/cage wrestling, it was created as a fight art, and its most efficient applications usually will break bones, dislodge joints, generally do things that are outlawed in most fighting arenas nowadays. It also was not designed with a limited ring around it, which changes the dynamics of movement. So, just by putting the fighter in a ring and defining allowed/forbidden moves, you're biasing the experiment in favor of a modern contact sport practitioner.

Re: Tai chi reduces blood pressure better than aerobic exercise

#145

Post by bobbruno »

leashless wrote: post #127
corysama wrote: post #44

Long ago, maybe before the consumer internet, I saw a video claiming to showcase people who studied tai chi as a fighting art instead of just exercise. It was a lot of being able to follow the other person's movements to the point that "Fighting a tai chi master is like wrestling with an empty jacket". There was also a demonstration where a master pushed a student's middle finger back using an open palm. No matter ho…

"Fighting" Tai Chi was traditionally taught to people who were already very adept at Kung Fu. If you can already fight the form trains a bunch of clever footwork and a few other things at a really high level; it's _clever_. But if you can't already fight it has none of that basic stuff in it like "how to hit people really hard". If you don't know that already Tai Chi forms won't teach it to you every effectively. You…

Almost everything you said. I learned Taiji after Karate, Judo and other arts, and I love how its principles can help me improve the techniques in these other arts. But it does have its own basics for punching, kicking, grappling, throwing, etc. It's just not easy to find outside of the most traditional schools.

And the weapons part, totally true - I mean, humans have always beat other animals by using tools that extend their strength, reach, speed, armor, damage, etc. You do learn to fight with your hands and feet in a pinch, but whatever stick is around increases your chances 10x if you know how to use it.

Re: Tai chi reduces blood pressure better than aerobic exercise

#146

Post by leashless »

bobbruno wrote: post #143
leashless wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here is a pretty good example of a very large trained fighter and a very excellent and much smaller tai chi guy going at it reasonably hard (like maybe one of them walks away with a concussion type hard). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7D5DGpORANE I think that's a pretty good example of what "people who can actually fight well use tai chi techniques" looks like. A lot of force is going into those throws, bodies are…

That "very excellent tai chi fighter" is, if I'm not mistaken, Chen Ziqiang - son of Chen Xiaoxing and nephew of Chen Xiaowang, part of the family that the Chen style comes from. He's the current master of the original Chen village school of Taijiquan, one of the biggest winners of Chinese push hands and wrestling championships (for his weight) and one of the most serious practitioners I know. I've been there and see…

I have heard it takes roughly ten years of practice of tai chi to be able to fight reasonably effectively using tai chi principles, assuming you have a very workable base of kung fu or something equivalent established (say ten years) before that.

If it's just about learning how to fight really really fast the WW2 combatives courses seem to be the best available system. I don't think any martial art is suited to the speed and directness of modern life.

Re: Tai chi reduces blood pressure better than aerobic exercise

#147

Post by noufalibrahim »

bobbruno wrote: post #144
noufalibrahim wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Very sceptical of such claims. It's quite easy to ascertain them too. You pressure test the system (or your variant of it) in a lab (ie. in a fighting ring). If it can hold up against fighters of a certain level of skill, you can, in a way, claim to be atleast as good as them. Otherwise, you're not. The book "Professor in the Cage" goes into this distinction at length. It's an interesting thing to consider for people…

There is a slight problem with that - it doesn't invalidate the idea of testing, but you do have to think about it. Taiji is not ring/cage wrestling, it was created as a fight art, and its most efficient applications usually will break bones, dislodge joints, generally do things that are outlawed in most fighting arenas nowadays. It also was not designed with a limited ring around it, which changes the dynamics of mo…

Unfortunately, this is the kind of thing that all bullshido practitioners say. "It's too deadly to use in a ring since I might break bones or kill the opponent" so I can't. Please note that I'm not saying that you are one. I'm just saying that you're using the same argument that charlatans do.

If Tai Chi is indeed so deadly, it must be possible to tone it down just a little to make it 75% as effective inside a ring. Just short stop of breaking bones or dislodging joins (submission holds) and still be useful. Good martial arts and artists are flexible enough to adapt. If Tai Chi were so deadly and a practitioner gets accosted in a narrow alley, it should be flexible enough to be useful. Otherwise, it's simply not effective as a fighting system. Either that or we can make the claim that it's not a fighting system. It's a set of exercises (like pilates etc.) that achieve certain outcomes and measure against those metrics. That's fine too.

The tendency has been parodied in countless media instances. e.g.The Bruce Lee appearance in "Once upon a time on Hollywood", the youtube channel "Master Ken", The instagram account "McDojo life" etc. Master Ken does this especially well with his "Ameri do te" which is so street lethal that it's impossible to even demo some of the techniques.

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