If so, then we have a solution for you. It’s called SlowFlo, the Christian alternative to Tai Chi.

Inspired by Chuck Norris, the art of SlowFlo reforms the inscrutable pagan art of Tai Chi Chuan into a safe and guilt-free form of Christian exercise.

The benefits of SlowFlo include limbering of the joints and spinal column, and oxygenation of your whole body, all without challenging your religious and philosophical beliefs.

While all other forms of martial arts were created under demonic influence, SlowFlo strengthens and fortifies your body and soul with the real ultimate power of Jesus.

You will burn calories in a gentle, relaxing way, while performing simple techniques with reassuring names, like “The Iron Pope”, “Lifting the White Man’s Burden”, and “The Chris Farley”.

SlowFlo raises your metabolism for quicker weight loss and more energy–not the evil ki energy of brown and yellow devils, but wholesome Christian energy.

The beautiful movements of Slow Flo are accompanied by scriptural affirmations in All-American Sign Language. Say goodbye to the occult influence of Oriental mantras, mudras, and meditation, and welcome the healing power of SlowFlo exclusively into your heart.

In Christ all things are possible, except for Oriental Yoga and martial arts: those are the work of the devil. If you accept Jesus as your master, buy SlowFlo on DVD today.

Slow Flow by WholyFit
Hat tip to The Museum of Idolatry: Artifacts of Apostasy

All kidding aside, the serious question is: what is it about Tai Chi that requires a “Christian alternative”?

Ladies and gentlemen, I’ve been trolled! Hoaxed! Buffaloed and bewildered!

It doesn’t happen often these days. I’ve been discussing martial arts on the Internet since before Web 1.0. I’ve seen most of the pranks, and yes, pulled a few myself.

What is the best style of martial arts for fit, beautiful women with large breasts? Please let me know, so I can sign up for it. Serious replies only.

So when someone dangles a truly ridiculous assertion in front of my nose, I usually have the good sense to ignore it these days. Usually. But a few days ago, one fairly experienced martial artist and provocateur knocked me for a loop.

We were chatting about the relevance of Taijiquan and push hands to combat. I said that I considered it inappropriate to keep one’s arms below the chest for the duration of push hands practice, regardless of whether one is interested in the martial applications of the art. It wasn’t intended as a criticism, really–just a quick observation in the midst of a wide-ranging discussion. But he eventually replied,

All this about arm position and circling is irrelevant, because in Push Hands, as long as you can touch your partner anywhere on their body, you can pop ‘em (as long as they have just a bit more unconscious tension than you do). That’s it. Doesn’t much matter where you touch them as deep unconscious tension (unlike superficial and/or conscious tension) is not localized it is a diffuse property–like a dye that is wicked through a material rather than a local stain. So, hands up or down shouldn’t matter much in the deep sense except that by the standards of physicalized Push Hands which the Guest seems to advocate it should simply make it that much easier to pop me up and out.

In retrospect, I should have addressed the issue in terms a software engineer can understand–or should understand at risk of gross incompetence.

Any newly developed algorithm must be presumed broken until tests prove otherwise. A truly comprehensive verification is often infeasible, as it would require billions or trillions of individual test executions; in those cases, it is essential to test all the boundary conditions at least.

For example, if a particular algorithm was meant to compare two numbers, it should be tested with the largest possible numbers, and the smallest possible numbers, and a few random numbers, and with one or both numbers missing.

It would however be totally unacceptable to explore a small and contiguous fraction of the problem space during the testing phase, and to declare on the basis of these test results alone that the algorithm is fundamentally sound.

Learning Taijiquan is a process, and the desired “end result” is itself a process–a highly refined algorithm. However we choose to define the problem space of pushing hands, it certainly cannot ignore the normal range of human motion. And for the arms, that range is a large sphere centered at the shoulder. The edges of that sphere are higher than the top of the head, and lower than the hips.

So, even if we study push hands strictly for the sake of achieving relaxation, this full sphere is the arena in which we have to show and prove, or concede our defeat. We cannot retreat to a shadowy corner, and wait for some tension to come to us, surmising our skill and benevolence in the meantime. No, we must step forth and establish our dominion over the entire venue, left and right, high and low, forward and back, hither and yon!

Fig. A – Recommended fighting stance for a tabby cat

Hoodwinked!

Maybe that should have been my reply. But instead, I simply noted that habitually dropping the hands cannot be justified by either current standards (as exemplified by the heads of the five major Taijiquan lineages), or by reference to the classic written works in which the art was originally defined.

The classics state that when practicing, one should sink the qi. Collapsing the frame is a cheap substitute, and hardly any better than compulsively flexing the quads in my humble opinion. But, you know, whatever. It’s no great harm to me if someone holds a unique set of ideals for their personal practice. Unique, misguided, bizarre and unprecedented… it’s all good, or at least good enough for someone else, am I right?

In retrospect, I should have realized, at the point when I started explaining the obvious as if it were obscure, that I was being played for sport. But that fact didn’t penetrate my thick skull, until after he countered again:

Push hands practice is about developing the ability to gently and easily yet powerfully, energetically, exploit perceived tension in a partner. (And of course it has nothing to do with structure, mechanics, anatomy or anything physical like that.)

I touch them enough to detect their tension. That’s all that’s required…but generally I do try to have fun and play nice, and except for one case…apart from that I believe that in Push Hands practice (unlike sparring) I have never injured anybody whatsoever. I stand by that record.

I’ve seen the bruises, cuts and scratches on this fellow’s gentler playmates, with my own eyes. The first time it happened in my presence, I dismissed it as one of the unfortunate accidents that will naturally occur during martial arts practice. After I saw it happen a few more times, I came to understand that this guy likes to play rough, and then to blame his toys for damaging themselves. Highly amusing!

But now, to hear him assert that push hands is totally and completely unrelated to combat? That it is really all about detecting tension? When I read that, I could not contain my laughter!!

Look, I’ve attended a dozen different seminars with bona-fide Taiji masters, all of whom kept their hands up, and all of whom were able to diagnose their partners’ tensions without provoking enmity. (Quite the contrary: a demonstration of flawless technique usually seems to inspire joy and gratitude!)

I have been on a dozen meditation retreats in the USA and overseas, and never once seen anyone get poked in the eye!

And now, apparently, I’ve been trolled by one of the best!

Bamboozled!

When this fellow said that he is not obliged to reconcile his practices and views with the contents of the Taiji classics–because their authors might have been wrong, and their language is open to interpretation anyway–I realized that he couldn’t possibly be serious. Anyone who hangs a shingle to advertise themselves as a Taijiquan instructor, is trading on the reputation of previous generations.

It doesn’t even matter whether the classics are right or wrong. You cannot simply ignore them, for the same reason that a Christian pastor cannot ignore the contents of the Bible. For the same reason you cannot sell gallons of bathtub “Coca-Cola” on the street, and then respond to the inevitable complaints by declaring that your version tastes even better.

One can always dispute the correct definition of the art, sure, but one cannot dismiss the significance of the standard definition outright, while at the same time relying upon it to identify or promote one’s own method. That is three different kinds of wrong.

When this fellow compared the practitioners of traditional moving-step tuishou to a caveman struggling with a sniper rifle–too stupid to employ their precision tool correctly, and opting to use it as a club instead–I knew he was having a laugh. There is just no other possibility, considering that his own preferred method suspiciously resembles the standard American competitive fixed form, which is roundly mocked for its decadence.

Eliminating tension is necessary but insufficient. Yes, it is immensely difficult to forgo any and all physical, intellectual and emotional tension while at the same time stepping around the floor in an agile and unscripted fashion, maintaining contact with an unpredictable partner, continuously circling with both arms, and neutralizing that partner’s attempts to apply the eight energies while searching for opportunities to apply their own. But if we intend to play the game of Taijiquan pushing hands (as opposed to making up a new game with the same name), this is the standard.

The exercise I have just described is fully congruent with the classics; it demands relaxation; it is good exercise; it is fun; and yes, it is relevant to combat.

Mystified!

Then he said that people who want to learn how to protect their head should give up on Taijiquan, and take up boxing instead.

OMFG LULZ. The good news is, I’m finally in on the joke.

It is inevitable that they will get tired of vacuuming our floors, and rise against us. Fortunately, nobody is teaching them how to fight…right?

Sony QRIO

OK, so they already know a little Chinese boxing–no big deal. Taiji is obviously too slow to use in a real fight. I mean, it’s not as if these robots could chase us through the streets, as we flee in terror their steel-reinforced fists…right?

Boston Dynamics BigDog

OK, we are all screwed. It is time to start building our human resistance army, for the war against the machines. Here is lesson number 1, courtesy of Stephen Hwa.

Hugh Laurie, in underpants

The Jonas Brothers, in their fifteenth minute

Michael Dorn in Star Trek: The Next Generation
Submitted by Cook Ding’s Kitchen)

Sensei Isla Fisher and Andy Samberg in Hot Rod

Richard Dean Anderson

In a recent episode of their hit Showtime series, stage magicians Penn Jilette and Raymond Teller warn viewers away from the universally fraudulent field of martial arts. Now a real expert martial artist rescues us from their half-baked debunkings.

For their own convenience, Penn and Teller divide the world of martial arts into three categories: traditional, mystical, and murderous. During the show, they interview and mock one representative from each category:

• Mike Reeves, of Powerhouse Karate, in Apopka, Florida
• Dena Saxer, of Mantak Chia‘s Universal Healing Tao in Los Angeles, CA
• Damian Ross, of The Self Defense Company, in Saddle River, NJ

To support their otherwise meritless position, Penn and Teller rely on Marc MacYoung of No-Nonsense Self Defense. Although MacYoung is presented as a skeptical outsider here, he is actually the best known of these four, and is highly regarded within the martial arts community.

Having introduced the litigants, let us now review the case. Assistance is provided by a handy Truth-o-Meter, which I borrowed from the St. Petersburg Times.

While facing a mugger with a gun, Penn and Teller say:

If we had invested in martial arts training, we could try to go all Bruce Lee on their asses. But a few years ago, we did the arithmetic, and we figured that Karate lessons–even kids’ Karate lessons–would cost us a grand or more a year, for each of us. And the hours we spent in class, and driving to the dojo, and practicing and sweating and bowing and Fuck that! We have a better, cheaper, and less risky self-defense system. [Penn hands over his wallet and watch.]

Throughout the episode, Penn Jilette uses the terms “martial arts” and “self-defense” interchangeably, despite the fact that his own sources (Ross and MacYoung) insist otherwise. Self-defense is one of many possible benefits of martial arts training; performance varies with the student and the school.

Exercise is another benefit. According to our 2009 survey, average monthly martial arts tuition is around 80 dollars per month: this is comparable to a standard health club membership, if you include a short monthly coaching session with a personal trainer.

Penn Jilette advises that obedience is a better self-defense solution. This may be true in the case of a simple mugging, and most martial arts instructors would agree. As for dealing with the threat of rape or violent assault…don’t ask a six-foot-six, 270 pound Hollywood millionaire.

When outlining the content of the show, Penn Jillette says:

What we won’t be seeing much of are headlines like these: “Purse Snatcher Stopped by Passing Dojo Student”, “Rapist Thwarted by Black Belt Woman,” et cetera. Sure these stories exist, they must, but with all the people taking all these martial arts classes, shouldn’t we see these headlines all the time?…None of us could remember [seeing] a story like this in the news; when it happened, wouldn’t every dojo send out a press release?

As a former columnist for PC Magazine, Penn ought to know how and why these headlines appear, and why they do not appear more often: an exceptional sequence of events is required. First, a crime must be committed against someone who “knows” martial arts well enough to apply them under pressure (but not well enough to actually prevent or avoid the crime). Second, either the victim or a bystander must report this crime to the police. Third, the victim must specifically demonstrate or reference their “martial arts ability” (instead of attributions to luck or athleticism) for the report. Fourth, a media organization must observe this, and decide it is a newsworthy event.

When a martial artist stops a crime before it has even started, there is no headline. Martial arts help us to avoid becoming a victim, by teaching us to stop acting like a victim. As Geoff Thompson has explained, few criminals are interested in trying their luck against a hard target.

When a crime goes unreported, there is no headline. On those few occasions when I’ve been personally assaulted, I never bothered to call the police. A good friend of mine was attacked by a gang and stabbed in the gut, and he didn’t call the police either–as he recalled, it was just a light stabbing, and filing a report wasn’t worth the hassle. This happens all the time.

When a martial artist keeps their mouth shut, there is no headline. Most are taught to exercise discretion–either out of humility, or to avoid challenge matches and unwarranted scrutiny from law enforcement. As an innocent victim, nobody will demand to know why you hit back; as a self-identified martial artist, you may be expected to turn cartwheels around your attackers, and punished for anything less.

When the story isn’t compelling or advertiser-friendly, there is no headline. This last point warrants no further explanation.

Penn Jilette helpfully translates,

“Dojo” is Japanese for “storefront in strip mall”.

OK, this is mostly true.

Dena has been teaching the ancient Chinese practices of Chi Kung and Tai Chi ever since the powers of chi healed her osteoporosis. That’s what she said. We don’t know why she’s here on Showtime, rather than presenting her double-blind study on the curing of osteoarthritis through Chi Kung to the Journal of the American Medical Association.

Dena is not presenting to the AMA because this is a settled issue. The safety and efficacy of Qigong as an arthritis treatment is well established, in theory and practice. Common objections, that the theory is not acceptable and the observed results are unimportant, fail to impress this writer–or the many practitioners who have found relief through these practices.

Before providing his opinion of Qigong, Penn Jilette should first learn how to pronounce it correctly. If this is prohibitively difficult, he could instead browse the 3000 search results in PubMed (assuming that he can spell it correctly).

Dismissing the effectiveness of Tai Chi Chuan, Penn Jilette says:

And this is going to repel an attacker? Maybe if he’s afraid of French mimes.

After mislabeling martial arts as systems of self-defense, who have Penn and Teller selected to test the fighting capacity of Tai Chi? An elderly female theatre major, whose primary interest lies in the therapeutic aspects of the art. Sacrebleu!

If nothing else, this decision explains the title for their TV series. It is also a wasted opportunity; I would have paid good money to see Penn attempt a hands-on investigation of Chen Bing, or any of a hundred other masters who take fighting applications seriously.

Marc MacYoung explains the significance of belts in the martial arts,

It turns out there has never been a accepted standard for what a black belt means, or any other color belt for that matter. Simply put, martial arts is a business, and the belts are its primary product…For two or three thousand dollars, not including belt testing fees, equipment fees, and all these other hidden fees, you can get a black belt in one year, guaranteed.

This is standard practice in modern, commercial schools. It is far from universal, however. Note that of the four martial arts experts on this show, only one of them actually awards belts!

After learning that senior students not only assist in teaching, but also mop the floors and change the light bulbs in Mike Reeves’ dojo, Penn complains:

“Wait a second, that’s like paying your gym membership to scrub the showers. But this isn’t unique to Mike’s dojo. This is all dojos around the country…What’s the Japanese word for suckers?”

The word in question is giri, and it can be translated as “obligation”. Unlike colored belts, this practice does have a historical precedent. Giri generally includes, but is not limited to basic dojo maintenance duties.

The plain fact is that if students will not perform these simple tasks, they must pay for someone else to do it. Veteran students tend to give their dojo as much respect as their own home, and if sweeping the floor is not exactly an honor, it is hardly a punishment either.

Responding to Damian Ross’ bluster, that producing killer students makes him proud, Penn and Teller declare,

According to the legal definition of self-defense, ‘A person must use no more force than appears reasonably necessary in the circumstances.’ Otherwise Damian, your students are looking at manslaughter charges.

The standards for legally permissible self-defense vary by jurisdiction: city, state and country.

Revealing the secrets of board breaking, Penn Jilette states,

Now breaking even one board is damn near impossible if you whack the board [against the grain]. But if you turn it, you’re splitting it between the fibers. Still, even with soft pine, breaking a stack of five takes a hell of a whack, unless you put pencils, chopsticks, or some some separators between them. Now you’re just breaking one board after the other, separately.

Penn actually understates the widespread duplicity of Karate and Taekwondo breaking demonstrations! More on this subject in a future article here.

Watch the full episode of PENN & TELLER: BULLSHIT! “Martial Arts” online at MegaVideo (NSFW)
[YouTube version (also NSFW)]

In his parting cheap shots, Penn inquires,

What’s the point of all these crazy [Tai Chi] moves?

Dena responds,

They teach you to listen to your organs, and after awhile, your organs will talk to you…I’m not kidding.

??

After taking great care to present Dena as a faded fruitcake, Penn asks two other people whether they believe her wacky claims. Their answer, unsurprisingly, is no. But what do you think? Can organs really talk?

Are Penn and Teller out of their depth here? Or do you agree with their conclusion, that martial arts are bullshit?

For almost twenty years, Qi Magazine featured original articles on kung fu, qigong, and other facets of Chinese culture, many written specifically by and for martial artists. (Qi Magazine is not to be confused with Qi Journal, which seems more targeted to the Goji berry set.)

Qi Magazine ceased production in early 2009, and publisher Michael Tse has since opened the archives. Each of the ninety issues is now available for free download in PDF format. Read two issues every week; that should keep you busy until next year.

From his recent interview with Lama Somananda Tantrapa…

“Between the ages of 9 and 12, I had almost no food. Taiwan was preparing for a war against mainland China. Most of us kids were starving.

There were nine children in my family, and at that time, feeding nine children was not easy. All our problems gave me an ulcer by the time I was 16 years old.

One day, I was sitting in the corner in a cold sweat. My White Crane Kung Fu master said I had a stomach problem. “What should I do?” I asked him. I had no medicine, and no money to see a doctor.

“At that time, in the early 1960s, you could not go learn another style without your master’s approval. It was not like today—people making ‘chop suey’ by mixing all these different styles.”

He said, “I’ve heard that Taiji can help you relax your internal organs.”

My master encouraged me to learn Tai Chi Chuan. That is the reason I started at the early age of 16. My motivation was not fighting; it was to ease the pain of my ulcer, and hopefully to heal myself.

Did it work? It surprised me. Six months later, the painful episodes had been reduced. After most of a year, they disappeared.

So that is why I started practicing Tai Chi Chuan. It is not because I liked it…I hated it, but it helped me to calm down.

Listen to the entire MP3 interview with Dr. Jwing-Ming Yang at Secrets of the Qigong Masters.

According to one classical perspective, no student should be given sword instruction until they have first qualified themselves to learn, by demonstrating mastery of barehanded technique. In some styles of martial arts, this might require thousands of hours of study.

Narrowing the focus during these initial months, or years of training might seem to benefit everyone involved. It can, and frequently it does. However, in some cases, it will actually hinder the student’s overall progress. The sword itself is an excellent instructor, to those who will heed its lessons.

What is Biofeedback?

Biofeedback is a method of expanding conscious awareness into realms that are typically governed by the unconscious mind. The subject of biofeedback training is instrumented with equipment that amplifies, records and displays biometric data, such as body temperature, heart rate, and skin conductivity. Experiments have shown that, if a subject is made aware of small fluctuations in these ostensibly involuntary processes (i.e. with the help of biofeedback equipment), that subject can more easily bring these processes under their conscious control.

Biofeedback machines, such as an electroencephalograph (EEG) or digital thermometer, can be expensive and complex. They can also be simple and cheap. Bicycle training wheels, which allow a rider to tip over slightly without immediately falling down, provide a useful form of biometric feedback. In fact, an intelligent person can press nearly any tool into service as a biofeedback device—including their sword.

The Sword as Biofeedback Device

A sword is a natural amplifier, which consistently and impartially reflects the mistakes of its user. If the swordsman’s grip and cut are incorrect, his sword may wobble, or even ring. When the position of his wrist is wrong by one inch, the tip of the blade may be wrong by one foot. If his body movement is slightly convoluted or imprecise, a good sword helps to make that obvious; with a tassel, even more so.

According to an old Chinese proverb, “A one-inch error at the start becomes a thousand-mile error by the end.” A sword can help prevent small errors from escaping its user’s attention, and thereby train the hand that holds it, and the mind which directs it.

Chen Style Taiji: 38-posture form

Chen Bing explains push hands
“What if your opponent will not use force? Use it yourself.”

Chen Bing demonstrates Taiji throwing methods at a Miami seminar

In practice, no two practice partners are ever equal, and the partner in control usually sets the pace and the tone of a practice session—if not intentionally, then haphazardly.

As I am often the senior Taiji practitioner in attendance—or in other words, the unpaid and under-appreciated Taiji instructor in attendance—it seems appropriate to briefly discuss my personal guidelines and preferences for tui shou (pushing hands) practice.

Tui shou is about using what you have to get what you want. What you have, as a dedicated practitioner of Taiji solo forms, is a highly cultivated set of physical abilities (e.g. the ability to rotate the torso while standing balanced on one leg). What you want, as a martial artist, is the capacity to win fights, or at least avoid losing them.

The practice of tui shou is the application of Taiji body skills against light or moderate resistance. These skills, as encoded in the forms, include striking an opponent, throwing them to the ground, and dislocating or breaking their joints. From a tight self-defense perspective, Tai Chi’s famous relaxation and sensitivity benefits are only the means to these ends.

Ideally, tui shou provides an opportunity to explore the full Taiji suite of attacks and defenses, principles and techniques. In practical terms, this means moving in and out of clinch range while maintaining subtle contact, and seizing opportunities to attack while denying those same opportunities to a practice partner. Thereby, it presents a manageable subset of the real problems that define a real fight.

The worst tui shou, in contrast, offers elegant solutions to imaginary problems (e.g. wrist grabs), and fails to bridge the gap between self-cultivation and combat. Illustrating the point, see this video by Sifu Wei-Chung Lin of the Chinese Taoist Martial Arts Association.

To be perfectly clear, this video does not depict its creator’s attempt at Taiji pushing hands practice. I will critique as if it did, only because I have met a few people who do like to perform tui shou in exactly this manner. The demonstration shows how a fixed step push hands exercise can simultaneously be impressive and ridiculous.

The critical issue is not whether any kind of skill is employed, or even whether that skill produces the desired outcome, in this limited engagement, of uprooting the opponent. Winning is not enough; it is necessary but insufficient. The critical issue is how that skill is related to the solo Taiji form on one hand, and to free fighting on the other. Without that synergy, push hands is just a baroque and Orientalist strain of MMA.

The artificial restrictions of fixed step push hands are beneficial–when we recognize them as such, and consequently avoid reliance on strategies and techniques that would fail outside of these restrictions.

Push hands should not be regarded as a separate course, for that minority of Taiji students who enjoy fighting. On the contrary, tuishou provides a vantage point, from where we learn whether our solo form practice is actually correct. Afterwards, our success or failure in sparring will show whether our conception and execution of tuishou is correct. In my opinion, this is the most, and the least anyone should expect from the practice.