Someone asked a question in the Youtube comment of Master Chen video.
This is what I wrote back:
A: Taijiquan is structural power, from long time practice, you can find out the most efficient way to generate this power from joints relationship
Q: But how did the first founder of Taichi knew in the first place that if he started an unconventional ways with long practices he would achieved something?
how would you answer this question?
{ 4 comments… read them below or add one }
My very humble answer (I know that I do not know) would be it evolved from spear/long pole fighting. Spear is a line and to operate with it one needs a lot of power (i.e. inventive ways to generate a lot of power) as it is heavy.
Who can really know (as it is unrecorded history)? We can only speculate: things like levers and pulleys and wedges have been discovered and rediscovered throughout time.
When I was studying computer science, I always wondered how could anyone have built something so complex as a computer and how could such complex algorithms have been thought up by any one person? Computers were the product of many prior discoveries and understandings: someone or many someones found a connection between these things that enabled something new and remarkable.
If you look at the research of Stanley Henning http://seinenkai.com/articles/henning/index.html it looks like there is a lot of support for the idea that a lot of the original Taijiquan techniques came from military training.
These may or may not have had the structural power aspect. If you look at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chen-style_t%27ai_chi_ch%27uan#Historical_forms_from_Chen_Village there used to be a large number of forms, which were later condensed.
My theory is that over generations as structural power was understood more then the emphasis was changed from learning many techniques to learning how to produce structural power.
Early on it may have been that a few people had some natural ability and found a way to produce structural power in a limited number of techniques, then the long practice and foundation exercises were found to be the best way of developing this ability reliably in many techniques for future generations. Kind of like how the first airplane was built mostly by experimentation and the principles were discovered over time.
1st of all . Being conventional or unconventional is relative.
Our Taiji is only unconventional to all the other systems because it is unfamiliar. This system is not like any other system in any way . It’s founding principle is what makes it stand out from all other systems of fighting arts. It is from this one thing. This one characteristic that creates the platform for the physical outcome of what it is. In the past it had no name. Today we call it Taiji. But it has always been taught the same. The foundations were always there.
And that one principle that stands out . To separate Yin and Yang.