Hello everyone I am an avid practitioners of martial arts. Started with Judo and Jiu Jitsu. Then my health and phisical condition degraded due to external causes. I switched to Aikido for three years and now Tai chi chuan, which I am now strongly committing to.
Aside from obvious positive effects (balance and agility) I wonder what you all think about inner martial arts.
I tend to ingest as little taoist folklore as I can, not because I think it's not interesting, but I want to avoid the exotic sounding mysticism tailored to impress westerners as a kind of new age marketing strategy. Fortunately, my teacher is a medical doctor working in the field of work related injuries.
I know I love Tai Chi Chuan and I truly mean to get better at it, but I can't ignore all the... weird stuff connected to it (no, Mr. Grand Master, I refuse to think that you single handedly pushed 10 people by the power of chi mastery). At the same time, I've been impressed by how, sometimes, finding adequate balance can make you able to sustain a strong push without even making active use of muscular strength.
So Il just wondering how you feel about this (or the other) inner martial art.
For me, it's a demanding and rewarding practice, full of great health and self discipline benefits and a few truly impressive perks, but with a..weird decorum I can't begin to understand.
Eh, I find it easy to ignore the woowoo bullshit. Always have.
That being said, the benefits are there. It's a form of meditation, and exercise, all rolled into one. That's always a good thing.
Now, I enjoy the Taoist and Buddhist stuff. On paper, that's the religions I give when a quick and simple answer is needed. The Buddhist side of things actually is as close to religion as I get nowadays, and the Taoist side of things is an interesting way of looking at the universe. But neither approaches what you'd call Belief. It's more that they fit well enough as an approximation of the way I think and feel about existence.
Tbh, it helps in breaking loose of assumptions built up from living in the western world, the same as western ways of thinking would help break free of assumptions built up from eastern ways of thinking. And that's what matters to me, keeping my assumptions from keeping me from thinking and learning.
That's a nice perspective. Whenever I have some free time, I'd like to dive into taoist vision a bit below the surface level. Some assumptions of Buddhism I can't relate to. Maybe this one will be less directly opposing my deep beliefs. Anyway, it's always interesting to learn, even if I end up disagreeing.