Taiji is not shadow boxing

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1

Taiji boxing applies for World Heritage

www.chinaview.cn 2005-06-02 16:02:48

BEIJING, June 2 – The establishment of the Jiaozuo Chenjiagou Taijiquan Research Institute signified that China’s Taijinquan (also called shadow boxing in the West) has started its application to the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization as part of the world’s intangible cultural heritage.

More than 300 years ago, Chen Wangting, a resident of Wen County's Chenjiagou in Henan's Jiaozuo, used the foundation of his family's boxing style and in accordance with the Yin/Yang interchange theory of Taiji culture, combined Taoist teachings of breath control and Chinese medicine's knowledge on the theory of channels and collaterals, to compile a set of strong/soft and fast/slow style of boxing and named it "Taijiquan". Taijinquan has deep inner strength and content and encompasses many sources of knowledge. It deeply reflects the roots of Chinese traditions in philosophy, healthy living, medicine and esthetics. It is the crystallization of several thousand years of brilliant Chinese culture. 

In recent years, Jiaozuo has successfully hosted seven International Taijquan Annual Conferences. Each annual event has attracted numerous Taiji lovers from all over the world to attend and compete. 

The International Wushu Federation decided in July 2000 to name the month of May each year as "World Taiji Month". At present, Taijiquan is being practised in more than 100 countries and regions. More than 70 countries and regions have set up Taijiquan associations. Those practising Taijiquan number 150 million and Taijiquan can truly be called the world's first martial arts exercise.

(Source: Chinanews.cn/Photo: baidu)

Pictures and orginal article at
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2005-06/02/content_3036919.htm

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Youre right its not shadow boxing… ever… where do they get there info from…

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The name of the song is called ‘Haddock’s Eyes’."…

The blurb says “(also called shadow boxing in the West)”, which is true. Try doing a google search for how many times you will see it used still in this way.

Now granted, back some twenty years ago, it was called this more frequently and you don’t see it used very much today. But then again that was before the days of commercial spots with Buddy Lee bringing aid to geriatric neighbors, before Frankenstein was stretching his newly lubricated joints, before it became cool, all too cool, to show tough guys (to wit Worf and Angel) doing taiji on popular TV shows. In fact, in the U.S. at any rate, even if you said “Tie Cheeee” in the early 80s most people would have absolutely no idea what you were talking about, but if you told martial artists “I do Chinese shadow boxing” they would might say something like “oh that slow stuff? I saw that once…”.

Seems strange to me to attack this comment in a history forum. It is simply how people referred to it. Not just westerners either. My teacher’s teacher used to call it “shadow boxing”. I can understand attacking the usage semantically because it might confuse people as there is “shadow boxing” in western boxing. One might even launch a discussion by saying “why would someone call it that?” (see below). Which would probably belong in a different forum. But I don’t see the point, especially in a history forum, of just attacking something because of unfamiliarity.

But as I usually just lurk, and without saying more this would just be wasted bandwith, I will give some information of why we referred to it as “shadow boxing”. Keep in mind the taiji joke: “How many taiji players does it take to change a light bulb?
A: Ten. One to change it and nine to say he did it wrong.” So I am not saying this is “the reason”, just this is how we used it.

If you are thinking that it is a poor semantic match for the term in western boxing, it sure seems to be the case, however it is not a bad semantic match in the context of the principles of taijiquan if you think of it in the sense of “becoming the opponent’s shadow.” In this case it fits in with such principles as “do not lose contact, do not oppose”, “conceals and reveals”, “if the opponent moves fast, I move fast”, there are others of course, but when viewed from the perspective of these principles, and the way you focus intention in the solo form with an “imaginary” opponent, or, perhaps better, imagine your opponent trying to catch you, sans a Wendy armed with needle, thread, and thimble, it might make more sense to you as to why some refer to it that way.

Does that mean you can’t argue against the usage because of the confusion it might lead to? Of course not. I don’t mean this post that way. You might even argue that taiji principles are “dumb”. You might even push the analogy to a literal extreme where it breaks down–find me an analogy that doesn’t–however, it still remains the case that “it is also called shadow boxing in the West”.

Just my opinion from my experience.

IronChef TMA

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LOL

I remember back in the early 90’s in Xi’an when some of my students (academic - not martial) first came and asked me if I was interested in learning “shadow boxing” because a well-known teacher was giving a free seminar on campus. Took me a few minutes to figure out what the heck they were talking about!

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For whatever reason, I think that was the English translation that the Mainland came up with for taiji quan in the mid-late 70s. It sorta kinda makes sense in the context of people doing the form exclusively.

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I have always been told the term for Taiji is soft or cotton boxing not shadow boxing and I was perhaps linking it with the western boxing type…

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I’ve heard of certain chinese styles referred to, perhaps dubiously, as shadow boxing.