Hello!

If you are one of the people who comes here and reads my occasional posting, be aware that some changes to Laughing Ox are likely to take place in the near future.

The site will be moving away from WordPress to a much simple ‘static’ HTML site, once I can manage the migration. This will save me a considerable amount of money, and make the site a simpler and (hopefully) easier to navigate experience.

Just what is Taijiquan? This might seem like a somewhat peculiar question: it’s a Chinese Internal Style Martial Art, isn’t it? The simple answer to that is yes, but that doesn’t fundamentally answer the question, which when asked here, means: “What is the basic nature of Taijiquan that makes it a distinct entity, different from other martial arts, even other internal styles?”

The answer to that is fairly simple, as it turns out (in this author’s opinion, anyway): Taijiquan is a Chinese, internal style martial art distinguished from all other martial arts by 1) a distinct movement imaginary, 2) a guiding philosophy that eschews domination of the other, and 3) the use of a core set of neurobiological “tricks” that render opponents ineffective and easy to redirect, strike, or otherwise be shown the unintended consequences of their violent urges.

You have a body. This is a fairly safe prediction to make for the moment, since as far as we know, no one has uploaded their consciousness into any sort of digital domain. As yet, no self-aware artificial constructs exist to read this. That you are in possession of a body is the first in a number of statements and questions that we will present that will seem (hopefully only initially) to be rather obvious.

Hello, after a rather lengthy period away from posting here. It has been roughly a year since a last update, and well more than a year since Bob died somewhat unexpectedly. In that time, my practice of Taiji as a formal, solo art has been very sporadic.

Some of this is no doubt due to avoidance and grief, and I’m moving forward with that as best as I am able, given the broader circumstances.

Hello again!

I have processed the first four Jellyfish recordings and posted them via Soundcloud. As I mentioned in the previous post, the Jellyfish Exercises are a set of breathing and interoception exercises Bob developed over the last four or five years, starting when I was in still in Salt Lake City. They steadily became a regular and important practice for him; he viewed the exercise as connecting with the most fundamental fact of being alive and embodied in the world.

Hello all!

While I did not precisely succeed in my goal of having additional material up for this week, I did manage to spend some hours editing the first four Jellyfish recordings. These are a series of audio recordings Bob created to walk beginners through what he called the “Jellyfish Exercise”.

This is a set of breathing and interoception exercises he developed over the last four or five years. The became a very important practice for him, a way of connecting with the act of being alive and embodied in the world. We sometimes opened practice sessions with them (not often enough, in my opinion), or took breaks using them.

It is with a heavy heart that I must report that Sifu Bob Iden of Laughing Ox Internal Arts passed early this month (March 2024). Bob was a very singular individual, the most cheerful of curmudgeons, and together we developed a very deep and exciting understanding of the inner workings of Taiji and their broader implications that I can’t imagine I would have stumbled into, practicing with anyone else.

Taijiquan is a Chinese internal martial art. It is believed by many to have been founded in the 12th or 13th century by Zhang Sanfeng. It is commonly thought to place a great deal of emphasis on soft, relaxed movement, balancing Yin and Yang in the body, and various other concepts associated with Daoism and Traditional Chinese Medicine.

There are many practices that are referred to as Taijiquan, Tai Chi, or other similar names. These could include intensive study of forms, standing meditation, the practice of Push Hands, an emphasis on physical fitness, meditation, balance, or many other things. These practices and their validity as Taijiquan are neither here nor there, as they are not martial arts in the traditional sense of being primarily concerned with violence in its many guises.

Elsewhere, we have said that Taijiquan is a sort of practical, physical Daoism. We have also stated that Taijiquan as a martial art is grounded in the idea of responding to violence without violence (alternatively phrased, to force without force). And we have also mentioned a number of things about “Top Down” approaches, Western understandings, Neurobiology, Evolution, and a wide variety of other concepts that are not typically brought up when discussing Taiji.

Taijiquan may not have begun as an inherently Daoist practice. This might seem a bit strange, as Taiji literally is the name of the symbol which most Westerners know as the yin-yang symbol (more properly known as a Taijitu). And the invention of Taiji is also typically attributed to a figure important in Chinese Daoism. But “taiji” also means something like “Supreme Ultimate” and so Taijiquan as “Supreme Ultimate Boxing ’’ is a pretty impressive sounding name, if nothing else.