Quote:
|
Anyone else out there who's studied both aikido and tai-chi, ba-gua or similar for any length of time and has a view?
|
I did some Tai Chi. There were similarities with AiKiDo, but I was more impressed with the differences. That's not to say that the differences were larger or more important, just that they were more interesting to me.
One of the differences that really struck me (and this is similar to what Lyle said) is that in Tai Chi it felt like wherever I touched my instructor I was not touching anything near his center. In contrast, wherever I touched my AiKiDo instructor, I felt like I was connecting directly to his center. AiKiDo movements and presence had a sense of fullness where Tai Chi movements and presence had a sense of emptiness.
Similarly, but on a more psychological/philsophical plane, I found that in AiKiDo I was encouraged to take a benevolent and welcoming attitude towards my partner where in Tai Chi I was encouraged towards a neutral or unjudgemental attitude. This has, to me, the same ring emptiness and fullness that I talked about above.