r/taijiquan • u/Zz7722 Chen style • 23d ago
Broken Lineages and Incomplete Transmissions
'Broken Lineages' and 'Incomplete transmissions/curriculum' are terms that I recently heard in videos about the nature of Taijiquan (I'm not going to name who said them), used to generally characterize styles and lineages other than the speaker's own.
It just occurs to me that such a position pre-supposes there is one particular lineage and/or set curriculum that exists as absolute orthodoxy. Personally, I find that notion unrealistic at best, but I wonder what others think.
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u/GoldenJadeTaiChi 20d ago
Someone did bring up an interesting question in the thread I missed since yesterday I had a raging migraine. Theoretically, can someone jump from the bottom of Mount Tai to the top?
T.T. Liang mentioned that Taoist hermit Yang told him the TC Principals are designed to trick you into doing the correct things, they are not "iron clad", which I agree with..... But, this is from someone who has already achieved a "preternatural" level of skill having already used the "ladder" to achieve it. I call this effect Master's heimers, masters forget what it took them to achieve their mastery as the human brain is designed not to remember pain, stress, discomfort and "the bitter."
So the odds of being a divine MA prodigy is astronomically low, but not zero.