Today I’m going to do something I haven’t done for a while. Just for the fun of it I’ve picked a subject and I’m going to compare it to tai chi. Yea, maybe I do need to get out more but that another subject.
Today’s subject is aliens, thus the title. Not the type of aliens we keep hearing about in the American media and who hang out in large numbers around Home Depot, but the kind from outer-space. Before anyone starts in on me for saying Home Depot is an alien magnet, I’d like to say I’d hang out there myself if I couldn’t speak the language and needed work because there were no good options in my country. I’m very fortunate and I know it.
Back to aliens and tai chi. If you think back, just a short time ago few people knew anything about tai chi and many had never even heard of it. Now it seems to be everywhere. How does this compare to aliens? Good question.
Our government doesn’t seem to want publicly admit there are aliens among us, but has also done something rather strange if they really think they don’t exist. I’ll get to that in a sec. 
> If you think about it, until recently our government ignored illegal aliens too.
Aliens, whether little and green or big and gray, have been talked about, and drawn, and painted for millennia. Now aliens are widely accepted as a fact of life, despite little in the way of tangible evidence. Tai chi has existed for millennia, yet has only recently been talked about outside of specific families. Also although a larger and larger number of people accept that tai chi works with energy, there’s little in the way of proof.
In the movies aliens used to mostly be portrayed as malevolent, but are now portrayed with more fairness. After all everyone knows aliens, although mysterious, can have good or bad attitudes; Men In Black made that clear. In the movies tai chi used to mostly be portrayed as a calming exercise done by eccentric loners, or aliens of another kind. Now it’s more often portrayed as a mysterious martial art done by weird, but cool, people.
I could go on and on here with astute comparisons, but I think you get the point. Let’s get back to the strange behavior of governments, the American government in this case. I came across this “fact” while surfing the web. No I didn’t verify it; it’s in print so it must be true, and we are after all talking about government.
To finish I’d like to leave you with one final thought… about seat belts. The source of this seat belt wisdom is a very well thought out bumper sticker, and just plain good advice. “Buckle-up, it makes it harder for the aliens to suck you out of your car.”
Your thoughts?
John
P.S. I found this weird factoid here: http://www.superlaugh.com/1/wfact.htm
I found this great pic by DECLAN MCCULLAGH PHOTOGRAPHY here: http://www.mccullagh.org/photo/1ds-7/alien-mannequin-exhibit
Leave A Reply (11 comments So Far)
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Kevin (10 comments)
755 days ago
The government law reference is false:
http://www.snopes.com/legal/et.asp
It never referred to actual “aliens” and isn’t on the books anymore anyway. The website you reference also has a couple other traditional “weird facts” that are also just made up, e.g. “the duck’s quack doesn’t echo, and no one knows why!” Quacks echo like any other sound.
Unfortunately I think you missed an opportunity to talk about an actually interesting issue related to aliens and taiji: if there were other intelligent species, would they have an equivalent to taiji, and how would it look? Would they have a martial art? How would it change based on their anatomy? Would they develop a martial art that is based on relaxation, yielding, softness, and sensitivity — or are those only things humans need to do? And do only humans need to reduce stress via body-mind movement, or is that something that any species driven enough to develop technology will have a need for?
John Crewdson (479 comments)
755 days ago
Kevin you spoilsport! I’d wanted to believe that was true and now you’ve gone and ruined it for me.
Maybe you could write a posting about how alien tai chi would differ, or not, from human tai chi. Send me an email, and if it looks good I’ll post it.
John
P.S. OK after I posted this comment I read the Snopes page, and they do say the law did exist. According to Snopes it required you to be quarantined should you shake hands with an alien or tour their spacecraft. Even Better!
Kevin (10 comments)
755 days ago
Well, better safe than sorry right?
As far as an article, I will probably have to pass for now — until I’m an expert on human taiji, I won’t even be remotely qualified to speculate on alien taiji!
I think once we understand why humans developed taiji and practice it today, I think we will be in a much better position to wonder about alien taiji. We do at least have an inkling into taiji for different anatomies, in that there are adaptations of taiji for people in wheelchairs or otherwise with various disabilities. How that would translate into, say, an eight-limbed race that “sees” in ultraviolet and thinks in trinary … well, I’ll leave that up in the air for now.
Although I think it’s safe to say that taiji is, in many ways, a quest to fully express our nature as human beings on earth. As such it’s inherently tied to our anatomy, psychology, and environment. Changing any of those (as with an alien race) would change the expression of it. So I wouldn’t expect alien taiji to look anything like what is appropriate for us.
Thanks, as always, for the conversation.
-Kevin
John Crewdson (479 comments)
754 days ago
Kevin,
Too bad you don’t feel up to writing a post on alien tai chi. Given your perspective it could be interesting.
Thanks for playing along,
John
Polly (5 comments)
748 days ago
Hey… Tai Chi in a wheelchair… Have a book about Taiji in a chair but would like a source for taiji in a wheelchair….I feel like an “alien” sometimes when I “drift off” in my practice!!!!
John Crewdson (479 comments)
747 days ago
Polly,
Interesting, drifting off in your practice usually means your focus is not where it needs to be. However, feeling like an alien might make practice more fun once in a while.
As far as a source for wheelchair tai chi, I don’t know of one at the moment. You can easily modify the arm movements to be done in a wheelchair. The important thing to remember is to keep your arms in natural positions so you don’t cut off the energy flow.
If you torque your shoulders, raise your shoulders, or tense your arms you’ve cut off the flow. If you can’t feel this now, with regular practice you will and you’ll know immediately when you are moving in a way that is not correct. Make sure you’re moving your waist if possible since most of our power comes from this area. If you can’t move your waist keep playing with it until you see what feels best and most powerful without straining.
Best of luck and let me know how you’re doing.
John
David (38 comments)
738 days ago
Here is information on wheelchair tai chi. I tried to contact the college last year but never got a response. I would like to teach the form.
http://timesfreepress.com/news/2008/jun/26/chattanooga-wheelchair-tai-chi-olympic-hopeful/?print
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z130_mxzHzk
Yes aliens do tai chi. Sorry I was not able to find it on you tube.
http://memory-alpha.org/en/wiki/Mok'bara
and here is the uniform
http://christies.com/LotFinder/lot_details.aspx?intObjectID=4780156
lol, David
David (38 comments)
738 days ago
Polly, a friend of mine, also in a wheelchair, studied karate for a while. You might like her book, Karate on Wheels. It is out of print but you can find it on line.
David
John Crewdson (479 comments)
738 days ago
David,
That’s very interesting. If you don’t get a response from the college I think you should modify your existing forms to be done from a chair and add moving the wheelchair at appropriate times.
I’ve done one video so far and I used our short form modified for standing in one place, so it could be done anywhere. In the same video I also recorded this form done from a seated position for those unable to stand.
I’ve read reports that tai chi done in this way has very similar physical benefits to traditional tai chi. I think you should go for it.
Keep me posted. I think we’re within a few hours of each other and it might be nice to come up an see one of these classes sometime.
Thanks,
John
Drifter (1 comments)
575 days ago
That’s a different view and comparison for sure. Of course one would have to assume that aliens are more like huminoids than insects.
Lets also not forget that history dictates that it’s instinct to try and survive. Not just for the human species either, look at all the animal species that go to extrordinary lengths to survive. With that im mind it’s totally logical that an alien species would have the same birth driven instincts. And if that mean colonizing another planet, well, you can bet it will be attempted in the name of survival.
John Crewdson (479 comments)
574 days ago
Drifter,
Yep, the only reason where here is because we’re survivors. Let’s just hope the “bad aliens” don’t know tai chi.
John