Are there secrets in tai chi chuan? Yes, if you don't have a knowledgeable instructor. Tai chi chuan is a very profound martial art and if you don't practice correctly, you will not be able to master the true essence of tai chi chuan. However, if you have a qualified and knowledgeable instructor, chances are he or she will not keep any secrets from you. Gone are those olden days when martial arts were kept as family pride and secrets where only sons were taught and not daughters and outsiders. It was feared that daughter may divulged the family secrets to her husband and subsequently he may shared the same with his family members.
Today, most tai chi chuan masters I've met are eager to pass on their knowledge to the next generation as they feel it is their obligation and responsibility to do so. But if there is truly no secret, why are they so many serious tai chi chuan practitioners still fail to acquire real skills in tai chi chuan? The answer lies in at least 3 faults.
Firstly, unlike karate, tae kwon do, judo, boxing and so on that require a lot of physical training, tai chi chuan is comparatively more difficult to grasp because it requires students to explore internally. It requires students to quiet the mind and observe internal feelings and sensations to gain understanding and mastery. Even if right instruction (or some may prefer to called it secret) is given, students may still not get it because it takes time and hard work to understand internal stuff. Take for example the instruction of 'fang song', many understand it as relax. Which in actual fact is let loose and it must have the quality of pliability and full mental alertness. Song is the pathway to internal force or jin. Within this softness of song, students must seek hardness which is the internal strength or nei li. The instruction (secret) is simple and easy but the work required is humongous. Lao Tze said the most profound things are often the simplest. Song in tai chi chuan is definitely one of the example.
Secondly, many students today are too eager. They want to know the A to Z of tai chi chuan in one week. After 2-3 years of practice they want to be as good as their masters who had probably spent 20-30 years in tai chi chuan. Before they fully grasp the essence of one skill, they already moved on to the other. Unfortunately, many of tai chi chuan's higher skills must be build on top of those so-called lower skill (in fact, it is wrong to segregate this way). Example, in push hands, before students can master the proper and correct way of neutralizing, they already moved on to other advance skills like emitting force or applying fancy techniques on each other. This way, even if they knew the secret, they will not be able to manifest it entirely and skillfully.
Thirdly, most of the time a student who is not ready or have not reached a certain level of skills yet will not be able to grasp any higher instruction or secret even if told. A person who is not song enough and haven't acquire the internal skill of fang song will not understand how to sink. Similarly, a person who haven't achieved internal body alignment will not understand how to derive internal strength or peng jin (ward-off force), he will probably use muscular strength instead and so on.
They are many more reasons why even secrets have been told and students still unable to gain real skills. I've just shared a few of them. In tai chi chuan it is said a teacher can only guide you through the door but you alone have to walk the journey. In your tai chi chuan training, it is always good to once a while take time off and reflect on past instructions that had been told to you. You never know your instructor could had transmitted secrets to you but you failed to notice.
Happy training.
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