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Register of Electors
The electoral register and monthly alteration notices are available for inspection at the Council Offices, Foster Avenue, Beeston under supervision from Monday to Friday between 10:00am and 12:00pm and 2:00pm and 4:00pm.
If your name does not appear on the electoral register, or your details have changed (for example, you have moved house, or changed your name), you should contact Electoral Services or see the 'How To Register to Vote' page for more details. It's not just important to register to vote, credit reference agencies use the register to check where you live when you apply for credit.
There are two registers. Why?
Using information received from the public, registration officers keep two registers - the electoral register and the open register (also known as the edited register).
The electoral register lists the names and addresses of everyone who is registered to vote in public elections.
The register is used for electoral purposes - such as making sure only eligible people can vote - and for other limited purposes specified in law. The personal data in the register must always be processed in line with data protection legislation.
Who uses the electoral register?
- Election staff, political parties, candidates and holders of elected office use the register for electoral purposes.
- Your local council and the British Library hold copies that anyone may look at under supervision. A copy is also held by the Electoral Commission, the Boundary Commissions (which set constituency boundaries for most elections) and the Office of National Statistics.
- The council can use the register for duties relating to security, enforcing the law and preventing crime. The police and the security services can also use it for law enforcement.
- The register is used when calling people for jury service.
- Government departments may buy the register from local registration officers and use it to help prevent and detect crime. They can also use it to safeguard national security by checking the background of job applicants and employees.
- Credit reference agencies can buy the register. They help other organisations to check the names and addresses of people applying for credit. They also use it to carry out identity checks when trying to prevent and detect money laundering.
It is a criminal offence for anyone to supply or use the register for anything else.
The open register is an extract of the electoral register, but it is not used for elections. It can be bought by any person, company or organisation. For example, it is used by businesses and charities to confirm name and address details. The personal data in the register must always be processed in line with data protection legislation.
Your name and address will be included in the open register unless you ask for them to be removed. Removing your details from the open register would not affect your right to vote.
Who uses the open register?
Users of the open register include:
- Businesses checking the identity and address details of people who apply for their services such as insurance, goods hire and property rental, as well as when they shop online;
- Businesses selling age-restricted goods or services, such as alcohol or gambling online, to meet the rules on verifying the age of their customers;
- Charities and voluntary agencies, for example to help maintain contact information for those who have chosen to donate bone marrow and to help people separated by adoption to find each other;
- Charities, to help with fund raising and contacting people who have made donations;
- Debt collection agencies when tracing people who have changed address without telling their creditors;
- Direct marketing firms when maintaining their mailing lists;
- Landlords and letting agents when checking the identity of potential tenants;
- Local councils when identifying and contacting residents;
- Online directory firms to help users of the websites find people, such as when reuniting friends and families;
- Organisations tracing and identifying beneficiaries of wills, pensions and insurance policies;
- Private sector firms to verify details of job applicants.
Under section 11 of the Data Protection Act 1998, you can give the Electoral Registration Officer notice that you do not want your personal information to be used for direct marketing either permanently or until further notice. To do this you should complete the Electors Section 11 Opt-out form under the Documents section of this page. If your name already appears on the Electoral Register, this request will come into effect from the next revision of the edited register following receipt of this request. If you are not already registered, this form can be included along with your completed Electoral Registration Form.
Inspection of the Electoral Register
The current electoral register and monthly alteration notices available for inspection at the Council Offices under supervision.
Previous years' registers can only be viewed once they are over 10 years old. They are available at the Nottinghamshire Archives. For more information and contact details for the Nottinghamshire Archives, please click on the link on the right hand side of the page.
Please note that in accordance with the Representation of the People (England and Wales) (Amendment) Regulations 2002, the following rules apply to everyone inspecting the full register of electors:
- Extracts from the register may be recorded only by making hand written notes. Photocopying or electronic recording are not permitted by law.
- Information taken from the register must not be used for direct marketing purposes (as per section 11(3) of the Data Protection Act 1998), unless the information has been published in the edited version of the register.
Under these regulations, anyone who fails to observe these conditions is committing a criminal offence. The penalty is a fine of up to £5,000.
Buying the Open Register
The open register is publicly available and can be bought, in whole or in part, and used for any purpose. Information on the cost of buying the open register is available from Electoral Services.
Page Last Updated: 31/12/2014
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Home / Store / Journals / Electronic Articles / Nuclear Technology / Volume 181 / Number 2
Robert J. Schott, Charles L. Weaver, Mark A. Prelas, Kyuhak Oh, Jason B. Rothenberger, R. V. Tompson, Denis A. Wisniewski
Nuclear Technology
Volume 181 / Number 2 / February 2013 / Pages 349-353
Format:electronic copy (download)
The use of a photon intermediate direct energy conversion (PIDEC) process to develop a proof of concept of a long-lived and efficient nuclear battery powered by a radioactive beta source is discussed. Fundamentally, PIDEC is a means of matching the scale length of the range of radiation to the scale length of the transducer. The device uses a photovoltaic cell and excimer gas-based photon source. In this work, argon was used to produce the excimer photon source (argon excimer at 129 nm) with a pressure range from 7 × 10-3 to 1.4 × 107 Pa (10-6 to 2100 psig). The beta source used in this study was a 90Sr source that has a daughter, 90Y, that then decays to stable 90Zr. Intermediate shielding from lead and an argon gas plenum were used to prevent damage to the photovoltaic cell. This battery demonstrated power variations with gas pressure as expected, and no radiation damage to the photovoltaic cell was observed over a period in excess of 150 h. Such a long exposure period demonstrates the desired tolerance of the device to the direct radiation damage that would otherwise be sustained in normal semiconductor-based energy conversion systems.
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If you decide to take out a private loan, it is important to realize that you have made a decision that will impact your life after graduation. You should consider a number of different factors.
How much in total loan fees will I pay?
Do I have to start paying this loan back while I'm in school?
What is the current interest rate and how is it calculated?
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Do I have any deferment options?
When will my first payment be due?
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Muammar Gaddafi's former spy chief Abdullah al-Senussi arrives in Tripoli September 5, 2012. (REUTERS/Libyan National Guard/Handout)
NOUAKCHOTT: Libya's former spy chief Abdullah al-Senussi and his family were taken by surprise by his extradition to his home country after Mauritania assured it would not happen, his daughter said on Thursday.
The fugitive and former right-hand man of slain Libyan dictator Moamer Kadhafi -- who is wanted by the International Criminal Court for crimes against humanity -- was extradited by Mauritania on Wednesday.
"We were with my dad when he was called at 7:00 am (local and GMT) for an important meeting which turned out to be his handover to Libya," Senussi's eldest daughter Anud Abdullah al-Senussi told private radio station Radio Nouakchott Info.
"I strongly regret Mauritania's decision and express all my disappointment over my father's extradition because the authorities, including the president of the republic, assured that he would not be extradited," she said in Arabic.
The 21-year-old said they had not been told of the decision "so that we could at least say goodbye."
She said Senussi had been living in a "prison villa" in a northern suburb of the Mauritanian capital where he had been "well treated but deprived of all exterior contact except his family."
The fugitive was arrested in March as he tried to enter the country from Morocco using a Malian passport under a different name.
Despite pressure from Libya for Nouakchott to extradite him, President Mohamed Ould Abdel Aziz had in August ruled out the handover, saying Senussi must answer to his crimes in Mauritania.
State television announced his extradition in a newsflash on Wednesday, and the man accused of playing a "crucial" role in attempting to crush the Libyan revolt last year is back in Tripoli awaiting questioning.
Senussi's daughter joined the United States and rights groups in urging her father get a fair trial.
"He is being accused of many things that one man alone could not commit," she said, adding her father had been an "ordinary citizen" who drove himself everywhere.
Meanwhile Senussi's lawyers criticised the extradition in a communique on Thursday, saying it had not followed the proper channels and been submitted to the courts for consideration.
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Overtime goal puts 'Hawks in 2-0 hole
Posted: April 20, 2014 at 3:15 a.m.
Vladimir Tarasenko and St. Louis were in trouble Saturday before a vicious hit by Chicago defenseman Brent Seabrook provided an opening for the Blues.
This story is only available from our archives.
Sports, Pages 28 on 04/20/2014
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Patience pays for Haslem, Lewis
For weeks in February, practically the only time Udonis Haslem and Rashard Lewis worked up a sweat on game nig... Read »
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The Brooklyn Nets made a case for the important of playoff experience in their opening victory over the Toront... Read »


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Washington D.C. Forecast: Possible Severe Weather Outbreak the Next 36 Hours
The possibility of widespread severe weather is looking good for the DC area over the next 36 hours.
- Tonight:
- Isolated thunderstorms
- Temperatures: 80s
- Wind: NW 5 - 15 mph
- Overnight:
- Widespread Strong Thunderstorms
- Lows: Upper 60s/Lower 70s
- Rain: Some storms possibly severe
- Thursday:
- AM: Some clearing PM: Widespread Severe Storms
- Highs: 80s
- Wind: SW 5 - 10 mph increasing 15 - 25 mph
Keeping an eye on some strong to severe storms to affect the DC area tonight through Thursday.
So here is the deal: Everybody is throwing around this "derecho" term when in fact these storms that could affect us tomorrow are in the beginning stages of their formation in the Upper Plains. Once the storms through the upper Plains form-we will have a better idea how it will impact us in the Mid Atlantic tomorrow. However, this is what we know right now: There is a cold front that is strung out across Pennsylvania. An area of low pressure will ride like a train along the stalled front bringing energy with it through today and tomorrow. Then, that front will get it's act together and pass through the region on Thursday night. This storm will come in three parts (best way to simplify it): tonight = isolated storms, overnight through early Thursday AM: widespread/scattered storms, tomorrow afternoon = possibly a line of strong/severe storms. Once that front clears on Thursday night, breezy conditions ensure and a few showers floating around the backside could move into the area.


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Animal-Based Drug Tests Miss Half of All Birth Defects
"We may be betting the health of our children on odds only a little better than a coin flip," says Jarrod Bailey, Ph.D., a senior post-doctoral research associate at the University of Newcastle Upon Tyne School of Surgical and Reproductive Sciences in England.
Bailey recently completed a comprehensive review of the scientific literature examining birth defects and found that animal experiments are such poor predictors of human birth defects, the tests are accurate only slightly more than half the time. A part-time PCRM consultant, Bailey looked at studies of nearly 1,400 different substances, including many common drugs and household chemicals.
Potential teratogens—drugs and chemicals that can cause birth defects—are tested using mice, rats, rabbits, dogs, hamsters, monkeys, and other animals. Bailey maintains that none of these animals can adequately predict defects in humans.
The problem stems from fundamental biology. There are simply too many differences in physiology and biochemistry between humans and other animals, he explains. No nonhuman animal species absorbs, metabolizes, or eliminates test substances like a human.
As a result, researchers often test drugs and other compounds across a wide spectrum of species, a practice that often leads to conflicting and contradictory results. Thalidomide, a sedative and anti-nausea medication given to pregnant women in the 1960s, for example, resulted in thousands of tragic birth defects. Most animal tests showed thalidomide to be safe.
Fortunately, better test methods now exist, and PCRM is actively promoting them. One, the Embryonic Stem Cell Test, has been proven to be more accurate, cheaper, quicker, and easier to use than animal experiments.
Dr. Bailey's full review is scheduled for publication this May in the European scientific journal Biogenic Amines.


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Orange and Blue Continue Season at Wisconsin
April 22, 2011
Complete Printable Illinois-Wisconsin Notes
Illinois (19-17, 6-4 Big Ten) at Wisconsin (23-18, 3-7)
Goodman Diamond; Madison, Wis.
Game 37: Saturday, April 23 // Noon CT
Illinois-Wisconsin Series: 16-4
Opponent Insider
Wisconsin makes use of three pitchers to earn a 3.13 team ERA through 268.2 innings of work. Cassandra Darrah leads the Badgers' staff in ERA (2.77), wins (12), appearances (25), starts (21), complete games (14), innings (139.0), strikeouts (91), and batting average against (.271). Darrah has allowed 145 hits and 74 walks to total 63 runs scored over her workload while being tagged for seven losses in addition to her dozen wins. Meghan McIntosh has also seen considerable time during the 2011 season, throwing 85.2 innings while allowing 108 hits and 29 walks for 23 earned runs against (3.43 ERA). McIntosh is 8-9 on the season while batters are hitting .292 against the Arizona native. Amanda Najdek is the final Wisconsin pitcher to earn time this season, seeing most of her action out of the bullpen. Najdek appeared in 17 games, making three starts, to earn a 3-2 record on the year. Najdek sports a 3.66 ERA, allowing 23 earned runs in 44.0 innings on 57 hits and 29 walks while batters connect for a .313 average against the freshman right-hander.
Jennifer Krueger leads the Badgers' offense with a .366 batting average, starting all 41 games for Wisconsin. Krueger has 48 hits on the season, all singles, with a team-high 28 runs scored and 33 stolen bases in 41 attempts. Krueger is also prone to being set down on strikes though, having stuck out in 31 of 131 at bats (23.7%). Mary Massei is the only other Badger hitting at least .300 on the season, with Massei earning a .321 (25-for-78) average with four triples, five doubles, seven runs scored and 15 RBIs. As a team, the Badgers make use of the stolen base to move runners up, attempting 100 on the season while successful converting 77, both the second-most in the conference. Four Badgers have attempted 11 or more steals on the season while 13 Wisconsin players have stolen at least one bag on the year.
In recent action, Wisconsin split a midweek doubleheader with Minnesota, falling at home in the first contests, 1-0, before taking the finale, 5-3. Darrah was tagged with the loss in game one despite holding Minnesota to one run on four hits and six walks in the complete game effort. The Wisconsin offense only produced three hits and three walks against Gophers' ace Sara Moulton, who struck out seven in seven innings of work. Minnesota scored in the top of the first inning on a bases-loaded walk to produce the only run of the game. In the second contest, Wisconsin exacted a measure of revenge on Moulton, scoring four runs on four hits in the first two innings of the game. Kendall Grimm went 2-for-3 with three RBIs and a run scored to improve her season average to .283. McIntosh started in the circle, allowing three runs in two innings before Najdek relieved McIntosh and closed out the contest with five shutout frames to earn her third win of the season.
In the most recent contest against Wisconsin, the Illini shutout the Badgers, 6-0, during the 2010 World's Largest Softball Tailgate on April 24. The Illini offense staked the Orange and Blue to an early lead behind two runs in the first and four in the second to complete scoring for the contest. Meredith Hackett drilled a two-run homer to left-center field in the first for a 2-0 lead through one inning. In the next frame, Danielle Vaji scored on an error and Hope Howell followed with an RBI-double to put the Illini up, 4-0. One batter later, Hackett tallied her second home run of the game - a two-run shot to right-center field. Hackett finished 2-for-4 with four RBIs and two runs scored while Danielle Zymkowitz tallied three hits and two runs scored and Hole Howell went 2-for-3 with a run and RBI.
Weekly Recap
At Purdue, the Illini bats exploded for nine runs in a three-frame period in the first game to coast to a 9-3 victory while a six-run sixth inning for Purdue downed the Orange and Blue in the finale, 11-6. Danielle Zymkowitz batted .714 (5-for-7) in the series to lead Illinois at the plate with four runs scored, three RBIs and two walks.
In the first game, an RBI-double by Wedel put Illinois on the board in the fourth before Conrad provided a two out, two-RBI double to put the Illini in front, 3-0. Illinois scored two more in the next frame on a fielding error by Purdue before exploding for four runs in the sixth to take a commanding 9-1 lead. A bases-clearing triple by Zymkowitz pushed the advantage to 8-1 before a sacrifice fly out by Hollie Pinchback plated the final Illini run of the contest.
In the finale, the Illini scored six runs in the first two frames; however, the bats were silence over the last five frames. Reliever Laura Tarnawa navigated the dangerous Purdue lineup for four innings before running into trouble in the sixth. The Boilermakers were able to score six runs in the inning, four unearned, to create the difference in the game.
With No.2-nationally ranked Michigan in town, the Illini fell behind early before attempting late-innings comebacks in both contests. However, the deficit proved too great for the Illinois offense in each game, falling two runs short of tying the Wolverines in both contests.
In game one, Michigan rushed out to a 5-1 lead through two innings and an 8-2 advantage in the sixth before the Illini began chipping away at the deficit. Illinois broke through against Michigan starting pitcher Jordan Taylor in the bottom of the sixth with four runs. Jackie Guy singled with one out while Danielle Zymkowitz moved the Buena Park, Calif., native to second with a single to left field. Two batters later, Meredith Hackett drilled a two-run double to left field and Jessica Davis followed Hackett with a two-run homer to left-center field to bring the Illini within two runs, 8-6.
In game two, Michigan again earned an early advantage, taking an 8-3 lead into the second inning. The Wolverines were only able to muster one more run over the final five innings as the Illini offense again found success against one of the strongest pitching rotations in the nation. Guy drove her first collegiate home run over the left field fence in the fourth to cut the Michigan lead to 8-4. After the Wolverines added one in the fifth, Illinois responded with two runs in the bottom of the inning to make it 9-6. Kelley Wedel doubled down the right field line to plate Hackett and pull the Illini within four, 9-5. before Pinchback raced home from third in the following at bat as Guy reached safely on a fielding error by Michigan first baseman Dorian Shaw. Hollie Pinchback connected for a solo homer to left-center field in the seventh inning to reach the final score, 9-7.
Lowe's Senior CLASS Award Recognition
In 2011, Zymkowitz continues to steal bases at a program-best rate, finding success on 14-of-17 attempts. Against Longwood on March 4, Zymkowitz broke the program record for career runs scored, needing only 175 games to record her 168th run scored, besting Angelena Mexicano's program total of 167. The West Hills, Calif., native continues her streak of consecutive starts throughout 2011, securing second base for the Illini in all 36 games this year to total 197 consecutive starts at second since her freshman season at Illinois in 2008. Zymkowitz also sits among current NCAA leaders in triples and runs scored per game. In the most recent NCAA statistical update, the 2009 All-American is tied with three other player for third in the nation for triples, with six, while she is tied for 10th overall in runs per game with 42 in 36 games played (1.17).
Last year, Zymkowitz earned her second consecutive All-Big Ten First Team award after finishing with a .409 batting average and a single-season Illinois record of 76 hits, while the Chaminade College Prep graduate scored 59 runs to go with 23 RBIs and 93 total bases. Zymkowitz's hits, runs scored, RBIs, total bases and stolen base (36) marks on the season all bested her 2009 All-America numbers, while her stolen bases total ranked first in single season thefts in Illini history.
Zymkowitz sports a .372 career batting average, the highest in Illinois softball history. Zymkowitz is also the career leader in stolen base percentage, finding success on 82 of 95 attempts (.863) while her career thefts total ranks second all-time. Zymkowitz is also featured on 13 more Illinois career lists, including highest on-base percentage, most hits and most runs scored.
In addition to her work on the field, Zymkowitz remains active in the community through the Illini Jock Jams fundraiser, the Hometown Heroes outreach program and visits to the Cantebury Ridge assisted living community. Also, Zymkowitz continues to be a leader on the Illinois softball team, receiving the Illini Igniter and Power Awards following the 2010 campaign. The Illini Igniter Award was given in recognition of her ability to get the team in game mode and keep the "fire" throughout the contest while the Illini Power Award was earned due to her hard work in practice and in the weight room to set the standards for Illinois players.
Constantly Connecting
Jessica Davis has also found success as of late, tallying a .455 batting average with a team-high seven homers among her 15 hits. Davis also owns 12 runs scored, 16 RBIs, eight walks, a team-best 38 total bases and a squad-high 1.152 slugging percentage. Meredith Hackett follows Davis with a .395 batting average. The Corona, Calif., native is slugging .789 with six doubles and three homers to go with a the most RBIs among Illini (19). Senior captain Audrey Gallien rounds out the group with a .303 batting average (10-for-33) with five doubles, four runs scored and four RBIs while her eight walks and one hit by pitch increase her on-base percentage to .452.
Finding Ways On
No Easy Outs
As a team, Illinois earned a .295 clip, good for fourth among Big Ten Conference squads. Within the Big Ten, Illinois sits in fourth or better for runs (218), doubles (47), triples (11), home runs (31), RBIs (187), total bases (448), sacrifice fly outs (9), slugging percentage (.462), on-base percentage (.395) and hit by pitches (33).
Hitting With The Best of Them
Situational Strengths
With runners on base, Danielle Zymkowitz leads the Illini with a .551 average (27-for-49) while Meredith Hackett follows with 30 hits in 65 at bats (.462). Zymkowitz is also successful with the bases loaded, producing at a .667 clip (6-for-9) while the West Hills, Calif., native also is consistently productive at advancing the runners (.709) with 39 hits in 55 at bats. Seven other Illini move the runners up at least 50 percent of the time they step to the plate with the opportunity. Hackett is hitting .603 (47 advances, 78 opportunities) and Jenna Mychko is 6-for-10 (.600) when moving the runner. Jessica Davis follows with a .588 (40-for-68) clip while Danielle Vaji is one-one hundredth of a percentage point behind Davis at .587 (37-for-63). Hollie Pinchback (.563, 45-for-80), Kelley Wedel (.527, 39-for-74) and Ashley Conrad (.514, 19-for-37) round out the Illini moving runners over at least 50% of the time.
Alex Booker has been the most successful Illini as the leadoff batter, reaching base in seven of 11 chances (.636) while Zymkowitz is second (.492, 32-for-65). Davis comes in at third by reaching base in 12 of 25 chances (.480). Audrey Gallien (9-for-21) and Hackett (6-for-14) both reach as the leadoff in 42.9 percent of their opportunities while Wedel is 7-for-17 to earn a .412 mark as the leadoff hitter during an inning.
Three Orange and Blue players hit at least .400 with runners in scoring position. Zymkowitz is 18-for-28 to secure an outstanding .643 batting average with the opportunity to drive runners in. Hackett is the second-most successful Illini, sporting a .488 line with 20 hits in 41 at bats, while Ashley Conrad is third with eight base knocks in 20 at bats (.400). Wedel owns a .714 (10-for-14) average with a runner on third and less than two out to lead the Illini with Hackett in second with a .692 clip on nine hits in 13 at bats. Pinchback also has nine hits with a runner on third and less than two out, using 17 total at bats to do so for a .529 average.


text:
Tom Hayden: Why is the United States pursuing Assange as the conspiratorial mastermind of WikiLeaks, when his reputation, credibility and organization have been so damaged?
Progressive Media Advocates
By Tom Hayden
Treva Brandon Scharf: Confident people don't bash themselves; they don't let negative thinking and self-loathing screw up a good workout or undermine their progress.
Edward Wasserman: The larger question, to me, was less why she did what she did, but why everybody seemed to care so much, and why her case provoked so much anger.
Joe Mathews: But with immigration flatlining and the climate drying up, it may soon be.


text:
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text:
The lower dantian in taijiquan:
yin and yang rotate, while
the core reverts to stillness (wuji)
Yang Chengfu in a posture from
the Yang-style t'ai chi ch'uan solo form
known as Single Whip c. 1931
|Also known as
t'ai chi; taiji
|Forms competition,
Light contact (pushing hands, no strikes),
Full contact (strikes, kicks, throws, etc.)
|Country of origin
|Said to be Zhang Sanfeng
|Famous practitioners
|Chen Wangting,
Chen Changxing,
Chen Fake,
Yang Lu-ch'an,
Yang Chengfu,
Wu Ch'uan-yu,
Wu Chien-ch'uan,
Wu Yu-hsiang,
Sun Lu-t'ang,
Wang Pei-sheng
|Olympic sport
|Demonstration only
|T'ai chi ch'uan / Taijiquan
|Traditional Chinese
|Simplified Chinese
|Literal meaning
|supreme ultimate fist
|Simplified Chinese
|Literal meaning
|supreme ultimate palm
|Part of a series on
|Chinese martial arts (Wushu)
Styles of Chinese martial arts
|Wushu in the world
Historical locations
Chen Village (陳家溝)
|Wushu athletes/practitioners
Legendary figures
Bodhidharma (菩提達摩)
Historical individuals
Yue Fei (岳飛; 1103—1142)
Modern celebrities
Bruce Lee (李小龍 1940—1973)
|Wushu influence
Often shortened to t'ai chi, taiji or tai chi in English usage, T'ai chi ch'uan or tàijíquán is an internal Chinese martial art practiced for both its defense training and its health benefits. It is also typically practiced for a variety of other personal reasons: its hard and soft martial art technique, demonstration competitions, and longevity. As a result, a multitude of training forms exist, both traditional and modern, which correspond to those aims. Some training forms of t'ai chi ch'uan are especially known for being practiced with relatively slow movement.
Today, t'ai chi ch'uan has spread worldwide. Most modern styles of t'ai chi ch'uan trace their development to at least one of the five traditional schools: Chen, Yang, Wu (Hao), Wu, and Sun.
The term "t'ai chi ch'uan" translates as "supreme ultimate fist", "boundless fist", "supreme ultimate boxing" or "great extremes boxing". The chi in this instance is the Wade–Giles transliteration of the Pinyin jí, and is distinct from qì (ch'i, "life energy"). The concept of the taiji ("supreme ultimate"), in contrast with wuji ("without ultimate"), appears in both Taoist and Confucian Chinese philosophy, where it represents the fusion or mother[2] of Yin and Yang into a single ultimate, represented by the taijitu symbol . T'ai chi ch'uan theory and practice evolved in agreement with many Chinese philosophical principles, including those of Taoism and Confucianism.
T'ai chi ch'uan training involves five elements, taolu (solo hand and weapons routines/forms), neigong & qigong (breathing, movement and awareness exercises and meditation), tuishou (response drills) and sanshou (self defence techniques). While t'ai chi ch'uan is typified by some for its slow movements, many t'ai chi styles (including the three most popular – Yang, Wu, and Chen) – have secondary forms with faster pace. Some traditional schools of t'ai chi teach partner exercises known as tuishou ("pushing hands"), and martial applications of the taolu's (forms') postures.
In China, t'ai chi ch'uan is categorized under the Wudang grouping of Chinese martial arts[3] – that is, the arts applied with internal power.[4] Although the Wudang name falsely suggests these arts originated at the so-called Wudang Mountain, it is simply used to distinguish the skills, theories and applications of neijia ("internal arts") from those of the Shaolin grouping, waijia ("hard" or "external") martial art styles.[5]
Since the first widespread promotion of t'ai chi ch'uan's health benefits by Yang Shaohou, Yang Chengfu, Wu Chien-ch'uan, and Sun Lutang in the early 20th century,[6] it has developed a worldwide following among people with little or no interest in martial training, for its benefit to health and health maintenance.[7] Medical studies of t'ai chi support its effectiveness as an alternative exercise and a form of martial arts therapy.
It is purported that focusing the mind solely on the movements of the form helps to bring about a state of mental calm and clarity. Besides general health benefits and stress management attributed to t'ai chi ch'uan training, aspects of traditional Chinese medicine are taught to advanced t'ai chi ch'uan students in some traditional schools.[8]
Some other forms of martial arts require students to wear a uniform during practice. In general, t'ai chi ch'uan schools do not require a uniform, but both traditional and modern teachers often advocate loose, comfortable clothing and flat-soled shoes.[9][10]
The physical techniques of t'ai chi ch'uan are described in the "T'ai chi classics", a set of writings by traditional masters, as being characterized by the use of leverage through the joints based on coordination and relaxation, rather than muscular tension, in order to neutralize, yield, or initiate attacks. The slow, repetitive work involved in the process of learning how that leverage is generated gently and measurably increases, opens the internal circulation (breath, body heat, blood, lymph, peristalsis, etc.).
The study of t'ai chi ch'uan primarily involves three aspects:
T'ai chi ch'uan / Taijiquan is formed by the combination of three Chinese characters (hanzi):
|t'ai chi
|tài jí
|the source, the beginning
|fist, boxing
Despite having a single Chinese spelling, 太極拳, there are two different spellings in the English usage, one derived from the Wade–Giles and the other from the Pinyin transliteration, with the West mostly being familiar with the Wade–Giles, t'ai chi ch'uan. This name is often shortened by Westerners to "t'ai chi" (or "tai chi," a common misspelling). This shortened name is the same as that of t'ai chi philosophy, sometimes resulting in confusion between the two. The chi in the martial art's name can also be mistaken for ch'i (氣), especially as ch'i is involved in the practice of t'ai chi ch'uan. The 'up-to-date' Pinyin transliteration, tàijíquán, is not subject to such misinterpretation, as the spelling of the hanzi 極, jí is quite distinct from that of 氣, qi. "T'ai chi ch'uan" (including "t'ai chi" and their misspellings) remains the popular spelling used by the general public today. Many professional practitioners, masters, and martial arts bodies (such as the IWUF[13]) write it as taijiquan.
When tracing t'ai chi ch'uan's formative influences to Taoist and Buddhist monasteries, there seems little more to go on than legendary tales from a modern historical perspective, but t'ai chi ch'uan's practical connection to and dependence upon the theories of Sung dynasty Neo-Confucianism (a conscious synthesis of Taoist, Buddhist, and Confucian traditions, especially the teachings of Mencius) is claimed by some traditional schools.[5] T'ai chi ch'uan's theories and practice are believed by these schools to have been formulated by the Taoist monk Zhang Sanfeng in the 12th century, at about the same time that the principles of the Neo-Confucian school were making themselves felt in Chinese intellectual life.[5] However, modern research casts serious doubts on the validity of those claims, pointing out that a 17th-century piece called "Epitaph for Wang Zhengnan" (1669), composed by Huang Zongxi (1610–1695 A.D.), is the earliest reference indicating any connection between Zhang Sanfeng and martial arts whatsoever, and must not be taken literally but must be understood as a political metaphor instead. Claims of connections between t'ai chi ch'uan and Zhang Sanfeng appeared no earlier than the 19th century.[14]
History records that Yang Luchan trained with the Chen family for 18 years before he started to teach the art in Beijing, which strongly suggests that his art was based on, or heavily influenced by, the Chen family art. The Chen family are able to trace the development of their art back to Chen Wangting in the 17th century.
What is now known as "t'ai chi ch'uan" appears to have received this appellation from only around the mid-1800s.[14] There was a scholar in the Imperial Court by the name of Ong Tong He who witnessed a demonstration by Yang Luchan at a time before Yang had established his reputation as a teacher. Afterwards Ong wrote: "Hands holding Taiji shakes the whole world, a chest containing ultimate skill defeats a gathering of heroes." Before this time the art may have had a number of different names, and appears to have been generically described by outsiders as zhan quan (沾拳, "touch boxing"), mian quan (绵拳, "soft boxing") or shisan shi (十三式, "the thirteen techniques").
In modern usage, the term 太極,t'ai chi / taiji (unless further qualified as in "taiji philosophy" or "taiji diagram") is now commonly understood, both in the West and in mainland China, to refer to the martial art and exercise system. However, the term has its origins in Chinese philosophy. The word taiji translates to "great pole/goal" or "supreme ultimate", and is believed to be a pivotal, spiraling, or coiling force that transforms the neutrality of wuji to a state of polarity depicted by the taijitu.[15] T'ai chi / taiji is thus symbolically represented by a state between wuji and the polar "yin and yang", not by the actual yin and yang symbol, as is frequently misinterpreted.[1] The combination of the term taiji and quan ("fist"), produces the martial art's name taijiquan or "taiji fist", showing the close link and use of the taiji concept in the martial art. Taijiquan does not directly refer to the use of qi as is commonly assumed.[16] The practice of taijiquan is meant to be in harmony with taiji philosophy,[17] utilising and manipulating qi via taiji, to produce great effect with minimal effort.
The appropriateness of this more recent appellation is seen in the oldest literature preserved by these schools where the art is said to be a study of yin (receptive) and yang (active) principles, using terminology found in the Chinese classics, especially the I Ching and the Tao Te Ching.[5]
There are five major styles of t'ai chi ch'uan, each named after the Chinese family from which it originated:
The order of verifiable age is as listed above. The order of popularity (in terms of number of practitioners) is Yang, Wu, Chen, Sun, and Wu/Hao.[5] The major family styles share much underlying theory, but differ in their approaches to training.
There are now dozens of new styles, hybrid styles, and offshoots of the main styles, but the five family schools are the groups recognized by the international community as being the orthodox styles. Other important styles are Zhaobao t'ai chi ch'uan, a close cousin of Chen-style, which has been newly recognized by Western practitioners as a distinct style, the Fu style, created by Fu Chen Sung, which evolved from Chen, Sun and Yang styles, and also incorporates movements from Baguazhang (Pa Kua Chang)[citation needed] and the Cheng-style (鄭氏) of Cheng Man Ch'ing which is a simplification of the traditional Yang style.
The differences between the different styles range from varying speeds to the way in which the movements are performed. For example, the form "Parting the wild horse's mane" in Yang-style does not at all resemble the very same movement in Sun-style. Also, the Sun 73 forms take as long to perform as the Yang 24 forms[citation needed].
All existing styles can be traced back to the Chen-style, which had been passed down as a family secret for generations. The Chen family chronicles record Chen Wangting, of the family's 9th generation, as the inventor of what is known today as t'ai chi ch'uan. Yang Luchan became the first person outside the family to learn t'ai chi ch'uan. His success in fighting earned him the nickname Yang Wudi, which means "Unbeatable Yang", and his fame and efforts in teaching greatly contributed to the subsequent spreading of t'ai chi ch'uan knowledge.
Choy Hok Pang, a disciple of Yang Chengfu, was the first known proponent of t'ai chi ch'uan to openly teach in the United States in 1939. Subsequently, his son and student Choy Kam Man emigrated to San Francisco from Hong Kong in 1949 to teach t'ai chi ch'uan in San Francisco's Chinatown. Choy Kam Man taught until he died in 1994.[18][19]
Sophia Delza, a professional dancer and student of Ma Yueliang, performed the first known public demonstration of t'ai chi ch'uan in the United States at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City in 1954. She also wrote the first English language book on t'ai chi, T'ai Chi Ch'uan: Body and Mind in Harmony, in 1961. She taught regular classes at Carnegie Hall, the Actors Studio, and the United Nations.[20][21]
Another early practitioner of t'ai chi ch'uan to openly teach in the United States was Zheng Manqing, who opened his school Shr Jung T'ai Chi after he moved to New York from Taiwan in year 1964. Unlike the older generation of t'ai chi practitioners, Zheng was highly cultured and educated, and thus he was able to transcribe Yang's dictation into a written manuscript that became the de facto manual for Yang style t'ai chi. Zheng felt Yang's traditional 108-movement Long Form was unnecessarily long and repetitive, which makes it difficult for learn and make progress. He thus created a shortened 37-movement version and taught that in his schools. Zheng's form became very popular and was the dominant form in the New York-Philadelphia-Washington DC corridor until other teachers started to emigrate to the United States in larger numbers in the 90's. He taught until his death in 1975.[22]
|Solid lines
|Direct teacher-student.
Zhang Sanfeng*
c. 12th century
|Dashed lines
|Individual(s) omitted.
|Various Daoists
|Legendary figures
|Dotted lines
|Partial influence
/taught informally
/limited time.
Wang Zongyue*
|Dashed cross
|Branch continues.
Chen Wangting
Jiang Fa
Chen Ruxin
2nd gen. Chen
Chen Suole
2nd gen. Chen
Xing Xihuai
2nd gen. Zhaobao
Chen Dakun
3rd gen. Chen
Chen Dapeng
3rd gen. Chen
Chen Guangyin
3rd gen. Chen
Chen Shenru
3rd gen. Chen
Chen Xunru
3rd gen. Chen
Chen Zhengru
3rd gen. Chen
Zhang Chuchen
3rd gen. Zhaobao
Chen Shantong
4th gen. Chen
Chen Shanzhi
4th gen. Chen
Chen Jixia
4th gen. Chen
Chen Jie
4th gen. Chen
Chen Jingbo
4th gen. Chen
4th gen. Zhaobao
Chen Bingqi
5th gen. Chen
Chen Bingren
5th gen. Chen
Chen Bingwang
5th gen. Chen
Chen Gongzhao
1715– after1795
5th gen. Chen
Zhang Zongyu
5th gen. Zhaobao
Chen Changxing
6th gen. Chen
Chen Old Frame
Chen Youben
c. 19th century
6th gen. Chen
Chen Small Frame
Zhang Yan
6th gen. Zhaobao
Chen Gengyun
7th gen. Chen
Yang Luchan
Guang Ping Yang
Yangjia Michuan
Chen Qingping
7th gen. Chen
7th gen. Zhaobao
Chen Yanxi
8th gen. Chen
Wang Lanting
2nd gen. Yang
Yang Jianhou
2nd gen. Yang
2nd gen. Yangjia Michuan
Yang Banhou
2nd gen. Yang
2nd gen.
Guang Ping Yang
Yang Small Frame
Wu Yuxiang
He Zhaoyuan
8th gen. Zhaobao
Zhaobao He-style
Chen Fake
9th gen. Chen
Chen New Frame
Li Ruidong
Yang Chengfu
3rd gen. Yang
Yang Big Frame
Yang Shaohou
3rd gen. Yang
Yang Small Frame
Wu Quanyou
1st gen. Wu
Wang Jiaoyu
3rd gen.
Guang Ping Yang
Li Yiyu
2nd gen. Wu (Hao)
He Qingxi
9th gen. Zhaobao
Chen Zhaopi
10th gen. Chen
focused on
Chen Old Frame
Chen Zhaokui
10th gen. Chen
focused on
Chen New Frame
Zhang Qinlin
3rd gen. Yangjia Michuan
Yang Zhenduo
b. 1926
4th gen. Yang
Fu Zhongwen
4th gen. Yang
Beijing (24) form
Zheng Manqing
4th gen. Yang
Short (37) Form
Wu Jianquan
2nd gen. Wu
108 Form
|Kuo Lien Ying
4th gen.
Guang Ping Yang
Hao Weizhen
3rd gen. Wu (Hao)
Zheng Wuqing
10th gen. Zhaobao
Wu Gongyi
3rd gen. Wu
Sun Lutang
Hao Yueru
4th gen. Wu (Hao)
Wang Yannian
5th gen. Yang
4th gen. Yangjia Michuan
Zheng Tianxiong
Wu Yanxia
4th gen. Wu
Sun Jianyun
2nd gen. Sun
Hao Shaoru
5th gen. Wu (Hao)
Chen Xiaowang
b. 1945
11th gen. Chen
Chen Xiaoxing
b. 1952
11th gen. Chen
Yang Jun
b. 1968
5th gen. Yang
Wu Guangyu
b. 1946
5th gen. Wu
Sun Yongtian
b. ?
3rd gen. Sun
Liu Jishun
b. 1930
6th gen. Wu (Hao)
The Cheng Man-ch'ing (Zheng Manqing) and Chinese Sports Commission short forms are derived from Yang family forms, but neither is recognized as Yang family t'ai chi ch'uan by standard-bearing Yang family teachers. The Chen, Yang, and Wu families are now promoting their own shortened demonstration forms for competitive purposes.
Yang Chengfu
3rd gen. Yang
Yang Big Frame
Zheng Manqing
4th gen. Yang
Short (37) Form
|Chinese Sports Commission
Beijing (24) Form
42 Competition Form
(Wushu competition form
combined from
Chen, Yang, Wu & Sun styles)
In the last twenty years or so, t'ai chi ch'uan classes that purely emphasise health have become popular in hospitals, clinics, as well as community and senior centres. This has occurred as the baby boomers generation has aged and the art's reputation as a low-stress training method for seniors has become better known.[23][24]
As a result of this popularity, there has been some divergence between those that say they practice t'ai chi ch'uan primarily for self-defence, those that practice it for its aesthetic appeal (see wushu below), and those that are more interested in its benefits to physical and mental health. The wushu aspect is primarily for show; the forms taught for those purposes are designed to earn points in competition and are mostly unconcerned with either health maintenance or martial ability. More traditional stylists believe the two aspects of health and martial arts are equally necessary: the yin and yang of t'ai chi ch'uan. The t'ai chi ch'uan "family" schools, therefore, still present their teachings in a martial art context, whatever the intention of their students in studying the art.[25]
In order to standardize t'ai chi ch'uan for wushu tournament judging, and because many t'ai chi ch'uan teachers have either moved out of China or had been forced to stop teaching after the Communist regime was established in 1949, the government sponsored the Chinese Sports Committee, who brought together four of their wushu teachers to truncate the Yang family hand form to 24 postures in 1956. They wanted to retain the look of t'ai chi ch'uan, but create a routine that would be less difficult to teach and much less difficult to learn than longer (in general, 88 to 108 posture), classical, solo hand forms. In 1976, they developed a slightly longer form also for the purposes of demonstration that still would not involve the complete memory, balance, and coordination requirements of the traditional forms. This became the Combined 48 Forms that were created by three wushu coaches, headed by Men Hui Feng. The combined forms were created based on simplifying and combining some features of the classical forms from four of the original styles: Chen, Yang, Wu, and Sun. As t'ai chi ch'uan again became popular on the mainland, more competitive forms were developed to be completed within a six-minute time limit. In the late-1980s, the Chinese Sports Committee standardized many different competition forms. They developed sets to represent the four major styles as well as combined forms. These five sets of forms were created by different teams, and later approved by a committee of wushu coaches in China. All sets of forms thus created were named after their style, e.g., the "Chen-style national competition form" is the 56 Forms, and so on. The combined forms are The 42-Form or simply the Competition Form. Another modern form is the "97 movements combined t'ai chi ch'uan form", created in the 1950s; it contains characteristics of the Yang, Wu, Sun, Chen, and Fu styles blended into a combined form. The wushu coach Bow Sim Mark is a notable exponent of the "67 combined form".
These modern versions of t'ai chi ch'uan (often listed as the pinyin romanization "taijiquan" among practitioners, teachers and masters) have since become an integral part of international wushu tournament competition, and have been featured in popular movies, starring or choreographed by well-known wushu competitors, such as Jet Li and Donnie Yen.
In the 11th Asian Games of 1990, wushu was included as an item for competition for the first time with the 42-Form being chosen to represent t'ai chi ch'uan. The International Wushu Federation (IWUF) applied for wushu to be part of the Olympic games, but will not count medals.[26]
Practitioners also test their practical martial skills against students from other schools and martial arts styles in tuishou ("pushing hands") and sanshou competition.
The philosophy of t'ai chi ch'uan is that, if one uses hardness to resist violent force, then both sides are certainly to be injured at least to some degree. Such injury, according to t'ai chi ch'uan theory, is a natural consequence of meeting brute force with brute force. Instead, students are taught not to directly fight or resist an incoming force, but to meet it in softness and follow its motion while remaining in physical contact until the incoming force of attack exhausts itself or can be safely redirected, meeting yang with yin. When done correctly, this yin/yang or yang/yin balance in combat, or in a broader philosophical sense, is a primary goal of t'ai chi ch'uan training. Lao Tzu provided the archetype for this in the Tao Te Ching when he wrote, "The soft and the pliable will defeat the hard and strong."
Traditional schools also emphasize that one is expected to show wude ("martial virtue/heroism"), to protect the defenseless, and show mercy to one's opponents.[6]
Martial arts may be divided into those that rely primarily on strength, flexibility, and speed ('external' martial arts), and those that emphasize mastery of the subtle relationships between mind and body ('internal' martial arts). Among the 'external' arts (referred to in Chinese as 'wai jia quan') are tae kwon do, karate, Western boxing and wrestling, and Chinese 'kung fu' fighting styles such as Shaolin Long Fist, Hung Gar, Wing Chun etc, as well as modern exhibition 'wushu'. Among the 'internal' martial arts ('nei jia quan' in Chinese), Tai Chi is probably the best known and most representative. Other Chinese 'internal' martial arts include Pa Kua and Hsing I. The Japanese art of Aikido is also regarded by most of its practitioners as an internal martial art.
Characteristic of internal martial arts are:
While most practitioners of the 'internal' martial arts do not practice to a level that would be effective in actual combat, the abilities of those that do are often much respected by the external martial arts community. For example, Masutatsu Oyama, founder of the Kyokushinkai school and one of the most famous 'hard men' of Karate, stated in his book 'What is Karate' that he had met many Chinese masters of the internal art of Tai Chi whose abilities far surpassed his own.
The core training involves two primary features: the first being taolu (solo "forms"), a slow sequence of movements which emphasize a straight spine, abdominal breathing and a natural range of motion; the second being different styles of tuishou ("pushing hands") for training movement principles of the form with a partner and in a more practical manner.
The taolu (solo "forms") should take the students through a complete, natural range of motion over their centre of gravity. Accurate, repeated practice of the solo routine is said to retrain posture, encourage circulation throughout the students' bodies, maintain flexibility through their joints, and further familiarize students with the martial application sequences implied by the various forms. The major traditional styles of t'ai chi have forms that differ somewhat in terms of aesthetics, but there are also many obvious similarities that point to their common origin. The solo forms – empty-hand and weapon – are catalogues of movements that are practised individually in pushing hands and martial application scenarios to prepare students for self-defence training. In most traditional schools, different variations of the solo forms can be practised: fast/slow, small-circle / large-circle, square/round (which are different expressions of leverage through the joints), low-sitting / high-sitting (the degree to which weight-bearing knees are kept bent throughout the form), for example.
Breathing exercises; neigong ("internal skill") or, more commonly, qigong ("life energy cultivation") are practiced to develop qi ("life energy") in coordination with physical movement and zhan zhuang ("standing like a post") or combinations of the two. These were formerly taught only to disciples as a separate, complementary training system. In the last 60 years they have become better known to the general public.
Qigong involves coordinated movement, breath, and awareness used for health, meditation, and martial arts training. While many scholars and practitioners consider t'ai chi ch'uan to be a type of qigong,[27][28] the two are commonly distinguished as separate but closely related practices, with qigong playing an important role in training for t'ai chi ch'uan, and with many ta'i chi ch'uan movements performed as part of qigong practice. The focus of qigong is typically more on health or meditation than martial applications.
T'ai chi ch'uan's martial aspect relies on sensitivity to the opponent's movements and centre of gravity dictating appropriate responses. Effectively affecting or "capturing" the opponent's centre of gravity immediately upon contact, is trained as the primary goal of the martial t'ai chi ch'uan student.[8] The sensitivity needed to capture the centre is acquired over thousands of hours of first yin (slow, repetitive, meditative, low-impact) and then later adding yang ("realistic," active, fast, high-impact) martial training through taolu ("forms"), tuishou ("pushing hands"), and sanshou ("sparring"). T'ai chi ch'uan trains in three basic ranges: close, medium and long, and then everything in between. Pushes and open-hand strikes are more common than punches, and kicks are usually to the legs and lower torso, never higher than the hip, depending on style. The fingers, fists, palms, sides of the hands, wrists, forearms, elbows, shoulders, back, hips, knees, and feet are commonly used to strike, with strikes to the eyes, throat, heart, groin, and other acupressure points trained by advanced students. Chin na, which are joint traps, locks, and breaks are also used. Most t'ai chi ch'uan teachers expect their students to thoroughly learn defensive or neutralizing skills first, and a student will have to demonstrate proficiency with them before offensive skills will be extensively trained.
In addition to the physical form, martial t'ai chi ch'uan schools also focus on how the energy of a strike affects the other person. A palm strike that looks to have the same movement may be performed in such a way that it has a completely different effect on the target's body. A palm strike that could simply push the opponent backward, could instead be focused in such a way as to lift the opponent vertically off the ground, breaking his/her centre of gravity; or that it could terminate the force of the strike within the other person's body with the intent of causing internal damage.
Most aspects of a trainee's t'ai chi ch'uan development are meant to be covered within the partnered practice of tuishou, and so, sanshou ("sparring") is not as commonly used as a method of training, but more advanced students sometimes do practice by sanshou. Sanshou is more common to tournaments such as wushu tournaments.
Variations of t'ai chi ch'uan involving weapons also exist such as taijijian. The weapons training and fencing applications employ:
More exotic weapons still used by some traditional styles include:
A 2011 overview of existing research on t'ai chi ch'uan's health effects found evidence of medical benefit for preventing falls, mental health, and general health in elderly people. There wasn't conclusive evidence for any of the other conditions researched, including Parkinson's disease, diabetes, cancer and arthritis.[29]
The practice of t'ai chi ch'uan is encouraged by the National Parkinson Foundation and Diabetes Australia.
In practice traditionally there is no specific uniform required in the practice of t'ai chi ch'uan. Modern day practitioners usually wear comfortable, loose T-shirts and trousers made from breathable natural fabrics, that allow for free movement during practice. Despite this, t'ai chi ch'uan has become synonymous with "t'ai chi uniforms" or "kung fu uniforms" that usually consist of loose-fitting traditional Chinese styled trousers and a long or short-sleeved shirt, with a Mandarin collar and buttoned with Chinese frog buttons. The long-sleeved variants are referred to as Northern-style uniforms, whilst the short-sleeved, Southern-style uniforms. The colour of this clothing is usually, all white, all black, black & white, or any other colour, mostly being either all a single solid colour or a combination of 2 colours: one colour being the actual clothing and the binding being a contrasting colour. They are normally made from natural fabrics such as cotton or silk. These uniforms are not a requirement, but rather are usually worn by masters & professional practitioners during demonstrations, tournaments and other public exhibitions.
There is no standardized t'ai chi ch'uan ranking system, and not all schools use belt rankings. Some schools may present students with belts depicting rank, similar to dans in Japanese martial arts. A simple uniform element of respect and allegiance to one's teacher and their methods and community, belts also mark hierarchy, skill, and accomplishment of practice in one school's style and system. During wushu tournaments, masters and grandmasters often wear "kung fu uniforms" which tend to have no belts. Wearing a belt signifying rank in such a situation would be unusual.
T'ai chi ch'uan plays an important role in many martial arts and fighting action movies, series, novels, especially in those ones which belong to the wuxia genre, as well as in video games, trading cards games, etc. Fictional portrayals often refer to Zhang San Feng, who is reported to be the first one harnessing and operationalising the benefits of the 'internal' and the 'soft', and to the Taoist monasteries of Wudang Mountains, where he lived.
|Wikimedia Commons has media related to Tai Chi Chuan.
|Look up tai chi chuan in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.
|Wikiquote has quotations related to: Tai chi chuan


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Highway Interchange Land Use Comparison
Below is the letter I wrote to my state senator about land use for highway interchanges in the Chicago area:
Dear Senator Collins:
As one of your constituents and a practicing civil engineer, I would like to bring to your attention a gigantic source of waste in our roadway construction industry: the amount of land consumed for roadway projects.
The enclosed "Land Consumption Comparison" exhibit shows two highway interchanges in the Chicagoland area and how much land each interchange consumes. The recently constructed southwest suburban interchange between I-355 and I-55 resides on approximately 137 acres more than the downtown Circle Interchange between I-290 and I-90/94.
For the 55/355 interchange, 137 acres has been needlessly taken by the public. The land will not be taxed and will require public maintenance in perpetuity. These 137 acres of land could have been kept as private land, put on the tax rolls, and generated property tax instead.
The benefit used to justify this extreme waste of land is that motorists can make any turn between highways without the need to slow the vehicle to make the maneuver. Civil Engineers design these interchanges based on manuals and guidelines that prioritize maximizing speeds and reducing delays above all else.
While these objectives are very worthy, I believe they need to be balanced by common sense imposed by politicians who understand that the value of increased speed at highway interchanges may not be as great to the public as the value of the tax dollars received by privatizing the land. Despite the fact that a motorist must slow down to navigate the downtown Chicago Circle Interchange, the Circle Interchange represents a responsible balance of traffic speeds and land use. It is clear that the only consideration for the 55/355 interchange was traffic speed, with land use being dismissed entirely. While it's true that motorists traveling 70mph on I-55 can make a left turn onto I-355 without the need to slow down, this value to motorists imposes a cost to taxpayers.
Commercial real estate near the intersection of I-355 and I-55 has changed hands for $130k per acre (a low estimate). The 137 acres of real estate needlessly used for the interchange has a market value of approximately $17.5M (again, a low estimate) even in a depressed economy. Of course, that $17.5M is only the upfront cost of the land, and does not represent the sales and property tax that would be generated from the land every year.
The objective of large scale public land use planning should be to minimize the amount of "money absorbing" public land, thereby minimizing the burden on taxpayers to fund it with their "money generating" private land.
I believe that this form of government waste is not widely recognized by politicians or the public. Bureaucrats at IDOT and ISTHA, as well as County and Municipal engineers and planners consistently grab excessive land from private land owners in the name of improvements. This is land that they simply do not need.
I hope that you view this wasteful use of land the same as I do. I would be happy to discuss this subject further with you in hopes that we can save Illinois taxpayers the burden of constructing more wasteful intersections in the future.
Robert J. Bielaski, P.E.
P.S. For the purposes of focusing on land use, I have avoided bringing up the additional construction costs in building, maintaining, and replacing oversized interchanges (the ramp from westbound I-55 to southbound I-355 is a full 1.5 miles long!). These costs will forever loom over the state as the interchange deteriorates and needs repair and replacement.
In case my comparison of the 55/355 interchange to the downtown Circle interchange is called into question, I have also included an exhibit showing the 55/355 interchange land use compared to I290/Route 53 interchange in Schaumburg that is a comparable distance from downtown. The 55/355 interchange uses twice as much land as the 290/53 intersection.
I have also included an exhibit showing the size of the 55/355 intersection compared to the nearby Promenade Bolingbrook mall.
A thoughtful post and
A thoughtful post and well-articulated plan. You may be interested in this previous post on how "Roads aren't the problem. It's hidden cost and design."
Write your comments in the box below and share on your Facebook!


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Charles Maurras (20 April 1868 Martigues Bouches-du-Rhône France – 16 November 1952) was a French author, poet, and critic. He was a leader and principal thinker of the reactionary Action Française, a political movement that was monarchist, anti-parliamentarist, and counter-revolutionary, and is the main intellectual influence of National Catholicism and integral nationalism. This writer and political theorist, a major intellectual influence in early 20th-century Europe whose "integral nationalism" anticipated some of the ideas of fascism.
However, some time in his youth, Maurras lost his faith and became an agnostic over time. At the age of seventeen he came to Paris and started literary criticism in 1887 in the Catholic and Orleanist Observateur. At this time, Maurras was influenced by Orleanism, as well as German philosophy reviewed by Léon Ollé-Laprune, an influence of Bergson, or by the philosopher Maurice Blondel, one of the inspirations of Christian "modernists" who would later become his most bitter opponents . He came to know the Provençal poet Frédéric Mistral in 1888 and shared the federalist thesis of Mistral's Félibrige movement. The same year he met the nationalist writer Maurice Barrès.
In 1890, Maurras approved Cardinal Lavigerie's call for the Rallying of Catholics to the Republic, marking his opposition not to the Republic in itself but to "sectarian Republicanism."
Beside this Orleanist affiliation, Maurras shared some traits with Bonapartism. In December 1887, he demonstrated to the cry of "Down with the robbers!" during the decorations scandal which had involved Daniel Wilson, the son-in-law of the President Jules Grévy. Despite this, he opposed at first the Boulangist movement. But in 1889, after a visit to Maurice Barrès, Barrès voted for the Boulangist candidate ; despite his "anti-semitism of the heart" ("anti-sémitisme de coeur"), he decided to vote for a Jew.
In 1894-95 he briefly worked in Barrès' La Cocarde (The Cockade)'s newspaper, although he sometimes opposed Barrès on his views on the French Revolution. La Cocarde supported General Boulanger who almost toppled the Republic in the late 1880s.
During a trip to Athens for the First Olympic Games in 1896, he came to criticize the Greek democratic system of the polis, which he considered doomed because of its internal divisions and its openness towards métèques (foreigners).
He became involved in politics at the time of the Dreyfus affair, appearing at the forefront of the Anti-Dreyfusard side. He supported Colonel Henry's forgery blaming Dreyfus, as he considered that defending Dreyfus weakened the Army and the Justice system. According to Maurras, Dreyfus was to be sacrificed on the altar of national interest. But when the Republican nationalist thinker Barrès accused Dreyfus of being guilty because of his Jewishness, Maurras went a step further, vilifying the "Jewish Republic". While Barrès' anti-Semitism found its roots both in the pseudo-scientific racist contemporary theories and on Biblical exegesis, Maurras decried "scientific racism" in favor of a more radical "state anti-Semitism."
In 1899 he founded the Action Française (AF) review, an offshoot of the newspaper created by Maurice Pujo and Henri Vaugeois the preceding year. Maurras quickly became influential in the movement, and converted Pujo and Vaugeois to monarchism, which became the movement's principal cause. With Léon Daudet he edited the movement's review La Revue de l'Action française, which in 1908 became a daily newspaper under the shorter title L'Action française. The AF mixed integral nationalism with reactionary themes, shifting the nationalist ideology, beforehand supported by left-wing Republicans, to the right-side of the political field. It found a wide readership during the implementation of the 1905 law on the separation of Church and State. In 1899 he wrote a short notice in favour of monarchy, "Dictateur et roi" ("Dictator and King"), and then in 1900 his "Enquête sur la monarchie" (Investigations on Monarchy), published in the Legitimist mouthpiece La Gazette de France, which made him famous. Maurras also published thirteen articles in Le Figaro in 1901 and 1902, as well as six articles between November 1902 and January 1903 in Edouard Drumont's anti-Semitic newspaper, La Libre Parole.
Between 1905 and 1908, when the Camelots du Roy monarchist league was founded, Maurras introduced the concept of political activism through extra-parliamentary leagues, theorizing the possibility of a coup d'état. Maurras also founded the Ligue d'Action française in 1905, whose mission was to recruit members for the Action française, with the aim of establishing the duc de Guise on the throne.
In 1925 he called for the murder of Abraham Schrameck, the Interior Minister of Paul Painlevé's Cartel des Gauches's (Left-Wing Cartel) government, who had ordered the disarming of the Far right leagues. For this death threat, he was sentenced to a year on parole. He also threatened to death the President of the Council Léon Blum, leader of the Popular Front, in the Action française of 15 May 1936, underscoring his Jewish origins (he once called him an "old semitic camel".) This other death threat owed him eight months of prison, from 29 October 1936 to 6 July 1937. Fearing Communism, he joined the pacifists' camp and praised the Munich Agreement in 1938, which the President of the Council Edouard Daladier had signed without any illusions. He also wrote in Action française:
\"There are certain conservatives in France who fill us with disgust. Why? Because of their stupidity. What kind of stupidity? Hitlerism. These French \"conservatives\" crawl on their bellies before Hitler. These former nationalists cringe before him. A few zealots wallow in dirt, in their own dirt, with endless Heils. The wealthier they are, the more they own, the more important it is to make them understand that if Hitler invaded us he would skin them much more thoroughly than Blum, Thorez and Stalin combined. This \"conservative\" error is suicidal. We must appeal to our friends not to let themselves be befogged. We must tell them: Be on your guard! What is now at stake is not anti-democracy or anti-Semitism. France above all!
During 1930s — especially after the 6 February 1934 crisis—many of Action française members turned to fascism, such as Robert Brasillach, Lucien Rebatet, Abel Bonnard, Paul Chack, Claude Jeantet, etc. Most of them belonged to the staff of the fascist newspaper Je suis partout.
Influencing António de Oliveira Salazar's Estado Novo regime in Portugal, Maurras also supported Francisco Franco and, until spring 1939, Benito Mussolini's Fascist regime. Opposing Adolf Hitler because of his germanophobia, Maurras himself criticized the racist policies of Nazism in 1936, and requested an integral translation of Mein Kampf — some of its passages had been censored in the French edition.
After his failure against Charles Jonnart in 1924 to be elected to the French Academy, he succeeded in entering the ranks of the \"Immortals\" on 9 June 1938, replacing Henri-Robert, winning by 20 votes against 12 to Fernand Gregh. He was received in the Academy on 8 June 1939 by Henry Bordeaux.
An admirer (before the war) of Charles de Gaulle, who himself had been influenced by Maurras' integralism, he then harshly criticized the General in exile. He later claimed he believed that Pétain was playing a \"double game\", working for an Allied victory in secret.
Maurras was arrested in September 1944 with Maurice Pujo, and indicted by High Court of Lyon for \"complicity with the enemy\" on the basis of articles published by Maurras since the war. At the issue of the trial, during which there were many irregularities in the proceedings (such as false dating or truncated quotations), Maurras was sentenced to life imprisonment, deprivation of civil liberties. He was automatically expelled from the Académie française (a measure included in the 26 December 1944 ordinance). His response to his conviction was to exclaim \"C'est la revanche de Dreyfus!\" (It's Dreyfus's revenge!) Meanwhile, the Académie française declared his seat vacant instead of expelling him, as it had done for Pétain, sparing him the fate of Abel Hermant and Abel Bonnard. They waited until his death to elect his successor, Antoine de Lévis-Mirepoix, who was himself close to the Action française and collaborated with Pierre Boutang's La Nation française monarchist review.
Imprisoned in Riom and then Clairvaux, Maurras was released in March 1952 to enter a hospital, assisted by the writer Henry Bordeaux, who repeatedly asked the President of the Council Vincent Auriol to pardon Maurras. He was transferred to a clinic in Tours, where he soon died. Although weakened, he collaborated with Aspects de la France, which had replaced in 1947 the outlawed Action française review. In his last days, he returned to the Catholic faith of his childhood.
See the main article : Félibrige.
Like many people in Europe at the time, he was haunted by the idea of \"decadence,\" partly inspired by his reading of Taine and Renan, and admired classicism. He felt that France had lost its grandeur during the Revolution of 1789, a grandeur inherited from its origins as a province of the Roman Empire and forged by, as he put it, \"forty kings who in a thousand years made France.\" The French Revolution, he wrote in the Observateur français, was negative and destructive.
He traced this decline further back, to the Enlightenment and the Reformation; he described the source of the evil as \"Swiss ideas,\" a reference to the adopted nation of Calvin and the birth nation of Rousseau. Maurras further blamed France's decline on \"Anti-France\", which he defined as the \"four confederate states of Protestants, Jews, Freemasons and foreigners\" (his actual word for the latter being the xenophobic term of métèques). Indeed, to him the first three were all \"internal foreigners.\"
Antisemitism and anti-Protestantism were common themes in his writings. He believed that the Reformation, the Enlightenment, and the eventual outcome of the French Revolution had all contributed to individuals putting themselves before the nation, with consequent negative effects on the latter, and that democracy and liberalism were only making matters worse.
Although Maurras advocated the return of monarchy, in many ways Maurras did not fit into the French monarchist tradition at all. His support for the monarchy and for Catholicism was explicitly pragmatic, as he felt that a state religion was the only way of maintaining public order. By contrast with Maurice Barrès, theorist of a kind of Romantic nationalism based on the Ego, Maurras claimed to base his views on Reason rather than on sentiment, loyalty and faith.
Paradoxically, he admired the positivist philosopher Auguste Comte, like many of the Third Republic leaders he detested, in which he found a counter-balance to German idealism. Whereas the Legitimist monarchists declined to engage in political action, retreating into an intransigently conservative Catholicism and an indifference to a modern world they saw as irredeemably wicked and apostate, Maurras was prepared to engage in political action, both orthodox and unorthodox (the Action Française's Camelots du Roi league frequently engaged in street violence with left-wing opponents, as well as Marc Sangnier's Sillon). His slogan was the phrase \"La politique d'abord!\" (\"Politics first!\"). Others influences included Frédéric Le Play, English empiricists, whom allowed him to reconcile Cartesian rationalism with empiricism, and La Tour du Pin.
Maurras' religious views were likewise less than orthodox. He supported the political Catholic Church both because it was intimately bound up with French history and because its hierarchical structure and clerical elite mirrored his image of an ideal society. He considered the Church to be the mortar which held France together, and the chain linking all Frenchmen together. However, he distrusted the Gospels, written, as he put it, \"by four obscure Jews\", but admired the Catholic Church for having allegedly concealed much of the Bible's \"dangerous teachings.\" Maurras' interpretation of the Gospels, as well as his integralist teachings, were fiercely criticised by many Catholic clergy.
Notwithstanding his religious unorthodoxy, Maurras gained a large following among French monarchists and Catholics, including the Assumptionists and the Orleanist pretender to the French throne, the count of Paris. Nonetheless, his agnosticism worried parts of the Catholic hierarchy and in 1926, Pope Pius XI placed some of Maurras's writings on the Index of Forbidden Books and condemned the Action Française movement as a whole. Seven of Maurras' books has already been placed on this list in 1914 and a dossier on Maurras had been submitted to Pius X. However unlike Pius XI, he took no action on this dossier. It should be noted that it was not just his agnosticicm which worried the Catholic hierarchy but by insisting upon politiques d'abord he questioned the primacy of the spiritual and thus the teaching authority of the Church and the authority of the Pope himself. That this was the heart of the matter is shown by Jacques Maritain's book Primaute du Spirituel. Maritain was associated with L'Action Française and knew Maurras. While his unease with the movement pre-dates the 1926 crisis, it was this which occasioned his split from Maurras and L'Action Française. This papal condemnation was a great shock to many of his followers, who included a not inconsiderable number of French clergy, and caused great damage to the Action française. It was lifted however in 1939, a year after that Maurras was elected to the Académie française.
Maurras was evidently a leading exponent of what Allan Bloom called (in his The Closing of the American Mind) the \"conservatism of Throne and Altar\", and an intellectual descendant of Joseph de Maistre, one of the prime thinkers of the Counter-Revolution.
The Christian Democrat Jacques Maritain was also close to Maurras before the papal condemnation of the AF in 1927, and criticized democracy in one of his early writing, Une opinion sur Charles Maurras ou le devoir des catholiques.


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In a phone conference today Apple CFO Peter Oppenheimer announced that OSX Lion, the latest update to Apple,s operating system, would be released tomorrow, July 20th. Lion will be available as a direct download through the Mac App Store.
This release date was highly anticipated as 3rd party retailers recently received promotional material and Apple retail stores were provided with master copies of the software for in-store updates.