During a conversation i was having with a fellow yiquan, tai chi classmate we talked about our motivations and inspirations for our practice.
And about the aspects of martial arts training relative to tai chi, yiquan, qigong training / practice.
One aspects & perspective which we apparently shared was that we both had prior training in more directly martial arts. Myself, i started with learning from two friends who were naturally talented and street fighters in a sense. The first supposedly taught me basics of ninjitsu. Though i question the authenticity of that specific authenticity claim now, the physical and basic meditational aspects were a valuable catalyst in my training. After starting to learn from this person tim), about 7 months later i moved to another state temporarily ( a little over 6 months).
During which time i continued practicing on my own diligently, and creatively expounding on it. Lots and lots of basic physical practice, combined with meditating and my young body responded quite nicely.
Here in met bruce gomes, who was self taught. What he offered was one example of the power of mind and intention over technique. He had a definite presence and natural ability that he used to use sometimes against bullies with formal martial arts training and drug dealers that used their kids to sell drugs.
Long story shorter, after moving back to oregon i continued my own training which was largely foundational horse stance training, various kicking techniques, stealth walking, etc and meditation. Then in 89 while still in high school in Oregon, i met my first formal teacher David Leung, and began training in Tai Chi, qigong and Wing Chun with him. For about two or three years i practiced wing chun in class and on my own, in addition to tai chi, qigong, basic yiquan and a little bagua zhang.
With the nature of wing chun, in these classes there was always lots and lots of partner practice. Chi sao / sticky hands and other drills. Tai chi classes on the other hand were usually just individual practice / cultivation oriented.
Then gradually i found myself less interested in wing chun, and concentrated soley on the neigong arts. Which has remained my primary and pretty much only focus in these related arts to this day.
After training with my teacher for a few years in oregon, i continued to practice mostly on my own, occasionally going back to study at his school for short periods of time. But primarily doing standing meditation and drilling one or a few series of tai chi, bagua or yiquan movements over and over very slowly. Which for myself has been and continues to be the most enriching, enjoyable process of practicing.
For the past few years ive been practicing with a different teacher, fong ha, in the bay area. This teacher is truly a wonderful, insightful, experienced neigong artist and teacher. With a wonderful focus on the internal, meditative aspects of standing training, yiquan, wuji qigong and tai chi.

Back to the beginning of this post - why do i train myself? Though i do not do much specific partner fighting practices anymore, what i do is fulfilling. And one of the motivations for stopping the more overt martial trainings was simply the quality of how i felt from it in my body. I simply loved the subtler, fluid, healthier feeling quality cultivated directly through standing meditation, yiquan, bagua and tai chi far more then the through some of the martially oriented arts training processes.

Though to some extent we can adapt specifically fighting / martial training with others to be harmonious and peaceful, it can also easily slip into creating an energy and thoughforms of antagonism, violence, stress... which can actually be magnetic - qualities which we are supposedly training to prevent through mostly physically oriented "selfdefense" arts. At an extreme, we can even debilitate our own and our training partners bodies by our selves. Without even having ever been officially called to "defend" ourselves or another.
And if unchecked or unbalanced through meditation, reflection and a simply open heart - fighting skill ( as well as supposed spiritual accomplishment, financial status, career, social status...) can inflate ego to arrogance, abusiveness and subtle or overt violent tendencies.
So i suppose i could say that i practice the wuji qigong, yiquan, tai chi and occasional bagua arts largely for the unification it assists of my consciousness / being, clarifying & focusing of awareness / consciousness, energy enhancement and subtlelization, and it simply feels very, very wonderful wholistically.
As for partner practices, with a couple people coming from a shared attitude and approach to the arts and viewing partner practices as a mutually supportive process of becoming increasingly integrated with our wholistic equilibrium, graceful presence & movement and harmonious relationship to life - i would definitely love engaging such manner of partner practices regularly back into my practice. Though I am also fairly content with the core value of the solo practices i do as well.

Though its only a small but wordy fragment of my feelings, as words do not contain the expansiveness of our feelings and awarenesses, this is some of why i practice.

Anyone else feel like sharing why you practice these arts? What motivates you and inspires you related to them?