Thread: Tai Chi,good self-defense art or not?

oh dear!

please actually learn about an art before making assumptions!

I agree that 'in general' the Art of tai chi is not practiced for self defence. But the complete art is a definate fighting art.

Here is some info for you.

I can not imagine how an art with nothing but forms can be useful on street.

This is a completely incorrect statement.

The process of learning to fight in Tai chi goes like this:

Form work = this teaches you alignment of your skeletal and tendon structure, This is scientifically proven to provide more power than the segmented muscular system of external arts. Tendons have huge amounts of potential energy when put under tension they can then release this force. Form work also teaches you about rooting, balance and basic foot work.

Single/ double and freeform push hands = This teaches you the listening skill thatis used in tai chi fighting. this skill is used to follow your opponents movement. It allows you to recieve punches of any power easily via redirection, yeilding and relaxation.It also teaches you about application of force, pre-emptive striking, Chin Na / throwing techniques, attacking vital points etc etc. This is the first step towards free fighting. you also learn Da lou which teaches slipping and escaping an attack.

Free sparring / fighting = after some time of Pushing hands/ feet. and training in the power generation, you will move to free sparring which includes, kicking, punching, palm strikes, elbows, shoulders, knees, head butts, throwing, locking, point striking etc etc.

After some time you do this full contact. but because you are so sensetive to your opponents movement you rarely get too hurt (unless they unload a powerful punch into your ribs breaking one as happend to me!)

This may seem like a long process but can be achieved withing a few years if dedicated.

It produces a very different and highly effective fighter, that is very mobile, highly adaptable and has the ability to punch with huge power (due to the fact that the entire skelital structure is behind every strike!)

So as you can see - the art is fairly complete and not JUST FORMS!

Admittadley it will be hard to find a teacher with the knowledge to teach all this. But this is the real art - not the yoga like shite you see some old biddy doing in the park!

Cheers
Chris

personally do not consider Tai Chi an art of self-defense.

I can not imagine how an art with nothing but forms can be useful on street.

For any art to be useful on street you need to train and practice like a fighter through full contact sparring.

Here is a good counterexample:

taijiworld.com

he teaches the real stuff and practices full contact sparring with his students...

hmm personally i wouldnt sight Erle Montegue as an example - there is alot of questionable stuff that he comes out with - but his sudden violence stuff is excellent!

Cheers
Chris

there is alot of questionable stuff that he comes out with

What do you mean?

I never had the opportunity to meet him but he formed good instructors...
I trained under one of his students for a short time (he left the country)....
What he taught was very different from the crap tai-chi and bagua I used to practice before.... My training partner witnessed one of his fights when he was challenged, he broke the other guys leg right away with a kick....

woew,

hey man i wasnt slating him - I met him at a seminar in the UK once. He is a nice guy.

I was refering to his theories of Fa Jing, his way is more of a 'sneeze' type of movement. this is fairly unique to him.

he is a good fighter.

Cheers
Chris

i personally think that from absolutely broad perception it utterly depends on what the teacher knows. If he only knows forms because in china people were taught only forms for a long time, only after that the "true" techniques so that they could not surpass their master, then he is not fully able to teach the "real" stuff.
However if it is a good teacher with some real life experience (not dojo-macho) he should give it the real stuff and sparring, or perhaps he was taught that from his master.

I have somewehere read that Tai Chi lost many very effective techniques because old masters dies before they could teach that to anyone (simply got killed in street fighting), but i am not saying that Tai Chi doues not know how to fight.
I have seen a woman who did it for 15 years (she was 29 i think) and if she did not lie and used Tai Chi then god have mercy with those who try to stab her...

(if my opinion is utterly wrong, dont shoot me )

Taijiquan is really good for fighting and self defense, but yes it is hard to learn, it takes some time and hard practice. Like other old arts that have become popular, it gets spread around at less than its full potential and many things are lost in the popularization process. However, there are pockets of very good stuff out there.

To make such assumptions about the art is fairly common and understandable, nevertheless simply reflects a common ignorance due to the rarity of the real art. Taijiquan iis a real fightiing art, but you kind of have to actuallly go out there and find something good to really understand that. This finding process can however be very difficult.



www.taijigongfu.com

Originally posted by MuayThaiFighter
Tai chi is considered a martial arts by many,it is said that if the techniques of Tai Chi are to be used very quickly in a real situation they will be very effective as a self-defense.Of course these techniques can be done very quickly and softly if the other person isn't moving and isn't fighting back.

I personally do not consider Tai Chi an art of self-defense.

I can not imagine how an art with nothing but forms can be useful on street.

For any art to be useful on street you need to train and practice like a fighter through full contact sparring.

Tai Chi as far as I am concerned is just an art for practicing chi and for learning to relax, that's why it is very good and healthy for young and elderly people.

Who here agrees ?

In my experience and knowledge in tai chi i can say you only seen and learn few parts of the style and not all of it. It can be use in self defense in the right application (depends when your sifu did not teach you how yet). It is nice to combine it it with other styles as well. In Tai Chi there is difference between using it for health and using it in combat. tai Chi is used for combat before it is for health exercises. Like other martial arts it requires experience or experience as well in other styles of kung fu. Some Chinese MAs share the some same forms and techniques but used in different ways.

... a shaolin monk .....

This would sudjest that he knows little of authentic Tai chi Chuan, Tai chi is not (as far as i am aware) taught in Shaolin, it is a taoist not buddhist system and is not really related to Shaolin at all, it is directly related to Wu dang.

The monks of the shaolin temple have (only since the emergence of yang tai chi) adopted the health forms of tai chi - but know very little / nothing of the authentic fighting style - it would appear that the shaolin may have tryed to interprite the tai chi forms using their external methods. The result is poor and incorrect.

Although i do not know your teacher or his teacher so they may very well be an exeption. I mean no offence to him or you.

Anyway although all can help u focus chi and have many health benefits the only 1 that can be used for fighting is Chen style which is also the oldest.

The taoists at wu dang may have something to say about that!!

Also Yang Cheng Fu, founder of the Yang style - was an undefeated fighting champion, The wu brothers, founders of one of the wu styles were only defeated once by a ba gua expert, Sun lu tang was an undefeated fighting master of Ba gua and Hsing I and later formed a tai chi system incorporating these styles. Many beleive this to be the most effective.

Chen style/chen village is now encompassed in a tourist trap much like shaolin. Very little authentic content still remains.

Generally there are only a handful of people in the world that can actually use taichi to fight and i mean a handful.

I would not say that there is only a handfull. There are many fighters that can use Tai chi very very effectivley. Not people that are masters of every principle in the art, but fighters non the less.

I agree that 9 out of 10 schools are very misled and mistaken regarding the meaning and application of tai chi to combat. But there are many real fighters out there.

The reason there r so few that can actually effectively use it to fight is because it takes so long to master shifu yan jian says the quickest any1 has ever learnt taichi properly was 25yrs and that was a long time ago.

Unfortunatley this is just not correct according to historical facts.

If we look at the formation of Sun Style. Sun lu tang studied Tai chi for 3 years before forming his own style. He was admittedley a master of the 2 other main internal systems and this is really a fast track to tai chi mastery. He already had the major principles of Internal work from the other two.

Yang cheng fu, learnt Tai chi in around 10 years and was, without a doubt one of the greatest masters of the art ever to have lived, defeating all challange matches.

there are many many other examples that contradict this statement.

is nice to combine it it with other styles as well.

I would say that if you were to combine you would need to do so with other internal systems. so as not to contradict your principles of combat.

Just my take on things.

Cheers
Chris