Combat Tai Chi - It's Not Park Tai Chi 

only good at beating up his novice students

Would you mind sharing the name of your old instructor? I'm picky about learning from people. If not, any suggestions on who I can follow without worry?

@@Merchantwun I'm afraid he quit teaching some time ago. (He taught me almost 30 years ago) Most Yang style practitioners have moved more towards moving meditation. The Chen style has a solid martial base, but it's harder to find teachers. Good luck! If you're interested in the health and philosophy aspects and don't have a local teacher I recommend Paul Read, aka the Teapot Monk. He has a well thought out online program.

​@@Merchantwun Wudang Tai Chi (Chen Ting Hung lineage, through Dan Docherty/Ian Cameron) is usually taught as a combat art, and was very interesting to (briefly) study. There is/was a Dan Docherty student called Neil Rosiak in London who studied under Docherty and taught Tai Chi as a full-contact grappling and striking art.

I was fortunate to have an instructor who taught me how to fight with Tai Chi. They are a rarity, especially here in the US. But they are out there. Sadly, many folks only want the health aspect of Tai Chi, and don't want to know how to use it. Personally, I'm 56 and still training. I don't fight as well as I used to, but I bring my Tai Chi experience to my kickboxing training when I spar. The other students who are mostly karate or jiu jitsu students like the fact they are getting exposed to something different that isn't usually seen. For me I get to keep my skills to some extent, for them, they get exposed to a traditional martial art that does work if you know how to use it.

Makes sense...

Actually it is, Tai Chi was developed for warfare for use in the military. Then it went through it's first iteration where it changed into an art of self-defense and taught to one of the leading 5 families of the internal arts, i.e. the Chen Style, then Yang took over and it changed again into a hidden health art because the Emperor wanted to be taught the art and to save his family's life, Old Yang watered the applications down and taught it. It all depends on what you study and what time frames you study it in. I am happy that people are beginning to understand that Tai Chi is more than some pretty exercise done for health.

Funny how you say the truth about one martial art and then immediately discredit the other in the same way people discredit tai chi. Think about that. Karate "demonstrations" also show effective combat techniques, same as in tai chi. And karate also has it's "park" style, ineffective style, but at the same time it has the effective, Okinawan style of true fighting. So I wonder how you could defend tai chi and attack karate in the same way that tai chi is attacked, and this all in one sentence.

Not a fighting art but a self defence art? And how do you guys art down an aggressive attacker in a self defence situation without fighting? : )

Your completely wrong taichi as always been a fighting art...its just that now as to my 40 yrs of practice its now more related to health & exercises, its not combat taichi its taichi as it as always been used ..thats why yang Cheng-Fu was called the unbeatable...fearless..its just that some masters don't know the chi gongs that associated with...its not lost its it the askshic records.

Hello, saw your comment, if you learn real Taijquan the health benefits will come. Its difficult to receive positive results with a health only approach because the mind is trying to work out what's happening during the movements and the energy flow is blocked. Great that you guys are practicing together. Peace

Well said!

You actually believe this crap ?🤣

@@GinoTricks i used to😂 now im a kickboxer👊🏻

One of the best martial arts to gain reflexes, stability and well being. This coming from a Thai boxer. Lol you two are probably just ignorant

@@cyberreality7774 i was.. im a thai boxer now lol

@@alidasuqi4804 Dude do you actually keep changing martial art every month? hahaha

We appreciate your feedback.

You are correct. Real fighting does not look like this. It is very hard to demonstrate in a way that people can understand while someone is hitting you “like a machine gun”. Fighting and teaching are two different things.

​@@ShaolinArtsAZ Iv seen tai chi guys easily beat boxers Without even looking at there punches Sparring means nothing Compared to skill Sparring is generally the same punches Jab cross hooks uppercuts Easy to read Sp Sparring would mean using all techniques Iv seen people sparr for years and they r awful Feal fighting is life and death Im from the uk Kung fu Karate Etc. Is taken seriously over here We dont have mcdojos They get exposed

@@nicholasgreen339 You think a good boxer is "easy to read"? Why does EVERY taichi practitioner get their dantian's handed to them when they fight boxers, kickboxers, or wrestlers? I have never seen any taichi "fighter" do anything but get starched when they deal with a trained boxer or kickboxer or mma fighter. I think there's even a guy over in China who has made quite a career out of proving this point. Cheers!

Indeed, this is a powerful axiom of the Internal Arts! Possibly especially within Taijiquan. Thank you for sharing this wisdom!

Controlled as in it does not work in real life

@@luiscruces1578 Controlled means you don't go 100% during sparring. Otherwise, it becomes a real match and people will get hurt before they can learn to familiar with the techniques.

You learn the applications/techniques so you can understand the body mechanics and structure (the principals) behind them, you are very unlikely to use a given technique exactly as practiced during form practice, instead you use the principals gleaned during sparring to create whatever move or amalgamation of moves is needed. From sparring you will also learn the sensitivity required to predict and take advantage of an opponents movements. If you don’t pressure test with uncooperative sparring, you are not going to learn much that will be useful.

Great video. 4 once Tai Chi makes sense as a martial art. I had heard a long time ago that yang style tai chi was for combat but I don't know if that's accurate.

@@donaldmackerer9032 All styles (Yang, Wu, Chan, etc) can be used for combat; the key point is that the practitioner must know the applications behind the moves + practice the applications through sparring.

This is admittedly a highly inadequate answer, but: Understand the value of stillness. Without Song, the Internal Arts (Tai Chi, Xingyi, Bagua, among others) are empty and lacking in power or strength. Anyone who says ALL power of Tai Chi comes from comparing the human being to a doorstop does not understand Tai Chi. It goes much further than the physical, and what is highly understated is the importance of mind.

Thank you for this comment.. I would like study Tai Chi, but I'm 43 years old. Can I study it?

Age doesn’t matter.

@@rew7974 thanks

​@@omtolerent Assalamu alaikum wa rahmatullahi wa barakatuh. Better now than later, brother 🙏🏼 It cannot hurt; it can only help. BUT- Find a qualified instructor; there are many charlatans. Find someone who clearly respects and knows the culture. And/or, find someone who can easily move you against your will. An accomplished Tai Chi player/stylist will introduce you to a feeling you have likely never experienced before. Best of luck to you, brother. 🙏🏼

Wrong. Daniel LaRusso is hhe best instructor in the valley. He teaches Mayagi do.

@333 666A FTR, Erle Montaigne (1949-2011) was a longtime Tai Chi practitioner and master of the Yang style who was best known for his books about Dim Mak and vital point striking. I have 2 or 3 of his books. Having never heard of him would hardly be “proof” that you don’t know what you’re talking about…not in my “book.” I was simply curious, no disrespect intended or implied.

He made most of his stuff up....pretty much all of it.

I heard he was a bullshit artist . When my teacher ( Wu style taiji from Cheng Tin Hung ) challenged him , he backed off...

@@palnagok1720 who’s your teacher ? If you don’t mind me asking.

Very happy to hear you are enjoying your Tai Chi experience! Please don't neglect your Wuji standing! 😁🙏🏼

Gotta love it when you've struggled handling a sword for a year or two - and then see "fragile" 90 year old Chinese guys handling two swords as if they were part of them 🤣

I agree with you, being a Neijiaquan practitioner myself. I humbly posit the common argument that "To learn to fight, you must train with the intention to fight." Also- Yes Tai Chi is Tai Chi, but context is important. I have no doubt that there are great teachers of Taijiquan who teach in parks who do not differentiate between "combat" and "health" Tai Chi.. but I think the important message this instructor is sharing is that people should not conflate Tai Chi is qigong for health with Tai Chi as martial arts for self-defense. Not making this distinction to your students is negligent, and leads to this now common phenomenon of Internal Arts charlatans drunk on their own Kool-Aid having their egos crushed by the Xu Xiaodongs of the world, who merely wish to decipher what is real, effective Chinese martial arts of his native country, and what is not.

@@EazyMac "To learn to fight, you must train with the intention to fight." No question about that. Problem is, most western Taiji teachers have no idea that there is a martial side to Taiji. I'm all for teaching the whole thing, as my teacher does. But I've also found that most teachers who are teaching "combat Taiji" haven't really learned the correct applications and, to make up for not ever having learned from a teacher who understands the applications within the forms, have instead taken movements from the forms and retrofitted their idea of how to apply the movements, especially those who have come from other, especially external, martial arts. Unfortunately, those applications rarely work in real life without the application of muscle. Regarding Xu Xiaodong, I've watched his fights against alleged "Taiji masters" and in my opinion, not one of those so-called "masters" was the real deal. Besides, real "masters" don't need to prove themselves in a sporting event. Unfortunately, westerners have a wrong notion of what a master is in terms of Chinese culture. The Chinese term "Shifu" is rarely used in China to refer to a martial arts master, but western teachers like to call themselves that. It's more commonly used for taxi drivers, chefs and other skilled workers. "Laoshi" is the more common term for martial arts teachers. But westerners seem to like to exaggerate the meaning to be something greater than what it is. Same thing happened to the western translation of Taiji as "Grand Ultimate" or "Supreme Ultimate". Someone who doesn't understand Chinese used an English-Chinese dictionary, looked up the various meanings of "Tai" and "Ji", and chose the means that were most impressive. The correct translation should be "Extreme Polarity", as in "Yin Yang".

Thank you! I use tai chi to an extent, along with other styles in actual fights. Not sure about this distinction he's making. He does say tai chi is a grappling art, tho. That's absolutely true in my humble opinion. I use tai chi the most if someone manages to get me to the ground.

I agree with you. What I explain to my tai chi students is that I am showing applications to better help them remember the form; I teach the 108 move traditional Yang Style Tai Chi form. But I make it clear to them that there's a lot more to fighting than just knowing the moves and applications. Defence training, body conditioning, just getting into the mind set that hitting someone, or someone hitting you hurts are all part of fighting. So while I try to keep the traditional form alive, I make it very clear to my students that if they want to fight, there's a whole lot more they need to learn than just the movements of the form. I'd love to teach my students to use the form, but most are much older than I am, and are really only interested in learning the health aspects of Tai Chi. @@EazyMac

@18Hands I agree 100% with your feedback. Although much of what's available in terms of tai chi is mostly meditative, and contemplative, I had heard that there were pretty interesting grappling sequences in Chen style, and some Hsing Yi/ Bagua stuff in Sun style. I'm in no way a practitioner, but I'm fascinated by the beauty and excellence displayed in some tai chi, and of course, kung fu!

"Hold the ball" is a trasitionary/set-up movement. Use the opening stance as a guard. It should look like a wrestling stance with both hands ready in front of you.

These are great questions! Stay tuned for a video or blog post reply. I’ll post a link in a response.

​@UCZPqeRrOopn7x8py4ecu3YA "... Look for a video or blog post reply..." I don't understand. Are you with the channel? You want to weigh in on what I find while I surf yt channels?

@@Tht1Gy sorry. I’m the program manager. Posted from the wrong account.

@@ShaolinArtsAZ Lol. Thx. I figured out that it was something like that. :-) I'll keep a look-out.

Your questions are great. My background is in TKD (39 years) and HKD (19 years) plus I dabbled in several other systems taught by very accomplished masters. But as far as the question about being on the inside, the answer was stated in the video - you have to know how to fight. I would think 20 years of teaching is enough to raise your fight IQ high enough to deal with that. But if you're thinking of sticking solely to TCC concepts and techniques in that situation, then perhaps adding the study of TCC would be appropriate.

Shaolinartsaz.com

Check out Adam Mizners online program. It's very authentic, and produces good results. I just came back from a seminar with him and it's truly amazing

No.

That makes sense. The founder of Aikido went to China to learn Tai Chi and White Crane Kung Fu to mix it with his Japanese martial arts training.

@@ShaolinArtsAZ interesting, thanks!

@@ShaolinArtsAZ This is the 1st I've heard of a taiji connection with aikido. Most of these speculations connect aikido with baguazhang which is even more unlikely due to the closed nature of neijia groups. There is no record of Chinese wu de being friendly with Japanese. It is possible that Ueshiba saw some outside practice but being taught is highly unlikely. Aikido is superficially like bagua but most training methods and applications outside of qinna are quite different.

Looked like young dude was holding back, good discipline!?

A recent important discovery of mine with the power of old school Tai Chi, is the importance of standing practice. It's difficult to keep this short, but I'll try: With External arts, what you see is what you get. It seems powerful because it looks powerful, and most people have seen "powerful". The power of Internal arts is not evident in the physical movement, which is why it is misunderstood- you will only know the truth of Internal power from experiencing it (which only makes sense- Martial Arts is experienced through the sense of touch, not sight.. people seem to forget this). It is many consecutive days and countless collective hours of standing in Wuji or Zhan Zhuang (Cheng Bao, "embracing tree") posture that trains the Internal arts practitioner to rely less on isolated muscular tension and specific physical structure, and instead the freedom afforded by the whole-body tensegrity of fascial tissues. Tai Chi will always "look weak" to the uninitiated, watching from the outside in.. What is unseen is occurring within the practitioner's mind and body- the yi leading the qi; the qi moving the body. On the outside, a neophyte and master may appear the same... But what is occurring inside is the difference between defeat and victory.

I think this is supposed to be a up close deflect technique kinda like a slip in

@@SilencerXLR8 there’s no body movement either🤷🏽‍♂️ Plus, if that’s the distance you’re working from then why not start from there?

Where is footwork? - In the next episode I guess, as a part of some other demonstration :). When I watch MMA matches, I ask the opposite question.. why so much of wild running there and back across the octagon, and why so few fighters employs these "stand your ground and smash face" techniques.. they all seem to bet on distance and lucky strikes here and there. Its perhaps necessitated by the sport, I dont know.. but taichi doesn't work like this, and its not the only way to fight. I actually practise my "combat readiness" with a drill in which I am forbidden to move from the spot, and I am forbidden to attack, while sparring partner is allowed to try to punch me and hurt me however he wishes. It looks similar like demontration on this video, just the partner is free to unleash rage and creativity. With proper kind of focus and attitude, its the attacker who gets hurt most of the time. Footwork doesn't mean "wild bouncing around". Standing well is also a skill.

@@aiwasskindergarden7077 the only time you should stand still is if you’re forced to. Leaving yourself in range of being struck when there’s no need is idiocy 😁

@@indefenceofthetraditionalma you seem to be an expert, so what can I say. I have no intention to argue about this on youtube. But if you come around canary islands one day, I will be happy to show you what I mean. You said "if there is no need". Obviously, the need here would be the intention to neutralise your stupid face without asking your permission, and opening. There is anecdote to describe that - "if my oponent is still, I am still. if my oponent attacks, I already responded." Works in fight, aswell as communication. You are already turning around stumbling across your prejudice and limited knowledge.

This is Chen Tai Chi. I think nowadays it is less about secrecy and more about the fact that it is easier to teach (and learn) a form of Tai Chi that has lost its power. It takes a long time - in the context of modern life - to truly understand and apply the details that generate the power of Tai Chi as a true fighting art.

From your comment, I’m guessing you think Tai Chi is not effective as a martial art. What in this video makes you think that?