Striking in Shuai Jiao | Q&A Introduction to Shuai Jiao Seminar | Guang Wu Shuai Jiao 

That is something that I have often thought of, namely what influence has Shuai Jiao had on the development of other traditional arts in China. I also practice Tai Ji, Ba Gua, Mantis, and Xing Yi and I have noticed alot of similarities. I was never able to find any definitive information, but during my time in Beijing training, talking to teachers, and informal study I have developed my own theory. There are a few things that you can take as fact; Shuai Jiao was trained heavily and at a very high level in the Beijing area during the Qing Dynasty and was an important part of the martial culture of the city, Arts such as Ba Gua, Tai Ji, Xing Yi, Mantis, etc also were practiced heavily in that area and the surrounding provinces during the same period, Within China it is widely understood that Shuai Jiao is the best method for training takedowns, All Chinese martial arts should have takedowns. Taking those facts into consideration it makes sense that shuai jiao was a major influence on Chinese Martial Arts. Within China no martial arts teacher would seriously teach takedowns without at least referencing Shuai Jiao. An example of this would be the Chen stylists on the mainland who are using very obvious Shuai Jiao techniques in push hands competitions with great success. These techniques were not seen by Chen stylists in China previously, but have been used in SJ for a very long time. Those same Chen stylists also avoid any Shuai Jiao competitions by the way:). So you could say that Shuai Jiao is still influencing the other Chinese Arts. I have worked with a lot of Chinese Martial Artists from a variety of backgrounds and they say that Shuai Jiao training has had an incredibly positive influence on their practice regardless of what there core art was. Sorry for the long reply, but I find this topic very interesting.

I think the most important thing is that you have a plan and a system to integrate the different aspects of the traditional arts. We do integrate strikes and Shuai Jiao together, but not until both are developed to a high enough level separately. I have spent a lot of time on incorporating Shuai Jiao into many different situations. In my opinion, it is too easy to miss details when you try to integrate things too quickly. But I think even more important is that you have a system and a plan for developing takedowns and striking and integrating them together. Whatever course you take, whether that be training separately first and then integrating or integrating them from the beginning, it will come down to how deeply you understand the skills you are training and what you are trying to build. My guess is our views on it are less far apart then you think with the end goal being the same but the path there slightly different. 🙏

And in regards to “sport Shuai Jiao”, which is a good point to bring up. The negative of a ‘sport’ mindset is to constrain your application of the techniques to only one setting. The positive of a “sport” mindset is training to go up against another high level opponent who is also trained and conditioned. We try to avoid the negative aspect of that mindset while still training the positive. In other words, make sure we can use our techniques in multiple situations while still training with a high level opponent in mind to help refine how we apply our techniques and strategy. Overall I try to stay away from absolute judgements in training because so much comes down to how you train and follow your system. There are many ways to do things as long as you follow your system, have a good teacher and train hard🙏

@@taichibum that is a pretty reasonable approach. You are right in that if at some point later down the line the wrestling and striking interconnect then you are indeed training for any possible scenario. I understand what you were trying to say better now 🙏🏼

Ha ha, next time;)

Thank you. I got nothing but love for you combat Shuai Chiao folks. I know Omar and Lavell pretty well and have been fortunate enough to meet John Wang, Victor Ke and David Lin in the past. It is always a pleasure to meet people as passionate about SJ as I am, regardless of lineage. 🙏

@@taichibum thank you Sonny! I'm Master Wang's student of many years. You are always welcome with us if you are ever in Central Texas 🙏🏼

Thank you and it would be an honor to meet someday and I hope it happens. I know Master Wang spends time over at the coast here in California which is not that far from where I live, so I was hoping to buy him a coffee or beer this summer, but obviously it did not work out. I really hope the next time he is there I will be able to see him. I love his view on martial arts.

@@taichibum he does bro. Right now he's here in Austin. If you want to get in touch with him let me know, zackrasuk@gmail.com keep up the awesome work you are doing.