FAST Tai Chi-- For Self Defence (a new concept)

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bamboo_ leaf
I really like many of your posts and your view on internal styles although slightly different to my own i always find very interesting.
Im only a new student of internals but a long time external student, a lot of what you say makes perfect sence to me.
In particular this comment struck me as its word for word what my sifu says about 10 times per lesson.
“you mind leads the body” with the chinese way of saying it and all:)
Can i maybe inquire a little about your background like what you have studied and for how long?

On the Tai Chi combat debate.
I have to say ive seen Tai Chi practiced at fighting speed, my sifu is a Tai Chi combat artist and thats how he teaches - for combat.
His ‘fast’ Tai Chi is infact a blend between fast hard soft and insubstansial.
The trick is to follow or lead your opponent and stick to them like glue, its not about simply doing the same movements quickly.
True Tai Chi is much more a method than particular technique, infact many of the movements in our Tai Chi bear striking resemblense to many Shaolin movements but the use in application is where they really differ.
Just doing Tai Chi fast is not using Tai Chi as a combat style, its MUCH more complex than that. If you cant go slow properly then trust me you cant go fast and still maintain the right posture and power.

Im sorry this post has an annoying tone of I know real Tai Chi and you dont understand but its not really intended. The truth is i personaly study Bagua under him but ive watched him with his advanced Tai Chi students and what im saying is how they train for both application and form.
I cant be to exact becouse im not an actual Tai Chi student and im sorry to post in this way when i cant back up my statements with anything other than what ive seen.
Still my sifu’s Tai Chi is VERY well respected and its been in his family for two generations before comming though Yang Chen Fu.
This is just what ive seen but i hope someone finds it of some use anyway.
Just doing fast Tai Chi aint doing combat Tai Chi.

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Hi Jon.

Similar to you I have seen my Teachers perform “Combat Tai Chi”.

Sifu was kind enough to loan me 2 Tapes of one of our annual TCC conferences. I think she loaned them only to about 3 people in my School.

1 was the general public display, the other one was only attendet by our styles Advanced Students and Instructors as well as the Sijo.

And they performed all 3 Styles and a variety of Weapons.

Was kinda shocked to see my Sifu going all out against a Guy half her age. (Xing-Yi vs Tai Chi)
But it was cool never the less to see where I can get to if I stick with it and work hard.

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I think that’s pretty much it.

I don’t want to confuse people with things they may not be ready for. However, I’ll go ahead and record a few thoughts here. The Classics state that things are “first in the mind and later in the body.” On a broad level, this refers to, for instance, techniques, which we must conciously think about in the beginning in order to do them, and later on the movements are automatic responses requiring no thought, no middle man between intent and movement. On a much finer level, it refers to how the mind and intent lead the movement. The mind (and not just the concious mind) envisions, the intent reaches out, and the body conforms to those parameters. The mind is the glass, the intent is the water, and the movement is the water having taken the shape of the glass, if that makes any sense.

There’s a lag time between mind and body, and the goal is to get the lag down to almost nothing or nothing. The Classics say, “as soon as one part of the body moves the whole body moves.” While on a basic level, this refers to the physical body, I personally consider the body to be made up of both the physical and the intangible. So, if the mind (as part of the body) is moving, then the physical must move as well. Thought is without substance without the physical, and physical is a shell without the mind.

Just as yang chases yin, so the body follows the mind Once the mind moves on, the body immediately follows. After Push, when your mind begins to sit back so should your body. Again, the goal is to get the mind and body working as one solid unit, with no breaks in continuity. Once you start achieving this, the concious mind goes pretty much blank during the movements. You will center yourself before the form, and sort of “wake up” later when the form is finished. You’ll remember practicing it as if it were a dream. This is when the middle man of concious thought is cut out of the equation, and the mind/intent and the body are working as a unit.

This kind of thing is very difficult to put into words. But to put it simply and quote an ancient phrase, “as above, so below.”

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Hi Sam.

I know exactly what you are talking about.
Doesn’t meant that I am there yet. :frowning:

Thanks for your Input.:slight_smile:

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Sam
“This kind of thing is very difficult to put into words.”
I think you did an excerlent job, you are clearly a very learned practioner.
Red_fist
You certainly also speak as though from experience and from what ive read of your posts your sifu would be quite something to see.

I have to say i enjoy reading both of your posts. Not forgetting many others im sure ive left out but rather than be here all evening im just commenting on this thread.
Its great to see some internal practioners on the board who are keeping the combat and application side of our arts alive.

Gung Hay Fat Choy to everybody and there resective familys both kung fu and personal.
Jon

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I agree with SW on mind/action.

As for Taiji being done quickly, the statement itself is rediculous. Taiji is a martial art! Forget what you see on TV during housewife home design shows.

Yes, tons, a lot, incredible amounts of time is needed practicing alone, quietly and slowly to tune and perfect your body and technique. It is a study in perfect, economical, powerful (“calling your big brother,” as me sifu calls it; using your strongest parts to defeat the other’s weaker).

You will never find your mistakes if you go fast all the time. How easy is it to kick out real fast. But do it slow. real slow, you’ll see where your balance or power is off.

Now, this is not done slowly to refine kicks and punches (thought it is) but to refine pushing angles, weight distribution in tenchinques.

The way I am being taught is not through form. My master breaks out one little section, the idea and principle of that section.

Then we work it at full speed with power. Of course you will not be doing it right … at first. He’ll explain that your elbow is up, need to use the shoulder/back, need to keep the back straight, and other things that I would say most often go unconsidered.

Then you go home and practice, slowly, make it right.

One thing I have learned from internal, is just how little movement is actually needed. Trust the shape ( a strong shape), focus your intention and follow the principles.

Slow=smooth. Smooth=fast Fast=power

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Thanks Sam!

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Thank goodness that made some sense. Believe it or not, it took me an hour to write that little bit. I want to explain even more, but I still cannot find the words. The epitome of this concept is embodied in the very first move from the Taiji form. If you just stand there, double weighted, and lift your hands in front of you and then lower them, this is not quite right, even if you are “centered.” First, the mind will present the image, the intent will reach out, the center will move, and then the hands will move, though it all happens almost together. To me, it feels like my hands are those gloves they use to handle dangerous materials behind a screen, as if someone else were inside my body making it move without my conciously controlling it, or as if I were a puppet on a string, like I’m not controlling them.

Anyway, I don’t think you need to practice your forms “fast” to practice the art for self-defense. My own form has explosive moves, and I am working on being able to practice my form as what Erle Montaigue calls “hao ch’uan.” Loose boxing, where the moves are slow motion, but once you come into posture they snap with the power. I’m not quite there yet. But he keeps telling me to “slow down more during the slow parts.” I got to see the first third of the Old Yang form done as hao ch’uan last year in New Jersey by Erle live, and it was breath-taking, at least to me. Just watching his form the way he does it now answered a lot of questions for me.

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Oh, forgot to finish.

Anyway, there are training methods and other forms that are fast and explosive enough without using the long form that way. The Small and Large San Shou forms, for one thing, are pretty explosive. I know that there are not a lot of schools today that still teach those methods, but there are some who still do, and if you want to learn the self-defense aspects of Taiji and do not have some equivalent in your system or school, then I would suggest looking for someone who teaches those methods. They will really enhance what you’re doing.

Oh, and thanks for the compliments, guys.:slight_smile:

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SW, that was great. Thank you.

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“To me, it feels like my hands are those gloves they use to handle dangerous materials behind a screen, as if someone else were inside my body making it move without my consciously controlling it, or as if I were a puppet on a string, like I’m not controlling them.”

I use the word thinking but off hand Sam I would say that is a very good description of what I feel and work with, nice!!

Jon,
Thanks for the kind words.
My background mmm, well it begins in the early 70s with white crane, and later plum flower mantis. My first TC experience was in Hawaii in the early 80s with a man who was teaching what many-called outlaw TC. He taught the Tung family Yang style as a combat art. My second TC teacher would be from the CMC linage sometime mid 80s.

My goal at that time was to integrate the TC ideas of body movement and force dynamics into my PFM practice. Much later I would realize that it was pointless and now only practice the CMC style, which I am in the process of trying to forget. For me his ideas address the TC a little more directly.

So I have been training for awhile but I don’t claim any great skill only a keen passion for this great art. :slight_smile:

I enjoy reading the many post here while not always agreeing with them. My point is always to really have true skills, then you can do what you want. I think that sometimes the intent of developing the skill for a specific idea as in for fighting can actually get in the way of true inner development.

If you read what Sam wrote he is actually talking about using SHEN,YI,CHI to move his body. This alone is very hard.

Did I say it was very hard, really it is. In my experience it’s independent of usage something like what the YI chaun guys talk about.

In the beginning levels I think the ideas of fast slow, chen, wu, yang ideas are important to give the person something to work with. But at some point I believe your training centers on working with the principles directly. At this point it doesn’t matter what form, new or old you work with it directly and deepen your awareness of it.

If you look at the development of what are called external styles compared to TC. We can see that after the development of the chen style many of the later TC styles evolved IMHO to express a deeper or different awareness of merging philosophical ideas with physical work.

When we look at many other CMA arts, while they embodied many ideas I view them mainly as answers to changing MA tactics of the time.

Each road I have found leads to very different places.
i wish all good travel on the road they choose :slight_smile:

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Thank you older brothers. Its nice to hear inspiring words.

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To me, it feels like my hands are those gloves they use to handle dangerous materials behind a screen, as if someone else were inside my body making it move without my consciously controlling it, or as if I were a puppet on a string, like I’m not controlling them.

Sam, very well said. Exactly the same idea that bamboo_leaf has had me working on for a while now. :slight_smile: Thanks.

still much work to do…