Greetings all, this is my first post here at the forum.
LOL Nice one Chris, I can really relate to what you have said there. I will not address the statements made by ignorant fellows regarding Taijiquan as a fighting art because there’s no point trying to educate a brick.
It is simply a case of those who know what Taiji is as a fighting art knowing and sitting back and smiling. I’ll take any strike from any angle with peng/hinge and nail any number of points with block/attacks. Taiji is very difficult to spar because the kind of technique is in so close and it’s over so quickly because the strikes are all kill shots or arm breaks performed literally in fractions of a second.
I know people who say “oh spare me the my arts too deadly to perform crap” but they obviously haven’t trained in martial Taijiquan and don’t realize what this would be asking! I wouldn’t mind just once to have a trained martial Taiji practioner actually take on one of these guys but sadly the dude wouldn’t be around to realize his mistake after the fact. I would say god help anyone who is on the recieving end of anybody who knows their combat Taiji… goodnight sweet prince is all that comes to mind.
Bottom line, I train in the Erle Montaigue Fajinquan system in Australia and we are 110% dedicated to combat effective Taijiquan, training in fajin, explosive internal force, dim mak, point striking and various Wudan Qi Disruption techniques and basic to advanced Qigongs including Iron Shirt. Anyone walking into a class in this system thinking it’s about old people and relaxation quickly finds otherwise.
Taiji is a complete system and as such has many branches and areas that range from the health and medical side
right across to the combat and spiritual side. It’s allot for some martial artists to take in I guess.
Taiji can be extremely fast and poweful. I’ve seen my Taiji Sifu do a punch at full force and speed and quite frankly it was scary. I’ve never seen anything like that before.
The key in Taiji Chuan is that you have to go slow before you can go fast. If you try to go fast before you understand all the subtleties of the body mechanics involved you are robbing yourself of potential.
When you go fast in other “external” styles it is hard work. It makes you sweat and tires you out. It puts pressure on your joints and muscles. You can really “feel” something happening.
When you go fast in Taiji (that is when you understand the movement) it is not that different from going slow. That is, it takes no more effort than going slow.
So it is confusing to beginners because they don’t feel like they are “doing” anything when they are doing the movement correctly.
They over emphasize things or make the movements more difficult than they need to be so that they can feel something. When you do Taiji well it should take no more effort than sitting in a warm bath.
It should feel effortless.
I think this is why Taiji is so hard to learn and why it is so poorly understood by other arts.
I have that excact problem sometimes.Sometimes I’ll try to push my opponent or do some stiff technique concentrating on specific nuances of alignment when I should relax,get my structure shape,and just turn my waist.Does maybe the slow practice in taiji have to do with finishing every move seamlessly and completing it through to the end before changing moves?Like you don’t want to pull back a punch until it’s completed it’s large motion.Then you immediatly pull it back with a short fajin motion
Originally posted by backbreaker I have that excact problem sometimes.Sometimes I’ll try to push my opponent or do some stiff technique concentrating on specific nuances of alignment when I should relax,get my structure shape,and just turn my waist.Does maybe the slow practice in taiji have to do with finishing every move seamlessly and completing it through to the end before changing moves?Like you don’t want to pull back a punch until it’s completed it’s large motion.Then you immediatly pull it back with a short fajin motion
Not sure if I can help here, as in my style we don’t pull things back.
End position of one move is the start position of the next move for us.
But moves should be completed with as little interruptions as possible, stoping between the movements to make minor adjustements during the form is often recommended.
The way I see it doing the moves slower allows the mind to sense and feel the body better and thus flaws can be more easily detected and corrected.
I was thinking maybye you do pull back in Yang and Chen style after a punch.After you do a right hand punch you pull it back in case they redirect and grab your wrist or if maybe someone grabs you from behind.Actually,don’t push hands and alot of taiji use pulling types of energy for many things?What exactly is pull anyway?Does it involve staying ahead of your opponent and using your structure on your opponent with twisting or spiraling energy?
Originally posted by backbreaker I was thinking maybye you do pull back in Yang and Chen style after a punch.After you do a right hand punch you pull it back in case they redirect and grab your wrist or if maybe someone grabs you from behind
You are correct that Yang and some Chen styles do a pull-back after a punch.
The Chen style that I study does not do it.
As for pull are you talking about “Cai”(Pull down/Pluck) or “Lu”(Pull back)?
Roll Back - Lu
Lu Ching is receiving and collecting energy, or inward receiving energy.
Form movements: Grasping the Sparrow’s Tail
Pull Down - Tsai or Cai
Tsai Ching is grabbing energy.
Form movements: Needle at Sea Bottom.
Originally posted by delibandit The problem with sparring in Taiji is that to apply the skills in “real time” would mean serious injury to a sparring partner. Just the other night I was cautioned by my Shifu while practicing. The movement I was applying could easily break my opponents arm he said. He asked me to slow it down a bit to prevent an accidental injury to my partner.
Originally posted by Syd
[B] Taiji is very difficult to spar because the kind of technique is in so close and it’s over so quickly because the strikes are all kill shots or arm breaks performed literally in fractions of a second.
I know people who say “oh spare me the my arts too deadly to perform crap” but they obviously haven’t trained in martial Taijiquan and don’t realize what this would be asking! I wouldn’t mind just once to have a trained martial Taiji practioner actually take on one of these guys but sadly the dude wouldn’t be around to realize his mistake after the fact. I would say god help anyone who is on the recieving end of anybody who knows their combat Taiji… goodnight sweet prince is all that comes to mind. [/B]
It is any wonder the guy doesn’t think Tai Chi practitioners can fight?
I have to agree with delibandit.
The problem with Taiji Chuan nowadays is the fact that there are too many teachers lacked of the proficient with specialised instruction and practices in the application themselves. As a result, they are not capable to teach the combat aspect of Taiji Chuan. This is indeed a problem with all other martial arts but especially internal martial arts (difficult to teach and learn). From this, the view towards Tai Chi Chuan has simply changed from a close combat art to a relaxation art. The only solutions is to find a qualified teacher with the abilities to show you the application of the arts itself.
Many postures in Chen Style Taiji Chuan has direct links with the Shaolin Kung Fu along with the silk reeling makes Taiji Chuan an extremely effective and efficient combat art; if learnt properly.
However, this goes down to the teachers’ willingness and abilities to teach and the students willingness and abilities to learn. There is just no excuse for any teacher not teaching his or her students Taijiquan applications.
My teacher teach Taiji Chuan in a different way to speed up the progression and to attract youths. Not only do we learn the taiji form and the form application (every time we learn a new move or correct our moves), most of the class time is put into stretching (splits, stances…etc), strength training (sit up, push up…etc), the basics (kicks, palms, strike combinations, locks and throws using Taiji aspect), push hands and real close combat training (San Da with protective gears).
However even with protective gears, some of us have experienced injuries because the partner execute some deadly techniques. Or how to break fall when get thrown.
Of course some of you may think that this is not the traditional way in training of Taiji Chuan. To be honest, I could care less because that was the way my teacher learnt Taiji at Chen village and it is too effective.
Yes, it does mean all three. It also means dealing with your own move not “doing” what it was supposed to do. Basically, I’ve found that any time anyone gets in a fight for real, Murphy shows up. You won’t get me to believe that any master, grandmaster, Grand Poobah, or whatever, is going to look anything but unchoreographed in a real combat situation. How you deal with WHEN your techniques fail, not IF they do, is what keeps you alive in a real fight.
I teach my students that they never make mistakes in Baguazhang. Now, obviously, that statement is absurd on its face. However, acting as though it were true is the key to recovery skill. In other words, anything you do, whether successful or not, you act as though that’s exactly what you wanted to have happen and flow from there. A very simple example: if you overshoot your punch to his face and miss, you fold into an elbow strike there instead. It’s about flowing with what “is” rather than what we wished would have been.
Any "real time" sparring with a partner is better then "just" solo practice. [/B]
This is wrong. Sparring is obviously important to applying tchniques well especially againt equally skilled opponents, but not as important as correct technique. Sparring will not mean that you know all the profound truths of combat or that you can't be shown something new from a different style you haven't already seen . This leads to people claiming internal and external styles have no differece , or are based on the same energy . If you spar all the time without proper technique , you will still suck against someone who spars little but knows proper technique. I have seen on the internet that some aspects of fajin are basically only totally known by a few people . I've just seen way too much talk by ignorant people who are quick to criticize others they don't understand , or they can't see exactly how the people are good . Like redirecting a punch will be better than slapping a punch in a form, in training , or in sparring . These people claim that a style that "rages" , or has rage energy, will desroy your average taiji expert because he doesn't spar, and any bjj will easily take down even a good taiji fighter maybe even chen masters . I think internal energy and proper technique is more important.
