Hi.
I am totally ignorant when it comes to WC.
So maybe one of you Guys could reply to this question.
I have spoken on many Boards to WC-Students, now a lot of them said that they had to study TCC before they were taught WC.
Now with the current “Chi in WC” thread going on it made me wonder if this is a common practice.
Or simply some newage thingy at a few Schools.
Looking forward to your replies.
hmmm…
I do tai chi and wing chun. So did my father. I see no conflict of one is for health and the other for fighting but most people will have trouble integrating both for fighting. My dad did, but that was b/c he’s an expert at both 
Tai Chi has elbows out, wing chun has them in.
Tai Chi is large circle, wing chun is small circle.
Tai Chi is internal, wing chun external.
Tai Chi’s attacking stance is to move the torso forward. wing chunners move the back leg forward
Tai Chi is passive, wing chun aggressive
the fighting principles are totally different as well…
BUT they have similarities. TC uses trapping and deflectiion over force like wing chun. Some stances and hands are similar but then again you could say that about any compared styles…
After i had done wing chun for about a year i started doing tai chi i found it helped me relax a lot but when i started to do pushing hands it had a negative effect on my chi sau. Not a great deal but i started to move more circulaly instead of directing my energy forward. I dont really do tai chi any more but i still do a bit of chi kung, which also helps me relax.
A partial response to red-fists question.
I dont know where you got that information but IMO tai chi and wing chun involve quite different mechanics. To improve one’s taichi you do tai chi. To improve one’s wing chun you do wing chun.If you have nothing else to do all day you can fiddle with different games. The external/internal distinctions are quite arbitrary amd mean different things to different people in CMA.
In JMA apparently several prominent senseis reportedly have been learning taiji in order to become more fluid.
hmm…
Hey there,
I never really thought of it. I did Tai Chi first as it was an excercise class in my University. It helped relax and calm me while making me flexible in certain ways. It was later on that I started in Wing Chun Do. IMO, it has made me a better WCD-ist by teaching me how to relax all my muscles and letting all the tension of the day go away. While, TC wasn’t part of the program that I’m studying, I think it’s more of a suppliment than a requirement.
Enree.
Originally posted by yuanfen
I dont know where you got that information but IMO tai chi and wing chun involve quite different mechanics.
This Info was relayed to me by a few WC practicioners that are now Instructors on other Boards.
Just struck a Cord with me as Bruce Lee supposedly also started in TCC.
So I was wondering if it is new Idea or if it has been done so previously.
Thanks, for the Info from everybody so far.
David Carradine probably knows more tai chi than bruce lee did
Bruce’s dad did do tai chi but Bruce’s learning was minimal at best. he also learned forms from southern mantis, jeet kune and ones from other styles. That is a far cry from really learning the system
Tai Chi and Wing Chun
I know some may cringe at what I am about to say, though I found this topic very interesting when I saw it. This is due to the fact that I have studied Wing Chun for about 13 years now though have been training Yang style Tai Chi for several months now. My Tai Chi teacher Sifu Chow mentioned to me on a couple of occasions that in China some refer to Wing Chun as Southern Tai Chi, this is referring to a certain style of Tai Chi (which I can’t remember now) which has Wing Chun similaities. I am not sure if this is a wide concept in China or just in the area he is from, though again kinda interesting.
Proper VT(Tsui Sheng Tin lineage) body mechanics and forword energy would dominate a tai chi practitioner(the ones I’ve trained with any way) even at push hands. Ex. push hands: When you push out, the other person rolls back and then tranfers his wait back out as he pushs forword and you roll back and so on… bad discription, but you know what i mean… But a person with the VT skills couldnt be pushed back, once his arm goes forword it doesnt come back. VT is very internall, and I think some other lineages that don’t train WC internally the way we do, try to train tai chi to fill a gap that they think is missing in WC.
But please, before some crazy tai chi person starts yelling at me, relize that I’m not very smart, and that I’ll always be close minded and ingnorent, so dont bother going ape **** on me.
Besides my WC could beat you any way and if I did lose it would be because I’m having a bad day…
I believe that as a fighting style, wing chun can be learned effectively to defend oneself in a much shorter and efficient time than tai chi. This is due to two things: wing chun’s concepts and it’s aggressive structure.
Tai Chi is a good style but it is taught wrong (in the sense that the concentration is on health nowadays). To be able to use tai chi effectively in fighting takes a long time. However, the advanced sylists are pretty impressive. Their pushing hands resembles chi sau! Very fast with a lot of traps and deflection of force