Hello,
Thank you for sharing, that is a very good clip, well analyzed and great points. I have always felt the same way about sport fighting the way Tim Larkin has analyzed it. That is no disrespect to the fighters, they are in A+ shape and can do some damage. However Tim Larkin is right to be pointing out what he did.
I doubt this video will go as viral as the “Tai Chi/ MMA” fight in China.
What it comes down to is function-ability. When learning proper mechanics and applications in Tai Chi push hands, the focus is on applying the right mechanics into the science and knowledge of how you move, angle, respond, lock, throw, bump, etc. I have some training in both Tai Chi and Longfist; not saying I am the best.
I think I have shared this before, I was training a bit in a parking lot one day and a drunk MMA guy came over to me and started mocking the movements I was doing (after roundhouse kicks and stringing combos together in my shadow boxing, probably running through some forms, I did some Tai Chi movements, he saw the Tai Chi movements only I think, not what I was doing earlier, and came over.) Well, a fight did START to happen. After a bit of shoving, etc. he tried to bash my head in, but I saw him swinging from the corner of my eye and dodged by maybe, a mili-inch. Since we were in close range I followed through with a hip bump (kao), a technique I had worked with a partner in Tai Chi push hands class. He went reeling backwards maybe 3 or 4 car spaces and landed face first on the pavement. After a second and his initial shock wore off, he curled up like a baby turtle and exclaimed, “don’t kill me!” If I was a violent person, which I tend not to be, I would have stuck to him and ground and pounded him. Instead I stayed where I was from where I threw the hip bump and let him get back up. He was ****ed, words were exchanged but I was calm about it, the situation de-escalated and we walked away our separate ways.
As you said in your other thread, describing some of your own students, I am a raw student when it comes to martial arts training. I have only trained the TCMA, as far as a “martial art” goes. I was in good athletic shape before such training though (running, working). Sometimes I can appreciate MMA for what it is depending on my mood, just saying, being honest to my lens of the world. But I am turned off by the whole bread and circus of it. When I was 18 years old or so and not taking exercise seriously yet. I was at a carnival (outside an Iggy Pop concert) and two gym rats with “perfectly” chiseled bodies, with a hot babe over each one’s shoulder, were trying to swing the mallet to hit the target and make the bell rise up and go “ding.” I was watching them for like 5 minutes and they couldn’t do it. I went over, then a young mr. leather jacket and cigarette dangling from mouth, swung the mallet and got the “ding” in one swing. Why? Because I know the proper mechanics of how to swing an axe/ mallet from chopping fire-wood.
Also, I grew up with one foot in the country and still like to think that I do. Every young kid who spends a lot of time in the woods knows the art of stealth to some extent, and also to be very aware of your surroundings. Again, even today, if I can build giant stone walls and effigies up in the hills, a feat of hard labor; and still train my kung fu, and still even run, get the upper hand in a street scuffle, I don’t have to prove anything to anybody. I think a lot of people who train in the traditional arts who can functionally use their training (at least to some degree) feel this way.
