Last week a student brought around his friend who has studied Taijiquan for three years. He presented himself well for his relative inexperience. It was his first taste of Wing Chun.
Would anyone care to share their experiences vis-a-vis Wing Chun and Taji?
Regards,
My mom 's been doing tai chi for only 6 months and she can still kick my arse:D
Tai chi, and taijiquan ain’t the same though, from what I’ve read that is .
yeah
the latter is otherwise known as “the insanely happy fist” whereas the former is what people in Rosedale do for exercise.
actually, a taijiquan student came to a class i was in a long while back. he participated in chi sao and his taiji looked quite complementary to Wing Chun as practiced by us at the time. in other words, he had no problem and was quick to adapt to WC techniques.
Defending Against Taijiquan
Originally posted by Alpha Dog
actually, a taijiquan student came to a class i was in a long while back. he participated in chi sao and his taiji looked quite complementary to Wing Chun as practiced by us at the time. in other words, he had no problem and was quick to adapt to WC techniques.
I don’t doubt that a Taijiquan person can learn WC.
I’m looking for thoughts on Wing Chun techniques and principles to apply against Taiji. Here are some of mine.
Taiji martial artists like to control the elbows, often from the outside and underneath. I would not give them this. Their hands, especially if they are inexperienced, tend to want to be in the same plane parallel to the ground.
There are some obvious counters to this for the Wing Chun stylist.
One is to split the hands with gaun sau, denying them the planar angle of attack—assuming they can’t push with one hand. Another counter is simply running your hands to an outside fook sau on top of theirs when they come underneath.
We can take advantage of differences in our fighting ranges. One can visualize the Taiji person as having a “force field” extending about 3/4 of an arm’s length from the person. To strike them, we can stay back out of that range and go over the top of their arms, avoiding their counters.
Wing Chun Women of the World
Where are you?
I see very few WC women in the magazines. In my school over the years, no female ever stayed long enough, or got good enough, to get into the senior class.
Many males fell by the wayside as well. However, no female (counting at eight years) have exceled.
Whenever there is a demo, all males. Ads say the art was formulated by a woman (or women). What happened then?
If you are a WC woman please step forward. After eight years I’d like to know there are good female practitioners out there. If you are a master, better still.
I don’t wish to offend. I merely want to know.
Females
Why you want to pursue the subject on this particular thread, I don’t know, but:
My organisation at least has several female students that reached instructor level and beyond, and a regular and committed contingent in our senior class. We train hard and spar with contact.
My si-hing, Alfredo del-Brocco, and his wife Rachel, head up several successful WC schools in Queensland, AUS, with several hundred active students. Rachel won her division of the Australian Kung-fu championships 2 years running.
I feel that a strong female contingent makes for a more pleasant and enjoyable training environment on all sorts of levels.
Ads say the art was formulated by a woman (or women).
Ads and legend say that, rigorous historical research casts doubt on it.
In my school over the years, no female ever stayed long enough, or got good enough, to get into the senior class.
I guess I’d be asking myself why females feel your school does not seem to encourage them to stay, or what they are looking for that it doesn’t provide. Like you, I do not wish to offend, I merely want to know.
Taiji vs Tai Chi
Before I start, just want to say that Tai Chi and Taiji are different romanizations for the same characters, and the same family of martial arts.
Anyway, I learned some Taiji before taking up WC, and I always sucked at push hands. After learning WC, I often did “bridged” “play-sparring” with several taiji folks. In all but 1-2 of the cases, I did very well by WC standards (was able to hit, maintained structure, didn’t get uprooted too badly). I found that they often try to feel for their opponent’s arm tightening up, to create a link to their center of gravity; but since in our chi sao, we practice “unlinking” when we are pulled or pushed, they could had a hard time finding my center through my arms; plus, since we constantly practice protection of our bodies, they didn’t get past my arms very often to do a body push. Of course, push hands and sticky hands are two completely different animals.
I do have to say that on one occasion, I went against this one master in Taipei; our hands were crossed, I used a pak sao to clear the bridge and attack, and he deftly turned out of the way and tapped me on the shoulder. I was dumped on my butt! So I have the utmost respect for the art.
Also, I have a si-hing who did WC for many years before taking up and later quitting Chen style Taiji; the practice really did improve his “listening” skills, and he is by far the best WC hands I have ever ever touched (among several hundreds of people from over a couple lineages).
Aelward
Did you train with Lo Man Kam Sifu while in Taipei, and if so from when to when?
re: alpha dog
I was training with LMK in Taipei from September of 1995 to September of 1998. Write me at aelward@hotmail.com 
Re: Wing Chun Women of the World
Originally posted by Piquan Li
Where are you?
What do you want to know? Is there some special relevance to this particular thread?
Regards,
Thanks anerlich
You answered my question. Sorry, I didn’t mean to take the thread off on a tangent.
There are some very good ones. KJ (a wc woman)can tell you about one in SF.
A couple in canada-big place!. A couple in Tucson.
Nancy Macdonald of Tucson began around 1973 - she is not doing as much wing chun in the last 2-3 years as she used to…
but she is very very good. She is my senior sister and she helped me a lot in getting started. She is great with weapons- wc weapons and taichi sword too- which she learned from
Bo Sim Mak. You wouldnt want to be hit by her. I was there when a tough macao guy- a full contact guy tried to bully her ina chi sao exchange. She gave hima bloody nose. She is not particularly proud of that-it just came naturally. She cleaned up in women’s open martial arts competitions as well in the southwest in the late 70s and early 80s.
Who Hijacked the Thread?
Originally posted by S.Teebas
[B]
Come and check out the school where i train. My Sifu is female and skill level is very high.
[/B]
OK, but do you have something to say on the subject of dealing with Taiji? How would your sifu deal with Taiji?
Regards,
I’ve sparred a TaiJi guy. I think you just need to do what you do better than the other guy does what he does. WC has good footwork and tactics, so the Tai Ji opponent won’t be at a particular advantage against our style. The only advice I might offer is don’t chase his hands, throw lots of quick punches and don’t make large movements that he can take advantage of.
-FJ
Hmmm
My advice is if you want to beat a Taiji player then your sticking energy has to be deeper than theirs. If you’re listening skills are good then you have total control of the situation, and that counts for any other style too. Of course this is alo accepting the fact that that you have something to issue once you have found the right time to strike.
I have played push hands/chi sau with a Yang Stylist, who has been training about 6 years. Very soft bridges that were quite yielding with a fantastic stance.
At a slowed tempo he dominated me, especially structurally, however when we upped the tempo and I used footwork he wasn’t familiar with (he only seems to push hands with 1 or 2 steps if any at all) i started to dominate.
He would be the first to admit that his Tai Chi is not the best in world and his school places little importance in the martial aspects of their art. Having said that my WC is of no real standing either
Having said that I spent 4 weeks training for 10 hours a day with a Chen player, who was the local province’s San Shou champion. He could hit like a train from crazy angles and dump me on my a r s e almost at will. I feel great shame that he may of judged Wing Chun Chi Sau on my pitifully outclassed attempts at Push hands with him. However it was a very quick lesson in the effectiveness of Tai Chi.
Nat from UK
There is a local WC school in my town. They train pretty hard. One of the students used to come by to test his skills at the taiji school.
Wing Chun courage at its best.
He didn’t fair too well. But it was refreshing to see someone willing to test what they learned. Ironically, he was attacked down the center. I don’t blame WC. He just needed more good practice.
Strong straight thrusting palms did him in. They shouldn’t have, but they did.
Also, I am glad to hear there are very good female WC artists out there. I meant no disrespect, it’s just that I have not seen any. I used to say how WC is great for females, but there were no female role models that I could refer them to.
Women in Wing Chun Example
Originally posted by Piquan Li
[B]There is a local WC school in my town. They train pretty hard. One of the students used to come by to test his skills at the taiji school.
Wing Chun courage at its best.
[/B]
I agree. He showed good spirit. Courage is a good thing.
He didn’t fair too well. But it was refreshing to see someone willing to test what they learned. Ironically, he was attacked down the center. I don’t blame WC. He just needed more good practice.
Good Taiji is formidable. The more experienced Taiji martial artist should be able to handle a Wing Chun beginner.
Strong straight thrusting palms did him in. They shouldn’t have, but they did..
It’s clear he needed more practice, then.
Also, I am glad to hear there are very good female WC artists out there. I meant no disrespect, it’s just that I have not seen any. I used to say how WC is great for females, but there were no female role models that I could refer them to.
More than some—quite a few. I’d like to recommend reading the biography of Sandy Wong. Just tall enough to look straight at my breastbone, she can push my 220 pounds around like few men can and block all my strikes while doing it. Read her bio at
http://www.bawcsa.org/
Regards,
Re: Women in Wing Chun Example
Originally posted by Grendel
Good Taiji is formidable. The more experienced Taiji martial artist should be able to handle a Wing Chun beginner.
I’ve worked out with some Chen people and the over-riding experiences I got were:
a) When applying energy to them, they seemed to withdraw or disappear, but they were, in fact, coiling (my term, not theirs). If I didn’t fill that void with my structure, I found myself over extended and then they owned the encounter.
b) In each and every case, I found them easy to work out with, and we both learned things about what we each knew about our own respective arts, along with gaining some new found appreciation for what the other was doing.
c) They adapted to Chi Sao very, very rapidly, as if, it was functionally no different than, say, Push Hands. Maybe it was I who adjusted. It was just a natural fit (which surprised me).