# Tai Chi is not easy.



## Robert Agar-Hutton (Jan 22, 2019)

By Robert Agar-Hutton © 2019

How do you feel when you see on TV or in a movie, a few old people moving slowly, looking relaxed, smiling, doing Tai Chi.

Well I absolutely HATE it!

Why do I hate it? It’s because they ALWAYS seem to make it look easy, and Tai Chi is not easy at all. The idea that it’s easy is a lie, that I and most other Tai Chi instructors accidentally perpetrate on people.

I get people of all ages joining my Tai Chi groups and either half way through their first lesson (and also during lessons weeks, months, or even years later) they get this Grim, Horrified, Scared, Desperate look on their face. The ‘look’ comes as they try to do something that should be easy (because the instructor and most of the other students are doing it easily) but suddenly their brain has gone into ‘melt-down’, or their left and right hands and feet get inextricably mixed up and co-ordination becomes non-existent.

Why does this happen? It’s because GOOD Tai Chi is and should be difficult. You should be continually asking your mind and your body to do something that is slightly more complicated or slightly more refined or subtle than what you have ever done before. And when that happens, when your instructor thinks you are ready to progress to the next level but your brain thinks ‘No way’ then that’s what is going to cause the ‘look’.

So, how do you stop the problem... The answer is that you don’t. In fact, you welcome it with open arms and a big (and perhaps slightly goofy) smile. Why, because it means that you are making progress - OK it won’t feel like that - but you are. And more importantly, one of the most important things that we can hope to get from our Tai Chi practice is a young (‘Young’ being a relative term; Young for our age.) body and mind. The mind is helped to stay young and active by making it learn new things, making it think ‘WHAT THE !!!!! is going on’ and then going on with your practice so that the difficult becomes easy. Indeed, I have even seen students turn the ‘impossible’ into ‘possible’ into ‘easy peasy’.

Now, as I always say to students, Tai Chi isn’t magic and it won’t make you live forever and it won’t guarantee good health. But it does and can work seeming wonders for many people day after day.


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## Xue Sheng (Jan 22, 2019)

My wife generally tells me I am martial arts crazy....also when we were first married she always told me I would never make any money teaching martial arts, particularly taijiquan, because I was to serious. And she was right, I was. Use to get upset with folks in taijiquan not wanting to know the applications, or do push hands properly.... Basically I wold say "I am not a fan of the dance". Had a student walk out once because I was asked by another student if Taiji was a martial art and I said "Yes, but I am not teaching it as such" The other student said "I'M NOT STUDYING KARATE" and stormed out, never to return.

I have mellowed with age and now it does not bother I would teach what they want to learn, and if they do not want to know the marital arts of it, that is fine too


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## donald1 (Jan 22, 2019)

That's seems strange. Personally I've practiced Tai chi for a couple years now and I've thought Tai chi was fairly easy to learn. Now obviously I still make mistakes. Push hands is still something that confuses me. Push hands almost seems like chess in a sense that that it's about strategy. Almost no brute force is used. (I'm not great at chess either). Maybe it's just my experience in other styles but I don't think I've ever really struggled with tai tai in general at least .

Whatever the case, good luck to you!


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## Xue Sheng (Jan 22, 2019)

donald1 said:


> That's seems strange. Personally I've practiced Tai chi for a couple years now and I've thought Tai chi was fairly easy to learn. Now obviously I still make mistakes. Push hands is still something that confuses me. Push hands almost seems like chess in a sense that that it's about strategy. Almost no brute force is used. (I'm not great at chess either). Maybe it's just my experience in other styles but I don't think I've ever really struggled with tai tai in general at least .
> 
> Whatever the case, good luck to you!



Push hands is not chess, it is about sensitivity. And easy or difficulty can depend on how deeply you want to delve into it....and the Shifu teaching it and how traditional he/she is, and how deep he/she wants to go, or can go


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## JowGaWolf (Jan 22, 2019)

Robert Agar-Hutton said:


> Why do I hate it? It’s because they ALWAYS seem to make it look easy, and Tai Chi is not easy at all.


It's easy when you do it wrong.  

I'm not saying that it can't be easy for some people to learn.  But the truth is that the closer that someone trains it as a fighting system the more difficult it becomes.  Movements begin to have purpose and function. It's no longer carelessly waving arms around the air.

This is easy.  Movement without purpose.


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## Headhunter (Jan 23, 2019)

I think when people say easy they mean the physicality of it e.g a tai chi session won't be as physically tiring as a Muay Thai session or something like that. Not that it's easy physically either but it's not as intense as other styles. And hey that's totally fine it's not a criticism. It's just got a different emphasis


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## Robert Agar-Hutton (Jan 23, 2019)

JowGaWolf said:


> This is easy.  Movement without purpose.



Although I primarily teach Yang style the video you posted (watched the first 3 and a half minutes) was Sun style and looked fine. Obviously at beginner level but nothing wrong with the moves?


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## jobo (Jan 23, 2019)

Robert Agar-Hutton said:


> By Robert Agar-Hutton © 2019
> 
> How do you feel when you see on TV or in a movie, a few old people moving slowly, looking relaxed, smiling, doing Tai Chi.
> 
> ...


I don't think it's easy, at all, I found the very slow accurate movement, to be very tiring and hard to Ballance, I do my  kata in a similar way for the isometric benefits it brings, the more burning question is, is it a martial art o stand up yoga ?


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## Xue Sheng (Jan 23, 2019)

Robert Agar-Hutton said:


> Although I primarily teach Yang style the video you posted (watched the first 3 and a half minutes) was Sun style and looked fine. Obviously at beginner level but nothing wrong with the moves?



I don't think that's Sun


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## Robert Agar-Hutton (Jan 23, 2019)

jobo said:


> I don't think it's easy, at all, I found the very slow accurate movement, to be very tiring and hard to Ballance, I do my  kata in a similar way for the isometric benefits it brings, the more burning question is, is it a martial art o stand up yoga ?



Totally depends on the teacher - it can be a 'martial art' or it can be 'stand up yoga' - although the body mechanics are quite different from most yoga. 

Mind you - re 'martial art' - I'm biased as yesterday I released a video series 'Tai Chi for Self Defence' on my learning portal.


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## Robert Agar-Hutton (Jan 23, 2019)

Xue Sheng said:


> I don't think that's Sun



Have a look at: 



 - I think you will see the connection?


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## jobo (Jan 23, 2019)

Robert Agar-Hutton said:


> Totally depends on the teacher - it can be a 'martial art' or it can be 'stand up yoga' - although the body mechanics are quite different from most yoga.
> 
> Mind you - re 'martial art' - I'm biased as yesterday I released a video series 'Tai Chi for Self Defence' on my learning portal.


I'm aware that it can be a martial art, but rather than the old folks in the park , which you used as an example, arnt doing a " martial art" rather health giving movement, that is no more or less useful for self defence than yoga or ballroom dancing or power lifting, until the point we're you speed it up consiserably and have a bit of sparring, then it maybe is ?


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## Xue Sheng (Jan 23, 2019)

Robert Agar-Hutton said:


> Have a look at:
> 
> 
> 
> - I think you will see the connection?



I do some Sun and I have seen that video before, and I still do not thing what she is doing is Sun. Her leaning posture is not Sun actually, it is much closer to Wu style, and I do not think she is doing Wu either. To be honest I have no idea what she is doing as it applies to style, not saying good or bad, just do not know what style she is supposed to be doing, or if it is any style at all or one of the many competition forms that it out there. I too and a long time Yang guy, but I have trained Chen, retraining Wu and starting to Train Sun


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## wanderingstudent (Jan 23, 2019)

jobo said:


> I'm aware that it can be a martial art, but rather than the old folks in the park , which you used as an example, arnt doing a " martial art" rather health giving movement, that is no more or less useful for self defence than yoga or ballroom dancing or power lifting, until the point we're you speed it up consiserably and have a bit of sparring, then it maybe is ?



Yes.  And this is a major misunderstanding about Tai Chi.  My Sifu did the whole China trip thing.  He visited Chen village, he saw people of all ages throwing and hitting each other; he thought this is Tai Chi!?!?  Jokingly, of course.  The point being you need all aspects for any art to be a martial art.

My lineage says you should train in both- the martial and the art.  You get double benefit.  Training only in the art, is only that; you will have no martial use.


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## jobo (Jan 24, 2019)

wanderingstudent said:


> Yes.  And this is a major misunderstanding about Tai Chi.  My Sifu did the whole China trip thing.  He visited Chen village, he saw people of all ages throwing and hitting each other; he thought this is Tai Chi!?!?  Jokingly, of course.  The point being you need all aspects for any art to be a martial art.
> 
> My lineage says you should train in both- the martial and the art.  You get double benefit.  Training only in the art, is only that; you will have no martial use.


Yes agree, so a question then to an expert, assuming that if done " properly" it's no better if worse, than any other chinese martial art, why has tai chi in particular been hi jacked jy the new age, moving meditation movement, 

In the UK Tai chi is every where, in any square mile in a city, you can find at least one tai chi class run by a middle aged chubby woman who has never been anywhere near a martial arts class,  or a gym for that matter, yet none of them would be as reckless as to run say a Lau GA gung fu class,


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## wanderingstudent (Jan 24, 2019)

So, this group I met up with; I mentioned my training and one of them commented about wanting to learn Tai Chi.  Another member said, "ah, you can just do our forms at Tai Chi speed and get the same workout".  I invited them both to a seminar, to educate them; neither took me up on the offer.

You don't know, what you don't know.

Another one of our sayings is "Practice in forms only, will make your Gung Fu useless in old age".

Do you know the Lau Gar?


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## jobo (Jan 24, 2019)

wanderingstudent said:


> So, this group I met up with; I mentioned my training and one of them commented about wanting to learn Tai Chi.  Another member said, "ah, you can just do our forms at Tai Chi speed and get the same workout".  I invited them both to a seminar, to educate them; neither took me up on the offer.
> 
> You don't know, what you don't know.
> 
> ...


Yes I spent a chunk of my late 20s doing Lau gar, and very good it was to


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## Robert Agar-Hutton (Jan 28, 2019)

Also fond memories of Lau Gar - long long ago


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## jameschen (Feb 4, 2019)

yes,  tai chi is is difficult,  complicated


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## PhilE (Feb 18, 2019)

Id say learning the basic structure of the movements can seem easy, 'getting it,' is a different matter.


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## Kung Fu Wang (Feb 18, 2019)

Since Taiji has very little combat value, the more that I train it, the more that I lost interest in it.

When I look at this clip, I feel young, healthy, strong, happy, alive.






When I look at this clip, I feel old, sick, weak, sad, death.


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## Flying Crane (Feb 18, 2019)

Kung Fu Wang said:


> Since Taiji has very little combat value, the more that I train it, the more that I lost interest in it.
> 
> When I look at this clip, I feel young, healthy, strong, happy, alive.
> 
> ...


If you feel that way about taiji, then certainly you ought to do something else.


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## PhilE (Feb 19, 2019)

If your training in Tai Chi and not experiencing the benefits, then you are not training.

Once you get a taste of it, you'll understand why so many practice it.  

Or, you can dismiss it after a few attempts and sneer down at it, for not enabling you to kick ***.


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## mograph (Feb 19, 2019)

Kung Fu Wang said:


> Since Taiji has very little combat value, the more that I train it, the more that I lost interest in it.


KFW, why do you keep commenting on things you know nothing about?
Please, just comment on your own art, and not other people's arts.


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## Kung Fu Wang (Feb 19, 2019)

mograph said:


> KFW, why do you keep commenting on things you know nothing about?
> Please, just comment on your own art, and not other people's arts.


I started to train Taiji when I was 7. Taiji is my 1st MA system.

Here are my students. They are all Taiji instructors now. Video was made 36 years ago.


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## Xue Sheng (Feb 24, 2019)

Kung Fu Wang said:


> I started to train Taiji when I was 7. Taiji is my 1st MA system.



And yet you do not seem to like it or think much of it, and talk bad about it at every chance. If so then why teach it or do it.

As to no combat value, Tung Hu Ling (oldest son of Tung Ying Chieh) opened a taiji school in Thailand in the 50s and took challenges and did not lose. Chen family has been sparing for years in Chenjaigou and Chen Xiaowang was attacked during a seminar and responded instinctively and the attacker ended up hospitalized. Could it be your lineage did not train the martial side or possibly did not understand it.

Now I am more than willing to admit most Taiji taught these days has little or no combat value, since it is not trained. But that does not mean everyone is trained that way


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## Flying Crane (Feb 24, 2019)

Kung Fu Wang said:


> I started to train Taiji when I was 7. Taiji is my 1st MA system.
> 
> Here are my students. They are all Taiji instructors now. Video was made 36 years ago.


What was your purpose in posting this video?  Was it to show an example of bad taiji?  I’m just confused about what you were trying to accomplish, since you dislike taiji so much, yet seem to have taught your students taiji and they are now apparently teachers.


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## Kung Fu Wang (Feb 24, 2019)

Xue Sheng said:


> And yet you do not seem to like it or think much of it, and talk bad about it at every chance. If so then why teach it or do it.





Flying Crane said:


> since you dislike taiji so much, yet seem to have taught your students taiji and they are now apparently teachers.


Please discuss the message and don't attack the messenger.

I liked Taiji when I was young (that was while I taught Taiji to my students). I just don't like Taiji when I'm older.

I express why I don't like Taiji. You express why you like Taiji. There is no need to get into the following argument. The discussion subject is "because ...". The discussion subject is not "YOU" or "I".

A: I like ... because ...
B: I don't like ... because ...
A: You are &^%$#@,   
B: You are @#$%^&.


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## Flying Crane (Feb 24, 2019)

Kung Fu Wang said:


> Please discuss the message and don't attack the messenger.
> 
> I liked Taiji when I was young (that was while I taught Taiji to my students). I just don't like Taiji when I'm older.
> 
> ...


I’m not attacking the messenger.  I am confused about your message.

I personally am indifferent to taiji.  I trained it for over a decade, but it always took a backseat to other training I was doing.  I ultimately stopped doing it because I acknowledged the reality that I don’t really understand it and was not really accomplishing anything by training it.  That might have been different if I had made taiji my main focus.  But those are the choices I made.

I don’t feel that it’s no good.  I only recognize that it’s the wrong choice for me.


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## Kung Fu Wang (Feb 24, 2019)

Flying Crane said:


> I’m not attacking the messenger.  I am confused about your message.


Thanks for your explanation.

When I was young, I didn't mind to

- do slow move. When I get older, I like to do fast move.
- be with old people. When I get older, I like to be with young people.

For example, when I do a 360 degree full body rotation roundhouse kick followed by a spin back fist (with full speed), I feel great. I can repeat it left and right until I can't do it any more. I just don't get that kind of excitement when I drill Taiji "brush knee twist step" over and over in slow speed.

The 360 degree roundhouse kick requires:

- single leg balance,
- body flexibility,
- endurance,
- leg strength,
- ...

IMO, it can give me more health benefit than any of the Taiji move that can give me. So when OP said, "Taiji is not easy". I like to say, "360 degree roundhouse kick is not easy too."


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## Xue Sheng (Feb 24, 2019)

Kung Fu Wang said:


> Please discuss the message and don't attack the messenger.
> 
> I liked Taiji when I was young (that was while I taught Taiji to my students). I just don't like Taiji when I'm older.
> 
> ...



I am not attacking the messenger, but if I do not agree with the messenger I need to take a contrary view. Also when by words the messenger continually degrades something I have the right to ask why then they train it. There is no attack there. There is no



> A: I like ... because ...
> B: I don't like ... because ...
> A: You are &^%$#@,
> B: You are @#$%^&.



But it still begs the question, why, if you continually say Taiji has no combat effectiveness, ad you appear to be very much interested in combat effectiveness, why do you teach and train it?

Also I gave examples of it being used in fighting, sparing and self-defense, why didi you not address those and avoid the discussion by presenting it as an attack, when it was not?


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## Kung Fu Wang (Feb 24, 2019)

Xue Sheng said:


> Also I gave examples of it being used in fighting, sparing and self-defense, why didi you not address those and avoid the discussion by presenting it as an attack, when it was not?


If you keep mention the ancient Taiji fighters, you may live in the past. How many Taiji fighters that do we have today? 1% of the Taiji population, or 0.001% of the Taiji population? You said there are a lot of Taiji fighters. I just don't see that many.


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## Xue Sheng (Feb 24, 2019)

Kung Fu Wang said:


> If you keep mention the ancient Taiji fighters, you may live in the past. How many Taiji fighters that do we have today? 1% of the Taiji population, or 0.001% of the Taiji population?



Ancient fighters!? Since when are the 1950s to now ancient.

Tung Hu Ling died in 1992, (his father, Heck, Tung Ying Chieh died in 1961, he is hardly ancient, and he was big on Qinna) Chen Xiaowang is alive today, as is Chen Xiaoxing, Chen Zhenglei and Chen Yu (who was very effective until is recent stroke). Also Tung Hu Ling's Son Tung Kai Ying is alive and as skilled and my Taiji shifu (student of Ting Ying Chieh) is also alive and equally as skilled. Liang Shouyu is also alive and well and has students who are rather skilled at using Taijiquan as a martial art.

However you made gross generalization that taiji was not useful in combat and qualified that based on your knowledge of training since 7 years old. Tung Hu ling was alive and well and taking challenges in the 50s,  Now you are adding a qualifier of "Ancient" and "lived in the past" to your statements to justify your generalization. But yet the example I gave are not ancient and most are alive today.

My point is there are teachers, alive today, that are well trained and know and can use the martial side of it and they have trained people to do the same. I will agree there are not many. I will also add I have never trained the style of Taiji that you trained, it is possible it is rather good, but it is possible it is not, I would not know. But based on this you make blanket statements and generalization as to the ineffectiveness of Taijiquan, and that then it gets interpreted as "all" taijiquan by many. You have not trained all styles so how do you know. I have no idea who you have trained with or with how many. I have trained Chen, and Yang, some Wu and more recently Sun. I have trained with Chen Zhenglei and my Shifu too as well as a few others. I know there are good and bad teachers and I know that most of what you see is taught for health and I would agree most are very ineffective when it comes to martial arts, but not all.

I simply do not feel your statement is correct nor do I feel you are qualified to make such a general statement about taijiquan I also feel you are incredibly biased against taijiquan and I get this from multiple posts you have made on the subject of taijiquan.

I have also trained a little Shuaijiao, but would not for the life of me judge it based on this little training. Same goes for Sanda/Sanshou, JKD, and, even though I have trained longer than the aforementioned styles, I do not feel I am qualified to have any deep discussions about Changquan.

I am not attacking, I am telling you how I feel about what you are saying about an art I have trained for almost 30 years, most of that in the Tung Ying Chieh Lineage.


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## wanderingstudent (Feb 25, 2019)

Kung Fu Wang said:


> Thanks for your explanation.
> 
> When I was young, I didn't mind to
> 
> ...




You do know you are free to play, as you wish?






another way to play






and still a third






I had this epiphany years ago.  One time I play, as I was taught.  The next, smooth but faster.  The next, smooth adding the Fa-Jing.  I make my Tai Ji, my Tai Ji; I own it.

Before this I wanted to train Bagua because I felt it was more the speed, I wanted to go.  But no longer.

Absolutely, there is no reason you can't play your kicking drills. But, Tai Ji offers more; than what is on the surface.


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## Kung Fu Wang (Feb 25, 2019)

wanderingstudent said:


> One time I play, as I was taught.  The next, smooth but faster.  The next, smooth adding the Fa-Jing.  I make my Tai Ji, my Tai Ji; I own it.


I like your attitude. This is how my students do their Taiji in the past 5 years. Is that pure Taiji, I truly don't care.


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## Kung Fu Wang (Feb 25, 2019)

wanderingstudent said:


> I make my Tai Ji, my Tai Ji; I own it.


This is a very important concept. Many people train all their life, they never think that "It should be their Taiji and not their Taiji teacher's Taiji".


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## Xue Sheng (Feb 25, 2019)

I was always taught, by my teacher, no two people are the same, therefore their taiji will not be the same


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## ChenAn (Mar 10, 2019)

With Chen taiji I don’t worry about sorrow of practicing slow when get old lol 


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


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## vince1 (Mar 21, 2019)

Xue Sheng said:


> And yet you do not seem to like it or think much of it, and talk bad about it at every chance. If so then why teach it or do it.
> 
> As to no combat value, Tung Hu Ling (oldest son of Tung Ying Chieh) opened a taiji school in Thailand in the 50s and took challenges and did not lose. Chen family has been sparing for years in Chenjaigou and Chen Xiaowang was attacked during a seminar and responded instinctively and the attacker ended up hospitalized. Could it be your lineage did not train the martial side or possibly did not understand it.
> 
> Now I am more than willing to admit most Taiji taught these days has little or no combat value, since it is not trained. But that does not mean everyone is trained that way



My Aiki JiuJitsu teacher is also a Yang Style Tai Chi Master and teaches the combat side to a small handful of his students. Some of what he teaches crosses over into the Aiki Jiu Jitsu he teaches to me. At some point in the near future I will be learning Yang Style Tai Chi and hopefully the combat side. He invited me to his private  Taijiquan class and was blown away by his skill level.


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