Can You Fight with Tai Chi?

[Yoshiyahu]

So in other words Tai Chi is more for Self Defense oppose to being and offensive and combat System like White Crane Karate or Wing Chun or Xing Yi Quan?

Having finally read all of the posts regarding the question 'Can you fight with Taiji'? Personally I think Taijiquan is an elusive system that enables the practitioner to be difficult to strike, grab and/or pin; this is what I love most about Taijiquan.

Obviously there are some strikes but I find Taiji to be mostly defensive and used to subdue rather than merely attack.

Hope that makes sense?!

 

[Xue Sheng]

So in other words Tai Chi is more for Self Defense oppose to being and offensive and combat System like White Crane Karate or Wing Chun or Xing Yi Quan?

Nothing is much like Xingyiquan

In Xingyiquan defense "is" offense and first strike is acceptable as well as trained

 

[JadecloudAlchemist]

Another thing on Hsing yi foot work in the Wu Xing at least is
none of the foot work goes backwards.

You usually always end up in santi shi. So you may start off in Santi perform the technqiue that makes you go forward or at least zig zag then back to Santi.

 

[DarkOverSoul]

Whoa, well, this is an interesting thread. o_o;; I knew Taiji has its martial aspects, I was just never sure how efficient it was till now. I mean I'm still not sure how well it fair against a more aggressive, and fast fighter, but still quite interesting. Its like everywhere I tend to go everyone keeps saying Taiji is useless in a fight and if any of these fighters tried fighting someone who trained in MMA they would most likely get there asses beaten. Which I do believe is true for a mass majority with how difficult it is to learn this art from what I've read, and the difficulty of finding a decent school. But yes, I can understand this a bit better.

If you think about it the fact that its been around for a while should be enough proof that it was efficient enough as a fighting art otherwise it whoever uses it wouldn't be around anymore. >.> So I always found it somewhat annoying that a lot of people consider Taiji useless, even though a majority of people are most likely incapable of using it as a martial art. >_>

 

[mograph]

Someone who really knows how to fight using Tai Chi would move quickly and effortlessly. He would be difficult to uproot.

Many martial artists just don't understand the slow training of Tai Chi. In my small experience, I've found that the early training of "internal" or "soft" arts such as Tai Chi consist of a lot of movements that don't look martial, or are practiced at a very slow pace, but they have martial uses. Naturally, a "hard" martial artist will beat the stuffing out of a Tai Chi artist in the early stages of Tai Chi training, because the Tai Chi artist would not have had any practice sparring.

However, if a Tai Chi student is patient enough to progress beyond the early training, and he's at the right school, he will be taught martial applications. And if he practices sparring in the right environment, he will learn how to spar. If he has practiced the early slow exercises properly, they will pay off in terms of calmness, speed and natural (untelegraphed), connected action.

In short, I believe Tai Chi and similar arts take a "wax on, wax off" approach. It might not look like fighting, but the training lays a strong foundation for martial applications later on.

The patient and slow should not be underestimated. :asian:

 

[DarkOverSoul]

Can't seem to edit my post so I'll just ask, does Tai Chi have actual more direct offensive capabilities when necessary, or is it all redirecting the flow of power your opponent throws back at him? Since that is from what I read what most soft styles tend to do. >.>

 

[grydth]

While I would not pretend to speak for all styles of Tai Chi, Yang and its derivatives contains a variety of kicks, punches and strikes. See a book or video showing the Yang 108 form for an excellent example.

I would not characterize any of the Tai Chi variants as "offensive" in application.

 

[northern tiger]

While most of my martial arts training lies with five animal kung fu I regularly practice qi gong and yang tai chi chuan. I really do believe that tai chi can effectively be used in a real fight and while I don't claim to be a master or even really great at tai chi I have found that the principles of tai chi push hands like warding, absorbing and sticking to have greatly improved my general wrestling, grappling and locking skills. Balance, smoothness and rooting are also aspects that have improved for me.

 

[Anthony Walmsley]

Regarding the use of Taijiquan for "Self Defense"; those interested in this, should perhaps, consider the implications of:

"I he doesn't move, I don't move.
If he moves slowly, I move slowly but if he attacks, I arrive first."

Anthony Walmsley.
www.wau.it/haha

 

[pete]

Rather than trying to decipher the fortune cookie or trying to reconcile your training with that of the legendary masters (seems to me they all walked to school the proverbial 15 miles uphill in the snow... both ways!)

learn the art from a teacher who can teach you the martial art of tai chi chuan, who can correct you to make it work effectively and efficiently, and who begins the mindset of martial training from the very first lesson.

those that say 'you must wait until you master the form to learn the applications' or 'you must practice for XX months or years before pushing hands' or 'our art is too deadly to cross hands in practice'.... RUN!

Naturally, you will only be as effective and efficient with the art as your knowledge and skill level dictates, and time & practice will provide continuous improvement.

My teacher says IT IS, IT IS NOT, IT IS!
very simply, as you progress, you basically learn that you do not know everything, your understanding will cause change in what you believe, and very often, we will over intellectuallize and look for things that may not be there, only to go back to what really IS.

or as the Byrds sang, "I was so much older then, i'm younger than that now"

Pete.

 

[Laoshi77]

...learn the art from a teacher who can teach you the martial art of tai chi chuan, who can correct you to make it work effectively and efficiently, and who begins the mindset of martial training from the very first lesson.

those that say 'you must wait until you master the form to learn the applications' or 'you must practice for XX months or years before pushing hands' or 'our art is too deadly to cross hands in practice'.... RUN!

Unfortunately this seems to be the main problem with Taijiquan and as a result people can get the wrong impression because it is seldom taught the 'proper' way i.e, as a martial art.

I remember my teacher saying many years ago that she thought there were only 5% of teachers actually teaching combat applications of Taijiquan. Personally I didn't believe her, but who knows for sure?!

 

[Kenpo17]

Using Tai-Chi would take a long time to fight with, but it is possible. I am not about to say it is impossible because it's not, if you have learned Tai-Chi for a long time or even if you are just starting, you can use what you've learned to fight. Although, you are right in the sense that Tai-Chi is different from martial arts such as Tae-Kwon-Do, Shudokan, Judo, and Kenpo/Kempo. The stile of performing Tai-Chi is usually, not always slower than you would usually expect in a martial art. People make the big mistake of saying Tai-Chi is all around slow, go tell this to someone that takes Tai-Chi and see what he/she says. Anyway, Tai-Chi is not all around slow, even though they are big into meditating, that does not make the whole art slow.

 

[Myrmidon]

Can You Fight with Tai Chi?

Yes

Yes... absolutely!

 

[blindsage]

I have a background in Kyokunshinkai Karate and Small Circle Jiu Jitsu and have recently started studying Bagua and am interested in starting Chen Tai Chi at the same school. We have engaged in application training from the get go and my sifu teaches each style in a similar manner. With my experience in hard contact sparring and realistic application drills in the past has lead me to want to explore the technique and methods of these styles. I see a lot of potential in Tai Chi for real applications and fighting. What I find lacking in a lot of Tai Chi people is an ability to translate technique to a fight situation. I completely disagree with the notion that sparring is not useful to furthering your skills. If you don't ever see unscripted techniques coming at you, then you have no context for how to apply your technique. It makes you refine and make your technique relevant. And no matter how "hard" or "full-speed" you say you are going in your fight training, if people aren't getting broken noses, broken bones, seriously bleeding, or knocked out every time, you are sparring. Sparring is an extremely beneficial training tool that can and does significantly supplement the rest of your training.

 

[TV954]

As with all things, if you have a teacher with the understanding, have an art that is "organic" and not static, and a practice that is vigorous, you may accomplish anything you wish with that art. Tai Chi is no more or less effective as a "fighting art" than any other, it depends on the person and the above components. My lineage has the "power training" which has sometimes been referred to as the "lost" part of Tai Chi. My lineage has always included application and two-person training, both choreographed and freestyle, in the training, so the "fighting" aspect always seemed a given. As an earlier post pointed out, it's the principles of Tai Chi, relaxing, weight shifting, moving from the Tan Tien, rooting, neutralizing, etc. that make it Tai Chi and you can do any movements with Tai Chi principles. I do Tai Chi raking, Tai Chi snow shoveling, well, you get the idea. This idea that one art is better for fighting than another gets really old fast. Arts evolved to fill a certain need at a given time in a given place and most of what we see today has huge pieces missing, has been corrupted, or is incomplete. Only through diligent practice do we see the truth for ourselves in whatever art we play and as long as that truth works for us than it's the right thing. Anyway, throw me a fortune cookie, I'm done.

 

[Bob Klein]

These are two youtube videos of Tai-chi practice sparring - light sparring for beginning students.

 

[davidleehere]

Yes, if one can fajin (issue internal power) and learns Sanshou (applications). No, if one only learns the Tai-Chi sets.