The truth on Self-Defense and TaijiQuan / Tai Chi Chuan

[Tony Dismukes]

I usually only use “hooks“ up close, it may be that I don’t have the proper training to use them well at distance. It feels too slow and easy to avoid at distance. I have eaten a few straight right hands as a result of crossing the center line on a high distanced hook and missing. Any tips?

The videos I posted above explain things better than I can, since I'm not great at most long range hooks myself. (Although I have some success with check hooks.)

But if I had to sum up most of what I've observed from the people who are good at them, it seems to come down to a couple of important elements:

• Setups. If you wind up your hook as you slip your opponent's punch or as you get them covering up from your own punches, then they are less likely to be able to nail you with a straight punch as you throw your hook.
• Footwork and angles. If you change your angle relative to your opponent, you make it harder for them to intercept you with a straight punch. In fact, if you coordinate your footwork, angles, and punching just right, you can make it so that your looping punch is actually travelling a more efficient route to the target than a straight punch would be. Go back and check out the video I posted earlier of Dominick Cruz and look at some of the fully extended long fist style looping punches he is landing. Those only work because of his footwork.

 

[JowGaWolf]

I also suspect that once they got to that point, they'd face criticism from some within the Tai Chi community that they weren't really doing Tai Chi any more just because the way they looked during a fight didn't exactly match the platonic ideal of how an instructor moves during a form or while demonstrating a technique on a student who doesn't know how to challenge them. I've already seen that claim made about Tai Chi practitioners who participate in push hands competition.

I think this is largely due to the generations of teachers who get sour with the fact that they don't actually know how to use a technique for fighting because they have only trained forms. What makes it worse is that you can have someone with lesser knowledge know more about kung fu application than they do.

To give a better picture of this. Imagine I'm a BJJ black belt. I run a school and I only do cooperative drills. This is how BJJ was taught for 5 generations in my schools and it's how all teachers teach it. Then one day a BJJ white belt joins my school and practices BJJ by sparring with others. The other students become impressed because that white belt actually knows how to apply the techniques, while I can only "verbally repeat" what things are used for and not actually show it or speak of the details of application. The optics of something like this looks bad, but feels much worse. To be honest it doesn't even have to look bad if many people in the kung fu field are just honest. There are 3 categories for Martial Artists to be in:

Scholars
Fighters
Both.

If the teacher is honest with where their expertise lies then that bad feeling will disappear and we would have never had to deal with "Kung fu vs MMA" drama and maybe there would be less drama and arrogance over all in Martial arts in general.

I think both groups are important in Martial Arts. The fighters aren't always the best teachers. The scholars aren't always the best fighters. They should be working together to help keep the accuracy of the Martial Art arts true to function.

 

[Tony Dismukes]

I think this is largely due to the generations of teachers who get sour with the fact that they don't actually know how to use a technique for fighting because they have only trained forms. What makes it worse is that you can have someone with lesser knowledge know more about kung fu application than they do.

To give a better picture of this. Imagine I'm a BJJ black belt. I run a school and I only do cooperative drills. This is how BJJ was taught for 5 generations in my schools and it's how all teachers teach it. Then one day a BJJ white belt joins my school and practices BJJ by sparring with others. The other students become impressed because that white belt actually knows how to apply the techniques, while I can only "verbally repeat" what things are used for and not actually show it or speak of the details of application. The optics of something like this looks bad, but feels much worse. To be honest it doesn't even have to look bad if many people in the kung fu field are just honest. There are 3 categories for Martial Artists to be in:

Scholars
Fighters
Both.

If the teacher is honest with where their expertise lies then that bad feeling will disappear and we would have never had to deal with "Kung fu vs MMA" drama and maybe there would be less drama and arrogance over all in Martial arts in general.

I think both groups are important in Martial Arts. The fighters aren't always the best teachers. The scholars aren't always the best fighters. They should be working together to help keep the accuracy of the Martial Art arts true to function.

In addition, the sparring white belt in this theoretical universe would

• probably not look nearly as clean and precise as the instructor when demonstrating techniques with a cooperative partner and
• during sparring, would appear to be using way too much strength and athleticism to make the techniques work compared to the Platonic ideal that the instructor had been demonstrating. "Where's the ju, they would ask? Where's the flow? Where's the blending with your opponent's energy? That's not real BJJ." This is because it takes a lot of time spent in sparring before anyone can consistently demonstrate that sort of flowing, blending energy effectively against a resisting opponent who is trying to shut them down.

 

[JowGaWolf]

Throwing a hook with the thumb up is one of the standard methods in western boxing. It doesn’t require any unusual flexibility.

That video makes things too complicated lol.

- What advantage do you get from thump up hook?
- Why do you put yourself in a situation that your wrist joint can be locked? If you twist his thumb up hook (the guy on the right) clockwise, it takes no effort to have a wrist lock on him.
- You also expose the inside of your forearm (the weakest 1/4 of the whole arm, no muscle there) to your opponent's hard block.

Just try to turn 45 degree more to make your thumb to point toward your opponent's head. You will find it's very difficult to do so. At least my wrist joint and elbow joint are not that flexible.

Why do you put yourself in a situation that your wrist joint can be locked?
Because the punch is thrown when you are least able to deal with it. Probability of locking the wrist from a thumbs up punch is near zero. The probability of me breaking my opponents ribs or damaging their organs is much higher than them locking my wrist.

You also expose the inside of your forearm.
It's exposed but it's not as exposed as you think it is. Because of how the punch is targeting the place of impact. This is a punch that is thrown with the inside exposed, wrist locks not an option. The goal is to strike your opponent when they are least able to defend against it.

When the hook is throw at the face, the forearm is enters from a different angle which makes it less likely that the forearm will be damaged. here you can see that the forearm is not going to be effected by the guard. If you extend the guard to attack the forearm then the punch will just strike around the the block. For example, at which point is the forearm at risk of being damaged. Even with gloves off, it's the same .

Sent the hook to the body and we can see the same thing .

Martial artist or not, no one is locking the wrist of these punches thrown at full speed. I would even say that no one is locking the wrist even at half speed. It's just not the right punch to initiate a wrist lock. The cost-benefit analysis isn't in favor of the wrist lock. If you fail, you'll get a broken rib or jaw and along with a side order of follow up punches.

Hooks can be long range or short range.

 

[JowGaWolf]

It does raise the question though: why is the Western Boxing method of a hook the default? Why isn’t some other hook the go-to? Maybe boxing is missing out on something good, by not having the hook as it is found in other systems.

1. It works and it works very well.
2. I doubt they are missing anything being that they rules limit the type of striking that can be done. If they had an opportunity to throw other types of strikes then then there would be more opportunity to have more variety with the strikes and types of hooks. A lot of the hooks that I used, I couldn't use in boxing because many require that I set it off with an illegal punch and then follow up with the hook.

This is a very good point. CMA hook punch is used to do a lot of things. You can write a book just about many different ways to use hook.

Besides to use hook to hit your opponent's

- head (high hook),
- chest (middle hook),
- kidney area (low hook),

you can also use hook to:

1. Knock down a jab or cross.

2. Use hook to change into downward parry and open your opponent's guard. In boxing, a punch is just a punch. In CMA, a punch is a punch followed by a grab/pull.

3. Use hook to set up another hook with grab/pull, followed by an uppercut.

4. Use hook to set up head lock. The moment that you can knock your opponent's arms away from your entering path, you can move in.

5. Use hook to set up under hook. I don't believe boxing has every considered this.

6. change hook (punch to the head) into a spiral punch (punch to the chest).
7. ...

This guy does all that you mentioned here, He doesn't use head locks but he does control the head. I would recommend all martial arts to use him as a case study for footwork and hooks. You don't have to change what you do, but what he does helps to better understand the mobility and the speed at which to set up hooks. TMA practitioners like to do a lot of "Walk through" examples and that's only good to a certain extent. I'm not saying that it's useless, but depending on who is teaching, a lot of assumptions and bad mechanics get thrown into the mix.

This footwork is actually in a lot of Traditional Martial Arts systems. The only difference is many TMA practitioners rarely followed it or even train it. A lot of TMA forms are linear and lack angles. I believe this was done on purpose since many of the techniques in the forms don't work unless you are cutting angles. I think the concept of moving off center line and moving at a 45 degree angle is universal and not bound to only systems like kung fu. This is an example of boxing has the same concept.

 

[Gerry Seymour]

Trying to point thumb 45 degree outward, this is very hard to do.

What would be the purpose?

 

[Kung Fu Wang]

Sent the hook to the body and we can see the same thing .

When I punch on my opponent's body, I'll still use horizontal fist (thumb pointing to myself).

If his left vertical fist can change into a horizontal fist, he can add an extra twisting into his punch.

A vertical punch may be faster. But a horizontal punch with extra twisting can be more powerful. This is why the cross is more powerful than the jab.

- Jab is a vertical fist (or horizontal fist without twisting).
- Cross is a horizontal fist (with extra twisting).

 

[Holmejr]

I prefer the way the guy on the left did it. I don’t usually shoot hooks with thumb up, but that doesn’t mean I think it’s wrong

In the FMA both are taught, but with the back of the hand up, imagine holding a knife reverse grip edge out, hooking the opponent and continuing on to the cut. It’s a quick action.

 

[Kung Fu Wang]

What would be the purpose?

I believe the human body is not flexibility in that range.

 

[Kung Fu Wang]

I'm not great at most long range hooks myself.

I like to use long range hook. It's one of my "bread and butter" move. I usually let my opponent to punch me. I then use stealing step to spin myself out of his attacking path. When I spin, my hook punch can then reach to the back of his head.

 

[Holmejr]

When I punch on my opponent's body, I'll still use horizontal fist (thumb pointing to myself).

If his left vertical fist can change into a horizontal fist, he can add an extra twisting into his punch.

A vertical punch may be faster. But a horizontal punch with extra twisting can be more powerful. This is why the cross is more powerful than the jab.

- Jab is a vertical fist (or horizontal fist without twisting).
- Cross is a horizontal fist (with extra twisting).

The cross is more powerful due to the hip turn. In western boxing it is most common to corkscrew both punches. Adds both speed and power. This includes the overhand.

 

[JowGaWolf]

This is a video of me working on power generation using my waist. The idea is to use as little of my arms as possible to hit the target. This is a Jow Ga Kung Fu perspective so some of what I say may only exist in my training and it may not apply to other systems.

Thumbs up hooks vs palm down hooks.

Thumbs up hooks will cause the elbow to point down. Thumbs up hooks are good for breaking ribs and bruising organs. You'll see this mostly with body shots and punches that come from below and rise upwards. You'll also see thumbs up with some long fist systems. These type of hooks have a tendency to sneak in and are very quick and powerful because of how the punch generates power.

Palm down hooks pop the elbow out. This creates an opening under the hook that may or may not put the puncher in great risk. It just depends on the puncher's footwork. Footwork can be used to move this opening out of danger and as a result eliminates the opening as a point of attack for the defender. Sometimes the way we punch isn't so much about delivering power but reducing openings as we attack.

This video is an example of how my thumbs change position as I do different types of hooks.

 

[JowGaWolf]

I like to use long range hook. It's one of my "bread and butter" move. I usually let my opponent to punch me. I then use stealing step to spin myself out of his attacking path. When I spin, my hook punch can then reach to the back of his head.

This is where a hook should land in a street fight. It is the most effective point to strike. So if you want to end the fight as quickly as possible then this is the place to strike. It is also a critical point of attack meaning that your attacker may not see the next day or the next 48 depending on how well that punch lands. Depending on who started the fight or not. The person using this punch may or may not have to do time in prison.

 

[JowGaWolf]

If his left vertical fist can change into a horizontal fist, he can add an extra twisting into his punch.

The waists twist regardless of how the fist is turn. Sometimes it may seem that there is more twist with the horizontal fist, but I'm willing to bet that what people perceive as twisting is actually the whipping of the arm. Here's another video of me working on my power generation. You can see a lot of twist when I use the vertical twist. I thought I was getting good waist twists with my horizontal fist but as you can see in the video @1:57, this is not true. What you can see is that I'm whipping my arm more. At the time am I using my waist to whip my arm? yes., but not as much as I thought I was at the time. I thought I had more twist in my waist because the punch was landing harder.

Keep in mind these things about the video.
1. This is my drill for generating power with the waist
2. This was created before this conversation, so this topic has no influence on the video.
3. I have to get back to basics with my horizontal so that I'm including more twist in my waist when I use that horizontal fist.

 

[windwalker099]

Good to see some work associated with a name....

 

[Kung Fu Wang]

Why Taiji people rarely talk about kick?

Anybody wants to comment on my question? Can you become a good Taiji fighter without mastering the kicking skill?

Here is a Taiji person's comment about kicking. I have no idea whether "releasing all internal blockages" has anything to do with fighting.

"Too much emphasis on kicks and all that s*** when the real focus should be on releasing all internal blockages."

 

[vic]

Interesting topic. Taiji has worked well in the ring. Of course you also need striking, footwork, ground game, and other skills you might not develop with taiji alone. Examples are Nick Osipczak or Han Feilong here.

 

[Gerry Seymour]

I believe the human body is not flexibility in that range.

Agreed. That's why I was asking what the purpose would be of trying to hold the hand in that position.

 

[Wing Woo Gar]

The cross is more powerful due to the hip turn. In western boxing it is most common to corkscrew both punches. Adds both speed and power. This includes the overhand.

You can use waist turn instead of hip turn. It may sacrifice some power for increased mobility. I use both for different situations.

 

[Flying Crane]

You can use waist turn instead of hip turn. It may sacrifice some power for increased mobility. I use both for different situations.

How do you distinguish between the two? I sometimes suspect that the terms are used interchangeably, although they probably shouldnt be.

As far as this type of concept goes, the distinction that I make is the rotation is powered by driving the feet into the ground, directing the force to rotate the torso at the hips, vs. initiating the movement from the hips without engaging the feet and legs, or, worse yet, initiating from the shoulders and dragging the hips along.