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

[Xue Sheng]

That wouldn't surprise me. Most arts evolve and change over the course of the generations. I'm willing to bet that if you could go back in time and take video of the 12th generation Chen family they would be even more different from the 19th generation than the 19th is from the 20th.

That doesn't mean it isn't Tai Chi though. Unless we're heading into "no true Scotsman" territory where everybody starts to claim that the way they learned Tai Chi is the only real Tai Chi.

Actually not a whole lot of difference in Laojia yilu or, xinjia (since Chen Fa Ke, he came up with Xinjia), in any of the generations, it is the applications of those postures that has changed in the 20th, mostly for experience in teaching impatient folks the martial arts side of it and governmental pressure. Sanda is much easier to apply, works well, but is is still taijiquan? Actually in my opinion it isn't

Chen Xiaowang, current head of the Chen family, said several years ago that he considered "taiji as a martial art dead". Not that no one knew how to use it as such, just most did not want to take the time to learn it. There were so few who know the martial arts of it as compared to those that do not, if you divide those that know by the total doing taijiquan, the number is so close to zero it might as well be zero. Then the 20th generation decided to add Sanda, much the same thing that happened to Shaolin where forms are only for show, but Sanda is for fighting. To quote my Sanda shifu "Sanda is not best martial art, or the greatest martial art, it is just a quickest way to learn how to hurt others very badly" of course he was teaching the Sanda (Sanshou) that the police and military use, but it is the same for all versions of Sanda.

I guess the best analogy I can make for you is then BJJ is Judo as is Aikido so why call it anything else....but then in reality, they are all jiu jitsu. So why the names Judo, Aikido and BJJ?

Things change for various reasons, but does that mean they are still the base style? If the base principals change, then, IMO, no

And no I am not in no true Scotsman territory, if I were all taiji would need to be Chen or it just ain't taijiquan. THere are basic principles that all martial arts styles have and once you leave those, it is not the same thing, Heck, my Yang Shifu dose not feel Wu style is taijiquan because it does not appear to follow the principles of either Chen or Yang. I have done some Wu, I like Wu style but I have to admit, as I get older I get closer and closer to agreeing with him, but I am not there yet. There are Long Fist postures in it that are not part of taijiquan, they are way to extended. However this is not actually surprising. The story goes (this bit is from my Shifu) that Yang Luchan (Han nationality) was approached by Wu Quanyou (Manchu nationality). Wu wanted to learn Yang's taijiquan, Yang did not want to teach a Manchu how fo hurt of kill Han people, but refusing to teach one of the palace guard was not healthy either, si he taught him, but only the yin side and defensive side. There is also some disagreement as to who actually taught Wu Quanyou, it may have been Yang Luchan's son, Yang Banhou.

Later Wu Quanyou taught his son Wu Jianquan also Manchu military (Jianquan also taught others) his taijiquan, his son changed it and I suspect at that time combined it with what he already knew from his military training and that is where the more extended postures come from. Of curse this last bit about Wu Jianquan is mostly conjecture on my part, except for the fact that he did change what his father taught him.

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[Gerry Seymour]

I don't think it would be hard to find a number of people who can do a better demonstration of Tai Chi concepts. Finding people who can actually use those concepts in a fight is a lot harder.

After I posted the Ramsey video yesterday I went browsing through a bunch of videos trying to find Tai Chi fighting applications demonstrated by someone who was an actual qualified Tai Chi instructor. In a large percentage of them it was immediately obvious that the demonstrator had no clue about actual fighting or what applications would really work. Others showed applications which could be effective, but details of the demonstrator's movement made me doubt that they had any experience applying them against resisting opponents. Some instructors had really good body mechanics, but they were showing techniques predicated on an opponent feeding them utterly unrealistic and incompetent attacks.

Probably if I searched long enough I could find someone who can both demonstrate the concepts in a way that most Tai Chi practitioners would approve of and who knows how to fight and is demonstrating applications which will work in a fight. I just ran out of time to keep looking. I'm still hoping that one of the Tai Chi practitioners here can find something for use to watch along those lines.

As you know, this is part of a common issue in a lot of traditional arts. I think it goes even further. There are some of us who can use our art against a resisting partner, but when we go to demonstrate core technique applications, they still end up sometimes (often) looking (and being) unrealistic or of limited scope. I think that's a result of arts' focus on stylized drills that develop concepts more than direct application. It's one of the things I like about that type of training (it just tickles my brain the right way), but it's hard to translate that indirect training into direct demonstrations.

Where some in those same arts discard the indirect training method, the training is often seen as "not that art" by other practitioners - and folks in the non-traditional arts see it as just using basic fighting and still calling it that art. And if we define a system/art as the training approach (rather than the collection of techniques, or even the principles and concepts), then it really isn't the same art.

 

[Gerry Seymour]

Honestly, I strongly suspect that the uncommon ingredient in this case is just ... fighting. Most Tai Chi students never fight. They're learning from instructors who never fought, and those instructors learned from other instructors who never fought. No wonder the understanding of the combative applications has been lost in the majority of schools.

I believe that if you got a bunch of Tai Chi schools to just introduce free sparring and grappling as a regular part of their curriculum, and then had those schools send students out to test themselves against practitioners of other fighting arts on a regular basis, then within a generation you would start to see a good number of practitioners who could fight effectively. Within no more than two generations you'd end up with a decent number of practitioners who could fight really, really well.

Along the way, they'd learn how the underlying concepts of the art translate into concrete application against a competent opponent. They'd learn which aspects of the traditional training methods map directly onto application and which are primarily useful for developing attributes and understanding of principles.

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.

There's definitely some truth in that. At the same time, some arts are defined by their approach to fighting. If you focus on fighting enough - without the right understanding and ability to deliver it from instructor to student - you get effective fighting with a shift of the principles. So an instructor who understands how to apply the techniques in fighting (but doesn't really understand how to transfer the principles in that context) would generate students who no longer actually do that art, but use its techniques well.

So, for some arts to have effective application, you need both that uncommon ingredient and fighting. Does that make sense?

 

[Gerry Seymour]

I'm not judging you in any way. I'm suggesting that we all have things we believe that, if we're being objective, can't really be independently verified.

You know, now that I think about it... it isn't what I was saying, but maybe that is what I should be saying. I mean, it's 2023. If we were having this conversation 10 years ago, I'm right there with you. However, I was curious enough by how you phrased your previous post to just see if there were videos of exceedingly rare things on YouTube. And you know, there is a TON of it. It's wild. As of June 2022, over 500 hours of video are uploaded to YouTube every minute. Every minute... 1440 minutes a day. I'm the product of an inner city school, but according to my urban math skills, that's over 720,000 hours of video every day. Every single day. The amount of video that is available is mind-blowing.

And it's been like that for about 4 years, and ramping up over the last decade. According to an NBC News story from 2012, even back then, it was like 72 hours of video per minute. So, a far cry from 30,000, but still a staggering amount of content.

So, all that to say, there may be things we can't explain. There may be things we don't understand. There may be things we lack the expertise to interpret. And to be clear, it may be that the video is lopsided and presents a biased perspective. But it would be exceedingly unlikely to suggest that there isn't a video online of it. Whatever "it" might be.

Or perhaps another way to look at it is, if there isn't video of it somewhere, perhaps it's rare enough to be considered the exception and not the rule.

That also presents the problem of finding an appropriate video in the mountain of material. For things that are relatively rare, they can be exceedingly hard to find. I've had trouble finding specific NGA applications that are practiced in every dojo I've ever been to. I remain convinced someone, somewhere has posted them, but I've never been able to find them. Either those very common applications never made it to video (possible, but I expect the less likely answer) or they're just not tagged/titled in a way that matches my search.

 

[Tony Dismukes]

There's definitely some truth in that. At the same time, some arts are defined by their approach to fighting. If you focus on fighting enough - without the right understanding and ability to deliver it from instructor to student - you get effective fighting with a shift of the principles. So an instructor who understands how to apply the techniques in fighting (but doesn't really understand how to transfer the principles in that context) would generate students who no longer actually do that art, but use its techniques well.

So, for some arts to have effective application, you need both that uncommon ingredient and fighting. Does that make sense?

This is part of why I appreciate folks like @JowGaWolf who are making an effort to pressure test their art while still keeping to the signature principles which make their art distinct.

 

[Tony Dismukes]

What advantage do you get from thump up hook?

You can watch the video to see some of the reasons people use the thumb up version of the hook.

For myself, I use whatever orientation allows me to get the best alignment for landing my knuckles on the target. The changes depending on the height and distance of the target.

For a close range shovel hook to the ribs, my palm is lightly upwards.
For a close range hook to the head, my palm is towards me and my thumb is up.
For a medium range hook to the head, my palm is down, thumb towards me.
For a really long range hook or an overhand right, my thumb starts to turn downwards and my palm starts to face away from me.

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.

Your chances of being able to catch a boxer's punch and wristlock him are essentially nonexistent. I'm only a mediocre boxer, but I would happily give $100 to anyone who can wristlock me off of my hook punch during sparring, just for the chance to see how they did it. (I don't anticipate having the chance to pay out that $100.)

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.

At the range I throw the thumb up/palm in hook, the forearm is not the surface you will hit with a hard block. The forearm is lined up directly behind the fist in along the path of the punch. If you succeed in applying a hard block, it will be to the bicep of the punching arm. (And that would be the same at that range whether I had the thumb up or in.)

 

[Gerry Seymour]

- 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.

I have a lot more power with the vertical-fist hook than with the angled fist. That might be a function of how I do them, so might not an inherent difference between them. I'm also much more effective when really close (think elbow range) with the vertical fist hook.

As for the exposed part of the arm, I see this as exposing the inner muscular surface. That's the quadrant we spend most of our time toughening in our training, so is our preferred place to be blocked. The radial and ulnar sides are our least favorite places to be blocked, as there is the least muscle protecting those (most likely to get a nasty bruise if they block directly on those bones).

As for the risk of being locked, I don't see it as being much different on either of those positions. If I manage to trap an arm in either position, I can get to a lock (if the situation fits it). If the punch is good, there's not a lot of chance for a lock in either case. I'd be manipulating their structure long before trying to actually lock the wrist, so the initial punch formation doesn't have a tremendous impact.

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.

I can't quite picture what you're saying here, John. Can you say it a different way for me?

 

[Gerry Seymour]

Because the boxing hook demonstratively works. Why would captain random style get the same sort of recognition as a proven method?

I think the question was more why "hook" should be interpreted as just the boxing hook (where someone said something like "that's not what I think of as a hook"). It's a reasonable point - and you make a great counterpoint as to why many of us (myself included) immediately think of a boxing-style hook when the term is used.

 

[Holmejr]

Sorry don’t know how to delete post!

 

[Gerry Seymour]

Sorry, looks like the guy was paid to be complicit…
How about finding a video where the attacker (mma, bjj, Muay Thai, etc) really wants to hurt the TC practitioner.

You're asking for something that isn't a demonstration.

 

[Tony Dismukes]

I guess the best analogy I can make for you is then BJJ is Judo as is Aikido so why call it anything else....but then in reality, they are all jiu jitsu. So why the names Judo, Aikido and BJJ?

Honestly, I do consider Judo and BJJ to be the same art - or at least facets of the same art. The fundamental principles are the same and getting better at one will only make you better at the other.

The change in the name is just down to an historical accident of marketing and attempts to claim ownership of the art. The difference in curriculum focus is due to difference in the sport competition rules. But if you are training the two as martial arts without so much concern for winning tournaments, then they pretty much just blend together. There's a reason @elder999 will tease that BJJ stands for Basically Just Judo.

(The same goes for Sambo, BTW. Everything I've learned from Sambo fits seamlessly within my BJJ.)

Aikido is a little different. It's part of the extended jujutsu family, but it's more like a distant cousin, both in lineage and application. I can certainly identify principles from Aikido which are important in my conception of BJJ. But Aikido has gone down a very specialized path in training methods and contextual applications of those principles. (Also, from an historical standpoint it would be difficult to track down a common ancestor of Aikido and BJJ, assuming that one even exists.)

 

[Tony Dismukes]

Sorry, looks like the guy was paid to be complicit…
How about finding a video where the attacker (mma, bjj, Muay Thai, etc) really wants to hurt the TC practitioner.

It's not a sparring video. The MMA guy was just being a good uke so the TC instructor could demonstrate his art. The instructor even makes a point of making that explicitly clear in his narration.

 

[Xue Sheng]

Honestly, I do consider Judo and BJJ to be the same art - or at least facets of the same art. The fundamental principles are the same and getting better at one will only make you better at the other.

The change in the name is just down to an historical accident of marketing and attempts to claim ownership of the art. The difference in curriculum focus is due to difference in the sport competition rules. But if you are training the two as martial arts without so much concern for winning tournaments, then they pretty much just blend together. There's a reason @elder999 will tease that BJJ stands for Basically Just Judo.

(The same goes for Sambo, BTW. Everything I've learned from Sambo fits seamlessly within my BJJ.)

Aikido is a little different. It's part of the extended jujutsu family, but it's more like a distant cousin, both in lineage and application. I can certainly identify principles from Aikido which are important in my conception of BJJ. But Aikido has gone down a very specialized path in training methods and contextual applications of those principles. (Also, from an historical standpoint it would be difficult to track down a common ancestor of Aikido and BJJ, assuming that one even exists.)

But Aikido is then not BJJ, and I correct in my understanding of what you are saying.

Like BJJ and Judo, Chen, Zhaobao, Yang, Wu, Wu/Hao, Sun are all taijiquan, different takes (Sun a very different take), but still taijiquan, they share the same core principals (there are other styles too, but I am only listing the main ones here)...... Sanda/Sanshou is not at all and applying Sanda to taiji, like applying karate or judo or even Aikido for that matter, and it make it something other than Taijiquan, the core principles are different. I do see a lot of similarities between Taijiquan and Aikido, but they are not the same, there are a whole lot of differences too, but they are similar. Take any martial art you train, then learn 24 you can make it all work....but I guarantee, no matter how cool it looks, they will use way to much force and not follow Taijiquan core principals (that by the way has always been my problem with things like "combat Tai Chi"). Take Karate, or Muay Thai and pair it with BJJ...is it still karate or BJJ?

An argument can be made that Taijiquan is a distant cousin of Long Fist, but it is not long fist, but then a lot of CMA styles can have some Long Fist influence, but not be long fist.

Note: I also do not agree with the folks that take a bunch of martial arts, slap them together and call it JKD.....based on the logic..that is what Bruce Lee did....so its ok for me to call it JKD.... and yet they never actually took a JKD class.

 

[Wing Woo Gar]

The problem you get when you get to the 20th generation of the Chen family is they are starting to use Sanda/Sanshou in application. So applications of postures done by the 19th generation and prior generations can be different

That is interesting as well.

 

[Wing Woo Gar]

Ideally for the development of a fighting art, you're going to have both. There's not always a 100% clear boundary between the two categories (sparring and fighting). Generally I use "sparring" for a training method where you get to practice your technique under the pressure of someone trying to defeat your technique, but the primary aim is to learn and make sure everyone goes home in one piece and can show up to training the next day. I use "fighting" to describe an activity where you are trying to win and the methods for doing so include hurting the opponent, knocking them out, strangling them into unconsciousness, etc.

If you do just fighting all the time, then almost everyone ends up broken and you don't have anyone to train with.

If you just spar and no one in the school or the larger community of the art takes it to the level of actual fighting, then you run the risk of starting to rely on methods that seem to work in lower intensity sparring but that turn out to be unreliable when someone is going all out trying to really hurt you.

I absolutely believe that there are Tai Chi practitioners who can fight well, although they may be vanishingly rare these days. What I doubt is that there are Tai Chi practitioners who can fight well and haven't put the time in actually sparring and fighting.

Ramsey Dewey tells the story of how he (as a 30-something professional fighter) got his *** kicked by a seventy-something Tai Chi master, Yu Dao Shui. But he goes on to say that Yu Dao Shui spent a lot of time sparring and fighting before he even learned Tai Chi, and then continued to do so after he became a Tai Chi practitioner. If your instructors were at the level you describe, I suspect they also had sparring and/or fighting experience.

Yes they both did a lot of real fighting, not matches but actual fights. My Sifu saw his best friend killed in a fight when he was 18. Sifu Woo did some enforcement for the Tong and spoke about some fights in 1930s Canton where rival schools fought over territory en masse, not with fists but with weapons and people were killed. I grew up with a lot of very real violence, I am familiar with the reality of it. It definitely informs the way I teach. I am certainly not near the ability level of my instructors. I try to be very realistic with my students depending on their age, mindset, and goals.

 

[Wing Woo Gar]

I assume you are talking about hook punch with thumb up.

The reason I ask just because the human body don't function that way - hook punch with the thumb up.

I can turn from thumb face down -> thumb face to my face -> thumb face 45 degree over my head. I just can't turn to 90 degree with thumb up.

Whoever said that's possible, he must have abnormal wrist joint and elbow joint.

I don’t understand what you mean when you say the body doesn’t work that way. Could you elaborate?

 

[Wing Woo Gar]

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

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.

 

[Wing Woo Gar]

I’m not sure how to verbalize it. It’s like a flavor or an accent in someone’s speech. I can see it, but I don’t know exactly how to analyze what I’m seeing.

That’s fair, I’m thinking it’s from knee down, but it’s not so easy to capture.

 

[Wing Woo Gar]

But they are still going off evidence. They are either using some hinkey hook and it works. Or they are asking someone else who has a hinkey hook that works.

Knock enough people out and you might even get to name your own punch.

The tyson uppercut.

Well how do you do it? I’m curious what you think is hinkey or not hinkey.

 

[Wing Woo Gar]

Actually not a whole lot of difference in Laojia yilu or, xinjia (since Chen Fa Ke, he came up with Xinjia), in any of the generations, it is the applications of those postures that has changed in the 20th, mostly for experience in teaching impatient folks the martial arts side of it and governmental pressure. Sanda is much easier to apply, works well, but is is still taijiquan? Actually in my opinion it isn't

Chen Xiaowang, current head of the Chen family, said several years ago that he considered "taiji as a martial art dead". Not that no one knew how to use it as such, just most did not want to take the time to learn it. There were so few who know the martial arts of it as compared to those that do not, if you divide those that know by the total doing taijiquan, the number is so close to zero it might as well be zero. Then the 20th generation decided to add Sanda, much the same thing that happened to Shaolin where forms are only for show, but Sanda is for fighting. To quote my Sanda shifu "Sanda is not best martial art, or the greatest martial art, it is just a quickest way to learn how to hurt others very badly" of course he was teaching the Sanda (Sanshou) that the police and military use, but it is the same for all versions of Sanda.

I guess the best analogy I can make for you is then BJJ is Judo as is Aikido so why call it anything else....but then in reality, they are all jiu jitsu. So why the names Judo, Aikido and BJJ?

Things change for various reasons, but does that mean they are still the base style? If the base principals change, then, IMO, no

And no I am not in no true Scotsman territory, if I were all taiji would need to be Chen or it just ain't taijiquan. THere are basic principles that all martial arts styles have and once you leave those, it is not the same thing, Heck, my Yang Shifu dose not feel Wu style is taijiquan because it does not appear to follow the principles of either Chen or Yang. I have done some Wu, I like Wu style but I have to admit, as I get older I get closer and closer to agreeing with him, but I am not there yet. There are Long Fist postures in it that are not part of taijiquan, they are way to extended. However this is not actually surprising. The story goes (this bit is from my Shifu) that Yang Luchan (Han nationality) was approached by Wu Quanyou (Manchu nationality). Wu wanted to learn Yang's taijiquan, Yang did not want to teach a Manchu how fo hurt of kill Han people, but refusing to teach one of the palace guard was not healthy either, si he taught him, but only the yin side and defensive side. There is also some disagreement as to who actually taught Wu Quanyou, it may have been Yang Luchan's son, Yang Banhou.

Later Wu Quanyou taught his son Wu Jianquan also Manchu military (Jianquan also taught others) his taijiquan, his son changed it and I suspect at that time combined it with what he already knew from his military training and that is where the more extended postures come from. Of curse this last bit about Wu Jianquan is mostly conjecture on my part, except for the fact that he did change what his father taught him.

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Great informative post!