What's the difference between Taiji and wrestling, or boxing?

[Wing Woo Gar]

Most demos in any style include someone displaying token resistance that sets up the technique being demonstrated.

Will this "knee seize, foot sweep" combo explain the "borrowing force" principle better?

- You try ro pull your opponent's leg. He steps back.
- You borrow his body turning, help him to turn more than he wants to, and sweep him down.

Please forgive me, after rereading my earlier post, it sounds rude. I want apologize for that before we continue.

 

[Wing Woo Gar]

That seems to be the case in John’s approach, as well, from past posts.

Well it certainly must be, I can’t imagine another way. The way I was taught, this concept is immediately discussed and trained into many of the movements, it is very effective against rigid opponents, or those that rely strictly on muscle force. This is why I am not sure there is any argument about what the concept is, rather there may be a miscommunication regarding nomenclature or whether a certain style contains the concept.

 

[Kung Fu Wang]

In my flavor of Yang we do not always wait if there is a opening seen it is taken=n. Also if the opponent is not doing anything there are fakes that make them do something.

This is why I don't like the term "self-defense". When you fake your opponent, you are not doing SD.

 

[Kung Fu Wang]

Please forgive me, after rereading my earlier post, it sounds rude. I want apologize for that before we continue.

Don't worry about it.

Xue Sheng and I have argued on Taiji for a long time. After I have found out that Xue also feel that Taiji should address combat, he and I should have no more arguement.

I learned Taiji when I was 7. When I was 9, one day I got into a fight and I didn't know how to use Taiji for fighting. That was the day I had doubt about the Taiji training method.

If I want to use Taiji in combat after 2 years, does the current Taiji training (train solo form and push hand only) can help me to achieve that? I don't think so.

 

[Gerry Seymour]

This is why I don't like the term "self-defense". When you fake your opponent, you are not doing SD.

Why not?

 

[Xue Sheng]

This is why I don't like the term "self-defense". When you fake your opponent, you are not doing SD.

I disagree.
if I fake a right jab and the opponent defends against a right jab but I actually throw and land a left cross…. my advantage, I have defended myself, that is SD

One of my xingyiquan shifus, when asked by a student, what is xingyiquans fighting stance, he said, basically it is santa shi… then he added, I never take it when someone gets confrontational. I stand back, with my feet parallel with my hands up and say I don’t want any trouble. This de-escalates where santi would start a problem. But from the stance he take, he can rather quickly get to an of the five elements…also a type of fake and also, IMO, SD

When I worked hospital security I had a guy charge right at me, I stood there as he came at me appearing that I would take the full force of his charge, and I am fairly certain his plan was to knock me backwards into the wall. He hit me with his body attempting to grab me I redirected his force to my right bounced him off the wall, took him to the floor and restrained him. That was a fake and, IMO, most certainly SD. By the way that redirection and use of his force against him comes directly from push hands training. Push hands is not for fighting, but some of the things you learn in push hands are directly applicable to fighting

 

[Wing Woo Gar]

Don't worry about it.

Xue Sheng and I have argued on Taiji for a long time. After I have found out that Xue also feel that Taiji should address combat, he and I should have no more arguement.

I learned Taiji when I was 7. When I was 9, one day I got into a fight and I didn't know how to use Taiji for fighting. That was the day I had doubt about the Taiji training method.

If I want to use Taiji in combat after 2 years, does the current Taiji training (train solo form and push hand only) can help me to achieve that? I don't think so.

I agree 2 years is not enough training to use much application. I wonder if you were shown the applications? Many people do not get the application for many years and most never get it. Many of the Tai Chi practitioners I have come across have little or no structure and move as if collapsed. This is why Tai Chi gets such a bad rap. It is not always the case, some people do have the fighting skill but I have never seen 2 year students with that ability. In some martial art schools the new student can get skills and a black belt in two years. In some other school, the teacher may say 5 years for a proper flat punch and ten years for a proper horse stance. In Wally jay style small circle jujitsu for example, they focus on about twelve techniques they train over and over. They are very skilled. In Ying Jow Pai, there is not a large content in the curriculum, and it is specialized. it may not take as long to learn the style if one already has a martial arts background. I have no problem telling my 2 year students that a 2 year jujitsu student can likely wipe the floor with them. That may or may not be the case at 5 years and beyond. For that explicit reason I urge my students to train both gung fu and Tai Chi concurrently and if at all possible get some form of jujitsu or grappling training along the way. I think that at least a year or two of grappling experience can be very useful and informative to any student of any striking art regardless of where they are in their training. To my thinking that is a well rounded martial arts education that is contemporary and useful.

 

[Wing Woo Gar]

This is why I don't like the term "self-defense". When you fake your opponent, you are not doing SD.

Well I don’t much care what you call it, results are what count.

 

[Xue Sheng]

I believe it was Chen Xiaowang that said he considered taijiquan as a martial art as dead. He also said there are a very few out there that train it as a martial art, but many more who do not. And if you take a very small number and divide it by a very large number, the result is so close to zero, it might as well be zero

as for me (Xue) I believe I am in that very small number, but I fear age and infirmity, and lack of training partners interested in the MA of it, may be pushing me into the very large number. I guess time will tell

 

[Wing Woo Gar]

I believe it was Chen Xiaowang that said he considered taijiquan as a martial art as dead. He also said there are a very few out there that train it as a martial art, but many more who do not. And if you take a very small number and divide it by a very large number, the result is so close to zero, it might as well be zero

as for me (Xue) I believe I am in that very small number, but I fear age and infirmity, and lack of training partners interested in the MA of it, may be pushing me into the very large number. I guess time will tell

We will go the way of the Dodo… If you make it Humboldt county California to see the redwoods please hit me up.

 

[Oily Dragon]

I believe it was Chen Xiaowang that said he considered taijiquan as a martial art as dead.

He's clearly wrong.

As if it could die. Ha.

 

[Wing Woo Gar]

He's clearly wrong.

As if it could die. Ha.

Well if nobody is teaching it or doing from a martial arts perspective then…

 

[Oily Dragon]

Well if nobody is teaching it or doing from a martial arts perspective then…

Don't be silly. That's not the present case at all.

If you're too tired and lazy to find a proper master, you'll get what you put in.

By the way, never take what any kung fu master says as canon. That path leads to the dark side. That goes for wrestling and boxing coaches, too.

And especially gymnastic coaches and ski instructors.

 

[Flying Crane]

I agree 2 years is not enough training to use much application. I wonder if you were shown the applications? Many people do not get the application for many years and most never get it. Many of the Tai Chi practitioners I have come across have little or no structure and move as if collapsed.

I think the real problem is that what you tend to see in taiji is people doing the form. That is all they are taught, and they are taught the form starting on day one. In that case, knowing the applications from the form is useless because they lack the larger context of having a working foundation and don’t even know how to throw an effective punch.

Forms are worthless without understanding the foundation. Forms should not be taught until later, when they have value with context. Why is it that people want to jump straight into the forms, and teachers are apparently willing to do so? What other martial art does this? A karate school or a Tae Kwon do school or a kung fu school that develops students into capable fighters or people with functional self defense skills spend time developing the basics, the punches and kicks and blocks and stepping and whatever other techniques are in the arsenal, so that a student understands how to use them. How to use a punch in a more generalized sense, how to harness good biomechanics according to the training methods of the particular style.

If taiji schools approached training in this way, they would look much like other kung fu or karate schools. Students should be learning to punch by throwing hundreds of punches in a training session and getting instruction on how to do that effectively. Instead, they come to class and do the form two or three times, and then go home. Maybe the Sifu “shows” them a couple of applications, and then training is finished. People think they are learning taiji for fighting, but they are fooling themselves.

When someone can throw an effective punch and has an understanding of how to use the punch in a confrontation, then they can begin learning what the form contains. Then they have the foundational context to make sense of what is in the forms, and learn further applications from them.

If someone jumps straight to the form and that is all they train, you can spend eternity showing them applications from the form, and they will never benefit from it. Because it never gets drilled in a way to really develop the skill, it becomes theoretical knowledge that they can never apply.

Unfortunately I believe there is a general trend in other kung fu schools to jump straight to the forms and short-change the fundamentals and the foundation. That is a recipe for learning a form as a hollow dance routine, and not as a meaningful training tool.

People gotta put in the hard work and gotta spend their time on the basics. Taiji is no exception to this. In my opinion, that is what is missing in most modern taiji schools.

So getting back to what I quoted above, I believe two years of taiji could be enough to have some solid application, if those two years are spent learning how to throw a solid punch and gaining an understanding of how to do so in a confrontation. It isn’t learning the form and people would think it doesn’t look like taiji. But taiji folks need to develop those basics just like anyone training a different system. For some reason people have decided that taiji is different, it only requires doing the form a couple of times and the movement of the form will magically transform them into a capable combatant. It won’t. Only hard work will. What is kung fu? It is skill gained through hard work. Most taiji people have no kung fu.

 

[Kung Fu Wang]

Why not?

If I throw a fake groin kick to get my opponent to respond, my opponent may claim he is doing SD.

 

[Xue Sheng]

He's clearly wrong.

As if it could die. Ha.

I don’t know, the Chen family 20th generat appears to be doing Chen forms, but for martial arts they are doing sansho. much like shaolin these days

 

[Oily Dragon]

I don’t know, the Chen family 20th generat appears to be doing Chen forms, but for martial arts they are doing sansho. much like shaolin these days

As the world keeps turning.

It's seriously hard to fathom what could kill off any art that's more than a thousand years old, especially one known to strengthen the mind and body.

Shaolin Chan is a great example. Somehow, it became the ethos of entire countries. Especially Korea.

 

[Xue Sheng]

As the world keeps turning.

It's seriously hard to fathom what could kill off any art that's more than a thousand years old, especially one known to strengthen the mind and body.

Shaolin Chan is a great example. Somehow, it became the ethos of entire countries. Especially Korea.

Never said (and neither did Chen Xiaowang) it would be killed off, it wil be around as a moving meditation forever. It is the martial side that is rapidly going away.
How many people doing taijiquan are only doing it for strength balance, and health?
How many have any interest or are even aware of the martial side?
How many even try push hands, and if they do how many do it only as an extension of the health aspect?
How many if they are interested in martial arts are a bit delusional as to its effectiveness based on old stories and myth?
How many, if they train push hands think that is fighting?
How many learn the applications of the postures?
How many know anything at all about the 13 postures?
How many try and apply it sparing?

it will be around a long time, but the martial side will vanish

 

[geezer]

Never said (and neither did Chen Xiaowang) it would be killed off, it wil be around as a moving meditation for ever. It is the martial side that is rapidly going away.
How many people doing taijiquan are only doing it for strength balance, and health?
How many have any interest or are even aware of the martial side?
How many even try push hands, and if they do how many do it only as an extension of the health aspect?
How many if they are interested in martial arts are a bit delusional as to its effectiveness based on old stories and myth?
How many, if they train push hands think that is fighting?
How many learn the applications of the postures?
How many know anything at all about the 13 postures?
How many try and apply it sparing?

it will be around a long time, but the martial side will vanish

How many.....?

The answer my friend is hands moving like the wind...
The answer is flowing like the wind.



Dang, now I'm reeeeealy dating myself.

 

[Oily Dragon]

Never said (and neither did Chen Xiaowang) it would be killed off, it wil be around as a moving meditation forever. It is the martial side that is rapidly going away.
How many people doing taijiquan are only doing it for strength balance, and health?
How many have any interest or are even aware of the martial side?
How many even try push hands, and if they do how many do it only as an extension of the health aspect?
How many if they are interested in martial arts are a bit delusional as to its effectiveness based on old stories and myth?
How many, if they train push hands think that is fighting?
How many learn the applications of the postures?
How many know anything at all about the 13 postures?
How many try and apply it sparing?

it will be around a long time, but the martial side will vanish

And yet it hasn't for a very, very, very long time.

If it was going to vanish it would already have done so. That's what makes it an art. Arts can't die. Can't even think of an art that ever really did.

Disco never really died. Hell, Keanu Reeves was just in a major Tai Chi Chuan movie not too long ago, and it wasn't even any of the Matrices.

It would be very un-Dao to separate the martial side, if you think about it. Can't ever happen.