Is your Taijiquan effective in combat?

[Spectrum]

In self defense calm precision splits these brutally beautiful hairs

[Lozen]

Speaking for myself I had a lot more fear when I was doing fake arts that didn't work. Doing functional external MA styles like grappling had the opposite effect. I've changed my reasons for training completely. I just do it to get out of my body now. In fact I'm far more interested in functional arts I'll be less likely to ever need to use.

[doc benway]

Very good thread.

Much has already been said and I'm coming to the party late but I'll add a few thoughts FWIW>

 

The way I train is meant to teach the martial side of Taiji.

Our training consists of form, standing, sitting, push hands, da lu, qinna, and most importantly the 13 basic postures drilled as fighting techniques with progressive contact. In addition we have a number of supplementary training techniques which include neigong, strength training (with and without auxillary equipment), agility training, sensitivity training, and so forth. Finally, those who really want to figure out how to make it work, will participate in the free fighting training with our external brothers and sisters, including (if desired) lei tai style full contact and shuai jiao.

 

I spend a lot of time with fellow instructors drilling the basic techniques over and over, breaking down the forms to find individual techniques that we turn into drills, looking for various applications of each technique to drill repetetively, and so forth. I do this mostly due to my love of martial arts and training, not so much because I am interested in or intend to fight. I'd much rather walk or run away... I find that the way we train is not much different from the way I've trained in external styles in the past. The main difference being the qualities of the "blocking" and striking, meaning the sensitivity, yielding, and fajin.

 

All that said - I don't think that the original question is phrased in a meaningful manner - no disrespect intended... Here's what I mean:

Combat is not a style. When the shit hits the fan and the survival instinct kicks in, style is meaningless. No one limits their intent to survive to specific principles, techniques, or methods. THey do whatever and however it takes to get the job done. In the few real fights I've been in (and the more challenging competitions), style takes a back seat to survival. I'll grant you that my prior training will, in part, determine what I do and how I do it, but there's no way that I'm limiting what I do to training. Instinct comes out and it's anything goes. Biting, scratching, hair pulling, joint breaking, eye gouging, groin strikes, using anything at hand as a weapon, running away - anything goes in order to end the conflict as soon as possible with as little damage to myself as possible.

 

Look at martial artists in tournaments and in street fights - how often do they look pretty and true to their style? Not often when they're really challenged to their limit. WHen the fight's easy, you can look as pretty as you choose. When it's real, that stuff doesn't matter. Also, how many fighters have trained solely in taiji? Not too many, I'd wager. I know one and he does pretty well when he spars with the external stylists but, to my knowledge, he's never been in real combat.

 

So, to get back to the original question. I think my taiji training will make me a slightly better fighter than I would be without it due to my abilities to yield, neutralize, fajin, root, grapple, and be sensitive. And yet, depending on the situation, it's difficult to judge how much of that will come in to play.

[shontonga]

...............................................................................

 

IS YOUR TAIJIQUAN EFFECTIVE IN COMBAT?

So is it? How do you know?

I'm not asking about stories about someone you saw or your worshipful teacher.... but YOU!

.............................................................................................

 

 

Yes.

 

Though maybe not so much by me!

 

Combat ? Hmm.

 

OK.

Stand in "grasp sparrow's tail", kids.

Combative?

What do you see?

How are the hands?

Open.

Yer kind of in a non-confrontational stance ...

It's kind of like putting you hands up and saying

"Hey, man, It's cool, It's cool.It's OK."

Now hold the same stance and make those hands fists.

What your saying might change a bit?

"What? You Wanna Fight? Come On! Let's Go! Come On!"

Though tai chi is used martially

I do like the options it gives you.

Allows your first reaction in a confrontation to be one of calmness

instead of aggression, which could cause a situation to escalate

perhaps beyond control.

 

will come back and give an example at some point soon

but the night has gotten to late for it now!

And the words aren't flowing...

soon though.

 

Great discussion,

I Thank You All!

 

Shon

[rain]

When I was practicing TKD, we had an assistant to the master, a young Latino guy who told me stories about his pre-TKD life. He used to be small for his age and big bad guys beat him up just because that was what he was good for in their book, and then came that moment when his training paid off for the first time, and he pummeled one of them and proceeded to pummel the rest of them one by one and was left alone forever. His fear was freely admitted by him and completely legitimate -- rough environment, rough handling not his fantasies but his real life -- and martial training was the remedy. Many others don't know what they fear but they fear. A father might have been intimidating, but fantasies about teaching him a lesson never reach the conscious mind explicitly (too forbidden), instead they get redirected, projected onto someone else. I'll show him/her/them! Yes, a scared little boy is plotting his revenge inside every "brutal and effective" warrior, I've no doubt in my mind.

 

Chinese MA are different, at least for some, in that the immediate or expected opponent is a bigger kind of tyrant. Poor health, aging ungracefully, loss of a sense of physical excitement from the sheer process of living, this kind of opponent. Not a thug who might give you a beating in a dark alley. A thug that can invade your liver, give a beating to your reflection in the mirror , snatch a "purse" where you keep your self-identity as an able-bodied, able-spirited, sturdy piece of work. The only reason I would want to study something brutal and effective would be to use it against the actual brutal and effective enemies -- and these, of course, are different for different people. Mindless Inertia is the name I call my own biggest and most brutal one. And Chinese MA can beat him to a bloody pulp.

 

------------------

yes.

 

I remember the first time I graduated in front of six blackbelt teachers. After the first kihap standing still, I started to shake with tremours riding through the body. But the feet were sucked into the ground and the waves went out through top of head. Doubletripledirtyold old fear. The only one that recognized and showed me more respect afterwards was my female master.

 

The bigger opponent tyrant might just happen to be everything inside my own mind that drives me to use too much or too little force. I am still lightyears frombeing in tune.

Edited June 12, 2008 by rain

[Lozen]

[seadog]

Great disscussion.

 

Combat! Everytime.

The essence of tai chi for me is to challenge my greatest foes.

Laziness,lack of balance,poor breath,pride,ego,lack of concentration etc.

I've been fighting these super villians for ten years.

And still I don't feel Gotham city is safe from their menace.

[gendao]

Sometimes it's easier to start with an external hard style and evolve to a more internal soft style.

 

Because that way you always have hard skills to fall back on in the meantime. Also, you can see how the open energetic paradigm can overpower the more forceful physical paradigm. And, as you get older - you realize that your far bigger threats out there are in fact: time, aging and health - not random attackers in the streets. And that hard styles and hard sparring actually break your body down more than build it up. The opposite of your goal of health and self-preservation.

 

OTOH, I do find many soft stylists with no hard style background far too soft for combat. It's like they have nothing to refine or evolve from.

[funkytortoise]

someone mentioned ving tsun (wing chun). i can personally say that it is a very effective fighting style. in training, the first thing that is taught is the horse stance. for the first, say, year or two, most of the training is done in this posture. when you learn how to relax into the stance, you are more able to defend your center, but even more importantly, attack in a forward motion. the ideal situation in a fight is to neutralize the thread as soon as it is presented- getting right in their face before they knew what happened.

 

it does remind me a lot of tai chi. balance and relaxation are key parts of becoming a better fighter. since ving tsun originated in the shaolin temple, it does show some of the ch'an principles. everything comes to one point- like a wedge.

 

bad guy- X

ving

tsun guy- ^

 

it's amazing to watch my sifu. all it takes for him to steamroll someone is to take a step forward.

[Spectrum]

the ideal situation in a fight is to neutralize the thread as soon as it is presented- getting right in their face before they knew what happened.

 

I would imagine the ideal situation for the internalist to diffuse as the thread is conceived by the mind but not yet governed by the body.

 

Often movement is already in motion and you must either respond in opposite or in like. Meeting them at the door to turn their way, or welcoming them in/through. Either/or. Each situation is unique. There are no fixed formulas to decide the outcome, a dash of this, a sprinkle of that, wrap in leaves and herbs, roast in the pit, call it a backyard BBQ. Someone might get a tummy ache if they drink to much.

 

Train in a way that expects a freight train coming straight at you. Whatever your art, if it be for bodily defense, it must work when it counts the most. Always expect a train.

Edited June 12, 2008 by Spectrum

[funkytortoise]

*threat

 

i agree, there is no ideal situation, but there is an ideal outcome.

[Plastic Object]

Yes, a scared little boy is plotting his revenge inside every "brutal and effective" warrior, I've no doubt in my mind.

 

.... and it is not necessarily a bad thing as your friend's example show.

 

Chinese MA are different, at least for some, in that the immediate or expected opponent is a bigger kind of tyrant. Poor health, aging ungracefully, loss of a sense of physical excitement from the sheer process of living, this kind of opponent. Not a thug who might give you a beating in a dark alley. A thug that can invade your liver, give a beating to your reflection in the mirror, snatch a "purse" where you keep your self-identity as an able-bodied, able-spirited, sturdy piece of work. The only reason I would want to study something brutal and effective would be to use it against the actual brutal and effective enemies -- and these, of course, are different for different people. Mindless Inertia is the name I call my own biggest and most brutal one. And Chinese MA can beat him to a bloody pulp.

 

THis is a way of reasoning that makes a lot of sense. Maybe you also indicate a development that many martial artists go through as they grow older. That is, they start out with believing that all enemies have a human face, and that a punch in said face can solve any problem. Then they move on to some more refined ideas about what is dangerous to us humans (disease etc) without disregarding or forgetting about the first danger. It is a bit like (to make an analogy) moving from a belief that there is a military solution to all society's problems (lets go kill the bad guys to save the planet!) to a bit more deep structural explanations (lets try to deal with poverty, lack of education, bad infrastructure, bad healthcare, to save etc) But I'm going way of tangent.