The Dilemma that your Chen taiji is the 'real fighting art'

[Andy_S]

Jake:

Does Tim Cartmell teach Taiji combatively? I understood that at Shenwu, he largely teaches MMA, and CMA per se only to those who particularly want it...and that HsingI and Bagua are his main curriculum in the latter area

Chicago:

AFAIK, the name Taijiquan was coined by interested literati to describe the soft boxing or cotton fist that Yang Luchan was doing. When the name - and the art, as Yang taught it - caught on, the Chen clan started using it too. However, as Yang Luchan was doing Chen village MA (perhaps, with admixtures of his previous Shaolin) and the Yangs have always publically acknowledged this, I suggest that the brand is less important than the product.

[chicagoTaiJi]

However, as Yang Luchan was doing Chen village MA (perhaps, with admixtures of his previous Shaolin) and the Yangs have always publically acknowledged this, I suggest that the brand is less important than the product.

Right, but per my understanding, he (Yang Lu Chan) was doing something he learned in Chen village. It doesn't mean he was doing what other people in Chen village were doing.

Do you know of any good sources for this (chinese or english)

thanks

[JAB]

Andy,
Well I guess it is all how you look at it. Tim's group classes, Shen Wu classes, are a mixture of stand up and ground fighting. Really it is the culmination of over 35 years of martial experience Tim has had, which just so happens to consist solely of the Chinese Martial Arts (San Soo, Xing Yi, Bagua (Gao / Sun), Taiji (Sun / Chen / Yang), coupled with BJJ on the ground. Now, if you call this MMA.. then sure. It is all based out of the Chinese martial pantheon, with a few additions (CMA do not have Thai Clinch, and certain sacrifice throws for example), but none of the classes are style specific. Tim teaches anything in private lessons, and many of us are keeping the systems going.
Oh and EVERYTHING Tim teaches is combative.
Hope that helps,
Jake

[cloudz]

However, as Yang Luchan was doing Chen village MA (perhaps, with admixtures of his previous Shaolin) and the Yangs have always publically acknowledged this, I suggest that the brand is less important than the product.

Right, but per my understanding, he (Yang Lu Chan) was doing something he learned in Chen village. It doesn't mean he was doing what other people in Chen village were doing.

Do you know of any good sources for this (chinese or english)

thanks

Dan Dochertys book touches on this..

[Ron Panunto]

However, as Yang Luchan was doing Chen village MA (perhaps, with admixtures of his previous Shaolin) and the Yangs have always publically acknowledged this, I suggest that the brand is less important than the product.

Right, but per my understanding, he (Yang Lu Chan) was doing something he learned in Chen village. It doesn't mean he was doing what other people in Chen village were doing.

Do you know of any good sources for this (chinese or english)

thanks

Dan Dochertys book touches on this..

I wouldn't recommend Docherty's book as an authoritative source on taiji history.

[Ron Panunto]

Welcome John. Well afterall Chen is the mother of the all variations of Taiji, so what you say makes sense.
Cheers
Jake

Do you know if the Chen village martial arts （i.e. pao chui) were called taijiquan before Yang family's martial arts became famous?

It was simply called Chen family boxing. Pao Chui was the family's original boxing style before Chen Wanting created what is now known as taijiquan.

[CaliG]

or maybe most of the folks training "traditional" MA aren't looking to sport fighting as the reason for their training. my guess is those folks will find themselves gravitating to a western boxing or mma gym or something similar.

Thanks Jeff, that's basically what I was trying to say.

The reality is we can't really just pick on Chen taiji, if you think about it most CMA people who compete usually do SC or San Shou, although yes they probably also do some TCMA as well. (For example the guy who runs EMB out here in the bay area is a Xingyi guy, but from what I can tell San Shou is his main animal.)

I think the reason you don't see a lot of TCMA guys do well in competitions (compared with the numbers who do combat sports) is because a lot of people get to caught up in the forms. They look to the forms as a rule instead of a series of concepts.

In other words the forms determine how they will fight and stand and move. Where as those who do combat sports are not restricted to what they'll use, they just do what they have to do to win.

For example I remember seeing a bagua guy come to a bjj club I used to train at. One day we worked on takedowns. So the bagua guy, went into bagua mode and started to circle walk so the wrestler he was working with just timed his legs and as soon as they came together he took him down with a double leg.

Needless to say most people realize that you only circle walk once you've made contact. But a combat sports guy or someone on the street knowing someone is going to try to take them down would naturally just square his hip to the wrestler and try to avoid being taken down.

Usually TCMA guys learn a lot of techniques and learn how to apply them later through hard work. Where as combat sport guys do it the other way their taught a concept and then they are taught techniques for that concept.

I remember watching Tim Cartmell's Effortless Throws, in it he talks about the three different directions to throw someone and then he demos those different directions. I think coming from a concept based system people are less restricted with what they use and how they use it. It's no wonder Tim Cartmell is so good at teaching fighting because he comes from a concept based method.

When I first started doing IMAs I used to think that in taiji you just wait for the other guy to attack then you neutralize him and destory him (that is as long as he doesn't pull out a gun ). But my teacher straightened me out, you use your MA the way have to get the job done. Forms and jibengong are training to reach the level where you can get the job done as quickly as possible, but to limit what you have to do with you've seen in the forms is like trying to learn to write poetry by studying the dictionary.

Needless to say if more TCMA people trained in this manner you'd probably see a few more TCMA fighters, but in the end I think most people who want to get into competition go where the competitors go to MT, BJJ and MMA gyms. Afterall you're only going to be as good as the people you go up against so may as well go where the numbers are highest. It's like the difference between taking up hockey in Russia and taking up Hockey in Australia.

[chicagoTaiJi]

Welcome John. Well afterall Chen is the mother of the all variations of Taiji, so what you say makes sense.
Cheers
Jake

Do you know if the Chen village martial arts （i.e. pao chui) were called taijiquan before Yang family's martial arts became famous?

It was simply called Chen family boxing. Pao Chui was the family's original boxing style before Chen Wanting created what is now known as taijiquan.

What was that called?

Who coined the term?

[Little Bai]

What was what called? Chen Family Boxing was called Chen Family Boxing. By whom? By the Chen Family. Pretty obvious, if you think about it.
For the Chen clan, there wasn't much need to call their family art by some other name than 'boxing' (quan), since it was the only style practiced. Everyone in the village immediately knew what you were talking about.

[JAB]

Actually the Australians have some decent hockey believe it or not!

[chicagoTaiJi]

What was what called? Chen Family Boxing was called Chen Family Boxing. By whom? By the Chen Family. Pretty obvious, if you think about it.
For the Chen clan, there wasn't much need to call their family art by some other name than 'boxing' (quan), since it was the only style practiced. Everyone in the village immediately knew what you were talking about.

the question is about the origin of the term "taiji" quan and how it became to refer to that style.

simply because both came from Chen village?

[Little Bai]

I think it was Peter Lim who said it came from a poet who coined the term after seeing Yang Luchan 'in action'. Lim is not the most reliable source, but it seems the term Taijiquan indeed came into use after Yang went to Beijing. Before that time, there is no mention of it in any form. Chen Family Boxing was simply called Taijiquan as well because that's where Yang lerned his stuff - or at least most of it.

[chicagoTaiJi]

I think it was Peter Lim who said it came from a poet who coined the term after seeing Yang Luchan 'in action'. Lim is not the most reliable source, but it seems the term Taijiquan indeed came into use after Yang went to Beijing. Before that time, there is no mention of it in any form. Chen Family Boxing was simply called Taijiquan as well because that's where Yang lerned his stuff - or at least most of it.

Is there any authoritative history of that? Yang learned in Chen village, but it doesn't mean he learned necessarily learned the Chen family martial art. That's really what I am after historical references to.

e.g.: Did Jiang Fa and Chen Changxing teach the same thing now widely known as Chen tai ji?

any historical references appreciated

[Frank Bellemare]

This question is for Andy_S and the other guys familiar with Chen style training methods:

I recently saw footage from a push hands competition which Wang ZhanJun (Wang XiAn's son I think?) won and I was impressed with his standing grappling skills. How do they train for this? Is there anything more to their training than the usual Post standing+form+a lot of push hands? Or is it simply that they push hands on a regular basis with more intensity than we're accustomed to seeing? There were some powerful throws in there!

[Little Bai]

Is there any authoritative history of that? Yang learned in Chen village, but it doesn't mean he learned necessarily learned the Chen family martial art. That's really what I am after historical references to.

e.g.: Did Jiang Fa and Chen Changxing teach the same thing now widely known as Chen tai ji?

any historical references appreciated

You are probably alluding to the story that Chen Changxing learned Taiji from Jiang Fa and taught it to Yang Luchan. The problem is not that there are historical writings denying this, there simply are no records whatsoever pointing towards the event happening. The person Jiang Fa is controversial; the Chen Family knows someone by that name, but he was a contemporary of Chen Wangting, not Chen Changxing. There is no mention of anyone called Jiang Fa related to Chen Changxing in Chen family chronicles. Also, if there was indeed a tradition of Taijiquan coming from outside Chen-village - especially one actually bearing the name Taijiquan and dating back centuries - then it begs the question why Qi Jiguang never mentioned it (nor any of the other prolific writers of the 16th to 18th century), and how it was possible to actually name a martial art Taijiquan, since the characters Taiji appeared in the name of the Qing Emperor Hong Taiji, which means it would have been forbidden. So it makes sense that the first time the term Taijiquan appears was in the late 19th/early 20th century.
As for Jiang teaching Chen teaching Yang Luchan. It is of course not possible to rule out the possibility that there was outside influence after Chen Wangting in the development of the Chen family martial art. In fact, I personally believe it is very likely that there was a lot more influence and changing and adapting. However, the "original story" about 19th century Jiang Fa includes the theme that Chen Changxing taught this super-duper martial art (which he learned from Jiang Fa, and which is claimed to have been superior to the Chen family art) ONLY to Yang Luchan, but not to his relatives - not even his own son(s). Given the importance of family relations in imperial China (and even today), this is a story I simply cannot believe in...