How to practice Tai Chi applications

[Bao]

Some of the last few threads inspired me to write a blog post about how to practice applications in tai chi - as Tai Chi - and not as Jujutsu or anything else. I haven't seen any similar description anywhere. Yet, I feel this is most basic stuff...
Most of what is said below goes for most kind of applications practice in Tai Chi.

What are your view about what is said below? Would be interesting to hear details about your own practice.

The whole blogpost can be found here:
https://taichithoughts.wordpress.com/20 ... lications/

.....

Let’s say that we practice a simple thing like parrying a straight fist, in the same matter you go in to a “holding a ball posture”, like the very start of “Ye ma fen zong” (parting the wild horses by their mane). Sounds easy, right? But in the beginning, you need to think of many different details. After time, all of these details will become second nature. Everything that is hard in the beginning will eventually become a part of your “shenfa”, or body method.

what you need to think about when you parry/deflect that incoming punch:

Adjusting distance and angle

Through the whole movement, be aware about the distance between his and your body. If you need to move your body, attach your distance to him. Don’t let him dictate the distance or angle. Lead the game by not giving any gaps or let him closer than what you have decided the distance to be.

Maintain a firm stance.

Stand comfortable, bend the knees slightly and relax so you sink the strength down to the feet. This will be better understood as you develop rooting.

Maintain the integrity of zhongding.

Your centerline is a most essential point. Stand firm and straight. Turn around the centerline with weight transitions and the waist like a wheel. This means that when the punch comes, you cannot flinch, you cannot bend spine backwards. You can try to have a slightly forward lean, or at least the feeling (intent) of going forward. Maintain this feeling for the whole defensive action.

Don’t go against his force.

Don’t resist by using force, try to keep as light pressure as possible, follow and direct his movement by following his own his own force. Move in the exact same speed as he does. Use your limbs to feel the speed. Don’t think, feel.

Stick – tie.

Sticking, or “tie”, is important in Tai Chi. Slightly twisting the arm/wrist at the contact point will do the trick. Twist as you move together with his force. Twist in the same speed and move slightly against his arm. If you are very relax and follow his speed and movement, your arm can stick to his with very little pressure. You can follow his change by changing or adding twisting movements.

And yet there is more…

Indeed, there are many other details we could get into. But I think the ones above are a good start. You must try to feel the posture, your own body, at every part of the movement. Try to feel your posture, your feet, the legs, movements of the waist, the centerline, the upright turning movements of the zhongding. Get everything of this and the above correct and together at every single second of practicing the movement. All together, all at once.

At the beginning, practice slowly to get everything together. Later, add speed and power to the punches and continue to get everything together.

[Ron Panunto]

Yes, agreed Bao. If your parrying a right cross, as your ward off right hand rises to touch his forearm, you want to step at an angle forward and to his left, so that you are now standing beside him, then there are zillions of ways to dispatch him. The trick is staying completely relaxed, both physically and emotionally so that you can parry faster than your opponent can react to what has just happened. Emotional relaxation requires courage, which can be extremely difficult to learn (unless you a born badass).

[willie]

Some of the last few threads inspired me to write a blog post about how to practice applications in tai chi - as Tai chi .

first step is to cultivate some qi.

[Bao]

The trick is staying completely relaxed, both physically and emotionally so that you can parry faster than your opponent can react to what has just happened. Emotional relaxation requires courage, which can be extremely difficult to learn (unless you a born badass).

Very well expressed.

[MaartenSFS]

You address a point that 99.9% of people neglect; how to enter. And I'm not talking about a cooperative training partner. Yemafenzong, Yunshou, etc. are not that easy to use against a resisting opponent, especially if they aren't weaklings and weren't born yesterday. Baoqiu is a great entering move and has some nasty applications/follow-up moves. After latching on to their wrists a stab to the eyes is sure to make them pull back and their straight arm is ripe for the taking..

[Bao]

Yemafenzong, Yunshou, etc. are not that easy to use against a resisting opponent, especially if they aren't weaklings and weren't born yesterday.

Agreed that they can be tricky. Not so easy. But, IMHO this is still like every other kind of applications, it's better to not force them but do what is most simple or most suitable for the moment. Of course, spotting opportunity is a skill of it's own.

I appreciate the comment, thanks.

[MaartenSFS]

Yemafenzong, Yunshou, etc. are not that easy to use against a resisting opponent, especially if they aren't weaklings and weren't born yesterday.

Agreed that they can be tricky. Not so easy. But, IMHO this is still like every other kind of applications, it's better to not force them but do what is most simple or most suitable for the moment. Of course, spotting opportunity is a skill of it's own.

I appreciate the comment, thanks.

Exactly. Tricking is also an important skill. Zou Shifu is a master of deception..

[GrahamB]

Bao - ok. But how is this any different to karate?

[Bao]

Short answer: Consciously building body awareness.

Long answer: I have seen a lot of tai chi turned into karate or jujutsu. Some schools or branches of tai chi, I don't consider to be tai chi. But I have never encountered any karate or jujutsu or similar that structure their body in a very conscious and detailed manner when they practice defense, entering, locks/"qinna" etc. I have never seen anyone from such style focusing on taking strength from their foot when they do a hand qinna type of maneuver, or trying to relax in such a manner that he use least arm strength as possible and instead use as much whole body movement as possible. I have never heard of any such style trying to use applications practice in a very conscious manner to build up a shenfa/body method. But even from high practitioners and dan rewarded teachers I see a lot of forcing techniques, using arms instead of body, wobbling, uncontrolled movement, no rooting, balancing on heels or toes. I am not saying that good karate can't be as good or similar to tai chi, but being soft, keeping the integrity of structure and using as little strength as possible is usually not in the picture when they practice applications as defensive techniques. There's just another focus of the practice in such arts. For instance, using little strength is usually about using leverage or body weight only, not about trying to keep the body relaxed or keeping the structure from foot to head. In Tai Chi, you are less interested in what your limbs do. You first consider your own body's structure and how your body and it's center "feels". Then you consider the space relationship between you and the other body. Then the connection. Moving from your own center makes changes in this connection which makes a change to the opponent's body.

The thinking is very different, yet none of this is about theory or about intellectualizing, it's all about the how something is performed in a most practical manner. If you focus on what happens in your arms only, you are not fully aware about what's happening within your body. If you are not, you are bound to make involuntary things that you are not aware of. This is just how our brains and nervous system function. But if you consider your center first, in the sense that you are aware of it and feels what's going on inside of it, and works from there, you control all of your body so much better.

[Josealb]

Bao - ok. But how is this any different to karate?

I think what G is trying to say is, how is this different from correct application of any other martial art?

Bao, you mentioned that you have met Karate guys and high ranking teachers that do applications in this way or that way. You have met Taiji guys who apply in this way or that. Wouldnt those applications be the direct result of the people doing them, and not the art? Shouldn't all martial art applications be done with the awareness that you described?

I think you may be the thought victim of a logical fallacy here, although im not sure which one.

[Bao]

Bao - ok. But how is this any different to karate?

I think what G is trying to say is, how is this different from correct application of any other martial art?

IMHO, Neither the question or answer to that is important. What's important is the road you travel. How something looks Is not important, but what's inside of it.

Bao, you mentioned that you have met Karate guys and high ranking teachers that do applications in this way or that way. You have met Taiji guys who apply in this way or that. Wouldnt those applications be the direct result of the people doing them, and not the art?

What I do speak about is a learning and training system that is inhereted in a certain art, not about individual martial artists in general that's a whole dupifferent topic.

Arts are developed systems that teach people how to achieve something. I learned the importance of consciously develop self awareness and a method for this in Tai Chi. Very few other art have developed systems for teaching people how to develop this. So the art is important, and some things are indeed results from practicing a certain art. If people gets it is another thing.

Shouldn't all martial art applications be done with the awareness that you described?

Then why don't they have systems to teach this? Why don't students practically and methodogically practice this? I am speaking about internal awareness, not the awareness about how you do a certain technique externally.

I think you may be the thought victim of a logical fallacy here, although im not sure which one

I am certain that there's a slight possibility of it. Aren't we all in some way?
But also, there might be the possibility that you don't really understand what I mean. But that's fine with me.

[MaartenSFS]

It's not that different from many CMA but most systems do not train the sensitivity required to flow into a lock whilst also being punched and kicked at.

[Josealb]

Then why don't they have systems to teach this? Why don't students practically and methodogically practice this? I am speaking about internal awareness, not the awareness about how you do a certain technique externally.

I dont know the name, but i think i almost know the name of the fallacy. You see, you just made a sweeping statement right there and generalized. You also assumed that what you have seen as karate, or any other martial art, is absolutely everything that there is. On the heels of that one, you also assume automatically that these other arts are "external", which right there is just a label that does not define a martial art, but has to do with how the martial art is trained (any art can be external or internal). Any martial art can have awareness. You are simply putting taiji application on a pedestal, using your limited (not because its lacking, but because its not absolute) experience in other martial arts as a measuring stick to stereotype.

Your point still has value, if argued simply as how to properly apply taiji, without trying to compare it with straw man versions of how other martial arts work, and how they dont have the goods because you have not seen them taught or methodically practiced.

[GrahamB]

Jose gets what I'm saying Bao - you are just describing the requirements to make any martial art work, to me at least. The good people in any martial art are relaxed, fluid with a high degree of body awaerness. Top MT guys have 100% more body coordination than most for example. In MMA Conor McGregor, Steven Thompson, Dmitrius Johnson are really fluid and relaxed. These guys are competing at a level way beyond what you find in a tai chi class and still doing it.

So, my question would have to come back to - what makes the "tai chi" part of "tai chi applications"? I can't see it in what you've written so far.

[Serena]

Bao, interesting article, but I ask,

How do you know with what motion to most effectively turn on and off a light switch?

How do you open your car door handle?

Why is it that you always push in the right direction and not in the wrong direction?