Applying Internals/Tai chi Chuan to modern arts (BJJ/MMA)

Discussion on the three big Chinese internals, Yiquan, Bajiquan, Piguazhang and other similar styles.

Applying Internals/Tai chi Chuan to modern arts (BJJ/MMA)

Postby choldstare on Mon Dec 05, 2016 3:32 pm

Hey all,
I wanted to see what people's thoughts were on applying Tai Chi Chuan to bjj. I've been practicing Tai chi for about 2 years and struggle to find devoted partners to pressure test and spar with. I recently picked up BJJ and it's been a great workout. Also sparring with people of all sizes and spirits have been very fun.

I wanted to ask if you guys had much success testing and developing the principles of your arts in these environments. My main goal in my Tai chi and internal practice is to be able to apply it against people who are truly trying to hurt me, the more uncooperative resistance i can deal with the more confident I get in being able to do so which makes it easier for my ego to deal with confrontation :). Playing with it in a BJJ type environment lets me see what works and what doesn't albeit standup portion is not frequent as I'd like.

Some things I noticed in my couple months of practice:

    1. noticed is that push hands type play helps with getting better grips and seeing opening for arm drags /taking someone's back.
    2. Removing the slack out/plucking their arm/grips clothes help get an easy attachment to their center then moving them or sweeping by taking slack out.
    3. General listening/sensitivity is much better than most bjj practitioners as they're mainly thinking about techniques and setups to apply instead of listening to the person and attaching to their movements and relaxing.
    4. It can be quite challenging to relax and stay calm when people are wrestling the shit out of you and grinding but you don't have to play their game to succeed as staying relaxed and focusing on your breath and structure is much more efficient and when the openning arises I'm able to sweep or reverse their movement and survive.
    5. 4 points of contacts (legs and arms) It's like doing push hands with 4 limbs. not letting people pass your guard (listening and moving with your legs creating setups for sweeps when they're on top of you. Full body movements pull with arm as you push with legs from center.
    6. If they cross their body with their arms you can lock them up (for example gift wrap position) and it diminishes their power generation. This happens a lot in push hands
    Cross body lock up. If someone is on the ground lock down across their body. ex: left shoulder right hip greatly immobilizes them as power through the body wants to travel across naturally. (
    7. General principle of distinguishing substantial from insubstantial setting up for submission opportunities or sweeps.
    8. Wrist Qinna helping with breaking peoples gi grips.
    9. When on top relaxing and rooting through the ground through their body this also helps with listening and following their intent.
    In almost all submissions trying to engage the full body and having relaxed connection to your center contracting to close space and make really tight effortless submissions. (i'm not good at this in live rolling but in drilling I focus on getting really tight powerful submissions with minimal effort)
    10. Elbow power. When someone is in closed guard Can keep heavy elbows to listen to someone's legs and open their guard while using your hands to control their grips.
    Unbowing and bowing of the spine and limbs helps with escapes and power generation.

One thing to mention, initially I got submitted as much as anyone else my body felt "different" and I had decent "movement" I got submitted as much as the next white belt due to not having any knowledge in the intricacies of ground fighting and not being familiar with the positions and submissions.

A lot of what i'm discussing might be quite basic from your perspective but I'm curious to hear how i can keep learning and getting better in this environment. I'd like to be able to learn how to use spirals more effectively in this environment. I've been having a lot of fun doing this so I'd love to hear from more experienced people if i can get what I want following this path. Some other body improvements i've had is with my hips. My hips are more flexible and powerful I can close and open my qua more.. My spine has a lot more mobility and movement to it and my lower back is openning up more; it's improving my standing exercises and my form as I feel much more stable and stronger ( i am able to engage more of my spinal tissues for rooting). I'm hoping these two practices will be complimentary.

Downsides:
Mattburn, sometimes too much testosterone in the environment for my liking, might've broken a pinky toe. Wish there was a little more self defense emphasis. I still practice standup just wish I could do it at the bjj gym more.


Cheers
Last edited by choldstare on Mon Dec 05, 2016 3:42 pm, edited 2 times in total.
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Re: Applying Internals/Tai chi Chuan to modern arts (BJJ/MMA)

Postby GrahamB on Mon Dec 05, 2016 4:42 pm

Yeah. That's the way - sounds like you're doing fine. I found all those things too and it really accelerated my progress.

The mat burn dies down once your skin toughens up - takes a few months.

Next step - look into yoga for Bjj (they have a 20 minute free class on YouTube). This will also accelerate your progress. Bjj can make you feel stiff and uncomfortable from the hard sparring but you can manage this with yoga and the greater freedom of movement really helps your technique. I wish I'd started sooner. Just doing the free class every night before bed and already noticing huge improvement in my rolling and flexibility and strength.

Keep going!
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Re: Applying Internals/Tai chi Chuan to modern arts (BJJ/MMA)

Postby yeniseri on Mon Dec 05, 2016 4:51 pm

Applying "internals/taijiquan to modern arts (BJJ/MMA) ends up being bs in the long run because many people have never been exposed to martial stuff in CMA.

What do I mean? Internal what? you have to build muscle (not talking muscular!) some sort of physical conditioning on top of some level and type of tool/tools assisting the the maintenance of such skill.
My best example is shuaijiao, the conditioning tools also present in Okinawan karate along with someone to pass on such skill. It is not available in present CMA circles though I would tell people to learn the basics of shuaijiao.

Look at TIm Cartmell and see how he utilizes and see the thread that goes through taijiquan and how he integrated it into his BJJ, a strong tool found in MMA

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DSsLxtI-PUw
Sample of integration and utility
Last edited by yeniseri on Mon Dec 05, 2016 4:59 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Applying Internals/Tai chi Chuan to modern arts (BJJ/MMA)

Postby willie on Tue Dec 06, 2016 7:01 am

choldstare wrote:Hey all,
I wanted to see what people's thoughts were on applying Tai Chi Chuan to bjj. I've been practicing Tai chi for about 2 years and struggle to find devoted partners to pressure test and spar with. I recently picked up BJJ and it's been a great workout. Also sparring with people of all sizes and spirits have been very fun.


Downsides:
Mattburn, sometimes too much testosterone in the environment for my liking, might've broken a pinky toe. Wish there was a little more self defense emphasis. I still practice standup just wish I could do it at the bjj gym more.


Cheers



Hi coldstare,
I watched Tims video and didn't see any internal at all, watch WHJ for true internals.
Skip to about 6:00. real internal power.


In my opinion it's a waste of time and effort to try to make tai chi work against bjj directly. why not just have both?
On your downsides comment, your in conflict with yourself.
In MMA, bjj is the milder, funner side. So you saying that you wish for more stand up, but then say you might have broken your
pinky toe? this don't make sense? In the stand up part of MMA you can expect multiple broken everything.
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Re: Applying Internals/Tai chi Chuan to modern arts (BJJ/MMA)

Postby Yugen on Tue Dec 06, 2016 8:26 am

choldstare wrote:
might've broken a pinky toe.

Cheers


Don't use your little toes for Dim Mak, it has to be the big toe and make sure you note the time of day and the moon phase when using it! ;D
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Re: Applying Internals/Tai chi Chuan to modern arts (BJJ/MMA)

Postby everything on Tue Dec 06, 2016 8:47 am

Switch to judo. Much more similarity to Tai chi.
amateur practices til gets right pro til can't get wrong
/ better approx answer to right q than exact answer to wrong q which can be made precise /
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Re: Applying Internals/Tai chi Chuan to modern arts (BJJ/MMA)

Postby Rhen on Tue Dec 06, 2016 9:29 am

I think Wang hai Jun would get submitted by a blue belt in a matter of minutes IMO.
Last edited by Rhen on Tue Dec 06, 2016 9:29 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Applying Internals/Tai chi Chuan to modern arts (BJJ/MMA)

Postby Yugen on Tue Dec 06, 2016 10:22 am

everything wrote:Switch to judo. Much more similarity to Tai chi.


yep, if trained correctly (meaning explore more than the sport rules aspects) I think one has a better chance developing what Tai Chi hopes to achieve, but with more practicality of using under duress.
Last edited by Yugen on Tue Dec 06, 2016 10:23 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Applying Internals/Tai chi Chuan to modern arts (BJJ/MMA)

Postby Greg J on Tue Dec 06, 2016 10:44 am

Hi choldstare,

This is an interesting topic to me. Although I studied Taiji for two years, my primary arts are Kali (mostly Dog Brothers with a bit of Inosanto Blend) and Silat (Satria). Many of the internals you describe (especially relaxation under pressure and whole body movement) are ones I try to manifest when stickfighting and sparring.

I agree that Tim Cartmell would be a good person to study and (if at all possible) study with. Here is a great highlight video of a seminar he did, where he shows many of the principles you describe working on.



Also, here is an interesting interview he did a while back (taken from his own site):

http://www.shenwu.com/background.htm

Finally, here is a great interview with him on the excellent "BJJ Brick" Podcast. Ignore the corny intro. This really is a quality podcast.

http://bjjbrick.com/epi-133-multi-black ... -cartmell/

Best,
Greg
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Re: Applying Internals/Tai chi Chuan to modern arts (BJJ/MMA)

Postby willie on Tue Dec 06, 2016 11:14 am

Rhen wrote:I think Wang hai Jun would get submitted by a blue belt in a matter of minutes IMO.


are you sure?
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Re: Applying Internals/Tai chi Chuan to modern arts (BJJ/MMA)

Postby everything on Tue Dec 06, 2016 11:38 am

if you can study with Tim, by all means, do that! you can debate about this or that later. He is the one who steered me toward judo. I agree about the art vs. the sport point. There is bad over-muscled judo but that is EXCELLENT for you to develop your "4 oz vs. 1000 lbs" thing. Another plus for judo is it has plenty of groundwork. No need to mix taiji and bjj on your own. And no, it won't mess up your taiji. Your taiji will only help you.
amateur practices til gets right pro til can't get wrong
/ better approx answer to right q than exact answer to wrong q which can be made precise /
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Re: Applying Internals/Tai chi Chuan to modern arts (BJJ/MMA)

Postby willie on Tue Dec 06, 2016 1:19 pm

Greg J wrote:Hi choldstare,

This is an interesting topic to me. Although I studied Taiji for two years, my primary arts are Kali (mostly Dog Brothers with a bit of Inosanto Blend) and Silat (Satria). Many of the internals you describe (especially relaxation under pressure and whole body movement) are ones I try to manifest when stickfighting and sparring.

I agree that Tim Cartmell would be a good person to study and (if at all possible) study with. Here is a great highlight video of a seminar he did, where he shows many of the principles you describe working on.



Also, here is an interesting interview he did a while back (taken from his own site):

http://www.shenwu.com/background.htm

Finally, here is a great interview with him on the excellent "BJJ Brick" Podcast. Ignore the corny intro. This really is a quality podcast.

http://bjjbrick.com/epi-133-multi-black ... -cartmell/

Best,
Greg


Greg there's a lot of good stuff in that video, but there is a lot of stuff that isn't very good.
His chokes aren't even centered, the tip of the elbow should be centered.
A lot of his techniques are relying on poor ding, that shit won't work on me at all.
Last edited by willie on Tue Dec 06, 2016 1:19 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Applying Internals/Tai chi Chuan to modern arts (BJJ/MMA)

Postby everything on Tue Dec 06, 2016 1:28 pm

bwahahahahahahahaha. Hahaha. Wow. :-\
amateur practices til gets right pro til can't get wrong
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Re: Applying Internals/Tai chi Chuan to modern arts (BJJ/MMA)

Postby willie on Tue Dec 06, 2016 1:30 pm

everything wrote:bwahahahahahahahaha. Hahaha. Wow. :-\


I hope that's not towards me?
lol! You people come up with some serious delusion.
Like Blue belt beat WHJ, come on dude would be deceased in seconds.
Get a grip, holy shit!
Last edited by willie on Tue Dec 06, 2016 1:33 pm, edited 2 times in total.
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Re: Applying Internals/Tai chi Chuan to modern arts (BJJ/MMA)

Postby origami_itto on Tue Dec 06, 2016 2:01 pm

By all means, go roll with Tim and get film.

I would pay to see you take him down a peg. :D
Last edited by origami_itto on Tue Dec 06, 2016 2:02 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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