the rum soaked fist: internal martial arts forum

We were talking about the "one inch punch" so I fired off this demo of my take on it.

Playing around with a Tai Chi version of Bruce Lee's "one inch" punch. More like three or six inches if I'm being honest. This isn't really something that we train per se, but is a result of the training. In Taijiquan the power is generated through relaxation not direct muscular force.

Here I am shifting my weight from the front to the back and directing that force into the bag, which is filled with 100lbs of water.

The 1 inch’ish “Taiji”-punch once demonstrated on me by a well known Chen-taiji teacher in Beijing was not the kind that send you backward, it was a “vibrating” punch with a rather “soft” point of impact but very uncomfortable felt on the opposite side of the body(my spine)with a deep nausea quickly following.

I remember the day my senior Michael O’Connell was holding a house brick in front of his abdomen
My TST teacher Dean Rainer did a one inch punch splitting it from one corner to the other on the diagonal
He didn’t break it in two but close enough
Michael told me he was sick for a week after that
Don’t know how he did it but sure impressed me

A water-filled bag is not a good demo source for this; it's absorbing too much and you are visibly pushing it after the knuckles make contact in order to have more visible effect. It's sort of like why it's a bad idea to have mirrors in a tai chi studio - most people will get distracted and focus on what it looks like to an outside observer...
Maybe hang a solid board or something in front of that bag?
Thanks for sharing

Yeah the second one I did a follow through that is reading like a push here. Trying to add to the wave but it reads like a push.

I put it in slow motion and you can see the bag soak up the impact before it flies off.

https://youtu.be/iBqCL7y8m4I