Taijiquan - RIP

[cloudz]

Exactly.. The number of 'tai chi fighters' has always been relatively small. It may remain that way, whilst also catering for middle aged ladies, wanting some 'health exercise' and a small dish of self defence on the side.

Maybe it was always this way too. The whole village took part perhaps, kids, grannies etc. and martial art was the norm. But the percentage of hardcore guys willing to fight other than to defend themselves was perhaps always small.

Willingness to defend oneself doesn't rest on formal martial art training.

[Ron Panunto]

Years ago I remember starting the thread "the pussification of taijiquan", the latest thread trying "resurrect" taijiquan is just another reiteration...

But is it too late now? Perhaps it is? Taijiquan is virtually dead as a combat art. It is now a health dance for the masses courtesy of CMC and the purple pajama people. How many teachers/individuals can we name who can use / teach taijiquan for combat? Even before we start to disagree on who should be on the list, the list will be extremely short in comparison to the number of worldwide practitioners of taiji. I think its a lost cause, let the homeopaths, yoga masters, and tai chi "sifu's" share a studio in the mall with their mail order Chinese art and incense. Let them keep it - RIP Taijiquan, RIP.


Thoughts???

G

Here we go again.

[mixjourneyman]

things change. That is the essence of life.
They are born, grow up, die, and then new things are born.
Taijiquan is no different.


Mix- extracting clear fluid from the dregs of the ancients.

[mixjourneyman]

but in all seriousness, come to Shanghai sometime. Lots of great taiji here. Of course there is also lots of horrible taiji here, but I empathize with Liokault's statement about there being room for everyone

[Scott P. Phillips]

The myth of the pure martial art leads to a lot of anxious soul searching. Hippies recognized the embodied philosophic ritual in Tai Chi and Shaolin because it was there from the beginning. I can't frankly think of a style of martial arts training that isn't characterized by fantasy visions of testosterone filled glory. This habit of fantasy is like (should I say it?) a freaking ritual or something.
The need to feel that what you are doing is "real" seems to transcend all attempts to compare actual experience with received wisdom.
The actors are so entranced they believe their own scene. They no longer acknowledge the audience, the director or the playwright.

[liokault]

but in all seriousness, come to Shanghai sometime. Lots of great taiji here. Of course there is also lots of horrible taiji here, but I empathize with Liokault's statement about there being room for everyone

Theres room for everyone, but that dosent mean that we have to accept them........just give them space in the corner while we get on with the real.

[jonathan.bluestein]

Dunno about you, but I wouldn't take on guys like Chen Yu or Chen Bing.
My guess is that nowadays there are actually much more skilled and fighting-capable Taiji teachers out there than there were in the past 200 years. It's just that the percentage has changed. Although the number of skilled practitioner had probably increased, they amount for a tiny percentage, where in the "old days" they might have been close to being a majority.

[mixjourneyman]

some of my best friends are qi huggers

[Dmitri]

How many teachers/individuals can we name who can use / teach taijiquan for combat?

Let me ask you this, in return, "how many teachers/individuals can we name who can use / teach TKD for combat?"
Or, "how many teachers/individuals can we name who can use / teach baguazhang for combat?"

How many teachers/individuals can we name who can use / teach <insert_MA_here> for combat?

I don't think it's fair to single out TJQ; this applies to most MA, internal and otherwise.
TJQ suffered more in this sense because the form is slow, but that's about the only difference from most of the other MA.

[Giles]

To paraphrase F. Zappa:

Tai Chi Chuan isn't dead - it just smells of lemongrass


Apart from that: Your problem, not mine

[WVMark]

Great point, Dmitri. Either combat, fighting, or just general MMA usage, most martial arts don't cater to that kind of practice. And really, most of them don't even say that their school, or martial art, trains for that. Even self defense applications derived from many martial arts aren't the same as fighting or combat.

And whenever you take a martial system, school, art, whatever and adapt it so that it can appeal to the masses, you lose a lot. While I don't know much about the history of Taijiquan, I do know that when Aikido went for worldwide mass appeal, the martial effectiveness went significantly downhill so that the spiritual or harmony could be emphasized. Mass appeal is the death knell for martial systems.

Mark

[somatai]

there are many good practitioners out there to learn from.....not sure what all you folks are on about.....what is the point of your training?

[Bodywork]

Mass appeal is the death knell for martial systems.

Mark

I don't agree with this 100%. It is mostly true for many traditional arts, but many traditional arts were simply not complete arts in their day and are worse even now with todays pressures. Why? Many were not complete on the day of their founding; they specialized in throwing, or locking and striking, or striking and kicking, or one or two weapons only, but few were complete. You went elsewhere for a broader education. And guys were expected to do so. It was their version of MMA; today we see a liitle boxing... a little BJJ.. Okay..THEY did a little spear, a little knife, a little archery, a little sword...a little jujutsu.
What do we know? For hundreds of years guys went out to test against other schools or individuals. Why? a) there really wasn't a lot of testing in their own schools, and b) everyone correctly realized it was the best thing to do to earn and refine your chops.
Then things sort of stagnated.
The greatest thing that has happened in the modern era is cross training, and then testing those skills in a more aggressive format, with pressure from people with a broad range of skills.
All that said, most guys you meet in MMA and BJJ schools really aren’t that good themselves, most have only three or so years in, and while far better than their TMA counterparts, their own understanding and knowledge isn't all that great. So that is where I got back to agreeing with your point...even in the MMA world; we are going to see

Great fighters....who are shitty teachers
Great teachers...who don't have quite a well developed package to teach
Few schools with guys who will take the time to get a deeper undertanding of a myriad of arts and learn to make THOSE work under stress testing
Most schools will have guys training with a reduced syllabus of things that work, and that low level people can pull off, being the be all and end all, because it can be learned in a short time frame...now redefining the martial arts.

Case in point you see less and less good stand up throwing (judo, jujutsu Greco Roman) not because they don't work, but because guys with three or four years experience cannot set them up and make them work against resisting opponents. Instead you see more simple throws, leg trips and shoots.

Overall we will see the number of really good technical guys (who mostly trained in traditional systems and then modified that for MMA) being reduced and an increasing number of guys who NEVER trained a TMA but cut their teeth in modern gyms which offered reduced understanding and expedient techniques that work and called it a day. Not that there is anything wrong with that, but there is NO WAY, that type of fast track education is the better one. Remember many of the original MMA greats had decades of wrestling and BJJ and MT behind them...not the limited "time-in" we increasingly see.
Some people go on and on about the ground game as some new invention as well and scoff at the older arts that didn’t have them. While I tend to agree about the merits of the ground game, and have trained it since I was a kid, most of these young turks don’t really have a fecking clue why there never was a strong ground game in the age of combatives when men lived and died for their skills and understanding. They fought with weapons. The ground…was death. Give weapons to a BJJer not used to them and put him up against someone with a spear, sword and knife who is well versed in their use and it will give the BJJ guy a different opinion about real MMA.
I’m not going to comment on internals and their worth, the less people know about them the better, and if they are reserved for guys who will put in the time and effort…and if that now includes guys learning to use IP in MMA..the better still….

Edit on topic point
Taiji is more than a martial art; while being truly capable (only in the hands of those who are capable with it) it is also a VERY healthy practice that will feed you for the rest of your life, something which few western arts could ever boast about. It will outlast the modern MMA boom quite well as will other traditional arts. The narrow minded views of young people rarely prevail. As they get older they tend to smarten up…well, most of them do.
Dan

[somatai]

nice post Dan

[Ray]

Bravo Dan! Great to see you posting on this forum again. Couldn't agree more with your points, but this is the internet and we're talking about Tai Chi, so there will bound to be naysayers. Haven't forgotten or given up on what I learned from your seminar last summer, but you were correct that the aiki exercises may be too vague and ethereal for most, esp. fighters. Hopping to come out to your barn again. Ray