the rum soaked fist: internal martial arts forum

Shanghai-based MMA coach Ramsey Dewey has posted a nice video discussing his understanding of the situation of tai chi:



Think he makes some very interesting points about how the current state of tai chi is exactly what you would expect to see if you withhold the underlying information behind the movements of any art - i.e. it becomes a meaningless shell - and also how a lot of taiji movements can be directly correlated to v practical grappling movements or locks.

I agree with what he says but when I watched him move I was disappointed

Truth!
Some people on this board have been saying you have to train it but they are looked upon as being heretics. i.e. that isn't real taijiquan CMA.

Nuff said

In my point of view it's a 'wrestlers' perspective on movements in TKD/Karate/TaiJi. Sure you could see a reverse punch and see it as an armbar, it can be one solution to this movement, but it's not necessarily THE movement. You can translate a lot of the movements also to punching movements, but because people want to train more safely sadly i don't see a lot of punching practiced in TaJi, other than in forms. And in a conceptual way as the recent 'boxing in TaiJi' video showed.

I recall some videos of 'Torsten Kanzmeier' where he actually showed ways in practicing to improve boxing punches. Now that is stuff i would love to see more, but hey...i'm more of a punching guy