How will Tai Chi help me become a better martial artist?

[Hanzou]

Prejudice does not equal fact

Well here's a fact;

"When the Chinese army was researching and developing their hand-to-hand combat, (which later evolved into the modern San Shou/San Da tournament fighting popular today) they researched all the popular forms of martial arts, including their own. The conclusion was that Western boxing hand techniques, when it came to developing practical striking and defensive abilities in a reasonable amount of time, were superior to all others, including their own".

-Tom Cantrell

Sadly it is also true inside China. It is not hard to find a taiji teacher in China, but it is hard to find one who will actually teach you the martial art bits. And then there are those that know the martial arts bits but will not teach it because it is not what many students want. If you are going to China to learn taijiquan with the Martial arts intact I suggest learning the language, developing a great deal of patience, and planning on spending a few years in a search for a teacher who takes you serious enough to decide to teach you.

That really doesn't surprise me. A long time ago I was interested in practicing Hsing-I/Xing Yiquan, and ran into similar obstacles. Those "obstacles" eventually led to a preference of Japanese and western styles over Chinese styles.

 

[Flying Crane]

Well here's a fact;



-Tom Cantrell


That really doesn't surprise me. A long time ago I was interested in practicing Hsing-I/Xing Yiquan, and ran into similar obstacles. Those "obstacles" eventually led to a preference of Japanese and western styles over Chinese styles.

I've never heard of Tom Cantrell, so I won't assume he knows anything about anything.

However, I would not be surprised that for military use, a decision to move away from many of the more sophisticated methods would be made. Soldiers have limited time to learn this stuff, and it's being taught to large numbers of people at a time, the individuals ranging from intelligent and capable to downright stupid and useless. They need to cater to the lowest common denominator likely to exist in the body of students so that everyone can get SOME level of benefit from it, with very limited training time.

Military use for this kind of thing does not imply top quality. It actually implies the opposite.

 

[JowGaWolf]

I use this concept when I do Jow Ga.

The real world application of this concept would be where I'm totally relaxed and non-threatening to almost instantly punching a hole through someone out of no where.
YMMA has some good videos on it. You rarely see Tai Chi performed like Yang Jwing Ming performs it. And as you can see it's totally different from what most people are used to seeing.

 

[Ironbear24]

The biggest problem I see with people coming from styles like TKD, Karate, and Kenpo is relaxation.

That's so boring though. I guess that is what I am trying to push past by taking up tai chi.

 

[mograph]

Well here's a fact;
(snip)
-Tom Cantrell

FYI, you're not stating a fact: you're citing another writer's claim which may or may not be true.

 

[Hanzou]

I've never heard of Tom Cantrell, so I won't assume he knows anything about anything.

Should be Tim Cartmell, sorry about that;

Tim Cartmell - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

However, I would not be surprised that for military use, a decision to move away from many of the more sophisticated methods would be made. Soldiers have limited time to learn this stuff, and it's being taught to large numbers of people at a time, the individuals ranging from intelligent and capable to downright stupid and useless. They need to cater to the lowest common denominator likely to exist in the body of students so that everyone can get SOME level of benefit from it, with very limited training time.

Military use for this kind of thing does not imply top quality. It actually implies the opposite.

Is there any evidence that the depth of Kung Fu practice edges out western boxing in terms of overall effectiveness? If not, then one can argue that western boxing achieves the same goal of Kung Fu practice in a far shorter amount of time.

 

[mograph]

I am curious about chi and its application in fighting.

Oh, crap -- you said the "c" word. Or the "q" word. Kidding aside, that can take this discussion in a whole new direction.

So ... what the hell. It's in the forum title.

That's what I was talking about when I mentioned metaphors and understanding Chinese communication. To me, westerners see qi in two ways: as non-existent because we can't measure it directly, or magical because we can't measure it directly and because, well, it's oriental. (orientalism) I think that (many) Easterners don't care that we can't measure it directly. Some researchers like Dr. Shin Lin at UC Irvine are looking into it, but that's another topic. Check out his work.

To me, when someone says they're using qi in a martial context (and if they're not full of BS), they mean that they are using their body in such a unified manner that they can't point to any one component as the primary component of the action. That is, they can't say that they're using only the fist, the arm, the waist, the legs or whatever.

Instead, they are using the whatever that drives the body as a unit. This thing, which can be called qi, is the thing that lies between intention (yi) and muscles (li). It's a thing that is hard to describe, and that's okay, because we're not omniscient or of infinite perceptions: we can't describe everything. (yet) I think that qi is extrapolated from a concept of a unified body-action; it's the whatever that drives that action.

Can we measure it? Well, can we measure energy? Before you say "yes" in terms of joules (for example), recall that energy is calculated from measurements of phenomena such as changes in temperature. Energy is never measured directly, is it? Similarly, do we feel qi directly? Personally, I believe that at the beginning at least, we experience it through a sensation of warmth or increased blood circulation (a light tingling). Is this qi? No, it's blood circulation. But qi drove the electrochemical reactions that caused that increased circulation. We begin to feel it when we are so relaxed, alert and open as to be allowing our bodies to function as they should without our applied tension: we get out of the way.

Similarly, qi drives breathing, muscle movements, organ function ... all that stuff. Hey, something has to drive those reactions. Molecular reactions, atomic forces? What drives that? We could call it Fred or we could call it qi.

Back to martial: while qi (or Fred) drives everything that leads up to muscle contractions, I believe that the convention is to say "qi drives a martial act when the act cannot be traced back to a specific muscle group or groups."

Practically?
Relax. Be open, calm. Be sensitive to your opponent, to the context, to your relationship to the ground, to your own internal alignment and reactions. This will lead you to be sensitive to the grouping of your body components into larger and larger connected groups until when you act, you act as one ("As one!") unit against the ground. You may then experience the tingling because, basically, you will have gotten out of the way of your body's normal functioning. You will then have increased feelings of energy.

Thanks for reading. Take it as you will.

 

[Flying Crane]

Should be Tim Cartmell, sorry about that;

Tim Cartmell - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia




Is there any evidence that the depth of Kung Fu practice edges out western boxing in terms of overall effectiveness? If not, then one can argue that western boxing achieves the same goal of Kung Fu practice in a far shorter amount of time.

Never heard of Tim cartmell either.

I don't say boxing doesn't work. Clearly it does, and some boxers develop to a high level of skill within their sport.

In my opinion there are other methods that have greater potential than western boxing. However those methods take more study and time and training and instruction and include a lot more subtlety. That isn't something that would work well for a military trying to give a large number of raw recruits some low level hand-to-hand skills in a very brief period of time. That, and HTH skills are the last skillset a soldier in a modern army is likely to use on the battlefield so that determines the priority in how training time is spent. Granted, I know there are always examples to the contrary. But policy is not set based on exceptions. A soldier today is much much more reliant on is weaponry and technology, than on HTH skills.

So yeah, simple things that can be reasonably effective even if done poorly with an over-reliance on physical strength over good technique. It's not difficult to hurt another human being, even with poor technique or brief training. Given what an army needs from its soldiers, that about as good as they can do. So to your point, yes, western boxing apparently can accomplish more easily and quickly what the army wants from it. But that isn't the same a being the cream of the crop of HTH methods.

As to your question do I have "evidence"? Nothing you would accept. Meaning: no MMA competition style vs. style examples and such nonsense that you are so overly fond of. But hey, not everything that happens in the world is filmed and put on YouTube for you to gawk at.

 

[Hanzou]

Never heard of Tim caramel either.

He's a pretty good martial artist and writer. You should look him up.

I don't say boxing doesn't work. Clearly it does, and some boxers develop to a high level of skill within their sport.

In my opinion there are other methods that have greater potential than western boxing. However those methods take more study and time and training and instruction and include a lot more subtlety. That isn't something that would work well for a military trying to give a large number of raw recruits some low level hand-to-hand skills in a very brief period of time. That, and HTH skills are the last skillset a soldier in a modern army is likely to use on the battlefield so that determines the priority in how training time is spent. Granted, I know there are always examples to the contrary. But policy is not set based on exceptions. A soldier today is much much more reliant on is weaponry and technology, than on HTH skills.

So yeah, simple things that can be reasonably effective even if done poorly with an over-reliance on physical strength over good technique. It's not difficult to hurt another human being, even with poor technique or brief training. Given what an army needs from its soldiers, that about as good as they can do. So to your point, yes, western boxing apparently can accomplish more easily and quickly what the army wants from it. But that isn't the same a being the cream of the crop of HTH methods.

As to your question do I have "evidence"? Nothing you would accept. Meaning: no MMA competition style vs. style examples and such nonsense that you are so overly fond of. But hey, not everything that happens in the world is filmed and put on YouTube for you to gawk at.

Well to be fair, western Boxing ALSO relies on technique over physical strength. The best boxers are those with the better technique, not necessarily those with the greatest physical attributes (though that doesn't hurt either).

As for the lack of evidence, if we don't have objectionable evidence to look over, what do we really have? Old wive's tales of the lone Kung Fu master defeating a Manchu army? I think we can do better than that.

 

[Flying Crane]

He's a pretty good martial artist and writer. You should look him up.



Well to be fair, western Boxing ALSO relies on technique over physical strength. The best boxers are those with the better technique, not necessarily those with the greatest physical attributes (though that doesn't hurt either).

As for the lack of evidence, if we don't have objectionable evidence to look over, what do we really have? Old wive's tales of the lone Kung Fu master defeating a Manchu army? I think we can do better than that.

Of course GOOD boxers have better technique. Do you believe a young soldier who just graduated from Basic and might be shipped off somewhere has that kind of boxing skill? No way. However, if the physical conditioning has done its job and he is fit and reasonably strong, he can still punch with some degree of effectiveness, but his overall HTH is still very rudimentary.

As to the wives tale comment, I'll repeat for the hard of hearing (or for those who apparently cannot read): not everything in the world is filmed and put on YouTube for you to gawk at.

 

[Xue Sheng]

Well here's a fact;

-Tom Cantrell

I have not idea who Tom Cantrell is and a web search gave me nothing, care to point me in a direction to find out who he is, then we'll see how factual he is.

And here is a fact, I trained Police/Military Sanda (sanshou) and it looks very little like the sports version and there is not a whole lot of western boxing in it. It does have a lot of Qinna and Shuaijiao in it with kicks and some hard palm strikes with a little western boxing. However you will find a lot of Western boxing in the sports version. This leads me to feel I am not sure Tom Cantrell knows what he is talking about.

That really doesn't surprise me. A long time ago I was interested in practicing Hsing-I/Xing Yiquan, and ran into similar obstacles. Those "obstacles" eventually led to a preference of Japanese and western styles over Chinese styles.

Personally I prefer XIngyiquan over Japanese and western styles, but then I had a couple good teachers.... but I also had a couple not so good ones too.

 

[Xue Sheng]

Tim Cartmell I know, and rereading the article he is not saying Western boxing is superior

Western boxing hand techniques, when it came to developing practical striking and defensive abilities in a reasonable amount of time, were superior to all others, including their own".

He is talking about developing their skill in a reasonable amout of time. This is not saying their strikes are better but their training methodology is better. That, for military usage, make sense and in that I agree. Military wants to train fast, this by the way is also why Xingyiquan was used by the Chinese military as well in WW II. They stripped out some of the traditional training methods and got their soldiers to a level of competence (not mastery) quicker.

There was very little western boxing methods (meaning boxing stance and boxing strikes) in the sanda I trained, but there were a lot of western training methods, as well as some Chinese methods

 

[mograph]

Tim Cartmell has a good reputation, if I recall. Didn't he contribute a chapter to the book Nei Jia Quan?

But it's likely that nobody has heard of my old teacher, William Chau, though he studied at Jingwoo and is the lineage holder for Mizongyi. (shrug) My point? Citing him as an ethos appeal (for credibility) would have limited value.

Really, couldn't we go on all day citing sources? Instead, how can we help the OP?

 

[Hanzou]

Of course GOOD boxers have better technique. Do you believe a young soldier who just graduated from Basic and might be shipped off somewhere has that kind of boxing skill? No way. However, if the physical conditioning has done its job and he is fit and reasonably strong, he can still punch with some degree of effectiveness, but his overall HTH is still very rudimentary.

That really depends on the individual right? Some people are naturally gifted, others have had previous training BEFORE entering the military. Regardless, the overall point is that fighting effectiveness is quicker to achieve in western boxing than it is in the internal styles, and there's no evidence that the more sophisticated internal styles ever exceed the effectiveness of western boxing.

As to the wives tale comment, I'll repeat for the hard of hearing (or for those who apparently cannot read): not everything in the world is filmed and put on YouTube for you to gawk at.

Well they are filmed and are on YT for us to gawk at. The problem is that they're either shown in demonstration form, or in a not so flattering light.

 

[Xue Sheng]

That really depends on the individual right? Some people are naturally gifted, others have had previous training BEFORE entering the military. Regardless, the overall point is that fighting effectiveness is quicker to achieve in western boxing than it is in the internal styles, and there's no evidence that the more sophisticated internal styles ever exceed the effectiveness of western boxing.

You are talking about 2 different things there.

Your last statement...

there's no evidence that the more sophisticated internal styles ever exceed the effectiveness of western boxing.

is not proven by your first

that fighting effectiveness is quicker to achieve in western boxing than it is in the internal styles

Since they are not the same thing. Was a western training methodology more expedient for purposes of the military? Well yes it was.

Does that say, or prove that western boxing is is more effective than internal styles? No, it doesn't.

All it says is that it takes longer to learn a traditional internal system, with its complete curriculum. Something else you are not even taking into account is the relationship between teacher in student in the culture you are discussing in a traditional system.

So if in fact your goal is to prove Western MA is better than CMA IMA, you have not done it with this post. The modern military could, and I believe has, trained some of its soldiers grappling, and they are rather effective at using it for their purposes. Does that prove the BJJ of the Gracie's or any other group out there is ineffective by comparison? Nope, it just shows that it can be stripped down to meet the militaries needs, and parts of it can be trained quickly to help a solider on the battlefield...that is all.

like I said awhile back.... prejudice does not equal fact

Well they are filmed and are on YT for us to gawk at. The problem is that they're either shown in demonstration form, or in a not so flattering light.

Where on YouTube are you finding films of Internal Arts practitioners of the 40s and 50s to prove your point?

Also, again you are running into a cultural issue that tends towards not doing a lot publicly because as the old Chinese saying goes "the nail that stands up, gets hammered down"

But bottomline, you don't want to believe ICMA or CMA or any other martial art is good compared to BJJ or an western art of your choosing... that is ok with me.... I completely disagree with you and I doubt that is going to change anytime soon. But you are entitled to your opinion...

 

[Ironbear24]

You are talking about 2 different things there.

Your last statement...



is not proven by your first



Since they are not the same thing. Was a western training methodology more expedient for purposes of the military? Well yes it was.

Does that say, or prove that western boxing is is more effective than internal styles? No, it doesn't.

All it says is that it takes longer to learn a traditional internal system, with its complete curriculum. Something else you are not even taking into account is the relationship between teacher in student in the culture you are discussing in a traditional system.

So if in fact your goal is to prove Western MA is better than CMA IMA, you have not done it with this post. The modern military could, and I believe has, trained some of its soldiers grappling, and they are rather effective at using it for their purposes. Does that prove the BJJ of the Gracie's or any other group out there is ineffective by comparison? Nope, it just shows that it can be stripped down to meet the militaries needs, and parts of it can be trained quickly to help a solider on the battlefield...that is all.

like I said awhile back.... prejudice does not equal fact



Where on YouTube are you finding films of Internal Arts practitioners of the 40s and 50s to prove your point?

Also, again you are running into a cultural issue that tends towards not doing a lot publicly because as the old Chinese saying goes "the nail that stands up, gets hammered down"

But bottomline, you don't want to believe ICMA or CMA or any other martial art is good compared to BJJ or an western art of your choosing... that is ok with me.... I completely disagree with you and I doubt that is going to change anytime soon. But you are entitled to your opinion...

This kind of attitude is very common amongst fans of ufc and bjj practitioners, they think anything that is not used in the octogon is crap and bjj is the best thing in the universe.

I learned to pretty much ignore it.

 

[ChenAn]

Wester boxing is indeed quicker way to achieve some basic level of fighting. Since when I was young I had a privellege to compete against all kind of sort folks including representatives of western boxing I have healthy respect for many martial arts. But in my opinion only authentic internal martial method can give depth in training that no popular contemporary system can't offer.

The reason why many internal martial art (again in my opinion) today are not getting in par with mma and other competitive sports is simple. Most practitioners had simply no need/pressure for actual fighting. By 20th century east became greatly influenced by western civilizations. In fact, east wanted to be more like west. My guess is that western boxing made it's way to China. So the orthodox system deteriorated as knowledge that was passed has never had chance to be tested and polished "under stress". Thus, most of contemporary orthodox method representatives became a "tradition carriers" (that include many taiji masters today btw).

China developed Wushu sport system which similar to olympic gymnastic where all traditional aspect get washed out and replaced by beauty and affection. Sanda is another adaptation similar to western boxing sport. As any other sport system it became pretty standardized, so no matter what representatives of traditional system are competing, they are all look the same. So again everything get washed out.

 

[Hanzou]

You are talking about 2 different things there.

Your last statement...



is not proven by your first



Since they are not the same thing. Was a western training methodology more expedient for purposes of the military? Well yes it was.

Does that say, or prove that western boxing is is more effective than internal styles? No, it doesn't.

I never said that. What I said was that the evidence appears to show that western boxing achieves effectiveness more quickly than internal arts, and that there is no evidence to show that the extended amount of training required to reach competency in internal arts ever exceeds the level of competency in western boxing.

All it says is that it takes longer to learn a traditional internal system, with its complete curriculum.

Which is what I was saying in the first place.

So if in fact your goal is to prove Western MA is better than CMA IMA, you have not done it with this post. The modern military could, and I believe has, trained some of its soldiers grappling, and they are rather effective at using it for their purposes. Does that prove the BJJ of the Gracie's or any other group out there is ineffective by comparison? Nope, it just shows that it can be stripped down to meet the militaries needs, and parts of it can be trained quickly to help a solider on the battlefield...that is all.

Again, I never argued that western boxing was better than ICMAs. I was simply repeating Tim Cartmell's statements. He's the one who flat out said that the Chinese viewed western boxing as superior, not I.

Where on YouTube are you finding films of Internal Arts practitioners of the 40s and 50s to prove your point?

 

[ChenAn]

OK the big difference between western contemporary martial arts and traditional internal martial arts is very interesting. Western martial art are designed for young physically capable conditioned people. As those people aged they got (sorry for my French) bitten **** out of them and left out with great memories of past glory or simply nothing. In contrast, Chinese internal systems offer a great long term body maintanance and martial capabilities that won't vanish after 50th. Most importantly internal system offers unique body mechanic that despite long years of training capable of delivering power that is not relying on brute physical strength that many western system can't live without.

By the way Western medicine for many health reason recommend useless "tai chi" not super duper MMA And this is exact reason why

 

[ChenAn]

Hanzou you may want to see some western boxing example that you won't be fond of.

Can it really represent what is western boxing today?