Can Tai Chi benefit a Karate practitioner?

[Graywalker]

I have trained in both. Yes, there are similarities, especially in the stances and some strikes.

I would say that the Force/Flow concept is inherent in both arts. Although Tai Chi is slow moving, during practice but in combat the motions are much quicker in the delivery.

It would be ok to cross train in both and I believe very beneficial as well. But of course, I am in the camp that all styles are basically, at there core, pretty much the same.

 

[TenHands]

Hello, I have enjoyed your questions. Answers have much to do with your intentions. Much of tai chi today is for health though there are still many schools that teach it for self-defense. The forms are similar, if not the same.

Answers to your questions:

1.) Years ago I knew someone who was quite good at Uechi Ryu. He learned some tai chi and started to win kata competitions at tournaments. He felt that it was the tai chi that helped him. I knew another Uechi student who had incredible tension. His muscles were chronically tense. He found tai chi challenging.

2.) You can learn tai chi basics from a video but a video can't tell you what you are doing wrong. How far do you wish to go?

3.) Of the 5 traditional (orthodox) styles of tai chi, Chen Style looks most like a martial art. It separates yin and yang, resulting in slow/soft movements and hard/fast movements. The other styles promote hardness within softness. This is a difficult concept to grasp and takes a lot of work to achieve. In the traditional styles the goal is to feel chi and move it with intention.

4.) Tai chi can improve flexibility. It does so by releasing tension from the inside out. I've known young people with a lot of tension and tai chi helped.

5.) Much of tai chi and its advancement has to do with integrating upper and lower body movement. Tai chi teaches to create a sort of chain of movement where all is connected.

6.) Tai chi can be very good for knees but there are important rules for avoiding damage. Done correctly, tai chi can improve knee health with smoother internal surfaces and increased production of synovial fluid.

7.) I don't know of an overlap of patterns between tai chi and karate. I have never practiced karate. I have heard that Tang Soo Do was based on tai chi to some degree. I don't know how. Karate is linear, tai chi is very round (the movements tend to use a lot of curves and turns.)

Tai chi practice would probably be good for a karate student. But, to achieve high level tai chi skills, one has to lose tension. It's a concept called 'song.' Song involves softness and opening the joints. That goes somewhat counter to hard style arts.

I hope this is helpful.

- TCJ taichicrossroads.blogspot.com

About the first point: wow, that's exactly where my mind is going with this! I really love doing kata and want to really get that relaxation/synchronization right. I'll try to follow in your friend's footsteps.

About Tang Soo Do: TSD itself was based entirely on Shotokan. The art that was created after TSD became TKD, Soo Bahk Do, was based on Shotokan, but included the Chil Sung forms based on Tai Chi (which teach relaxation/tension) and the Yuk Ro forms based on the Tan Tui pattern of West Chinese Kung Fu (which teaches power through stance transitions). SBD's entire movement philosophy itself is based on these two sources. My TSD teacher was actually former SBD exponent and they taught me a few of the relaxation/synchronization concepts they knew, and the more I read about Tai Chi, the more similarities I see between what they taught me from SBD and what Tai Chi is said to teach.

As with everyone else, thank you for the reply. :3

While I know next to nothing about Tai Chi I did train under a teacher for a little more than 6 or 7 months maybe longer. yes the knees felt it big time, and the thighs. I've always trained primarily in the "hard" styles, karate, taekwondo, judo. But I never had a problem with relaxed muscles & movement. I stopped the tai chi simply out of growing boredom and time constraints. An interesting thing I quickly noticed was that my aikido training fell right in line with the tai chi as both required relaxation. I had some hard style students who could never do aikido because they simply couldn't relax or let their arms and legs become "whips" instead of the rigid battering rams they practiced with. One problem with some practitioners is too much reliance on strength - which is only one constituent of "power" - instead of "true power".

One common misconception is that studying "hard" styles makes it difficult to relax; this is not necessarily so. There is little true power in a tense karate punch; 98% of that punch should be in a relaxed state with tension only applied at moment of contact. Similarly, boxing punches should properly be thrown from a relaxed state or they will be slow and lose power. But boxing differs in that while karate speeds into and through the target a boxing punch actually slows slightly at impact. Karate punches cause deep damage while a boxer wants to snap the opponent's head for a knockout. So any "relaxing" style bestows benefits beyond simply learning a a style such as tai chi. Tai chi can't help but enrich a karate experience.

I was just gonna say, I've actually heard from Muay Thai and Boxing coaches the whole "relax your shoulders" talk. I'm glad that you say Tai Chi can enrich the Karate experience. After all, that is my goal.

 

[_Simon_]

Ah and @ThatOneSyrian I forgot to mention, check out Rick Hotton Sensei's YouTube channel too, highly highly recommend watching some vids. He's Shotokan but is all about transitioning out of robotic, tight, mechanical karate into more relaxed, flowing, synchronised, connected and natural movement.

https://youtube.com/channel/UCekOUbElva0WIWCkB14nOfA

I also train online with him fortnightly, his teachings have seriously transformed... well... everything about my karate haha. PM me if interested in the classes at all

 

[TenHands]

Ah and @ThatOneSyrian I forgot to mention, check out Rick Hotton Sensei's YouTube channel too, highly highly recommend watching some vids. He's Shotokan but is all about transitioning out of robotic, tight, mechanical karate into more relaxed, flowing, synchronised, connected and natural movement.

https://youtube.com/channel/UCekOUbElva0WIWCkB14nOfA

I also train online with him fortnightly, his teachings have seriously transformed... well... everything about my karate haha. PM me if interested in the classes at all

I have seen quite a few of his videos. His kata is some of the best I've ever witnessed. I'll be sure to consider his classes at some point!

 

[AIKIKENJITSU]

Hello, I have enjoyed your questions. Answers have much to do with your intentions. Much of tai chi today is for health though there are still many schools that teach it for self-defense. The forms are similar, if not the same.

Answers to your questions:

1.) Years ago I knew someone who was quite good at Uechi Ryu. He learned some tai chi and started to win kata competitions at tournaments. He felt that it was the tai chi that helped him. I knew another Uechi student who had incredible tension. His muscles were chronically tense. He found tai chi challenging.

2.) You can learn tai chi basics from a video but a video can't tell you what you are doing wrong. How far do you wish to go?

3.) Of the 5 traditional (orthodox) styles of tai chi, Chen Style looks most like a martial art. It separates yin and yang, resulting in slow/soft movements and hard/fast movements. The other styles promote hardness within softness. This is a difficult concept to grasp and takes a lot of work to achieve. In the traditional styles the goal is to feel chi and move it with intention.

4.) Tai chi can improve flexibility. It does so by releasing tension from the inside out. I've known young people with a lot of tension and tai chi helped.

5.) Much of tai chi and its advancement has to do with integrating upper and lower body movement. Tai chi teaches to create a sort of chain of movement where all is connected.

6.) Tai chi can be very good for knees but there are important rules for avoiding damage. Done correctly, tai chi can improve knee health with smoother internal surfaces and increased production of synovial fluid.

7.) I don't know of an overlap of patterns between tai chi and karate. I have never practiced karate. I have heard that Tang Soo Do was based on tai chi to some degree. I don't know how. Karate is linear, tai chi is very round (the movements tend to use a lot of curves and turns.)

Tai chi practice would probably be good for a karate student. But, to achieve high level tai chi skills, one has to lose tension. It's a concept called 'song.' Song involves softness and opening the joints. That goes somewhat counter to hard style arts.

I hope this is helpful.

- TCJ taichicrossroads.blogspot.com

I've been teaching and practicing American Kenpo for 50 years. I looked around and tried arts until I accidentally found Kenpo one day. I'm a small guy 5'2"and American Kenpo fits me and works for me (I've used it for self defense several times over the years and it's fast and effective. It's made up of several styles of Kung Fu and one style of hard style karate --about 15-20 percent. You have the benefits of circular and lines in movements, mostly circular. I tried tai chi many years ago and I found it very dry and not what I was looking for. I have found my kenpo great for self-defense and for keeping the body limber. People think I'm 30 years younger than what I am because I can move fast and bend over or down like a much younger person. Try American Kenpo, you might like it. Today most studios are incorporatiing jujitsu into it which I don't like, unless they only teach how to get off the ground. But you can always declind the ground stuff and just learn real Kenpo. Hope this helps you.
Sifu
Sifu

 

[Kung Fu Wang]

By using Taiji principle, a Karate guy can understand that the end of your current move can be the beginning of your next move. This way, all moves are linked together, and there won't be 1, 2, 3, 4, 1, 2, 3, 4, and still 1, 2, 3, 4, ...

 

[mikib]

Hello everyone! This is my first thread here and I know absolutely nothing about Tai Chi so my apologies if I sound highly uneducated.

I am a practitioner of Shotokan Karate who has been interested in Chinese martial arts for a very long time. The circular nature of Chinese styles in contrast to Shotokan's very brutal, penetrative motions intrigues me, so much so to the point where I want to cross-train Tai Chi with Shotokan. With that being said, I have a few questions about Tai Chi:

1.) Is it a good idea to cross train Tai Chi with a hard art such as Shotokan?

2.) With many martial arts, they say you cannot learn them from a book/video, with most people insisting that learning them in-person from an actual instructor is vital. Is this the case with Tai Chi? Is it possible to learn Tai Chi from an online class or video and still get the same benefits, or is participating in a class recommended?

3.) To my knowledge, there are multiple styles of Tai Chi, with some being more external/hard and others being more internal/soft. How do I figure out which one is which? Is one more common than the other?

4.) Can Tai Chi by itself improve flexibility? Could this improvement be noticeable in a young, healthy adult? Or is it be more beneficial to older or less mobile individuals?

5.) Can Tai Chi help with the synchronization of the lower and upper body in physical activity? This is something I struggle with in Karate, particularly with kata (or taolu, which I think is the Chinese term), a practice in which body synchronization is vital.

6.) Is Tai Chi a good art for someone who is recovering from a leg injury? My right knee got dislocated a little less than a month ago and, while it's largely healed, I'm limited in terms of high-impact physical activity.

7.) Final question for people who do both Karate and Tai Chi: do you notice any overlap between Tai Chi patterns and Karate kata? The connection between Chinese and Okinawan/Japanese arts fascinates me.

I hope these questions aren't too much. Feel free to answer any of them at all, even if just one.

Taichi will benefit you Karate but unfortunately Karate will weight your Taichi.