michaelvpardo
White Belt
Size may matter, but depending on the art it could be an advantage or a disadvantage. Early in my training my Sifu and his assistant had some comments about my size. I'm not particularly muscular, but I have a large frame, stand at nearly 6'2" and have been overweight most of my life.
I didn't take up the study of Tai Chi Chuan for self defense, but I was trying to recover from a compressed disc and the art has a reputation for being useful for health and recovery from injury. My sifu's assistant believed that I was too big to attain much skill in the art, or at least felt that being tall and heavy was a distinct disadvantage. Tai Chi uses strikes with fist, foot, shoulder, elbow, knee, but the techniques are not applied at a distance, but upclose and personal. An accomplished practitioner of Tai Chi should be able to come into close contact with his or her opponent and maintain that contact to the point of applying some disabling technique. I remember reading about Bruce Lee's 1 inch punch as though this were some strange development of his own, but the technique of striking using the bodies axial musculature for power, rather than just the muscles of the arm or leg is very old. Tai Chi, like some other forms of Gungfu, Akido, and similar arts also uses grapling and joint locking techniques, as well as cavity grab and cavity press techniques, generally referred to as Chin na. Even with an experienced teacher, you are not likely to see much of these techniques as a beginner, because of the ease with which serious damage can be done to the body. If I hadn't participated in some seminars at Tai Chi festivals, I probably wouldn't have been shown any techniques by my Sifu until after many years of study.
There is a teacher in the Boston area, named Dr. Yang Jwing-ming, who teaches White Crane Kung Fu, and is quite proficient in Chin na. He's not a very big man, but he can bring a man twice his size to the ground (introduce him to the floor) with only one or two quickly performed movements. When you induce severe pain by distorting the normal position of the joints of your opponent, he will quite naturally follow your movement to remove the pressure causing the pain. When your technique is correct, it takes very little muscular effort to pacify a person, and only slightly more applied force to cause tearing of ligaments, tendons, etc., that can make a limb absolutely useless as a weapon.
I don't think that an accomplished practitioner of any effective martial art would easily allow himself to be manipulated into helplessness, but Tai Chi, like some other arts, makes use of techniques which not only deflect blows from an attacker, but steals some of the attacking energy or momentum to counter strike or to lock and break (a limb). These techniques don't require great strength, but agility and sensitivity to the movement of your opponent. The idea is largely to use your opponent's own strength and size against him (or her), but it takes a long time to develop such skills and with only a little skill, brute force tends to win the day.
"Let others attack with great force; Use four ounces to deflect a thousand pounds" from the Tai Chi classics
I didn't take up the study of Tai Chi Chuan for self defense, but I was trying to recover from a compressed disc and the art has a reputation for being useful for health and recovery from injury. My sifu's assistant believed that I was too big to attain much skill in the art, or at least felt that being tall and heavy was a distinct disadvantage. Tai Chi uses strikes with fist, foot, shoulder, elbow, knee, but the techniques are not applied at a distance, but upclose and personal. An accomplished practitioner of Tai Chi should be able to come into close contact with his or her opponent and maintain that contact to the point of applying some disabling technique. I remember reading about Bruce Lee's 1 inch punch as though this were some strange development of his own, but the technique of striking using the bodies axial musculature for power, rather than just the muscles of the arm or leg is very old. Tai Chi, like some other forms of Gungfu, Akido, and similar arts also uses grapling and joint locking techniques, as well as cavity grab and cavity press techniques, generally referred to as Chin na. Even with an experienced teacher, you are not likely to see much of these techniques as a beginner, because of the ease with which serious damage can be done to the body. If I hadn't participated in some seminars at Tai Chi festivals, I probably wouldn't have been shown any techniques by my Sifu until after many years of study.
There is a teacher in the Boston area, named Dr. Yang Jwing-ming, who teaches White Crane Kung Fu, and is quite proficient in Chin na. He's not a very big man, but he can bring a man twice his size to the ground (introduce him to the floor) with only one or two quickly performed movements. When you induce severe pain by distorting the normal position of the joints of your opponent, he will quite naturally follow your movement to remove the pressure causing the pain. When your technique is correct, it takes very little muscular effort to pacify a person, and only slightly more applied force to cause tearing of ligaments, tendons, etc., that can make a limb absolutely useless as a weapon.
I don't think that an accomplished practitioner of any effective martial art would easily allow himself to be manipulated into helplessness, but Tai Chi, like some other arts, makes use of techniques which not only deflect blows from an attacker, but steals some of the attacking energy or momentum to counter strike or to lock and break (a limb). These techniques don't require great strength, but agility and sensitivity to the movement of your opponent. The idea is largely to use your opponent's own strength and size against him (or her), but it takes a long time to develop such skills and with only a little skill, brute force tends to win the day.
"Let others attack with great force; Use four ounces to deflect a thousand pounds" from the Tai Chi classics
