In tai chi chuan we pay attention to ourselves, not the opponent.
When attacked treat your attacker as if he were armed with a piece of paper
or a feather duster.
Ask yourself if you are really relaxed.
(Cheng Man Ching)
Closed hand
The hand in
tai chi chuan does not really make a fist - instead, the hand simply closes.
The fingers curl naturally inward and the thumb is placed above the first
finger.
It is as if you were gently holding a
stone - the hand is relaxed and there is a slight space in the palm.
This is totally different from a conventional
fist, where the
thumb is curled around the first two fingers and the hand is curled very
tightly shut.
A fist causes tension in the back of the hand, whereas a tai chi fist is
softly closed without tension - like a baby's hand.
The word 'chuan' or fist
represents
self defence, and the
soft nature of the fist reflects tai chi's approach to combat -
yielding to force
rather than
resisting.
Tai chi is not an aggressive
martial art.
Changing its spots
Everything
man-made was created for a reason, with a clear purpose in mind.
Tai chi chuan is a martial art, and you cannot change this.
It is what it is.
Remove its purpose and it is no longer tai chi.
Omitting the chuan means that you are no longer really learning tai chi; you
now have an offshoot: tai chi-style exercise.
Internal
What makes tai chi a martial art?
Every posture of the form was designed to cultivate, store and
release energy.
The effect of this release is known as 'jing'.
Partner work teaches you how to
employ jing against an assailant.
Unlike other martial arts, tai chi chuan uses soft musculature, loose
joints, gravity and energy in self defence.
Force never meets force.
Tai chi
body usage is developed
through the practice of
neigong: the
inner strength.
When a neigong quality becomes inherent - part of how you move - it is
internal, it is a habit.
Delusion
The main problem with missing self defence from your tai chi syllabus is
that the training has no
practical
foundation.
Forms
and
drills were
created for a reason, with pragmatic skills in mind.
Martial science is your yardstick; the
physics behind
tai chi is
complex and takes time to understand and use.
When the martial focus is removed, tai chi becomes subject to often
ludicrous interpretation.
A simple exercise such as
single pushing hands
trains the ability to release jing and to yield when struck by jing.
Yet, so few beginners appreciate this.
Often it is a strength-based macho endeavour where the strongest person
'wins'.
Or it is the opposite: a slack,
meaningless circling of the arms, with no martial purpose in mind and no
skills being trained.
Even the most abstract-seeming principles in tai chi can be traced back to a
martial origin.
Remove chuan from your training and tai chi can rapidly become pointless.
Health-only?
In our school we offer health-only
classes to people who are over
50.
We do not change the syllabus as such, we simply do not teach the self
defence-specific material.
The application of chuan is removed, but not the theory.
Alignment, structure, intention and principle is still considered, but no
punching takes place.
Self defence is not necessarily suitable for people who have joint problems,
arthritis or other disorders associated with
aging.
It would be inappropriate to perform strikes on such students.
The over-50 students are well aware that their learning is incomplete;
and they have no illusions about the true nature of tai chi.
Page created 18 May 1999