Building a Strong Foundation Through Partner Practice

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Basics, Combat, Self-defense, Tai Chi Combat

In Tai Chi Chuan, the foundation built by solo practice (jibengong, form, standing, dingzhi etc.) is evident and most practitioners who have studied the art for some time can easily say what it is. In a simple way, I could say that the foundation in Tai Chi is about whole body integration and coordination, building stability and balance (develop root), learning how to move from the core and centerline, and maybe a few other things worth mentioning.

However, there’s another aspect, foundation of Tai Chi as a martial art. I believe that people in general are not really aware about this or that they don’t really understand that the Martial Art has another side that can only be developed by partner practice. Push hands is fine, this often follow form practice. Most beginners start practicing simple push hands exercises early as it should be. And then we have techniques and methods as defense, parrying, attacking, punching, pushing, qinna, takedowns and throwing. But the practice in itself is not the foundation. You don’t build this foundation just by practicing with a partner if you are not aware of what you should focus on and try to develop.

First, even when practicing push hands or other combat drills and exercises, you should always carry with you and keep the integrity of the foundation you try to build in your solo practice, th whole body integration and coordination, balance (root), how to move from the core and centerline, etc. One aspect of partner practice is to put your “solo foundation” to the test.

The other side is the partner built foundation. Personally, I would sum up the qualities of this foundation as sensitivity, following, mirroring, filling in, as well as getting a sense of angle and distance. From this, there are some skills or jins developed, in Tai Chi Chuan expressed as tingjin, listening skill and dongjin, understanding skill (not to be confused with dong = “moving”). However, you don’t need to understand the names of the jins or care about them. These are qualities developed from the partner foundations practice. When you practice with a partner, always mind the the Tai Chi mechanics of body movement. But also be light, mind your sensitivity, follow with utmost precision, be always aware about the space and distance between you and your partner and experiment with angle.

In Tai Chi Chuan, looking at a “technique” as an absolute method is wrong. A technique or combat drill is there for you to practice and build your foundation. Regardless if you practice to intercept and punch, go in for a takedown or do a subtle joint manipulation, never think about it as a technique. These are all ways for you to see if you can relax, continue to breath deeply, practice on how to move from your center, test your balance and alignment and to teach you from what distance and angle you can utilize your body in the best way and achieve the best leverage.

If you always  mind the details, then eventually acting from the correct body method will become second nature. And then the skills will be developed naturally. Never reach out too far or you’ll forget what is near. In solo practice, approach everything you do in your practice methodically and put meticulous attention to the small details of body movement and mechanics.  In partner practice, keep the same approach and attitude, but also be aware of, and put special attention on, the aspects that you can only develop from partner practice. This is my own humble opinion and my own humble advice. But it is also something of the best advice I could possibly give a beginner or to someone who is somewhat new to the art of Tai Chi Chuan.

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A Small Question About Tai Chi Fighting Ranges & Distances.

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Combat, Distances, Fighting Range, Self-defense, Tai Chi Combat, Tai Chi Fighting

Different martial arts focus on specific fighting ranges, one or several. Kicking styles usually prefer a greater distance to the opponent compared to a wrestling art. In General, distances can be summed up to:

• Outside kicking Range
• Kicking Range
• Striking Range
• Throwing Range
• Clinch Range
• Grappling Range
  • (/Ground Fighting Range)

Most combat oriented Tai Chi practitioners agree that Tai Chi is a close range fighting style. Some people call Tai Chi a punching art, others a throwing arts and yet others claim that it’s a grappling art. Still most people agree about the close range, that Tai Chi works best, or is designed mostly for from the distance you can set up a throw, make a clinch or grapple. Yet many seem to be not so sure about how to make Tai Chi work, and they seem to not know about genuine Tai Chi fighting strategies.

If Tai Chi is a close fighting range, then why do so many people who wants to learn how to use Tai Chi, practice fighting by using common distance point sparring? When people try to use this art in sparring, they mostly have a common sparring mind-set. They start on distance, try to keep distance and keep on chasing and trading punches. What does this has to do with close-in fighting? And if you look at how most people practice applications and techniques, they practice while punching and attacking from at least a striking distance. Even when practicing push hands many practitioners stand far from each other, barely reaching each others hand s while rocking back and forth.

No wonder why people question if Tai Chi works or not. They claim that Tai Chi is designed to work at a certain distance, yet they practice Tai Chi combat and self-defence by using mainly another distance. I wonder why?

Is Tai Chi Enough as a Form of Combat?

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Combat, Fighting, Self-defense, Tai Chi Fighting

I am always surprised when people don’t believe that Tai Chi is enough as a combat art. So many people try to add things like striking techniques, finishing strategi and throws from outside to cover the holes where their Tai Chi lacks. They spar in a common sparring formats and use strikes from Sanda, Boxing, Kick-Boxing, MMA and others. Why? Isn’t Tai Chi enough? Is Tai Chi really enough as a form of combat?

My answer on this questions would rather be an annoyed head shake or a loudly “duh.” Does your lack of skill depend on Tai Chi? If you are not convinced I will tell you this:

– If you can fight or not doesn’t depend on tai chi.

– If you can fight with tai chi or not doesn’t depend on tai chi.

– But if you understand fighting and at the same time understand tai chi, you should be able to use your tai chi to fight with.

Understanding fighting is easy. To understand tai chi is hard. If you try to add other things to the pot to compensate your lack of understanding, you’ll just make it even harder to understand Tai Chi, and it will take even more time. If you think that you need to add other things to make your tai chi work, or to change it to something else that it is not, then …well, this means that you are confused. If you confuse things even more, you’ll become even more confused, not less. It’s the understanding of tai chi that most often is lacking. You need to get to know Tai Chi in a clear pure form, without changes, without distortion. If your knowledge lacks, you need to learn and practice tai chi more, not to search somewhere else. It might be your teacher that lacks tai chi or tai chi teaching skills. Then go on to find another teacher or try to teach yourself what you yet don’t understand.

Tai Chi has its own mechanics for generating destructive punching power, it has its own fighting strategies, entering strategies and finishing strategies. Tai Chi fighting depends on Tai Chi fighting rules. You need to let Tai Chi rules dictate the procedure and outcome of the fight, not general sparring rules, boxing or MMA rules. Tai Chi is complete, it has everything that is needed. But still there is often a lack of confidence due to little or no sparring and fighting experience. So to be able to fight with Tai Chi, often some basic understanding of real fighting and real violence is needed. Then how do you get to a point where you can really use your Tai chi to fight with? First you need a really good understanding of Tai Chi as self-defense and as a combat system. Then you need practice.

Again, fighting is easy. But understanding Tai Chi is not. You can start from any of the two ends, with fighting or with Tai Chi. But you must walk the Tai Chi road until you have reached a certain understanding. Then you need to practice that knowledge and understanding in a as realistic way as possible. And still without even slightly compromising your Tai Chi. Throwing other things into the bin won’t help to see your Tai Chi more clearly and definitely it won’t help you use it. Understanding Tai Chi is to keep the integrity of Tai Chi. Understanding fighting is to keep your body and mind intact where they are in danger. Breathing will help you to keep your mind intact. Breathing and thinking clearly will help you survive a combat situation. Keeping the integrity of Tai Chi intact while fighting will help you to breath and see things clearer. But fighting with Tai Chi is still not just to fight. It’s not to think or act like a common person do in a fighting situation. And you learn this from understanding fighting alone, but to look at violence and fighting solely from a Tai Chi point of view.

So what is a Tai Chi point of view on fighting? This is maybe the toughest question to answer. Tai Chi is a practical art, it’s learned and understood by practical practice alone. So most of this answer you need to find yourself by understanding T’ai Chi Ch’uan, by practice this art and walk the road until that point so the answer can reveal itself. So again, the best answer to give anyone who ask a question about Tai Chi and fighting is still the somewhat discouraging answer that the eager intellect desperately wants a quick and simple answer: “just keep on practicing.” So is Tai Chi alone enough as a form of combat? Why don’t you practice and test it until you can answer the question by yourself?

What is it like to fight with Tai Chi Ch’uan?

Tags

Self-defense, Tai Chi, Tai Chi Combat, Taiji

What is it like to fight with Tai Chi Ch’uan(Taijiquan)? I don’t mean in a technical sense, or ask about what techniques or methods you could use in this art. You can find plenty of material about ideas on fighting methods and techniques everywhere. That is in my own opinion of less interest. What I mean is: How do you feel when you fight with Tai Chi? Is your combative mind different when you practice Tai Chi as your first and foremost art of combat? I think so. And I will try to verbalize my own personal experience on this matter and try to share some light over how this art can affect a person’s ability to deal with violence.

But first of all, I am not a typical fighter and I don’t look at myself as anything even close to a fighter. And already for a long time ago, all urge to prove myself has been gone. I don’t like violence and as I have a family to look for now, I would never accept any kind of challenge. (And I don’t even know if I could fight as well today when too much is in stake.) But when I was younger, sometimes I looked for trouble just to test myself, to see if I had anything like fighting skill. There were a few events. I can not boast about many fights, but there has been a few. Except for Tai Chi, I have practiced other styles as well, but I can honestly say that no other style taught me fighting better than T’ai Chi Ch’uan. And no other teacher was better to teach fighting skills than my Tai Chi teachers. Does this kind of statement seem odd for a person who studied shaolin, free fighting and briefly even a style like Muay Thai/Thai Boxing? When you think about Tai Chi, is it slow movements practice, usually performed by elderly people, or cooperative push hands practice you think about? Or do you associate the art with real combat skills? I sincerely doubt that it is the latter. Will you be even more surprised if I say that I really started to understand how to deal with fights when I gave up anything else that I had practiced?

So why then can someone say that he had learned more about fighting from Tai Chi than from any other art? Instead of speaking about things like mind and Yi, I could at one level use two words to answer this question: Timing and distance. Sounds like nothing special? I might would like to add a few other words as well just into the soup, as angle and leverage. And of course, relaxation, stability and how to not forget how to breath. But timing and distance might be the most crucial abilities for general fighting skills, for whatever form of martial art you speak about. In Tai Chi anything you can come to think about in terms of two man practice comes down to timing and distance Regardless if you speak about application, push hands or free practice as sparring or anything else you do, and it’s right there. But this leads to other things, like relaxation and footwork. Or maybe it’s the opposite around. What is unique in Tai Chi, is that softness and relaxation always comes first, everything else second. But still, if you don’t have the correct timing, you won’t be able to relax into applying a technique or a method. And if you don’t have a good footwork, you can not control the distance, something that is crucial for timing of application. So, if you don’t have the correct timing and distance whatever you do, you won’t be able to relax properly. In other words, due to the fundamentally extreme focus on softness and relaxation, you can not cheat with other basic things that is necessary for you to make your art work, as timing and distance. So there is a certain way of combining skills in Tai Chi, skills that affect each other in a special manner, due to the main focus of the art.

The thing is, when it comes to Tai Chi as a combat art, is that these basic concepts of timing and distance is not only something that is always joined together with relaxation and balance. The key is that this unification of qualities will be drilled right into your bones. Things like acting proactive and keeping agile will become second nature, just like being relaxed and keeping balanced are. And the only thing you need to achieve this to become second nature, is Diligent partner work as applications practice, free push hands and sparring. With Tai Chi basics continuously in mind when practicing, you will teach your own body that it functions better under pressure when it can be relaxed and rooted. Eventually you will naturally breath deep, drop your strength down to the feet, and calm your mind even when you compete in fighting or fight for real. You will keep on teaching yourself this, drilling it into your own body and mind, to a point when instantaneous relaxation and balance will become your natural reaction to a threat as encountering violence.

What I am speaking about is nothing intellectual or something that someone told me or taught me. This natural reaction to become relaxed and rooted is exactly what I have experienced myself. When I have met a threat like a violent person, instead of tensing up, I have become relaxed. Instead of breathing faster and shallow, I breathed deeper. Instead of being worried or afraid, I calmed down and felt secure. This is not something I have consciously practiced to achieve. Somewhere in time, it was just there, as a natural response to the threat and violence at hand. And I can assure you that I myself was very surprised when my body and mind instinctively reacted this way. I had good control over each situation. Sometimes, I even saw that my calmness could affect the other person and made him insecure. Upon touch, I never thought to do this or that or planned to do anything. One thing of my concern before “touching hands” has been about distance and angle, to always gain a superior positioning. But yet, when I touched hands, I didn’t think, but merely acted accordingly to my opponent’s movement or to what I felt.

So if you asked me about how it is to fight with Tai Chi, I would say that it has very little to do with applying different techniques from a wide range of things you have learned. It’s not about consciously choosing or planning this or that. It’s more like letting go and let your Tai Chi do the fighting for you. If you practice well and diligent, your learned skill sets will be there, just as much as you let them be there and as you don’t interfere them with things like trying to show off or becoming aggressive.

Maybe all of this above might have things in common with many experienced fighters of different fields (though I am not particularly experienced in other forms of fighting, so I won’t say that anything is for sure.). But if you would ask me about how it feels to fight with Tai Chi, I would say that for me, personally at least, it has been quite an odd feeling of security, a feeling of being in control and in charge. Although interesting enough, nothing of this is something that I plan to experience again.

Can you attack with Tai Chi?

Tags

Attacking, Self-defense, Tai Chi, Tai Chi Combat

Tai Chi is mostly considered a solely defensive art based on response. A common question from tai chi practitioners, especially from beginners is: Can you attack with Tai chi? Sadly there’s a common misconception about attacking or doing things without the attacker first initializing an attack. Even quite well known teachers say things like that you must wait for an attack and if that your opponent doesn’t do anything you can only wait. But attacking actually does not go against Tai chi principles.

Yes, you must know what to follow. But there is not only arms and legs to worry about. Even if he is not lunging out attacks, there’s is still a body to follow and adjust to. Controlling distance and angle to the opponent is what you always need to do. Always try to be in a superior position. Somewhere in a space relationship to you where he does not want to be.

And even more important, there’s is the opponent’s Yi (intent) to worry about. If you let him focus his Yi steadily on you is like letting him aim at you with a target. Keep off his favorite distance, try adjust the angles. Try to confuse him, shift distances or use any way to detach his line of intent.

Where his mind is empty or at that spot he pays no attention to, there is yin. You can fill up this spot with yang, i.e. attack. There is nothing wrong with this.

Then, if you attack him, he must move or be moved. When moves, if he defend or counter, what ever he does,  now there’s physical movement to follow. He has moved and given you something you can attach your hands and tingjin (following skill) to.

The classics says: “If my opponent moves slightly, I move first.” As soon as he does anything, move in and be there first. Follow his reactions and let his movements defeat himself. 

Or just go in and attack. A straight lead will do fine. As long as you keep relaxed and firmly rooted, fist supported from the dantian, then there will be only tai chi. That is – if you have practiced your art’s foundation well.