Wrestling or Sumo seems a better base in general. A ton of situations end up in the clinch. Seth also showed how usefull Sumo is in self defense situations etc during the self defense championships. Being able to throw people or run them into walls, furniture, other people, trip them over curbs etc while stopping them from doing it to you is kinda handy.
As a Tai Chi Instructor for over 40 years and a FMA Teacher who has worked with many MMA Fighters and Martial Artist, this is exactly what Tai Chi is and the way it should be practiced, but rarely is! Great Video!
@@Purwapada yes it might have been the context of the coach's explanation was lost in the editing. But there is a danger with Push Hands that it becomes something of a circus trick. Too much focus on not being moved and confusing Push Hands with wrestling (a valid training, bit it's not Push Hands) and it's definitely not fighting, a bit like a football (soccer) player who practices ball juggling but never actually plays the real game.
@@steveforde7475 - yeah, to me it looked like what I would consider a deca dena (chaining/back-and-forth) loose drill, designed to emphasize and train one aspect of an art. In the Memorization/Integration/Application model of learning, Push Hands looks to be the Integration aspect. The instructor did mention more applications: ie, the discussion of locking up with underhoods vs. just punching the guy, for example. And this may be one reason why Seth was doing so well - in addition to being a generally well-trained marital artist, he may have a tendency to go for more wrestling or sumo techniques....which works to score points (or win, in this case), but doesn't necessarily train the underlying skill that the drill/game is supposed to. Which is a limitation of the ruleset, I would imagine: it's there to train Push Hands, but wrestling techniques actually work better in that context to achieve the stated goal of the drill. And the actual martial art techique that you would use against a wrestler (push off and punch) isn't allowed in the drill, so there's a tendency to use the technique that works, as opposed to the ones you're supposed to be practicing.
I took a couple of years of Tai Chi instruction from a not-quite-elderly woman several years back. It was mostly focused on the exercise component but we did push hands occasionally. After class one evening, I asked her if she could show me one or two of the martial applications of the form we were learning. She absolutely rag-dolled me. It's no joke.
This will be an unpopular opinion, but you (Seth) are doing the tai chi right. The instructor was wrong to stop you with the wrestling clinches and Uchi matas. These moves are all in the Tai Chi form. This group is 70 percent there but Tai Chi is even closer to MMA, Judo and Sumo than you think it is
Same! My Mandarin tutor was an elderly woman who taught Tai Chi classes with the Mandarin speaking local community. She took me to class with her so I could be around more native speakers. Those tiny old ladies threw me around like a rag doll-- after a brutal leg workout. Glad people are out there showing how rough it really can be!
Hard to argue with anything that improves balance, strength, range of motion and awareness of what your opponent is doing. Thank you for sharing this journey with us Seth,
Real Taijiquan also just involves playing with your opponent's balance while your opponent tries to mess with yours. In Judo, I've heard that called the "kuzushi game." Play the kuzushi game enough and you'll be ragdolling people in Judo.
@@rabiesbiter5681yup, being trained in tia chi xian is as good as being a judo blackbelt. judo has unique techniques but the fundamentals are unparalleled in tai chi
This will be an unpopular opinion, but you (Seth) are doing the tai chi right. The instructor was wrong to stop you with the wrestling clinches and Uchi matas. These moves are all in the Tai Chi form. This group is 70 percent there but Tai Chi is even closer to MMA, Judo and Sumo than you think it is
Traditional taijiquan training is no joke, i went through it when i was younger, living with Sifu studying taiji style boxing. Retired now with teeth like a bucket of smashed crabs, healed broken ribs ( from training). It was brutal and there is a big difference between indoor learning and public, or there was back then. I worked a a bouncer in gogo bars in southern thailand, all i had was my taijiquan and i never needed anything else. Those that mock taijiquan have never been hit with the real thing.
@PaMuShin I don’t know what kind of tai chi you practice if you never sweat. Maybe you were dancing. Many years ago, I read an article about tai chi in a martial arts magazine. The gist of it stayed with me: "It doesn’t matter what style you do. Just, do your form. If you're not sweating at the end of it, do it again. Repeat until you are sweating."
He speaks of energy and liquid conservation through exhalation. This is often the result of medition in motion, also known as a state of zen. Learning proper breathing techniques and focus allow you to sweat much less during training and recover from adrenaline/nerves. Ironically, this carries over into everyday life.
@PaMuShin Thanks for your reply. Thanks for your advice. I'm not sure how you conclude that I spend my time eating donuts and reading magazines, based on a quote from a magazine article I read more than 3 decades ago. Towards the end of next year, it will be 5 decades since my tai chi journey began. Do you just read books or do you practice some form of tai chi?
@PaMuShin Again thank you for your replies. You don't know anything about me - nor I you. Maybe you should think about it. Maybe what you think you know is wrong. If you have to work to sweat or are exhausted after your practice whatever it is that you're doing has nothing in common with my practice. Most people, that I practice with, report feeling energized after practice. Some complain that they can't practice at night because they won't be able to sleep if they do. The goal of my practice is to maintain quality of life as I age. I'm just over 6 feet tall and weigh 168 pounds - a great improvement the sickly 138 pound student who returned to tai chi practice four decades ago after foolishly quitting for six years. I'm extremely grateful for the gift of health my teacher gave me, through many hours of supervising my practice and guiding my training. You suggest I rudely opined on you ignorant statement that you should not sweat doing tai chi. I suggest you don't pontificate if you don't want to be challenged.
I am a Taijiquan practicioner myself and this is exactly what Taijiquan is. Everything else people usually think of when they think of Taijiquan is also a part of this art but they also heavily relate to Tuishou. In Taolu/form training you develop body awareness, fluid motion, mind-bidy-connection, breath application and relaxed, heavy body.
☯ As a Practitioner of Taijiquan sine 90's, I'm happy to see Seth keeping an open mind about this very Experiential Kinesthetic Art. I'd strongly suggest he tries the other 2 main Soft Forms, Hsing Yi & Baguaquan.
He could also try "liu he ba fa". The paradox of lhbf is that while it's claimed to predate the three better known "internal arts", it has elements of all three.
its cool to hear you speak about tai chi in a similar way to karate as overall a long game. Also Sifu Chris is a cool instructor. can't wait to see the uncut version if there will be one
Connected to this,you may want to look at Armwrestling,Devon Larrat promotes a variant similar to Japanese Arm Sumo. You may find more similarities with Tai Chi.
Seth been watching you for 4 years now and your content just keeps getting better and better. Its gotten to the point that you're absolutely my favourite UA-camr on the platform and I insta click any new video you post! Keep smashing it!
Taiji 11 years, Bagua 10 years, with bits of cross training and sparring (Shuaijiao, BJJ, Boxing, Kickboxing) throughout here: It's sad to see the folks in here reflexively rejecting this practice. These attitudes are what hold Taiji practice back from greater legitimacy and practice as a part of combat arts. It's true that there are much softer, more subtle push hands practices, and they definitely have their place in skillbuilding. But the intermediate and higher-intensity ones are critical bridges to actually being able to use those skills *for anything.* The people saying "These people don't know what Taiji really is" or some variation are generally the ones who can't actually do anything with what they've learned.
The birthplace of Taichi is not Chen village. Chen village is the birthplace of Chen Style Taichi. The original Taichi birthplace is Wudang Mountain where Taoist Monk Zhang Sanfeng set up shop to create what we know today as Taichi
There may indeed be a link between TaiJi Push Hands and Sumo. In ancient China there was a combat sport called XiangPu and written as 相扑 ("pounce at each other"). Yes, those are the same characters used to write Sumo nowadays. XiangPu was roughly similar to Sumo, except with less emphasis on body size. According to a Japanese sports encyclopedia, Sumo originated from Tang Dynasty China. It's highly likely that this "original Sumo" was referring to XiangPu, or a variant of it. (an even older name for XiangPu was JiaoDi, 角抵，”horn butting", referring to its origin myth) Later, XiangPu got subsumed into ShuaiJiao (摔跤，modern Chinese word for wrestling), but (here's my speculation: ) a primitive form of XiangPu may have been adopted by the early developers of TaiJi as their main sparring style, and then renamed firstly as DaShou (打手, "hit hands") and then TuiShou (推手，“push hands"). (of course, the sparring can also include non-wrestling type attacks) Hence why you feel that Push Hands principles are so intimately applicable to Sumo. :) Also why passerbies often have difficulty distinguishing between ShuaiJiao, Push Hands and Sumo techniques. It looks like they overlap ... because they do! :) If anything, it's technically correct to say that you're practicing Taiji ShuaJiao (太极摔跤)。 It's like the term Aiki-Jujutsu. The first term (Aiki) is the ideal you're following, the 2nd term (Jujutsu) is the sport/skill you're applying it to. As the Shifu in the video has explained, the term TaiJi by itself refers to the general concept. TaiJi-Quan (太极拳，“TaiJi Fist") refers to the martial art you're applying it to.
There is no relation between Taiji Push Hands and Sumo. This instructor has no understanding of Taiji training & Push Hands. All these aggressive shoving and throwing is San Da.
The man responsible for the mainstream perception of tai chi as moving meditation is Cheng Man-ch'ing, who took the tradition to Taiwan when he escaped the communist revolution. Cheng Man-ch'ing mostly abandoned the harsh, martial training methods that tai chi used to have in common with the authentic traditional Chinese martial arts that were forgotten in the wake of the revolution. He's also credited with bringing tai chi to the attention of the West when he moved to New York and taught there. Thus it is his version of tai chi that the English-speaking world is mostly aware of.
And yet his lineage has produced some very formidable push hand players. Mario Napoli went to China and wiped the floor with the Chen village guys. Josh Waitzkin won the push hand championship in Taiwan
Yes, also the meaning of Tai Chi Chuan is something like "Supreme Ultimate Fist". I studied Kung Fu in China, not Tai Chi but a lot at my school and friends were involved with that, and with the old chinese masters of for example Wudangshan, and also Sun Style Tai Chi. Basically what I learned is that the old school Tai Chi in China is extremely violent, deadly and efficient when applied, but these are different variants of the style than the one you mentioned, and that the west is aware of.
@@JonathanJMusic "also the meaning of Tai Chi Chuan is something like 'Supreme Ultimate Fist'" IMO that name does more harm than good. It encourages pretension and mysticism
@@ShredST I completely agree. Just because it's two characters does not mean it is two words. Some Chinese words are composed of multiple characters. So far the best translation for TaiJiQuan that I have come across is "Polarity Boxing".
Push hands was my favorite. Over time it definitely helped develop sensitivity to being grabbed, pushed/pulled. In our moving step practice, sifu would allow us to use chin na and slaps to the face. Good video as always!
Love this! It’s so cool how respectful you are and how make a point of finding legit instructors. Looking forward to a future push hands competition win! 🥇
Love seeing someone give Tai Chi a real chance instead of dismissing it as something for the grandparents in the park. So much more than that! Hopefully we see a part 2 as you explore it even more?? 🤞
@@david9180 "By the time I'm forty, I'll be the worlds most dangerous cripple." Tai Chi exists as a vitally important supplimental art, that allows the users of harder, striking based arts to both avoid and recover from injuries. Also additional conditioning is useful
Excellent, Seth, I’m glad you’ve found push hands. I hope more people find this aspect of tai chi, it’s dying to the philosophy and the health practices… it also bleeds into Sanda as well, it’s all part of the same thing
Normally Tai Chi Sifu start people out by teaching the forms of Tai Chi (this what I’ve read and experienced other martial arts I have done) and that would be more of what Seth was expecting. He jumped into combative tai chi and dealt with the finished product.
yang style and it's descendants is mostly changquan with errors like "double heavy". It became especially corrupted by being promoted as qi gong which appeals to hippies. Real Tai chi comes from creating rotations from pivots which is extremely difficult to do. no hippie stuff
@@GabrielAKAFinn By making a pivot tai chi establishes a point on the body which remains fixed, (not moving in horizontal space), while the other parts align in relation to that fixed point, this creates rotation by means of continuous leverage.
I'm currently practicing under Yang style and I agree with what you say :) Sadly, in the Taiji community in general, a lot of these true principles are rarely explained to students when they're starting out. :| Instead, they're told to practice in a certain way and expected to "eventually develop what needs to be developed". Or they're given instructions that describe a desired effect but aren't really helpful to the beginner. e.g. asking the student to "maintain structure" in the face of external force (e.g. a push from the training partner) Technically, the instruction is not wrong, but what tends to happen is that the student misunderstands what the purpose of that "structure" is, and uses it to resist the external force (when the main point should be to maintain his/her balance), resulting in "double heavy". While I'm at it, there's also instructions like "feel your opponent's feet through the contact point" or "redirect your opponent's force into the ground" etc etc. Again, technically those are not wrong, but what often ends up happening is that the student misunderstands what "feel" and "redirect" mean, and instead try to *do* stuff to create those effects, resulting in unnecessary tension, again leading to a subtle form of "double heavy".
"Sticky hands" (push hands) with one or both hands and "sticky sticks" the same thing with a staff/stick. Haven't done this for years, brings back good memories, thank you!
When the Tai chi concepts are applied properly, it’s not just “old man kung fu”, it has plenty of good explanations and techniques that lead to grappling; it can improve anyone’s martial arts. It helped me with sparring in my Goju Ryu For more tai chi knowledge, check out Coach Niko who focuses on tai chi push hands
Tai Chi is not just limited to Grappling. It has one of the highest potentials of Lethal level Striking abilities... called "Fajin" (Short range, explosive power). A Masterclass level fighter in the Internal Arts, should find it very easy to KO any fighter, with a mere fraction of his output.. and with less than 6 inches of travel. At full potentials... he should have the ability to cause internal Ruptures within the OPs body... with only a mere inch or two of runway. I, myself, mastered Fajin expression. To date, Ive KO'd 4 different disrespecful fighters, using a short range vertical punch to their foreheads. I used less than 6 inches of travel, and never used anything more than about 15% of what I was capable of generating / delivering. 3 of these guys were Blackbelt fighters in Jujitsu, at their Open-House sparring event. The other fighter, was a mix of Capoeira, and Kook Sul Won (A Korean blend of TKD and Kung Fu). Tai Chi tends to use open palms, in an "Explosive Push" format, for demos, and to be "Nice" to their training partners. However, Fajin expression, is used in Actual combat application... not "Pushes". It seems like a lot of Tai Chi practitioners, dont even know this... which may boil down to certain lineages, or teachers.. choosing not to teach this aspect of the art (or it being lost in these certain branches). Of course Fajin isnt only in Tai Chi. Its supposed to be within pretty much all Chinese combat arts... usually taught last, and often only taught to the most skilled and Trusted of students. Its sort of an Open-Secret of all Chinese artforms. It sounds unrealistic to most... and unless you have taken a Fajin hit from a Master of it... most will never believe / understand... and think its mere delusional fantasy.
Chinese Wrestling originally looked very much like what later developed into Sumo. Shirtless “Shanxi Style” (No Jacket) competition still retains some of that. In Baoding “Combat” Style it’s called the basic / “Bull Fighting” stage. Tai Chi retains it too, but most ppl like to deny that aspect exists. Toph from Avatar is based on the style Southern Mantis, which is a Hakka style of Kungfu. People who survived a lot of conflict. It features probably even more extensive sensitivity and listening drills than Tai Chi and Wing Chun combined. Except… the training is way Way WAY more practical, and violent lol. Most people quit just from the body conditioning, alone. Think… boxing medicine ball training, except it’s person conditioning you. Damn near full-blast. Back and forth. And yet you’re training Timing. And THEN you do your sensitivity drilling. When your body, and arms are already damn-tired.
Dude, your channel is amazing. It encapsulates the joy of studying martial arts. I feel like a lot of content creators and athletes have this missing these days. Thanks for that man!
Tai Chi is Kung Fu (skill developed through practice), it's just an "internal" system, different way of learning but just like any traditional martial art, it has punches, kicks, throws, joint locks. Big emphasis on sensitivity and Qi Gong, good for your health and development. I like Chen Tai Chi, more explosive movements and good forms. There are more cool internal systems to explore out there!
I prefer Yang for it's ability to generate power from stillness. Same Jins as the later stage Chen but less visible to the observing eye and the opponent.
Awesome!, I've practiced more Yang than Chen, but I like both, and they are very close relatives. Since I mainly train Northern Shaolin, I like the explosive movements of Chen. I also know a little Bajiquan form and enjoy it a lot!, thanks for sharing your thoughs!
I wanted to get into Chen since before I even knew it existed. I had only ever done Yang on and off for years but always instinctively wanted to do incorporate a more explosive style into it. And then one day someone showed me what Chen looked like. This was a "House" style so I'm sure how similar it is to mainstream Chen... but the guy demonstrating it looked and moved like Bruce F***ing Lee. It was perfect! Only by that time I was already well over 40 and my current sifu was into his 60's and his age was making it less and less likely I would ever get a chance to learn it. And of course it was WAY too hardcore for anyone else in the class to be interested in. So it never came to pass. Damn. I wish I could go back in time and could have gotten private classes on that. One of my big regrets in life.
@@4saken404 I hope you get to practice it!, you could try baji quan, which is "similar". you could find some basic forms and practice them, legend says Yang Luchang lived in Chen Jia Gou, he copied the movements and from that he created his style (Yang), so if he can do it you can watch some videos and practice!
That was great ! When I was practicing a bit of aikido back in the day, some "random" old guy ( who I was told, was even better then the instructor but wouldn't assume the teacher's role ) took me appart from the other guys and made me practice this hand pushing thing. I learned a lot in just two or three sessions. What a boss this guy was. This episode made me remember all that.
Cool stuff - David Chin delivered the challenge letter to Bruce Lee that became the Wong Jack Man fight. Chris has probably heard what actually happened since David Chin was one of the few people to witness the fight. I also studied Guang Ping Yang Style Taiji under Henry Look's line - another Kuo Lien-ying student.
This is why they practice Mabu or the Horse Stance, for those who can stick it, as it roots you strongly to the ground and makes it difficult for the opponent to uproot you. Good video.
THANK YOU! Yes, there is value to the forms. Doing the forms without doing Tuishou is like buying shoes, taking the box home and leaving the shoes behind. The forms aren't about moving your hands. Your body does 95 percent of the actual movement and your hands/arms do very little. The forms help you learn the body mechanics, the pushing hands helps you learn how to apply it to keeping your own balance and taking away someone else's. When you learn that, then things like hitting people and taking them to the ground all just kinda fall together. A push is just a hit without impact after all.
4:13 is really interesting to me. We do this drill in my Karate school when we train elbow strikes or joint locks. Basically anything that you whould use if you are to close to strike someone with your fist. It really helps you to develope a sense for controling someone elses arms.
The Push Hands by itself could be a really useful skill for wrestling in general,for self defence and competition. I am also interested in their body bumping strikes,or shoulder strikes.
I'm guessing this is not the type of Tai Chi that the "masters" in China tried to use against MMA fighter Xu Xiaodong. This one looks like it might have some practical applications in a fight, as opposed to the type that takes place in a park. That's not to say that park Tai Chi doesn't provide some benefit to its practitioners, as I'm sure it helps with breathing, mindfulness, and a form of mobile meditation. Either way, I definitely learned something from this video, and I was thoroughly entertained, so that's all I can ask for in a Sensei Seth video.
Correct. All those "masters" received their certification from the government. They are cultural/tourist assets, not real martial artists, who have never sparred. This video shows a much better application of tai chi.
Slow motion training, is very beneficial to Specialized Strength Developments, such as Developing super strong Tendons. However, its only ONE part of this Combat art. Tai Chi, has all elements ranges of combat. From long distance interceptions, to short range strikes, standing grappling... locks... and throws... as well as like +10 different Weapons (Swords, Staffs, Spears, and many more). Additionally, the special breathing aspects... help to create far greater bloodflow circulation, which creates a very different type of tissue / muscles.. and you also get faster and more robust Healing, on top of all of this. Also, the Brain starts to generate new neuron connections... which greatly expands your Bodily positional Awareness, as well as your External Spatial 3D awareness (taking it to a whole other level of abilities). If you want to see a small example of how challenging Slow Motion training can be... Start by doing simple pushups. Do one set, at full speed, until failure. Then a day or two later... Try doing a set in slow-motion. At least 7 seconds down, and 7 seconds up... until failure (no rests between. just a nonstop controlled movement, through the entire session). You will notice, that you will only be able to do a Fraction of the number of pushups, when doing them slowly. This is partially because when you do them fast, you are using gravity... allowing yourself to fall without resisting much... then you are relying on a Momentum Cheat, to help get you back Up. When you slow things down, you cant just let yourself drop instantly.. nor do you have any momentum, to help raise you. As such, your muscles (and tendons) are constantly being Challenged, throughout the Entire Range of Motion. You will develop much greater strength along the Entire path of travel. You will also start to develop stronger joints and tendons... since more time is spent challenging them. In Tai Chi's standing version... you have your arms away from your body for almost an entire hours worth of time (the typical minimal amount of time, spend doing these forms, to gain serious benefits). One of the keys to gaining the proper development while doing these forms... is to try to relax your muscles to the point where your body is almost about to go limp... and fall to the floor, like a pile of Jello. This minimal amount of Muscle efforts, causes your tendons and other tissues, as well as your bone structures, to take up much more of the STRESSES (Work). As such, you start to develop Super-Strong Tendons and other Strong / Density tissues + bones. These strong (yet flexible) tendons, can create a sort of Super-Human like strength. Even much larger and stronger fighters, will have difficulty in moving you.. and or, in them trying to Bend your Posture into a point of weakness / failure. They allow you to also use your tendons.. sort of like Springs... where you can absorb the OPs energy without Uprooting you... and then COLLECT his mass-energy, charging up your "Springs"... and finally you can Release that Stored up energy... to uproot and send them Flying away (or, you can just use an explosive short range strike). Xu Donger is nothing but a Chinese CCP Shill. Hes like the Gracies of China. The Gracies made False claims about fighting "Masters". Yet anyone with any decent amount of training in the arts, could EASILY see that none of these guys were Masters... and in fact, it was very easy to see, that they all were very Incompetent / clueless. The Gracies Cherry-Picked such Artists, because they wanted Easily Exploitable targets, for their Scam. They didnt want to actually risk getting injured (Or Ended), by high level / Masterclass level Fighters. I personally would be able to take out XU, in less than 5 seconds flat (Permanently). I dont say that lightly, either. I have 30 years, spanning many different artforms... and Im used to fighting against FAR more skilled OPs. Many of which, make my skills pale in comparison. And let me tell you... if you think the UFC fighters are "Scary" ?! lol You have never seen, nor felt what its like... to spar against these dudes. There simply is no Comparison. A masterclass level fighter, only needs 2 inches of travel (or less), for example.. to generate enough power to cause Internal Ruptures within the Enemies body. Also, a Masterclass level fighter, isnt fooled by simple Feint tactics, like the Gracices use to set up their Takedowns. In fact, I once attended an Open Sparring event at a Jujitsu school. Normally I dont use Damaging, or KO level forces... when I spar... But, if fighters show me open Disrespect... then I give them a small TASTE of what I typically hold back. These guys were all Blackbelts, and they clearly wanted to "Prove" themselves... via harming others intentionally. One of them started making funny faces, and funny noises... in a display of disrespect, when I went to spar against him. As such... I chose to knock him out, and two of their other Blackbelt fighter, right after dropping him. I used my mostly extended lead guard hand, with a vertical fist punch to their foreheads. I used less than 6 inches of travel... and I never used more than about 15% of what I was capable of delivering. They ALL tried the same feint tactics... such as feinting high, then trying to rush in for the low takedown. But Im a Masterclass level fighter, and we dont Fall for such Simplistic tricks. They were also all very lucky, that I ALLOWED them past my short range Oblique Kicks to their Kneecaps... without Incident. I only ever use such a kick once... at a fraction of the output.. and it put a fighter out of commission for an entire month. And I only did so.. because he said: "You, and Wing Chun... are Sh*T". After he healed up... he never fought against me the same way. He stayed as far away from me as possible... to the point of not really being effective at all. Before that point, he use to rush in like a freight train... and use his greater mass and strength, to try to drive me to the ground (often succeeding, because I refused to use crippling / KO level output. I also refused to play a Grapplers Game, to "change" my typical combat level responses... to suit a Sportized version of Sparring). Anyway... Tai Chi has a lot of high level combat knowledge, and abilities. Its just rare that you can find a teacher that actually knows + is willing to teach you the actual full Combat Art. Its also such a deep art, that you will have to train it every single day, for several hours a day, to be able to develop all of these skillsets (which is a problem not only with Tai Chi, but all high level Combat arts). Since a lot of people are both Ignorant, and are lazy... most modern practitioners will never learn these arts... or... they just wont ever develop them to effective Masterclass levels of capabilities.
It mostly comes from the same place in name. I'm sure a lot of tai ji quan masters who can't fight will claim to be from a certain lineage to appeal to authority and borrow legitimacy. Maybe they even actually trained in that lineage at some point. Maybe a few of them even sincerely believe their training gave them the keys to the fighting kingdom. But they lost the mental and physical training and mindset that makes for functional fighting skills. People who do tai ji in the park for health and wellness in their old age are generally learning a branch of tai ji that has deliberately deprioritized or even entirely abandoned the training of a fighting mindset. But someone who can fight well using tai ji quan is someone who can fight well. Tai ji quan just happens to be the means of expression they happen to use. Seth kind of touched on this when he related his impression of tai ji to sumo and any other kind of wrestling. Without fight-focused mindfulness in your training, any martial art can be turned into a laughingstock. Faff around doing push-ups, and you get bad push-ups. Faff around doing martial arts, and you get bad martial arts. It's just a skill, and skills are just tools that can be used well or badly depending on the person. This applies to any martial art that's gone through phases of popularity, being watered down, used by well-intentioned but misguided practitioners, used by deliberately misleading charlatans, etc. How many krav maga people actually have the mindset and capability of an IDF spec ops soldier? How many capoeiristas know how to use the spirit of the malandro to trick, deceive, and mislead? How many tae kwon do tournament point fighters also train strikes with power and followthrough? Some do, many don't. Because the vast majority of people who pay for martial arts classes don't have to confront the real and likely possibility of personal violence, so they bring a lot of cognitive biases and preconceptions with them into their training, and they are rarely disabused of these misconceptions by the harsh reality of an actual confrontation. Like, for decades sometimes. A capable fighter is probably going to have one or more of these qualities or experiences: being hit harder than they expected, dealing with adrenaline dumps, knowing how to lose and go again, knowing how to learn, adaptability, listening (through physical contact, as mentioned in this video for tai ji), a balance of judiciousness and assertiveness/aggression, accepting that the world is a bigger place than any one person and there's almost always going to be someone you can beat and someone you can't beat, knowing your current limits but being willing to push and expand those limits. A lot of people say that these experiences give rise to humility and wisdom and this often does happen, but that's not a hard requirement for becoming a capable fighter. There are more common or universal traits to good fighters that you can add to the list.
You are a great ambassador and martial arts educator. I'm glad you went out there, had a good time and shared it. Also glad you made the comparison to Sumo. Lots of Tai Chi people hate that 😅 but wrestling is wrestling and it's just a question of how it integrates into bigger cultural and martial contexts.
@@LogosFlow I've been practicing Taiji since 1983 including 4 years in China. Taiji is mostly stand-up grappling, and grappling is wrestling. Yes there are differences between Taiji and any other specific wrestling style, but wrestling is still wrestling. Shuai jiao is wrestling, jiujitsu is wrestling, Gouren is wrestling, Bok is wrestling, Burri is wrestling, Judo is wrestling, and Taiji is also wrestling (if not just wrestling). The majority of peple who say Taiji is not wrestling do not see wrestling as the extremely sophisticated and fundamental human behaviour that it is.
@@EdwardH Wrestling doesn't teach you swords and spears, Taiji does, or at least it's part of the system. Agreed, wrestling/grappling is fundamental and also part of the basis of taijiquan, but wouldn't you say that if you thought of taijiquan as just grappling you'd be missing a lot? I think of Taiji as a battlefield martial art that had a spiritual awakening.
Honestly mad respect for this gym for pressure testing all the stuff they teach. Only that will sift through the bullshit. Super happy to see them train by fighting.
My teacher used to say ‘mei lien tui shou, bu Yong gong.’ - If you don’t practice push hands, you won’t be able to use it, or you won’t have any gong, as in gong fu. Personally, I consider ‘tui shou’ a Chinese folk wrestling style system. And we wouldn’t expect any folk style wrestling system to walk into a UFC cage without a takedown, striking, or ground and pound game and dominating. However like a lot of wrestling, it can be an excellent base if taught correctly. I also compare park taichi to Tui shou, like a cardio kickboxing class done once or twice a week at the YMCA to a Muay Thai gym in Bangkok where some has been training for years as a professional fighter/kickboxer. Cardio kickboxing as well as park taichi, we’re both adapted and changed to meet the needs of people looking to keep in shape, or keep healthy. The long form in the Yang style mimics precisely that Tui shou range, e.g. arm drags, guillotines, rear naked chokes, etc. but most people misinterpret the forms as an outside range, like slow moving karate, and this is incorrect. If you slowed down an over under drill then separated from your partner at that continued speed by yourself, you would start to understand the true interpretation of the forms.
Appreciate the respect for Taijiquan! Sifu Des Jackson of Whirling Tiger Kung Fu (Gainesville, FL) will blow your mind. Oh, and the Mandarin for Pushhands is pronounced “Two-way Show.”
Tai chi can be very combative. You learn the form but also its application. I would stand one leggged in arhat carries a cauldron for half an hour. Then do the other leg. Tai chi is pushing, pressing, drilling, throwing and strikes. Its still incorporated into bruce lees art jeet kune do. I learned basic moves of tai chi from jeet kune do then studied the art in full. In free sparring i used it often. You make it functional in sparring.
You can improve one inch punch stuff with tai chi as well. It's like people collected exercises that have a 'what the hell effect' and made it into a dance. It's misunderstood because it's so sacred, it's not a complete combat training system and it doesn't train you to throw magic fireballs but it's full of surprises.
Gojuryu Karate's Mawashi Uke is Chen style Taijiquan silk reeling. They also have push hands training, but it's called Kakie. They look different only because they developed separately from each other; with Gojuryu from Hokkien White Crane and Chen style Taijiquan from Northern Long Fist or Changquan. You can also find sensitivity drills in both Japanese Jujutsu and Filipino Eskrima.
Thank you for finding a real taichi teacher, and not go in the first mcdojo you found. ^^ My teacher says partner work is 50% of taichi. not 5% or 10%, it's 50%. So a school that is doing close to 0% push hands is not a good taichi school.
Great that you found some folks doing the martial side of Taiji so that people can see it's not just dancing in the park. Though when you know how to do that "dance" the way it's supposed to be done, it's quite the challenge too =)
Speaking from personal experience, Taiji Quan does work if you know how to use it and with enough speed and timing. One time during kickboxing sparring I was sent flying backwards by a push kick. I knew that I couldn't just be passive and let my sparring partner force me where I wanted to go, so I had to counter. As he threw a roundhouse to my helmet I stepped in and somehow instinctively applied Lou Xi Ao Bu (搂膝拗步, Lift Knee and Front Step) by stepping forward with my lead foot and using the force of my advance to check him with my lead glove. He staggered backwards, then congratulated me on the move before we resumed sparring. It's hard to watch people say Taiji Quan doesn't work when they clearly don't know what they are looking at or have no experience training with people who actually know how to use it in sparring i.e. the young students in Henan province who enter Tuishou/Sanda competitions.
Great video! Sifu Chris and Sifu Chin are truly excellent representatives of the complete art art of TaijiQuan. I have been blessed to study under them both for many years. This is pretty much exactly what it looks like every time someone finally feels real Tai Ji for the first time. As you said yourself, time spent this way applies to every possible combat sport, and even to non violent environments. Better quality movement and the ability to more easily sense someone else's intentions as they move are inarguably strong positions for Life. The ultimate GPP
This is a better presentation of Tai Chi than I expected. It's still not what I want to see in terms of demystifying the art, but the teacher definitely has it in him, and he knows what he's doing internally. I don't like that the structure in the pushhands went completely out the window when the free practice came in. That's not supposed to happen. That structure exists for a reason. The usage of the body, especially the middle and lower body is not being explained. This is usually a problem with Yang style lineages. So I'm skeptical of how much was passed down to Chris from the Chen side of the art. He really looks, talks and moves like a Yang style guy. Not a bad one either. Just the same teaching problems of focusing too much on the upper body, on relaxing and sensing the opponent's problems and not enough on relaxing and sensing to fix your own problems. All the students seem to have reverted to an American wrestling style type posture. They are all hunched over. You can't compress well like that. You can't lift well, and you sure as hell as can't rotate well. When you throw the rotation out the window, you miss half the art. Notice the teacher, his back is very straight. Not tense, but aligned. He looks hunched over because of his bad head posture -- it's jutting out pretty far-- but everything from the shoulders down is very nice and well aligned. He is more squatted and braced than bent over. This givens him a solid base to maintain his neutral, and take advantage of his student's awkward posture, and float them out. Seth included. Push hands isn't even about the hands. The connection is worth doing properly, but push hands is really about everything _behind the hands_. If your posture is good then your hands have power. If you have bad posture, then your hands are close to useless. You can still upset your opponent's balance even having bad posture, but only if their posture is worse. Which is a losing strategy. You want to have good posture. Not learning good neutral posture is setting yourself up for failure. You want to actually have skill and awareness and be better than your opponent. Not just suck less than they do. Also, Tai Chi as a practice is not different from Tai Chi Chuan. That's just lazy word dropping. Tai Chi exercise would be Tai Chi kung. Or Taijigong. It's still the same thing, only chuan is practice for martial intent and kung is practiced just for exercise. Or kung could be practiced for something much deeper -- inside your body, or inside your spirit, if you're into that. The Tai Chi is the great vastness, the sum total energy cycling in the cosmos. The universal energy is not static. It is ever moving and changing. Universal energy is never created or destroyed. It can only ever morph and change shape. It is never excessive nor insufficient. Universal energy is always perfectly in balance. It is perfectly fluid, and it resolves without delay or hesitation. The Tai Chi is all powerful. But it is not a god. It simply is. The Tai Chi is the realization of the laws of nature, born in the timeless and intangible void, made real, tangible and current. The Tai Chi fist is like the cosmic Tai Chi. It is never an inch too long, nor an inch too short. The position is always exact. The Tai Chi fist is always balanced and neutral. It is never beholden to external forces. They flow around it, the pressure resolves immediately, and without hesitation. The Tai Chi fist never gets stuck. It always flows onward, thru or past any barrier, and it always maintains it's internal balance. Always able to change on a dime. Perfectly in tune with the mechanics and laws of nature. That is the way of the Tai Chi fist.
Thank you for continuing to keep an open mind and experience Chinese martial arts! Fun fact, 5:49 looks like son of Zheng Manqing Style Taijiquan master William CC Chen, former US Wushu Sanda Team member and World Wushu Championships bronze medalist Maximillion "Max" Chen in the yellow shirt and sash, who you also were commentating Sanda with at the HYX 16th World Wushu Championships! You may also be interested in this video featuring Mario Napoli, who is the only foreigner to beat the Chinese at Chenjiagou (陈家沟； Chénjiāgōu) or Chen Village in tuishou (推手; tuīshǒu, push hands) competition, and is highly complimentary of sumo: ua-cam.com/video/8DoALugInQw/v-deo.htmlsi=wo0uEdTj1MSh_bk4
Funny you mentioned Toph, my father was the martial arts choreographer for the character. Toph's movements are based on Chu Ka Southern Praying Mantis.
Looks like a very nice compliment to Sumo. It's like, the Aikido version of Sumo, much more nuance. So, I undestand why Seth wants more, as this is a very realistic and purposeful form of grappling. Never heard if it before Seth, thanks for the introduction.
I am lucky enough to have found aTaiji teacher who has had good training including power generation. It isn't just for uprooting. The short power hits like a hammer and makes you feel yhe force all the way through your body, Nasty and effective
I spent 10 years from 20 t0 30 learning Yang Style with Chen principles and focus plus 10 years of Wing Chun at the same time. The previous 10 years was Judo and Boxing. At the age of 30, I started a 15 year career in Security/Bouncing in pubs and clubs. I still have all my teeth and good looks, guess it paid off! Tai Chi Chuan is close in stand up grappling with control techniques and some short punches and kicks. Think old school jujitsu with Aikido.
LOL I like how you got called out this whole video and realized why in the editing. I would've done the same thing. Man I love this. You are bringing back the old style philosophy of martial arts. Being a skill practitioner going to other schools. Not to disrespect. But to learn. And help the class learn going against a differently skill opponent. And you can tell the Sifu of this dojo realizes that as you stay with the lesson. While giving you the challenge you came for.
Gotta say...I'm disappointed you didn't learn the no-knockout style of taichi... JK - I love the amount of respect you give to other styles, and even incorporating PRINCIPLES of each style into your overall philosophy of martial arts. Especially the way you approach push hands and drills around 4:00-5:00.
I did Tai Chi for about 10 years the one where you're in the park. I also do Mauy Thai. One day our Mauy Thai coach starts showing us some things at a range our guys have a bit trouble with. I recognised the way he was moving his hands etc as Tai Chi almost push hands.
@SenseiSet there's a more explicit connection between the slow movements seen in "Park Tai Chi" and Combat Tai Chi, I mean like Bunkai in Karate, Tai Chi has also martial applications. If you like Sumo maybe you should check Shuai Jiao aka Chinese Wrestling, kinda mix between Sumo and Judo. Tai Chi has lots of martial applications common to Shuai Jiao. Besides that there's also Tai Chi fighting set, a two men form wich focus on striking, it even includes punching and kicking.
Well done, many people totally misunderstand tai chi. You have shown tuishou like it shoulds be. A split second movement to instantly bump or uproot anyone. To be that is the pinnacle of martial arts, when uprooted the opponent has little ability to attack, less ability to defend, and they become entirely focused on resetting In short this creates the gap, the point where you win.
Chin Na applications as the instructor showed can reduce the wrestling component. There are more than hip/foot imbalances. Great vid. Thanks for sharing 👊🏾😎👍🏼
Most of Kung Fu styles that look like people are just waving around with their limbs and dancing around have actually lots of wrestling elements in them. It kinda is overlooked and the purpose of many techniques maybe got forgotten but yeah, Kung Fu is actually MMA, they mix striking with grappling. Its sad that it got that reputation it has now but its definitely worth and interesting to rediscover the purpose of the styles. Great Video!
Literally what I've been taught by Master Han. He is now on San Diego but I trained with him on Skokie IL. Am one of his Disciples. We have been to Chen Village was an amazing experience. Am a Sifu in Green Dragon Chi Tao Chuan and Chen Tai Chi took my training to a different level. It amplifies whatever you already know. Thank to all my Teachers. Teach at EBC in Chicago,9 yrs.
I have only been in 1 Kung Fu gym, but they were very interested in their history. In case you are wondering, it was 3 generations from Yip man, which means absolutely nothing in reality.. Even the worst students of these masters can still claim they were trained by them. It is still good that they care about the history of their art though. That is to be respected.
That sweating from doing almost nothing, is chi working, Chi Gong (氣工) in Chinese. Chi Gong is actually mental work, you put your focus on where is should be, and the body follow the focus.
One of my theatrical college professors taught us taichichuan as part of our kinesthetic training. The purpose was not only to build stamina, balance, and fine motor control, but change our fundamental way of thinking from a results-oriented immediacy towards an in-the-moment mindfulness that let us be more receptive of our surroundings and aware of our impulses. Training your body to be more focused on the here and now also makes your mind a better listener and communicator.
I am glad we are in the era of mutual respect. Thank you Seth for these videos. About ten years ago I met a Tai Chi teacher from China through my trainer who is a sword collector.....anyway this Tai chi master teaches blind people in China. We did some light sparring with him. Our system is Chinese indonesian kung fu that emphasizes rolling, falling, sweeps and throws. He used a lot less energy on us to get us off balance. I think Tai Chi is great and I know it's influence is in our style. Anyway thank you for these videos
I like it.. My dad used to do Tai Chi, maybe i will follow in my dad's footsteps.. It's a nice a sport and he got quite good at it, with pushing hands, i couldn't push him away, neither did i had any grip on him, he just... shifted all my directional power away from him, it was quite impressive.
I wish there were more tai chi classes like this around. I did Chen tai chi for years, but it was always a struggle getting to practice push hands because most people weren't there for that. It has been amazingly useful in Muay Thai clinching since I started doing that.
When you can connect with your opponants energy i feel like that is when you've really conquered fighting. This style seems to be a great way to do it. Thx for sharing this!
"The most body conserving of all the martial arts".. That's actually a very accurate description... Also that "tai chi teacher" is very top heavy, tiny calves... big bicepts... opposite physique of what real tai chi develops. TBH you move in more of a tai chi manner than he does and if you assumed a very low stance, similar to your sumo training, he would gas quickly. Students very unrooted... A lot of people teaching chinese martial arts realize that they need to teach tai chi as well to get students...
I appreciate that Sifu Chris is doing this in a combative way while also being realistic about what tai chi chuan can and can't do. A lot of people, even ones who train in a live, realistic fashion like this get caught up in the 'woo' of it - I've seen legitimate comments from people claiming that judo throws don't work against tai chi practicioners because "tai chi rooting" makes them impossible to throw. Come on, now.
Absolutely amazing. The nuances of tai chi are so cool, and of course it even has a sumo connection, should we be surprised?! So dope. Would love to see Seth’s daily sumo training.
Pretty good demo. IMO the thing makes Tai chi work combatively is the ability to hone both softness and viciousness simultaneously and then the ability to escalate them both quickly and dramatically. I've mostly seen Tai chi work well when honed with extreme vicious intent overwhelming an opponent suddenly and conclusively off first contact, very difficult to hone and master, but understand why it was considered the ultimate martial art
Tai Chi litterally describes the boundary between Yin and Yang, in this sense mainly soft and hard, and that transition from soft to hard and back, and application of both soft and hard, is the philosophical essence of which the martial art Tai Chi Chuan is a manifestation.
I constantly astonished that no matter what style, Sensei Seth finds a teacher that can actually show how it works. I find it wild that some of the traditional styles are now seen as useless when they must have been very useful back in the day; I remember thinking this when I learned that White Crane techniques found it's way into many different styles of martial arts (kung fu, karate and I think tai chi as well) but I look at it now and I have no idea how people saw White Crane and thought it was insanely revolutionary and had to flourish immediately. But there MUST have been something to this older styles, I don't think they lived on pure hype back in the days of constant lei tai challenges.
Tai chi is a fighting art , style , martial art .push hands just part of it . Hitting , striking , wrestling, all part of it ..hard push hands , essential , hard striving on bag 💼 etc is essential. Sparring is essential, realistic sparring is essential . Just slow soft form is on,y part of Taichi
Love your videos man. I have a background in Tai Chi and Ba Gua and I've been meditating consistently for about a decade now, and I have a theory as to why it is practiced very...very...slowly.. Extremely slow, fluid motions combined with breathing can enter you into a meditative state where you can truly feel energy around you and your opponent on a subtler level. I think the old Chinese practitioners knew this (the concept of Chi).
Josh Waitzkin introduced push hands to Marcelo Garcia and you can see some elements of it when Marcelo initially ties up to grip fight. It's a great tool to develop tactile sensitivity which applies to all martial arts. Clinch work in muay Thai...hand trapping...etc. Tai chi as a stand alone in my opinion is more similar in restorative utility as something like yoga but with more circular and continuous movements rather than linear static movements. Just another tool in the tool bag!
I have to comment, after many years doing full contact 'punchy-kicky' stuff I still had an open mind and would seek other styles/serious people to learn from them if I could? Sometimes I met absolute 'arseholes' who had many stripes on a belt and were happy to take money from people who actually thought they were learning something? I once got so angry that I battered 'sensei seven dan' out of his own dojo, no I'm not proud but he richly deserved it.The balance of that was that I met so very many genuine people and even a few 'warriors'. One thing that remains with me to this day, a Tai Chi guy deliberately circling his head to hide the devastating blow coming behind it? This is the opposite of 'telegraphing'. My total respect to all who train, lying there on the ground, half sparko.,looking at a ceiling and thinking 'I am paying for this?' Get up. go again! Blood sweat and tears, nothing can compare!
Tai chi is more about feeling the energy flowing through your body and hands, than just using physical force, like in other martial arts. Same with aikido. O-Sensei Ueshiba Morihei practiced a lot of meditation exactly for this reason: to awaken kundaliny shakti. Is the only martial arts master who had samadhi (satori in Japanese). he had it at manipura chakra level, while yoga masters, who had samadhi, had it at anahata chakra level or higher.
The push-hands as a game, ive done at my first mma gym. Predominately in the wingchun class we had, and sometimes outside of class for fun. I even changed aspects like, one guy only fists and the other open hands, or on a box, or 1 open hand, 1 closed hand, etc. It was fun and i think it definitely helped my overall training.
I remember my first tai chi class back in college and it was like "okay here's how you uwatenage" and when I complained that I *knew* that was a sumo move he yoritoashied me out the front door.
Tai Chi has brought Seth one step closer to Sumo replacing Karate as his base.
That, giving his build and his football upbringing, makes pretty much sense
I practice sumo 100x more than I practice karate these days
Sumo is low-key GOAT 🐐
Wrestling or Sumo seems a better base in general.
A ton of situations end up in the clinch.
Seth also showed how usefull Sumo is in self defense situations etc during the self defense championships.
Being able to throw people or run them into walls, furniture, other people, trip them over curbs etc while stopping them from doing it to you is kinda handy.
Honestly, getting good with push hands like this would probably be really good for sumo.
As a Tai Chi Instructor for over 40 years and a FMA Teacher who has worked with many MMA Fighters and Martial Artist, this is exactly what Tai Chi is and the way it should be practiced, but rarely is! Great Video!
conflating push hands with application?
@@Purwapada yes it might have been the context of the coach's explanation was lost in the editing. But there is a danger with Push Hands that it becomes something of a circus trick. Too much focus on not being moved and confusing Push Hands with wrestling (a valid training, bit it's not Push Hands) and it's definitely not fighting, a bit like a football (soccer) player who practices ball juggling but never actually plays the real game.
@@steveforde7475 yes well said
@@steveforde7475 - yeah, to me it looked like what I would consider a deca dena (chaining/back-and-forth) loose drill, designed to emphasize and train one aspect of an art. In the Memorization/Integration/Application model of learning, Push Hands looks to be the Integration aspect.
The instructor did mention more applications: ie, the discussion of locking up with underhoods vs. just punching the guy, for example. And this may be one reason why Seth was doing so well - in addition to being a generally well-trained marital artist, he may have a tendency to go for more wrestling or sumo techniques....which works to score points (or win, in this case), but doesn't necessarily train the underlying skill that the drill/game is supposed to. Which is a limitation of the ruleset, I would imagine: it's there to train Push Hands, but wrestling techniques actually work better in that context to achieve the stated goal of the drill. And the actual martial art techique that you would use against a wrestler (push off and punch) isn't allowed in the drill, so there's a tendency to use the technique that works, as opposed to the ones you're supposed to be practicing.
Nah, the people in the video have absolutely no clue about Taijiquan.
I took a couple of years of Tai Chi instruction from a not-quite-elderly woman several years back. It was mostly focused on the exercise component but we did push hands occasionally. After class one evening, I asked her if she could show me one or two of the martial applications of the form we were learning. She absolutely rag-dolled me. It's no joke.
Screenshot or it didn't happen
its absolutely a joke, you just suck
yup ti chi xian is extremely similar to jiujitsu or karate.
This will be an unpopular opinion, but you (Seth) are doing the tai chi right. The instructor was wrong to stop you with the wrestling clinches and Uchi matas. These moves are all in the Tai Chi form. This group is 70 percent there but Tai Chi is even closer to MMA, Judo and Sumo than you think it is
Same! My Mandarin tutor was an elderly woman who taught Tai Chi classes with the Mandarin speaking local community. She took me to class with her so I could be around more native speakers. Those tiny old ladies threw me around like a rag doll-- after a brutal leg workout. Glad people are out there showing how rough it really can be!
Hard to argue with anything that improves balance, strength, range of motion and awareness of what your opponent is doing. Thank you for sharing this journey with us Seth,
Real Taijiquan also just involves playing with your opponent's balance while your opponent tries to mess with yours. In Judo, I've heard that called the "kuzushi game." Play the kuzushi game enough and you'll be ragdolling people in Judo.
@@rabiesbiter5681yup, being trained in tia chi xian is as good as being a judo blackbelt. judo has unique techniques but the fundamentals are unparalleled in tai chi
This will be an unpopular opinion, but you (Seth) are doing the tai chi right. The instructor was wrong to stop you with the wrestling clinches and Uchi matas. These moves are all in the Tai Chi form. This group is 70 percent there but Tai Chi is even closer to MMA, Judo and Sumo than you think it is
Traditional taijiquan training is no joke, i went through it when i was younger, living with Sifu studying taiji style boxing. Retired now with teeth like a bucket of smashed crabs, healed broken ribs ( from training). It was brutal and there is a big difference between indoor learning and public, or there was back then. I worked a a bouncer in gogo bars in southern thailand, all i had was my taijiquan and i never needed anything else. Those that mock taijiquan have never been hit with the real thing.
Who was your sifu?
@PaMuShin
I don’t know what kind of tai chi you practice if you never sweat. Maybe you were dancing. Many years ago, I read an article about tai chi in a martial arts magazine. The gist of it stayed with me: "It doesn’t matter what style you do. Just, do your form. If you're not sweating at the end of it, do it again. Repeat until you are sweating."
He speaks of energy and liquid conservation through exhalation. This is often the result of medition in motion, also known as a state of zen.
Learning proper breathing techniques and focus allow you to sweat much less during training and recover from adrenaline/nerves. Ironically, this carries over into everyday life.
@PaMuShin Thanks for your reply. Thanks for your advice. I'm not sure how you conclude that I spend my time eating donuts and reading magazines, based on a quote from a magazine article I read more than 3 decades ago. Towards the end of next year, it will be 5 decades since my tai chi journey began.
Do you just read books or do you practice some form of tai chi?
@PaMuShin
Again thank you for your replies. You don't know anything about me - nor I you. Maybe you should think about it. Maybe what you think you know is wrong. If you have to work to sweat or are exhausted after your practice whatever it is that you're doing has nothing in common with my practice. Most people, that I practice with, report feeling energized after practice. Some complain that they can't practice at night because they won't be able to sleep if they do. The goal of my practice is to maintain quality of life as I age. I'm just over 6 feet tall and weigh 168 pounds - a great improvement the sickly 138 pound student who returned to tai chi practice four decades ago after foolishly quitting for six years. I'm extremely grateful for the gift of health my teacher gave me, through many hours of supervising my practice and guiding my training.
You suggest I rudely opined on you ignorant statement that you should not sweat doing tai chi. I suggest you don't pontificate if you don't want to be challenged.
I am a Taijiquan practicioner myself and this is exactly what Taijiquan is. Everything else people usually think of when they think of Taijiquan is also a part of this art but they also heavily relate to Tuishou. In Taolu/form training you develop body awareness, fluid motion, mind-bidy-connection, breath application and relaxed, heavy body.
☯ As a Practitioner of Taijiquan sine 90's, I'm happy to see Seth keeping an open mind about this very Experiential Kinesthetic Art. I'd strongly suggest he tries the other 2 main Soft Forms, Hsing Yi & Baguaquan.
He could also try "liu he ba fa". The paradox of lhbf is that while it's claimed to predate the three better known "internal arts", it has elements of all three.
its cool to hear you speak about tai chi in a similar way to karate as overall a long game. Also Sifu Chris is a cool instructor. can't wait to see the uncut version if there will be one
Uploading it rn!
Connected to this,you may want to look at Armwrestling,Devon Larrat promotes a variant similar to Japanese Arm Sumo. You may find more similarities with Tai Chi.
Seth been watching you for 4 years now and your content just keeps getting better and better. Its gotten to the point that you're absolutely my favourite UA-camr on the platform and I insta click any new video you post! Keep smashing it!
Appreciate you 🙏🙏
Taiji 11 years, Bagua 10 years, with bits of cross training and sparring (Shuaijiao, BJJ, Boxing, Kickboxing) throughout here: It's sad to see the folks in here reflexively rejecting this practice. These attitudes are what hold Taiji practice back from greater legitimacy and practice as a part of combat arts.
It's true that there are much softer, more subtle push hands practices, and they definitely have their place in skillbuilding. But the intermediate and higher-intensity ones are critical bridges to actually being able to use those skills *for anything.*
The people saying "These people don't know what Taiji really is" or some variation are generally the ones who can't actually do anything with what they've learned.
The birthplace of Taichi is not Chen village. Chen village is the birthplace of Chen Style Taichi. The original Taichi birthplace is Wudang Mountain where Taoist Monk Zhang Sanfeng set up shop to create what we know today as Taichi
There may indeed be a link between TaiJi Push Hands and Sumo.
In ancient China there was a combat sport called XiangPu and written as 相扑 ("pounce at each other").
Yes, those are the same characters used to write Sumo nowadays.
XiangPu was roughly similar to Sumo, except with less emphasis on body size.
According to a Japanese sports encyclopedia, Sumo originated from Tang Dynasty China. It's highly likely that this "original Sumo" was referring to XiangPu, or a variant of it. (an even older name for XiangPu was JiaoDi, 角抵，”horn butting", referring to its origin myth)
Later, XiangPu got subsumed into ShuaiJiao (摔跤，modern Chinese word for wrestling),
but (here's my speculation: )
a primitive form of XiangPu may have been adopted by the early developers of TaiJi as their main sparring style,
and then renamed firstly as DaShou (打手, "hit hands") and then TuiShou (推手，“push hands").
(of course, the sparring can also include non-wrestling type attacks)
Hence why you feel that Push Hands principles are so intimately applicable to Sumo. :)
Also why passerbies often have difficulty distinguishing between ShuaiJiao, Push Hands and Sumo techniques.
It looks like they overlap ... because they do! :)
If anything, it's technically correct to say that you're practicing Taiji ShuaJiao (太极摔跤)。
It's like the term Aiki-Jujutsu.
The first term (Aiki) is the ideal you're following, the 2nd term (Jujutsu) is the sport/skill you're applying it to.
As the Shifu in the video has explained, the term TaiJi by itself refers to the general concept.
TaiJi-Quan (太极拳，“TaiJi Fist") refers to the martial art you're applying it to.
Was going to say the same thing, but you said it far better than I ever could 👍
There is no relation between Taiji Push Hands and Sumo. This instructor has no understanding of Taiji training & Push Hands. All these aggressive shoving and throwing is San Da.
The man responsible for the mainstream perception of tai chi as moving meditation is Cheng Man-ch'ing, who took the tradition to Taiwan when he escaped the communist revolution. Cheng Man-ch'ing mostly abandoned the harsh, martial training methods that tai chi used to have in common with the authentic traditional Chinese martial arts that were forgotten in the wake of the revolution. He's also credited with bringing tai chi to the attention of the West when he moved to New York and taught there. Thus it is his version of tai chi that the English-speaking world is mostly aware of.
And yet his lineage has produced some very formidable push hand players. Mario Napoli went to China and wiped the floor with the Chen village guys. Josh Waitzkin won the push hand championship in Taiwan
Never knew this, interesting af
Yes, also the meaning of Tai Chi Chuan is something like "Supreme Ultimate Fist". I studied Kung Fu in China, not Tai Chi but a lot at my school and friends were involved with that, and with the old chinese masters of for example Wudangshan, and also Sun Style Tai Chi. Basically what I learned is that the old school Tai Chi in China is extremely violent, deadly and efficient when applied, but these are different variants of the style than the one you mentioned, and that the west is aware of.
@@JonathanJMusic "also the meaning of Tai Chi Chuan is something like 'Supreme Ultimate Fist'"
IMO that name does more harm than good. It encourages pretension and mysticism
@@ShredST I completely agree.
Just because it's two characters does not mean it is two words.
Some Chinese words are composed of multiple characters.
So far the best translation for TaiJiQuan that I have come across is "Polarity Boxing".
tai chi looks soft as hell until you see folks who know what they're doing uprooting people and tossing them like pizza dough
Especially Chen Taichi. They have such a strong base and can quickly move their weight around.
INTERNAL CHI.
@@david9180 oh please don't do the silly martial art "wot am bestest" thing...
@@david9180because?
Mmmhm... Pizza dough!
Push hands was my favorite. Over time it definitely helped develop sensitivity to being grabbed, pushed/pulled. In our moving step practice, sifu would allow us to use chin na and slaps to the face. Good video as always!
Love this! It’s so cool how respectful you are and how make a point of finding legit instructors.
Looking forward to a future push hands competition win! 🥇
Love seeing someone give Tai Chi a real chance instead of dismissing it as something for the grandparents in the park. So much more than that! Hopefully we see a part 2 as you explore it even more?? 🤞
@david9180 haha 😄 that's one way to look at it!
@@david9180 "By the time I'm forty, I'll be the worlds most dangerous cripple."
Tai Chi exists as a vitally important supplimental art, that allows the users of harder, striking based arts to both avoid and recover from injuries. Also additional conditioning is useful
Excellent, Seth, I’m glad you’ve found push hands. I hope more people find this aspect of tai chi, it’s dying to the philosophy and the health practices… it also bleeds into Sanda as well, it’s all part of the same thing
Normally Tai Chi Sifu start people out by teaching the forms of Tai Chi (this what I’ve read and experienced other martial arts I have done) and that would be more of what Seth was expecting. He jumped into combative tai chi and dealt with the finished product.
I'm sure he had heard of them. Combative Tai Chi places are rare
yang style and it's descendants is mostly changquan with errors like "double heavy". It became especially corrupted by being promoted as qi gong which appeals to hippies.
Real Tai chi comes from creating rotations from pivots which is extremely difficult to do. no hippie stuff
Excuse me
Wuxia novels tell me Qigong can move mountains
@@koraegi lol
The hell does that mean. Rotation by definition occurs around a pivot.
@@GabrielAKAFinn By making a pivot tai chi establishes a point on the body which remains fixed, (not moving in horizontal space), while the other parts align in relation to that fixed point, this creates rotation by means of continuous leverage.
I'm currently practicing under Yang style and I agree with what you say :)
Sadly, in the Taiji community in general,
a lot of these true principles are rarely explained to students when they're starting out. :|
Instead, they're told to practice in a certain way and expected to "eventually develop what needs to be developed".
Or they're given instructions that describe a desired effect but aren't really helpful to the beginner.
e.g. asking the student to "maintain structure" in the face of external force (e.g. a push from the training partner)
Technically, the instruction is not wrong, but what tends to happen is that the student misunderstands what the purpose of that "structure" is, and uses it to resist the external force (when the main point should be to maintain his/her balance), resulting in "double heavy".
While I'm at it, there's also instructions like "feel your opponent's feet through the contact point" or "redirect your opponent's force into the ground" etc etc.
Again, technically those are not wrong, but what often ends up happening is that the student misunderstands what "feel" and "redirect" mean, and instead try to *do* stuff to create those effects, resulting in unnecessary tension, again leading to a subtle form of "double heavy".
"Sticky hands" (push hands) with one or both hands and "sticky sticks" the same thing with a staff/stick. Haven't done this for years, brings back good memories, thank you!
When the Tai chi concepts are applied properly, it’s not just “old man kung fu”, it has plenty of good explanations and techniques that lead to grappling; it can improve anyone’s martial arts. It helped me with sparring in my Goju Ryu
For more tai chi knowledge, check out Coach Niko who focuses on tai chi push hands
Tai Chi is not just limited to Grappling. It has one of the highest potentials of Lethal level Striking abilities... called "Fajin" (Short range, explosive power). A Masterclass level fighter in the Internal Arts, should find it very easy to KO any fighter, with a mere fraction of his output.. and with less than 6 inches of travel. At full potentials... he should have the ability to cause internal Ruptures within the OPs body... with only a mere inch or two of runway.
I, myself, mastered Fajin expression. To date, Ive KO'd 4 different disrespecful fighters, using a short range vertical punch to their foreheads. I used less than 6 inches of travel, and never used anything more than about 15% of what I was capable of generating / delivering. 3 of these guys were Blackbelt fighters in Jujitsu, at their Open-House sparring event. The other fighter, was a mix of Capoeira, and Kook Sul Won (A Korean blend of TKD and Kung Fu).
Tai Chi tends to use open palms, in an "Explosive Push" format, for demos, and to be "Nice" to their training partners. However, Fajin expression, is used in Actual combat application... not "Pushes". It seems like a lot of Tai Chi practitioners, dont even know this... which may boil down to certain lineages, or teachers.. choosing not to teach this aspect of the art (or it being lost in these certain branches). Of course Fajin isnt only in Tai Chi. Its supposed to be within pretty much all Chinese combat arts... usually taught last, and often only taught to the most skilled and Trusted of students. Its sort of an Open-Secret of all Chinese artforms. It sounds unrealistic to most... and unless you have taken a Fajin hit from a Master of it... most will never believe / understand... and think its mere delusional fantasy.
@@johndough8115 stop writing long cringe paragraphs
@@johndough8115That…is not…how…physics…and musculature…works…
Chinese Wrestling originally looked very much like what later developed into Sumo. Shirtless “Shanxi Style” (No Jacket) competition still retains some of that. In Baoding “Combat” Style it’s called the basic / “Bull Fighting” stage. Tai Chi retains it too, but most ppl like to deny that aspect exists.
Toph from Avatar is based on the style Southern Mantis, which is a Hakka style of Kungfu. People who survived a lot of conflict. It features probably even more extensive sensitivity and listening drills than Tai Chi and Wing Chun combined. Except… the training is way Way WAY more practical, and violent lol. Most people quit just from the body conditioning, alone. Think… boxing medicine ball training, except it’s person conditioning you. Damn near full-blast. Back and forth. And yet you’re training Timing. And THEN you do your sensitivity drilling. When your body, and arms are already damn-tired.
"I've never sweat from moving so slowly" that's fuckin' it man. you get strong in muscles you didn't even know you had.
Dude, your channel is amazing. It encapsulates the joy of studying martial arts. I feel like a lot of content creators and athletes have this missing these days. Thanks for that man!
Tai Chi is Kung Fu (skill developed through practice), it's just an "internal" system, different way of learning but just like any traditional martial art, it has punches, kicks, throws, joint locks. Big emphasis on sensitivity and Qi Gong, good for your health and development.
I like Chen Tai Chi, more explosive movements and good forms.
There are more cool internal systems to explore out there!
I prefer Yang for it's ability to generate power from stillness. Same Jins as the later stage Chen but less visible to the observing eye and the opponent.
Awesome!, I've practiced more Yang than Chen, but I like both, and they are very close relatives. Since I mainly train Northern Shaolin, I like the explosive movements of Chen. I also know a little Bajiquan form and enjoy it a lot!, thanks for sharing your thoughs!
I wanted to get into Chen since before I even knew it existed. I had only ever done Yang on and off for years but always instinctively wanted to do incorporate a more explosive style into it. And then one day someone showed me what Chen looked like. This was a "House" style so I'm sure how similar it is to mainstream Chen... but the guy demonstrating it looked and moved like Bruce F***ing Lee. It was perfect! Only by that time I was already well over 40 and my current sifu was into his 60's and his age was making it less and less likely I would ever get a chance to learn it. And of course it was WAY too hardcore for anyone else in the class to be interested in. So it never came to pass. Damn. I wish I could go back in time and could have gotten private classes on that. One of my big regrets in life.
@@4saken404 I hope you get to practice it!, you could try baji quan, which is "similar". you could find some basic forms and practice them, legend says Yang Luchang lived in Chen Jia Gou, he copied the movements and from that he created his style (Yang), so if he can do it you can watch some videos and practice!
That was great !
When I was practicing a bit of aikido back in the day, some "random" old guy ( who I was told, was even better then the instructor but wouldn't assume the teacher's role ) took me appart from the other guys and made me practice this hand pushing thing. I learned a lot in just two or three sessions.
What a boss this guy was.
This episode made me remember all that.
Cool stuff - David Chin delivered the challenge letter to Bruce Lee that became the Wong Jack Man fight. Chris has probably heard what actually happened since David Chin was one of the few people to witness the fight.
I also studied Guang Ping Yang Style Taiji under Henry Look's line - another Kuo Lien-ying student.
This is why they practice Mabu or the Horse Stance, for those who can stick it, as it roots you strongly to the ground and makes it difficult for the opponent to uproot you. Good video.
THANK YOU! Yes, there is value to the forms. Doing the forms without doing Tuishou is like buying shoes, taking the box home and leaving the shoes behind. The forms aren't about moving your hands. Your body does 95 percent of the actual movement and your hands/arms do very little. The forms help you learn the body mechanics, the pushing hands helps you learn how to apply it to keeping your own balance and taking away someone else's. When you learn that, then things like hitting people and taking them to the ground all just kinda fall together. A push is just a hit without impact after all.
4:13 is really interesting to me. We do this drill in my Karate school when we train elbow strikes or joint locks. Basically anything that you whould use if you are to close to strike someone with your fist. It really helps you to develope a sense for controling someone elses arms.
The Push Hands by itself could be a really useful skill for wrestling in general,for self defence and competition. I am also interested in their body bumping strikes,or shoulder strikes.
I'm guessing this is not the type of Tai Chi that the "masters" in China tried to use against MMA fighter Xu Xiaodong. This one looks like it might have some practical applications in a fight, as opposed to the type that takes place in a park. That's not to say that park Tai Chi doesn't provide some benefit to its practitioners, as I'm sure it helps with breathing, mindfulness, and a form of mobile meditation. Either way, I definitely learned something from this video, and I was thoroughly entertained, so that's all I can ask for in a Sensei Seth video.
Correct. All those "masters" received their certification from the government. They are cultural/tourist assets, not real martial artists, who have never sparred. This video shows a much better application of tai chi.
Those "masters" were magicians, not martial artists. Those videos should be titled "MMA vs man who pretends to know Tai chi"
park taichi is more like yoga than wrestling.
Slow motion training, is very beneficial to Specialized Strength Developments, such as Developing super strong Tendons. However, its only ONE part of this Combat art. Tai Chi, has all elements ranges of combat. From long distance interceptions, to short range strikes, standing grappling... locks... and throws... as well as like +10 different Weapons (Swords, Staffs, Spears, and many more).
Additionally, the special breathing aspects... help to create far greater bloodflow circulation, which creates a very different type of tissue / muscles.. and you also get faster and more robust Healing, on top of all of this.
Also, the Brain starts to generate new neuron connections... which greatly expands your Bodily positional Awareness, as well as your External Spatial 3D awareness (taking it to a whole other level of abilities).
If you want to see a small example of how challenging Slow Motion training can be... Start by doing simple pushups. Do one set, at full speed, until failure. Then a day or two later... Try doing a set in slow-motion. At least 7 seconds down, and 7 seconds up... until failure (no rests between. just a nonstop controlled movement, through the entire session).
You will notice, that you will only be able to do a Fraction of the number of pushups, when doing them slowly. This is partially because when you do them fast, you are using gravity... allowing yourself to fall without resisting much... then you are relying on a Momentum Cheat, to help get you back Up. When you slow things down, you cant just let yourself drop instantly.. nor do you have any momentum, to help raise you. As such, your muscles (and tendons) are constantly being Challenged, throughout the Entire Range of Motion. You will develop much greater strength along the Entire path of travel. You will also start to develop stronger joints and tendons... since more time is spent challenging them.
In Tai Chi's standing version... you have your arms away from your body for almost an entire hours worth of time (the typical minimal amount of time, spend doing these forms, to gain serious benefits). One of the keys to gaining the proper development while doing these forms... is to try to relax your muscles to the point where your body is almost about to go limp... and fall to the floor, like a pile of Jello. This minimal amount of Muscle efforts, causes your tendons and other tissues, as well as your bone structures, to take up much more of the STRESSES (Work). As such, you start to develop Super-Strong Tendons and other Strong / Density tissues + bones.
These strong (yet flexible) tendons, can create a sort of Super-Human like strength. Even much larger and stronger fighters, will have difficulty in moving you.. and or, in them trying to Bend your Posture into a point of weakness / failure. They allow you to also use your tendons.. sort of like Springs... where you can absorb the OPs energy without Uprooting you... and then COLLECT his mass-energy, charging up your "Springs"... and finally you can Release that Stored up energy... to uproot and send them Flying away (or, you can just use an explosive short range strike).
Xu Donger is nothing but a Chinese CCP Shill. Hes like the Gracies of China. The Gracies made False claims about fighting "Masters". Yet anyone with any decent amount of training in the arts, could EASILY see that none of these guys were Masters... and in fact, it was very easy to see, that they all were very Incompetent / clueless. The Gracies Cherry-Picked such Artists, because they wanted Easily Exploitable targets, for their Scam. They didnt want to actually risk getting injured (Or Ended), by high level / Masterclass level Fighters.
I personally would be able to take out XU, in less than 5 seconds flat (Permanently). I dont say that lightly, either. I have 30 years, spanning many different artforms... and Im used to fighting against FAR more skilled OPs. Many of which, make my skills pale in comparison. And let me tell you... if you think the UFC fighters are "Scary" ?! lol You have never seen, nor felt what its like... to spar against these dudes. There simply is no Comparison. A masterclass level fighter, only needs 2 inches of travel (or less), for example.. to generate enough power to cause Internal Ruptures within the Enemies body.
Also, a Masterclass level fighter, isnt fooled by simple Feint tactics, like the Gracices use to set up their Takedowns. In fact, I once attended an Open Sparring event at a Jujitsu school. Normally I dont use Damaging, or KO level forces... when I spar... But, if fighters show me open Disrespect... then I give them a small TASTE of what I typically hold back. These guys were all Blackbelts, and they clearly wanted to "Prove" themselves... via harming others intentionally. One of them started making funny faces, and funny noises... in a display of disrespect, when I went to spar against him. As such... I chose to knock him out, and two of their other Blackbelt fighter, right after dropping him. I used my mostly extended lead guard hand, with a vertical fist punch to their foreheads. I used less than 6 inches of travel... and I never used more than about 15% of what I was capable of delivering. They ALL tried the same feint tactics... such as feinting high, then trying to rush in for the low takedown. But Im a Masterclass level fighter, and we dont Fall for such Simplistic tricks. They were also all very lucky, that I ALLOWED them past my short range Oblique Kicks to their Kneecaps... without Incident. I only ever use such a kick once... at a fraction of the output.. and it put a fighter out of commission for an entire month. And I only did so.. because he said: "You, and Wing Chun... are Sh*T". After he healed up... he never fought against me the same way. He stayed as far away from me as possible... to the point of not really being effective at all. Before that point, he use to rush in like a freight train... and use his greater mass and strength, to try to drive me to the ground (often succeeding, because I refused to use crippling / KO level output. I also refused to play a Grapplers Game, to "change" my typical combat level responses... to suit a Sportized version of Sparring).
Anyway... Tai Chi has a lot of high level combat knowledge, and abilities. Its just rare that you can find a teacher that actually knows + is willing to teach you the actual full Combat Art. Its also such a deep art, that you will have to train it every single day, for several hours a day, to be able to develop all of these skillsets (which is a problem not only with Tai Chi, but all high level Combat arts). Since a lot of people are both Ignorant, and are lazy... most modern practitioners will never learn these arts... or... they just wont ever develop them to effective Masterclass levels of capabilities.
It mostly comes from the same place in name. I'm sure a lot of tai ji quan masters who can't fight will claim to be from a certain lineage to appeal to authority and borrow legitimacy. Maybe they even actually trained in that lineage at some point. Maybe a few of them even sincerely believe their training gave them the keys to the fighting kingdom. But they lost the mental and physical training and mindset that makes for functional fighting skills. People who do tai ji in the park for health and wellness in their old age are generally learning a branch of tai ji that has deliberately deprioritized or even entirely abandoned the training of a fighting mindset.
But someone who can fight well using tai ji quan is someone who can fight well. Tai ji quan just happens to be the means of expression they happen to use. Seth kind of touched on this when he related his impression of tai ji to sumo and any other kind of wrestling.
Without fight-focused mindfulness in your training, any martial art can be turned into a laughingstock. Faff around doing push-ups, and you get bad push-ups. Faff around doing martial arts, and you get bad martial arts. It's just a skill, and skills are just tools that can be used well or badly depending on the person.
This applies to any martial art that's gone through phases of popularity, being watered down, used by well-intentioned but misguided practitioners, used by deliberately misleading charlatans, etc. How many krav maga people actually have the mindset and capability of an IDF spec ops soldier? How many capoeiristas know how to use the spirit of the malandro to trick, deceive, and mislead? How many tae kwon do tournament point fighters also train strikes with power and followthrough?
Some do, many don't. Because the vast majority of people who pay for martial arts classes don't have to confront the real and likely possibility of personal violence, so they bring a lot of cognitive biases and preconceptions with them into their training, and they are rarely disabused of these misconceptions by the harsh reality of an actual confrontation. Like, for decades sometimes.
A capable fighter is probably going to have one or more of these qualities or experiences: being hit harder than they expected, dealing with adrenaline dumps, knowing how to lose and go again, knowing how to learn, adaptability, listening (through physical contact, as mentioned in this video for tai ji), a balance of judiciousness and assertiveness/aggression, accepting that the world is a bigger place than any one person and there's almost always going to be someone you can beat and someone you can't beat, knowing your current limits but being willing to push and expand those limits. A lot of people say that these experiences give rise to humility and wisdom and this often does happen, but that's not a hard requirement for becoming a capable fighter.
There are more common or universal traits to good fighters that you can add to the list.
You are a great ambassador and martial arts educator. I'm glad you went out there, had a good time and shared it.
Also glad you made the comparison to Sumo. Lots of Tai Chi people hate that 😅 but wrestling is wrestling and it's just a question of how it integrates into bigger cultural and martial contexts.
Taiji is not wrestling
@@LogosFlow I've been practicing Taiji since 1983 including 4 years in China. Taiji is mostly stand-up grappling, and grappling is wrestling.
Yes there are differences between Taiji and any other specific wrestling style, but wrestling is still wrestling.
Shuai jiao is wrestling, jiujitsu is wrestling, Gouren is wrestling, Bok is wrestling, Burri is wrestling, Judo is wrestling, and Taiji is also wrestling (if not just wrestling).
The majority of peple who say Taiji is not wrestling do not see wrestling as the extremely sophisticated and fundamental human behaviour that it is.
@@EdwardH Wrestling doesn't teach you swords and spears, Taiji does, or at least it's part of the system. Agreed, wrestling/grappling is fundamental and also part of the basis of taijiquan, but wouldn't you say that if you thought of taijiquan as just grappling you'd be missing a lot? I think of Taiji as a battlefield martial art that had a spiritual awakening.
If you read my response to you I said that "Taiji is also wrestling if not just wrestling".
Honestly mad respect for this gym for pressure testing all the stuff they teach. Only that will sift through the bullshit. Super happy to see them train by fighting.
that's real taiji. but if you only saw people practicing the form, you wouldn't know it. that's the "bullshit" you're talking about.
My teacher used to say ‘mei lien tui shou, bu Yong gong.’ - If you don’t practice push hands, you won’t be able to use it, or you won’t have any gong, as in gong fu. Personally, I consider ‘tui shou’ a Chinese folk wrestling style system. And we wouldn’t expect any folk style wrestling system to walk into a UFC cage without a takedown, striking, or ground and pound game and dominating. However like a lot of wrestling, it can be an excellent base if taught correctly.
I also compare park taichi to Tui shou, like a cardio kickboxing class done once or twice a week at the YMCA to a Muay Thai gym in Bangkok where some has been training for years as a professional fighter/kickboxer.
Cardio kickboxing as well as park taichi, we’re both adapted and changed to meet the needs of people looking to keep in shape, or keep healthy. The long form in the Yang style mimics precisely that Tui shou range, e.g. arm drags, guillotines, rear naked chokes, etc. but most people misinterpret the forms as an outside range, like slow moving karate, and this is incorrect. If you slowed down an over under drill then separated from your partner at that continued speed by yourself, you would start to understand the true interpretation of the forms.
Appreciate the respect for Taijiquan! Sifu Des Jackson of Whirling Tiger Kung Fu (Gainesville, FL) will blow your mind. Oh, and the Mandarin for Pushhands is pronounced “Two-way Show.”
One of your best videos yet. Always good to see Sifu Chris.
Tai chi can be very combative. You learn the form but also its application. I would stand one leggged in arhat carries a cauldron for half an hour. Then do the other leg. Tai chi is pushing, pressing, drilling, throwing and strikes. Its still incorporated into bruce lees art jeet kune do. I learned basic moves of tai chi from jeet kune do then studied the art in full. In free sparring i used it often. You make it functional in sparring.
You can improve one inch punch stuff with tai chi as well. It's like people collected exercises that have a 'what the hell effect' and made it into a dance. It's misunderstood because it's so sacred, it's not a complete combat training system and it doesn't train you to throw magic fireballs but it's full of surprises.
Gojuryu Karate's Mawashi Uke is Chen style Taijiquan silk reeling. They also have push hands training, but it's called Kakie. They look different only because they developed separately from each other; with Gojuryu from Hokkien White Crane and Chen style Taijiquan from Northern Long Fist or Changquan.
You can also find sensitivity drills in both Japanese Jujutsu and Filipino Eskrima.
Thank you for finding a real taichi teacher, and not go in the first mcdojo you found. ^^
My teacher says partner work is 50% of taichi. not 5% or 10%, it's 50%. So a school that is doing close to 0% push hands is not a good taichi school.
Great that you found some folks doing the martial side of Taiji so that people can see it's not just dancing in the park. Though when you know how to do that "dance" the way it's supposed to be done, it's quite the challenge too =)
Speaking from personal experience, Taiji Quan does work if you know how to use it and with enough speed and timing. One time during kickboxing sparring I was sent flying backwards by a push kick. I knew that I couldn't just be passive and let my sparring partner force me where I wanted to go, so I had to counter. As he threw a roundhouse to my helmet I stepped in and somehow instinctively applied Lou Xi Ao Bu (搂膝拗步, Lift Knee and Front Step) by stepping forward with my lead foot and using the force of my advance to check him with my lead glove. He staggered backwards, then congratulated me on the move before we resumed sparring. It's hard to watch people say Taiji Quan doesn't work when they clearly don't know what they are looking at or have no experience training with people who actually know how to use it in sparring i.e. the young students in Henan province who enter Tuishou/Sanda competitions.
Great video! Sifu Chris and Sifu Chin are truly excellent representatives of the complete art art of TaijiQuan.
I have been blessed to study under them both for many years.
This is pretty much exactly what it looks like every time someone finally feels real Tai Ji for the first time.
As you said yourself, time spent this way applies to every possible combat sport, and even to non violent environments.
Better quality movement and the ability to more easily sense someone else's intentions as they move are inarguably strong positions for Life.
The ultimate GPP
This is a better presentation of Tai Chi than I expected. It's still not what I want to see in terms of demystifying the art, but the teacher definitely has it in him, and he knows what he's doing internally.
I don't like that the structure in the pushhands went completely out the window when the free practice came in. That's not supposed to happen. That structure exists for a reason. The usage of the body, especially the middle and lower body is not being explained.
This is usually a problem with Yang style lineages. So I'm skeptical of how much was passed down to Chris from the Chen side of the art. He really looks, talks and moves like a Yang style guy. Not a bad one either. Just the same teaching problems of focusing too much on the upper body, on relaxing and sensing the opponent's problems and not enough on relaxing and sensing to fix your own problems.
All the students seem to have reverted to an American wrestling style type posture. They are all hunched over. You can't compress well like that. You can't lift well, and you sure as hell as can't rotate well. When you throw the rotation out the window, you miss half the art.
Notice the teacher, his back is very straight. Not tense, but aligned. He looks hunched over because of his bad head posture -- it's jutting out pretty far-- but everything from the shoulders down is very nice and well aligned. He is more squatted and braced than bent over. This givens him a solid base to maintain his neutral, and take advantage of his student's awkward posture, and float them out. Seth included.
Push hands isn't even about the hands. The connection is worth doing properly, but push hands is really about everything _behind the hands_. If your posture is good then your hands have power. If you have bad posture, then your hands are close to useless.
You can still upset your opponent's balance even having bad posture, but only if their posture is worse. Which is a losing strategy. You want to have good posture. Not learning good neutral posture is setting yourself up for failure. You want to actually have skill and awareness and be better than your opponent. Not just suck less than they do.
Also, Tai Chi as a practice is not different from Tai Chi Chuan. That's just lazy word dropping. Tai Chi exercise would be Tai Chi kung. Or Taijigong. It's still the same thing, only chuan is practice for martial intent and kung is practiced just for exercise. Or kung could be practiced for something much deeper -- inside your body, or inside your spirit, if you're into that.
The Tai Chi is the great vastness, the sum total energy cycling in the cosmos.
The universal energy is not static. It is ever moving and changing. Universal energy is never created or destroyed. It can only ever morph and change shape. It is never excessive nor insufficient. Universal energy is always perfectly in balance. It is perfectly fluid, and it resolves without delay or hesitation.
The Tai Chi is all powerful. But it is not a god. It simply is. The Tai Chi is the realization of the laws of nature, born in the timeless and intangible void, made real, tangible and current.
The Tai Chi fist is like the cosmic Tai Chi. It is never an inch too long, nor an inch too short. The position is always exact. The Tai Chi fist is always balanced and neutral. It is never beholden to external forces. They flow around it, the pressure resolves immediately, and without hesitation.
The Tai Chi fist never gets stuck. It always flows onward, thru or past any barrier, and it always maintains it's internal balance. Always able to change on a dime. Perfectly in tune with the mechanics and laws of nature. That is the way of the Tai Chi fist.
Thank you for continuing to keep an open mind and experience Chinese martial arts! Fun fact, 5:49 looks like son of Zheng Manqing Style Taijiquan master William CC Chen, former US Wushu Sanda Team member and World Wushu Championships bronze medalist Maximillion "Max" Chen in the yellow shirt and sash, who you also were commentating Sanda with at the HYX 16th World Wushu Championships! You may also be interested in this video featuring Mario Napoli, who is the only foreigner to beat the Chinese at Chenjiagou (陈家沟； Chénjiāgōu) or Chen Village in tuishou (推手; tuīshǒu, push hands) competition, and is highly complimentary of sumo: ua-cam.com/video/8DoALugInQw/v-deo.htmlsi=wo0uEdTj1MSh_bk4
I love this guy, I am sure his students are glad to have him!
Funny you mentioned Toph, my father was the martial arts choreographer for the character. Toph's movements are based on Chu Ka Southern Praying Mantis.
Super cool!
This is very cool!
I am surprised kev, you never did this when you did Taiji
You’re very cool Kev
@@mrmushin1I was saving for part 2 lol
Looks like a very nice compliment to Sumo. It's like, the Aikido version of Sumo, much more nuance. So, I undestand why Seth wants more, as this is a very realistic and purposeful form of grappling. Never heard if it before Seth, thanks for the introduction.
I am lucky enough to have found aTaiji teacher who has had good training including power generation. It isn't just for uprooting. The short power hits like a hammer and makes you feel yhe force all the way through your body, Nasty and effective
I spent 10 years from 20 t0 30 learning Yang Style with Chen principles and focus plus 10 years of Wing Chun at the same time. The previous 10 years was Judo and Boxing. At the age of 30, I started a 15 year career in Security/Bouncing in pubs and clubs. I still have all my teeth and good looks, guess it paid off! Tai Chi Chuan is close in stand up grappling with control techniques and some short punches and kicks. Think old school jujitsu with Aikido.
this is something I understood instantly it started to be shown on here. I have so many new ideas. amazing video!!!
LOL I like how you got called out this whole video and realized why in the editing.
I would've done the same thing.
Man I love this. You are bringing back the old style philosophy of martial arts. Being a skill practitioner going to other schools. Not to disrespect. But to learn. And help the class learn going against a differently skill opponent. And you can tell the Sifu of this dojo realizes that as you stay with the lesson. While giving you the challenge you came for.
Gotta say...I'm disappointed you didn't learn the no-knockout style of taichi...
JK - I love the amount of respect you give to other styles, and even incorporating PRINCIPLES of each style into your overall philosophy of martial arts.
Especially the way you approach push hands and drills around 4:00-5:00.
no knockouts came from george dillman, nothing to do with tai chi historically
I did Tai Chi for about 10 years the one where you're in the park. I also do Mauy Thai. One day our Mauy Thai coach starts showing us some things at a range our guys have a bit trouble with. I recognised the way he was moving his hands etc as Tai Chi almost push hands.
Excellent video. I've done martial arts for 51 years and studied Chen Taiji Quan for the past 26 years. It's the real deal.
It's pretty cool to see you try all these different styles! Keep grinding Sensei Seth 🫡
@SenseiSet there's a more explicit connection between the slow movements seen in "Park Tai Chi" and Combat Tai Chi, I mean like Bunkai in Karate, Tai Chi has also martial applications. If you like Sumo maybe you should check Shuai Jiao aka Chinese Wrestling, kinda mix between Sumo and Judo. Tai Chi has lots of martial applications common to Shuai Jiao. Besides that there's also Tai Chi fighting set, a two men form wich focus on striking, it even includes punching and kicking.
Well done, many people totally misunderstand tai chi.
You have shown tuishou like it shoulds be.
A split second movement to instantly bump or uproot anyone.
To be that is the pinnacle of martial arts, when uprooted the opponent has little ability to attack, less ability to defend, and they become entirely focused on resetting
In short this creates the gap, the point where you win.
Chin Na applications as the instructor showed can reduce the wrestling component. There are more than hip/foot imbalances. Great vid. Thanks for sharing
👊🏾😎👍🏼
Most of Kung Fu styles that look like people are just waving around with their limbs and dancing around have actually lots of wrestling elements in them. It kinda is overlooked and the purpose of many techniques maybe got forgotten but yeah, Kung Fu is actually MMA, they mix striking with grappling. Its sad that it got that reputation it has now but its definitely worth and interesting to rediscover the purpose of the styles. Great Video!
Literally what I've been taught by Master Han. He is now on San Diego but I trained with him on Skokie IL. Am one of his Disciples. We have been to Chen Village was an amazing experience. Am a Sifu in Green Dragon Chi Tao Chuan and Chen Tai Chi took my training to a different level. It amplifies whatever you already know. Thank to all my Teachers. Teach at EBC in Chicago,9 yrs.
I have only been in 1 Kung Fu gym, but they were very interested in their history. In case you are wondering, it was 3 generations from Yip man, which means absolutely nothing in reality.. Even the worst students of these masters can still claim they were trained by them. It is still good that they care about the history of their art though. That is to be respected.
This looks legit. Thank you for the honest and authentic presentation!
That sweating from doing almost nothing, is chi working, Chi Gong (氣工) in Chinese. Chi Gong is actually mental work, you put your focus on where is should be, and the body follow the focus.
That’s cool! There’s a clip of my two students competing while I’m judging their bout on here… 5:39
One of my theatrical college professors taught us taichichuan as part of our kinesthetic training. The purpose was not only to build stamina, balance, and fine motor control, but change our fundamental way of thinking from a results-oriented immediacy towards an in-the-moment mindfulness that let us be more receptive of our surroundings and aware of our impulses.
Training your body to be more focused on the here and now also makes your mind a better listener and communicator.
I am glad we are in the era of mutual respect. Thank you Seth for these videos. About ten years ago I met a Tai Chi teacher from China through my trainer who is a sword collector.....anyway this Tai chi master teaches blind people in China. We did some light sparring with him. Our system is Chinese indonesian kung fu that emphasizes rolling, falling, sweeps and throws. He used a lot less energy on us to get us off balance. I think Tai Chi is great and I know it's influence is in our style. Anyway thank you for these videos
I like it.. My dad used to do Tai Chi, maybe i will follow in my dad's footsteps..
It's a nice a sport and he got quite good at it, with pushing hands, i couldn't push him away, neither did i had any grip on him, he just... shifted all my directional power away from him, it was quite impressive.
Lol nice Last Air Bender reference. I just finished rewatching the original series
I wish there were more tai chi classes like this around. I did Chen tai chi for years, but it was always a struggle getting to practice push hands because most people weren't there for that.
It has been amazingly useful in Muay Thai clinching since I started doing that.
When you can connect with your opponants energy i feel like that is when you've really conquered fighting. This style seems to be a great way to do it. Thx for sharing this!
There's a Taijiquan instructor named Wilson Pitts who teaches it with a background in Boxing. It helps improve inside fighting & clinching.
It is cool watching both you develop and the surprise on the other practitioner's faces
YES NEW VIDEO!!! I’m new to your channel and I’ve been binge watching everything for the past 2 weeks 😂. Great content!
This was a great way to shed light on Tai Chi because I also shared the same stereotype that it was just "advanced breathing techniques". lol
That actually looks pretty dope. One of my favs from this try out series
"The most body conserving of all the martial arts".. That's actually a very accurate description... Also that "tai chi teacher" is very top heavy, tiny calves... big bicepts... opposite physique of what real tai chi develops. TBH you move in more of a tai chi manner than he does and if you assumed a very low stance, similar to your sumo training, he would gas quickly. Students very unrooted... A lot of people teaching chinese martial arts realize that they need to teach tai chi as well to get students...
I appreciate that Sifu Chris is doing this in a combative way while also being realistic about what tai chi chuan can and can't do.
A lot of people, even ones who train in a live, realistic fashion like this get caught up in the 'woo' of it - I've seen legitimate comments from people claiming that judo throws don't work against tai chi practicioners because "tai chi rooting" makes them impossible to throw. Come on, now.
Absolutely amazing. The nuances of tai chi are so cool, and of course it even has a sumo connection, should we be surprised?! So dope. Would love to see Seth’s daily sumo training.
Tai chi is absolutely amazing for developing fighting prowress.
Pretty good demo. IMO the thing makes Tai chi work combatively is the ability to hone both softness and viciousness simultaneously and then the ability to escalate them both quickly and dramatically.
I've mostly seen Tai chi work well when honed with extreme vicious intent overwhelming an opponent suddenly and conclusively off first contact, very difficult to hone and master, but understand why it was considered the ultimate martial art
Tai Chi litterally describes the boundary between Yin and Yang, in this sense mainly soft and hard, and that transition from soft to hard and back, and application of both soft and hard, is the philosophical essence of which the martial art Tai Chi Chuan is a manifestation.
I constantly astonished that no matter what style, Sensei Seth finds a teacher that can actually show how it works. I find it wild that some of the traditional styles are now seen as useless when they must have been very useful back in the day; I remember thinking this when I learned that White Crane techniques found it's way into many different styles of martial arts (kung fu, karate and I think tai chi as well) but I look at it now and I have no idea how people saw White Crane and thought it was insanely revolutionary and had to flourish immediately. But there MUST have been something to this older styles, I don't think they lived on pure hype back in the days of constant lei tai challenges.
Sounding like Jesse here, but in 12:12 is the same lock arm ideia that we have in Bassai Dai. Tai chi is Karate too. 😆
Thank goodness Seth went to Sifu Chris's Tai Chi class, that dude is an animal !
Tai chi is a fighting art , style , martial art .push hands just part of it . Hitting , striking , wrestling, all part of it ..hard push hands , essential , hard striving on bag 💼 etc is essential. Sparring is essential, realistic sparring is essential . Just slow soft form is on,y part of Taichi
Love your videos man. I have a background in Tai Chi and Ba Gua and I've been meditating consistently for about a decade now, and I have a theory as to why it is practiced very...very...slowly..
Extremely slow, fluid motions combined with breathing can enter you into a meditative state where you can truly feel energy around you and your opponent on a subtler level. I think the old Chinese practitioners knew this (the concept of Chi).
Yes! I was waiting for you to get into some real tai chi. You just barely scratched the surface here.
That's awesome, I'm glad this was shown over the "Park" exercise variety... which has its place but is not the whole story!
Josh Waitzkin introduced push hands to Marcelo Garcia and you can see some elements of it when Marcelo initially ties up to grip fight. It's a great tool to develop tactile sensitivity which applies to all martial arts. Clinch work in muay Thai...hand trapping...etc. Tai chi as a stand alone in my opinion is more similar in restorative utility as something like yoga but with more circular and continuous movements rather than linear static movements. Just another tool in the tool bag!
this must be an incredibly exciting thing to stumble into when you're that deep in sumo
100%
I love everything about this.
I have to comment, after many years doing full contact 'punchy-kicky' stuff I still had an open mind and would seek other styles/serious people to learn from them if I could? Sometimes I met absolute 'arseholes' who had many stripes on a belt and were happy to take money from people who actually thought they were learning something? I once got so angry that I battered 'sensei seven dan' out of his own dojo, no I'm not proud but he richly deserved it.The balance of that was that I met so very many genuine people and even a few 'warriors'.
One thing that remains with me to this day, a Tai Chi guy deliberately circling his head to hide the devastating blow coming behind it? This is the opposite of 'telegraphing'.
My total respect to all who train, lying there on the ground, half sparko.,looking at a ceiling and thinking 'I am paying for this?' Get up. go again!
Blood sweat and tears, nothing can compare!
I like Sifu Chris. He explained it in a way I could grasp!
Tai chi is more about feeling the energy flowing through your body and hands, than just using physical force, like in other martial arts. Same with aikido. O-Sensei Ueshiba Morihei practiced a lot of meditation exactly for this reason: to awaken kundaliny shakti. Is the only martial arts master who had samadhi (satori in Japanese). he had it at manipura chakra level, while yoga masters, who had samadhi, had it at anahata chakra level or higher.
The push-hands as a game, ive done at my first mma gym. Predominately in the wingchun class we had, and sometimes outside of class for fun. I even changed aspects like, one guy only fists and the other open hands, or on a box, or 1 open hand, 1 closed hand, etc. It was fun and i think it definitely helped my overall training.
I remember my first tai chi class back in college and it was like "okay here's how you uwatenage" and when I complained that I *knew* that was a sumo move he yoritoashied me out the front door.
What a great teacher, loved it 👍