I began judo and jiujitsu since childhood til adulthood, had some collegiate folk wrestling experience, but out of curiosity I trained with a Daito Ryu guy and then with a Wing Tsun KunFa sifu who was a direct student of Leung Ting. Daito Ryu and Wing Tsun are very much internal arts, relying upon relaxed muscles and explosive tendon strength. Internal refers to focusing upon tendon activation while relaxing the external muscles so the opponent can not feel tension and counter one's movements. Despite my two decades in grappling arts, primarily Judo & Jiujitsu, I got rag dolled by a Daito Ryu expert and by a Wing Tsun KunFa sifu in the 1990s. Now my long time student, whose a Judo & Jiujitsu instructor himself, is currently training under my old sifu Keith Fain in Wing Tsun KunFa in Clarksville TN. I learned to not judge anything until I've tested it myself. Experience is a great teacher.
No, those aren't internal arts. Wing Chun is absolutely NOT an internal art. There are no Japanese martial arts, the closest to internal the Japanese have is aikijujitsu. There is a lot more to internal arts than you mentioned. Yes there is work from the tendons/ligaments and springs of the body, but that is far, far from the whole of it. Just one element of many. That said I love your attitude, it is good not to judge as you said until you tested it for yourself. I too once good rag dolled by an internal arts instructor despite 8 years of wrestling, muay thai, FMA, and other arts. That started me on my journey into the internal arts.
Taichi push hands is underrated, it might not take you to UFC level, but it has tons of value people (especially American people for some reason) tend to overlook. Good pushing hands is hard to find but here are a few places (among many) you will find crazy good people : Peace Park in Taipei-Taiwan, Penang Malaysia, Chen family Village in China.
@@inside_fightingthe issue is mostly that when its taught, many traditions like to imitate things their teachers used to demonstrate, like showing their students getting thrown ridiculously off balance or hopping around like idiots, and it it makes it all look very fake...but it's just lacking context. Those principles are very real, it's just the way it's being demonstrated/practiced that prevents any real and progressional fighting application from being developed and appreciated. I've trained in Baguazhang and Taijiquan for over 20yrs, with Traditional Japanese Jujutsu, and a mixture of inconsistent yrs of Judo, BJJ and boxing (those last 3 to increase my sparring time with resistant partners). What I can say is that Taijiquan really benefits those who are already good at fighting, more than those who only study Taijiquan (particularly those of Yang, Wu, Hao and Sun) and nothing else. I say that because the principles of Taijiquan will immediately translate to something any grappler has already been exposed to, just in a much more subtle way. I would say rather than look at Taijiquan as a different martial art (it has all the strikes, throws and locks being applied in combat sports today and then some)...think of it more as trying to develop a specific quality to what you already know. That's really what it did for the Chen Village in the first place: added a subtle, elastic quality to very old external military fighting arts. The issue westerners have today, or modern fighters maybe, with Taijiquan/Tai Chi, is the claim that by and of itself its a competent fighting art purely based on the Legends of late 19th century early 20th century exploits the can't be reproduced today on the biggest combat sport stages. That's a valid issue. However, approached with the possibility that it can be a valuable quality to add some different tricks to the MMA game, might be received differently depending on who can demonstrate that efficacy first.
It is so impressive that an incredibly high level BJJ practitioner like Marcelo Garcia was willing to do this. There are so many critics on UA-cam and social media generally who feel a need to bash non-MMA and non-BJJ martial arts and martial artists. But Garcia’s attitude seems to be, “this art’s been around for a long time, let me see what it’s all about and let me see whether I can learn anything useful from it.” Open minds and curiosity make truly great champions like Marcelo Garcia.
@@icanaja8192 the comment above is about Marcelo being a warrior… i so t think a random tai chi guy could beat Jon jones… buakaw …Sanchai… they are world class champions and legendary fighters… who spend all day every day training and fighting… why is that the standard? I can’t beat buakaw either lol
I am not a wrestler/grappler, and I never was (nor was I ever a striker or submissions guy). My way of fighting has always been taking the opponent's balance away and/or deflecting their strength, with just enough striking and grappling thrown in to keep them honest. I've studied martial arts for about 36 (37?) years now... starting with karate, delving into several kung fu styles, and then later exploring just about everything out there (including more modern styles like kickboxing and the MMA approach). Tai Chi is easily my favorite, and the one that I believe is most useful for self defense if you aren't physically strong/fast/durable. It emphasizes movements anyone at any age can do and perfect, and it is very effective when taught as self defense rather than just exercise and meditation ("park Tai Chi"). The strikes are good, the wrestling/grappling is good, and it's much easier on the body to practice than any other martial art (by design). You will never form a chronic muscle/joint problem from practicing Tai Chi, so you can keep this style of self defense practiced well into old age and remain effective with it. It's pretty much the only self defense art that can boast this. Even most of the other soft arts cannot say this about themselves. What most impresses me, and should impress everyone watching that video -- there is a huge difference in reflexes, explosive speed, explosive power, and brute strength between the two artists. One is an athlete of the absolute highest caliber, trained in the basics of multiple disciplines (how I see MMA training). The other is basically just a regular guy who knows how to apply Tai Chi well. He's relaxed relative to his opponent, mainly losing energy only when he gets taken down and falls to the mat. If he was just a bit better at avoiding leg takedowns, he'd just tire out his opponent and win on fatigue despite not being nearly as physically gifted/capable. But also, being the "one" in a a two-on-one is generally the worst position to find yourself in. There are literally 100+ ways for the opponent to make use of that position, and you can't do much from there yourself. Some arts, like Aikido, are almost built around creating that position because to do so keeps you safe and enables many ways to attack. But in this video the Tai Chi guy is just giving him the arm and is fine. That may not look like much to the untrained eye - just two guys grappling. But it's actually absurdly impressive that the Tai Chi guy is not only able to hand him the arm but also still be the attacker a fair amount of the time. I never like dedicated wrestling practice like this. There are a lot of very nasty strikes that come out of Chinese grappling positions, and a number of times I saw those openings (mostly snappy jabs and elbows to the face) created in the video. The Tai Chi guy just passed on taking them, since that's not what the two of them were exploring at the time. There may have been some wrestling takedowns by Garcia, but the Tai Chi guy had the better of pretty much every exchange by my eye as a Tai Chi enthusiast who knows wrestling reasonably well. Amazing to see Garcia struggling that hard.
Trained tai chi for 27 years. Trained with alot of famous tai chi masters in china and Won a lot of pushands tournaments in the early 2000s. I also sparred with alot different grapplers and had great fun learning from each other and seeing the surprise on their faces when they realize I was not going down. Basically there are 3 approaches common in the modern tai chi community… there are “empty wrigglers”, “seaweed slappers” and what I do which I don’t have a derogatory name for and just call Taiji ;) … this guy is a seaweed slapper and a pretty decent one. The guys I trained with at the chen village all do this. They rely a lot on momentum and waves from the center like seaweed in the ocean but personally I think it’s a misinterpretation of “silk feeling” that still has some benefit but is not ideal. Then you have your more common “empty wrigglers” these people are very soft and wiggle trying to run away and trap or off balance people who are easily off balanced. They would not do as well as this guy against any decent grappler. They tend to be from yang or Wu style and think tai chi is like water without structure. The seaweed folks have structure but they whip it around and are not neutral. Then there is the third approach that I now do after spending a decade each doing the other 2 methods. What I do is from a few lesser known lines of chen… basically striving for neutrally at all times from all directions it’s very difficult and hard to explain but there are a very small group of masters out there that understand this method I think it’s objectively better and was the original method by the founders of this art. You need to train your structure so that you can connect the floor to any part of your body but having no exploitable tension chains to push or pull or drag on. This takes lots of form practice to change your movement habits combined with pressure testing from many angles. The goal is to feel immovable and slow down the momentum of the attacker at contact but to immediately lever and transfer force using 2 distinct points one yin that is the an inward spiral acting as fulcrum of the pressure and one yang that is an outward growing spiral that issues force around the fulcrum. With enough practice you can spiral the opponents force around any contact point that you can get ahold of using the pressure off of the floor and be really annoying to them ;)… I usually do not try to be an arm chair/keyboard warrior commenting like this but your enthusiasm and open mindedness inspired me to share my experience. I might make a channel someday but for now I am super busy teaching in person and raising my kids.
The gentleman in the video is a Yang style practitioner, from the William CC Chen Taiwanese affiliates. The video poster got his info mixed up a little bit.
What you describe kinda sounds familiar to me. Wondering if you may perhaps be talking about the Hong Junsheng lineage of Chen Taijiquan (a.k.a. Chen Practical Method and other denominations)? Bc what you describe are certainly key concepts there...
Chen Tai chi is the original tai chi, according to what I looked up and was told, coming from the Chen Village in northern China; you’re right to say that it’s the most aggressive style of tai chi. Tai chi techniques can be applied in nearly ALL grappling, and the TuiShou/Push hands is an exercise to teach balancing and structure to test how grounded the practitioner is. I love that you’re taking more interests in internal martial art and what they bring into the world; granted many modern practitioners don’t really know how to apply it in a fight because they don’t normally spar in many TCMA, but does that do practice properly and think on how to apply it properly in combat or spar are the ones that keep making us traditionalists proud of practicing them.
@@inside_fightingthat’s not what learning internal is about. It’s about redifininf the base mechanics of everything from the bottom up. It’s more like you will carry knowledge of the past to refine the expression of what you learn in the internal. Your approach will yield no good results. And also you need good teachers. Ideally 1 great 1 to start and help you grasp things clearly. The chances of finding multiple good teachers is almost nill and for them to not contradict or hurt each others capacity to help you is also hard to avoid. Tho if your the right mind you can balance the approaches and egos involved, but that is hard.
I’ve seen push hands and some static stance push hand competitions online were it looks like a version of GrecoWrestling in particular with the arm-drags and the whipping motions. But I never understood why we don’t see that in the Olympics in the same style this is. you do see some whipping like movements but not in that same subtle and total body synergistic way as posed to a ballistic whipping movements that may occur. But i think you nailed it when you said the tai chi guy loses his ability when he doesn’t have contact, no cohesion and sensitivity. As apposed to wrestling that his still has body awareness and sensitivity don’t get me wrong but not really in the same style as demonstrated here. Might also be a case of Rules and competition dictate tactics and techniques too. Grappling matches start far apart and these tai chi matches begin in contact and others don’t even allow you to move. This is super impressive! Great video coach!
One of Marcello's black belt students is a tai chi practitioner and world champion push hands, Josh Waitzkin. Yang style under W. Chen. So I'm assuming Marcello already had some experience with push hands before this interaction.
@@inside_fighting Man I would love to find one in my areas. I’ve always tried to use sticky hand type stuff when doing bjj. But would love to dive into push hands
@@inside_fighting I think upper body grappling is so important for self defense when you are likely to have collars and sleeves. Push hands has a play and sensitivity to it that I think is valuable to hand fighting, trapping, upper body wrestling. I think mixing the sensitivity drills and live sparring would be very beneficial. When I teach bjj classes I always do a stand up drill. I’ll often do a light randori where I remove techniques. So it will be something like “no leg grabbing” or “whoever takes the back standing wins the round.” Makes students focus on good sleeve grips, arms drags, 2 on 1, etc.
I've been wrestling for over 35 years, and have been training bjj and Sambo for a little over 25. I've learned more about subtle throws and takedowns from my Baguazhang practice than in all the other areas combined. I've been lucky to train grappling with my friend Steve Cotter, who is also a long time bagua guy. Very interesting "rolls" have ensued And I'm also a huge fan of Marcelo! I was a personal student of Renzo Gracie right before he got beat by Marcelo, and it blew my mind!!😊
Push hands is actually not an exercise for fighting. It's an unbalancing exercise which is originally highly restrictive (fixed stance, below the neck, above the waist -only interaction, no clothes grabbing), and therefore also quite safe, which allows the practitioners to really focus on "outmaneuvering" each other in the softest and most sensitive way possible, which eventually can lead to quite amazing results, even against much bigger and stronger opponents IF and WHEN that soft development is truly there. Tai Chi has however become the laughingstock of martial arts, pretty much since UA-cam, because of delusional idiots who think they have that development when they don't or when they've only trained in push hands, which is not a fighting system. Even a decent development in push hands would need to be pressure tested and restrictions would need to be gradually removed to make it a full grappling system. So allowing moving steps combined with collar ties and body lifts (without the throws) would turn it into stand-up Greco-Roman, adding in leg-to-leg (trips, sweeps, bumps) would broaden it even more, adding in hand-to-leg attacks (singles, doubles, ankle picks) would turn it into folk-style standup, and then the gi can be brought into the mix at these different stages as well. The overarching goal however has always been to do all of this with "soft" power. And it's very difficult to practice this "soft" power when too much is going on, which is why push hands is originally so restrictive (it also makes it safer for experimenting with soft in case soft fails, lol). It is, however, only the first step in a system that has mostly become a ritualistic representation of what it used to be. And there's also striking and different weapons. On top of that Tai Chi has devolved quite a bit into cliques, clans and cultish crap with the little local guru's tightly controlling their environments and even local governments in China forcefully perpetuating delusional nonsense. Rokas (from "martial arts journey" YT channel) has told some interesting tales about his experiences in the Aikido world. Well, I've experienced worse crap in the TC environments. Overall, I'd say currently TC can be a great supplemental if you can find a good school/ environment, of which I'm doubtful tbh. But it could be similar to what you experienced with systema. Maybe Vasiliev can hook you up with Scott Meredith, if he's still around, he helped author some books on systema if I remember correctly and was a student of the late Ben Lo (Benjamin Pang Jeng Lo)) William Chen is also still around according to wiki, so a visit to New York and his school could be worth the trip. Josh Waitzkin, as I mentioned in another comment, is one of his students.
@@alantinoalantonio thanks man. He’s the biggest “non instructor” influence for me in bjj. I used to watch his instructionals daily. I developed my whole game around him. 🙏🏼
Thank you for sharing this! This is the flip side of the info on Taijituishou that is usually disseminated. For me, I love it all; catch, judo, csw, Bjj, Shuai jiao, freestyle, tui shou, etc, etc. I’m getting older, now, but cross training in folk grappling systems is pure joy!
Chen taijiquan broke all my prejudices against tai chi when I first discovered it a decade ago, I became obssessed with the history and mentality... I find it so ironic that 99% of the tai chi practiced today is a modified version that began when they taught the first outsider (it was a secret style taught only within the Chen Family at closed doors; Makes sense in a time of conflict right? Knowledge is gold), He modified the style when he was invited to teach in the court and found out that the nobles were not interested in hard training lol, so he took out the yang part of the system (hard, fast, strong, vigorous, etc), and left only the slow exercices that have a calming effect so the high noses could deal with their privilege problems hahaha. It's really funny because taoist philosophy is all about harmonising these two forces within the body, you train slow to pay attention to your body, make sure you are well connected, rooted, making sure your lower articulations are harmonised with the top ones to generate full power, strike from the waist, etc; so you could gradually speed things up and make it more and more ferocious (it was also a way of teaching kids in the family how to do the moves); don't believe most of what you see as tai chi today if you have a combat art kind of approach, most of it is more of a relaxing exercice than fighting, and thats ok for who wants that, but theres a lots of different levels in the art that you can't really see unless you drop the prejudice and dig a little further; Great video man, ty ;)
I like to see Taichi practice like practicing music, you don't start of playing super fast jazz, you start slow, learning good posture, positions and breathing, then you learn small bits and scales and you keep practicing these basics all your life even when you get to a decent level.
@@inside_fighting Ikr, I think there's a little poetry in that, what's good tends to be rare and you can't find it anywhere, we need to dig at the right place and long enough to extract true value.. Also, I forgot brother.. I appreciate that you put a photo of Grandmaster Chen Xiaowang on the thumbnail, he's a lot more than meets the eye and it took me a while to find him and start learning from him hahah
@@inside_fighting most Tai chi taught is usually the Yang Style, which is the one you see old people practice in parks and highly populated places because the founder of Yang style learned from Chen style and then went to Beijing to demonstrate it. Hence why it’s got HUGE movements
I do modern wrestling and Chinese martial arts. My experience with people who do Chinese martial arts is that even the ones who never sparred in mma style have good grounding and are difficult to take down with force. It is especially difficult to uproot them by pulling thier arm. The ones who train properly have solid structure.
@@lurker_dude1955 thanks so much! I’ve taught across the country. I used to have a school in La and Atlanta but now I’m in Florida and don’t currently teach other than Privates’s and the instructionals but eventually i hope to again!
The quick movements you see in Chen Style Taijiquan are not using the muscles to jeck or pull. They use relaxed heavy power to Fa Jin, from feet to whatever body part they want to direct force out of. Warning: Fa Jin requires specific training for tendons/connective tissues as they must be strong or you can injure yourself trying to Fa Jin.
I started Silat and Escrima in 1993. In 2008 I found Tai Chi. I proceeded to find the Tao and quit practicing martial arts about 5-6 years ago. I meditate now. I have been Fasting a lot for the past 8 years while drinking herb teas.
I've been on some 40+ day Fasts. For the past 8 years, I have been eating once every two or three days. I want to train with JFlo. He mixes Judo, Greco Roman Wrestling and BJJ. They call it American Jiu-Jitsu now. Just meditate with it and set up sexy chokes and locks!
Yes, good observations. I've done Chen for the past 25 yrs. We practice the push-hands the same way. I personally ran a tournament in Orlando for many years with this type of exchange also including ground and submission. Thanks for sharing. If you ever want to discuss any Chen principles, contact me.
Amongst many Taiji Players (not all) push hands is overrated. It is a great exercise, but without free sparing, with of all the restrictions usually placed in Push hands, it is not close enough to get you ready for sports combat or Self-Defense against a skilled opponent.
@@stevecontes7811you’re absolutely right , push hands is just one step of the process , it is not the end goal in Taiji . Next step would be prearranged sparring, free light sparring leading to real sparring with the attention placed on adhering to Taiji principals and correcting the unnecessary stiffness that would be definitely showing when you are under pressure. Unfortunately there are probably a couple of teachers that can teach that and if you aren’t Chinese they would probably not give you all .
@@stevecontes7811you’re absolutely right , push hands is just one step of the process , it is not the end goal in Taiji . Next step would be prearranged sparring, free light sparring leading to real sparring with the attention placed on adhering to Taiji principals and correcting the unnecessary stiffness that would be definitely showing when you are under pressure. Unfortunately there are probably a couple of teachers that can teach that and if you aren’t Chinese they would probably not give you all .
I’m not a regular practitioner of tai chi but I’m told there are two basic hand positions: 2 on 2, and 2 on 1. And when a friend showed me their 2 on 1 it was one at the wrist and one on the elbow, and I immediately thought “this is the position from hubud lubud after checking the elbow”. That may not be a revelation to most people, but it certainly made me more curious about tai chi.
My friend, just some important info to clarify... this guy in the video is not a Chen style guy, he's from a Yang substyle made popular by Mr. William CC Chen in NYC and Taiwan. The gentleman in this video is also a former Push Hands champion nicknamed "Buffalo Chen" (no relation to the Chen Style family). One of Marcelo's prodigy BJJ students is Josh Waitzkin (genius chess prodigy too) that also studied with William CC Chen and Buffalo Chen. That's how Marcelo and Buffalo ended up having multiple friendly "skill exhanges". You can probably reach out to them in NYC for more insight and firsthand experience. The actual Chen Style (aka Chen Village) guys are outstanding too, but with a different flavor and tempo. Look up Chen ZhiQiang, Chen Bing, Ren Guangyi, or Stephan Berwick.
Taiji push hands are used to create space. To me, it's very useful when weapons are taken into consideration. Try experimenting with adding taiji drills to your fma drills.
you can do pushing hands in many ways. you can do it slow for drilling sensitivity, or fast as in a competition, you can fix step it or make it as a wrestling. basically as with all sparing, you can control the degrees of freedom you allow, thus controlling the intensity and the goal of the drill
@@inside_fighting me too, but one must build this step by step, to better this skill. and it really depended on what skill you want to drill at a moment. promise you a nice play time when you come visiting :)🙏
Exactly... I mean. This guy did something that the top 10 ADCC athletes couldn't do - it's definitely an avenue that elite grapplers could get some value spending time understanding.
Tai chi hands down in the most effective combat art IMO but has a very very steep learning curve, so generally those who accel at it where already very skilled fighters. You can gage effective Tai chi from the reactions of the opponent and not necessarily from the actions of the practicioner.
I always wonder what an expert of Push Hands could bring new to discussion. I love looking at "off-meta" solution,and my solution for Bjj is Sumo/Tai Chi. Mix of " Can't let you get close" and "Can't let you take me down" Not just beat,but invalidate their whole game. Not to mention,Tai Chi is one of the styles known for it Kao, leaning blow,pretty similar to Baji,but more grappling focused. From what i have seen,the shoulder is also used for grappling.
There are a few taichi moves (like Kao) that can knock someone on their ass, basically crashing into the opponent with your whole body mass when they try to pull you towards them, but you can also use the elbow to focus the impact or bump their legs with yours etc...
There is also a vidéo of Flavio Santiago (luta livre and bjj black belt) playing with a taichi master, and he was impressed with by his control, balance and abilities. Vidéo is called Tai Chi vs Luta Livre
Thanks for this video. Most people in the west have only ever seen Tai Chi for Health which is a very limited sub-set of Taiji as a whole. I was recommended to do TCfH as I have a degenerative joint condition. Thank goodness, I found a Sifu who focusses on using it to fight rather than just following rote form. When I switched teachers the exercises he taught were much more effective at helping my body to repair by teaching me how to balance and move as efficiently as possible. My consultant told me in 2015 that I would be in a wheelchair by 2017. Here we are in 2024 and, thanks to a great teacher I am more mobile now than I have been this century. The slowness allows me to work in detail on the structure and forces used to stay balanced and relaxed, while putting the other person at a disadvantage. Seeing you explain how that works in BJJ (not something I've had much to do with beyond watching MMA) is really affirming. Cheers.
@@inside_fighting I highly recommend The Art of Learning: An Inner Journey to Optimal Performance Written by Josh Waitzkin. It goes deep into this and the audio book is the best.
Thanks, Inside Fighter. As a short term, here and there, former practioner of Judo, Bullshido Ninjitsu, Wing Chun Gung Fu, Tai Chi Chuan from a legit _wooden leg_ Shifu, John Will's Shoot Fighting, Krav Maga and Boxing - I absolutely LOVE your try anything approach. Pushing hands to this day, is my favourite way of introducing people to partial farts, I mean- Martial Arts.
True, tai ji is build on tactile connection but remember this is an exercise in wrestling. The idea in taiji is also to strike from those tactile connected positions.
Hey Elon, great video as always! From my understanding of tai chi and internal arts, the foundational training is the most important, so it takes a while to get to the push hands stage. I do not believe you can start at the later stage of tai chi and be as successful as the gentleman in this video, he was very impressive. Adam Mizner may be a good one to look at as he has done film with some MMA guys. Cheers
@@inside_fighting Mizner's explanations are very opaque to those not versed in traditional 'tai chi speak', which is one of the reasons why he is regarded by many as 'Bullshido'.
Just watched a career video on Marcelo yesterday. First time I've heard of him. Absolute best pound for pound I've seen. So it's super impressive this Thai Chi guy could do so well
Bear in mind the Tai Chi guy is splashing in Marcello's puddle where Marcello is king. Also bear in mind that Tai Chi is a multiple strike art, by that I mean that it utilises punches, kicks, grips, locks, and chin na grappling. One last thing to note; if an attacker on the street was to put two hands on one arm, anyone with any intelligence would punch them with their free hand
Channel keeps becoming better and better. Check if possible to meet with Strider Clark and Zhang Yun. They practice the Yin Cheng Gong Fa lineage, highly respected. Strider is a beast himself. I have trained in that lineage for about a decade. Their pushing hands skills are exceptional. I also love the comments of the people in this video, it looks like people who are informed on the matter. You are gradually creating a community of intelligent practitioners mate! 😁
I totally agree with you all these traditional energy drills from different arts all have value. It all boils down to context. If you’re gonna use it for fighting then you have to insert it into the fighting landscape. It’s that simple.! at least that’s my understanding up to this point in my training experience. Always enjoy your discourse, man,…. Looking forward to meeting up with you again.
Also yeah, with Tai chi it's crucial to remain in tactile contact with your opponent, not grapply or grabby per say, but maintaining soft contact and never letting your opponent slide his way up out of the mud. Great observation!
Great video and analysis. I've also found that good Tai Chi people have incredible rooting and are difficult to imbalance, aside from anything else they may do.
I really like this. You sound like you want suggestions, but honestly I'm interested in the same things you make videos about. I think martial arts are great, and I like watching people spar. The spontaneous, creative movement with intent is interesting to me.
Love the channel mate - always good stuff. The clip you're showcasing is with a Cheng style taiji player from Taiwan, not Chen style. Cheng man Ching is the guy who brought the softer approach to taiji to the US, but his students in the SE Asian diaspora - Malaysia, Singapore (and of course Taiwan) can be pretty hard customers. Taiji bases itself on the theory of yin and yang. Too much yin/softness - and you don't have taiji.
Thanks for clarifying brother. Another person mentioned that. I am uneducated in this area so didn’t know. It’s all a bit confusing when you start diving in 🙏🏼
@@inside_fighting All good - you're doing an awesome job. Chen and Cheng sound the same as well. How were you supposed to know? Cheng Man Ching developed his ideas from the Yang style. Some people like to talk about 'martial' taiji styles and 'health' taiji styles. It's really just how you train. The concepts and postures aren't all that different between the schools.
Daniele bolelli does tai chi as well as Shuai Jiao I mention it because like he said the soft style shares movements with the hard style. He holds black belts in BJJ and Judo so grappling wise he knows what he's on about. Theres a Tai chi and yoga instructor who trains at one of my local bjj gym hes amazing on his feet.
I’m a fan of sumo recently because of Sensei Seth’s videos. I really enjoy it and in some ways feel it is really heard for self defense better than some other systems. I’ll definitely do Video on it
@@inside_fighting That sounds cool. Pushing people around is really underrated in self-defense. Also a lot of street fights are brief and intense. Just like sumo.
Thanks for posting, good video. That was a good training game by marcello and the tai chi guy, very respectful on both their parts. Tai chi has a concept called the 7 Stars and 3 Points, The three points are the hands and feet so like punches and kicks. The seven stars are everything else, especially shoulders, but also elbows, forearms and knees etc. In most styles the 7 stars make up about 80% of the counter attacks. Tai chi It is sort of a counter punching art, but in a stand up grappling way.
Chen competition push hands has no touching below the belt, and there is no touching the head or neck. So Tai chi guy has already handicapped himself compared to someone who isn't using the same limitations.
@@inside_fighting lol I just realized woman instead of Wolfman lol, yes he has very good sensitivity and yes I believe he would incorporate aspects of it if he hasn't already done so
@@inside_fighting Dan the wolfman is like doing brute force aikido version. Have a look at his videos with martial arts journey rokas, he is a wild card
Hey Ilan! Great to see practical application of Chen style against the GOAT, and your commentary. I see a lot of value in softer styles as an aging BJJ player. Great content! 👍
We seem to be on the same journey. I’m really gaining an appreciation for these systems. Bjj gets rougher on the body with age and supplementing it with this kind of training can do wonders i think.
@@inside_fighting Agreed! The soft restorative stuff ☯️ balances out the mata leao 😂 but seriously all those older folks in the park doing tai-chi can’t be wrong. Looks great for the joints!
Omg how many minute round vs MG??? This is incredible demonstration of both athletes. Tai Chi is a riddle for graplers. I wonder what will be the future grapling style. I think both arts have something to teach us.
If Taiji is trained properly, and I don't mean "traditionally", its a very stable martial art. You cant just do forms in your yard and expect to be anything other than healthy.
@@inside_fighting I have better luck cross training with people who do combat sports. I think that's the only real way to promote Chinese martial arts at the moment.
Tho is an exciting premise, there are many martial arts that are valid, if only as supplemental to the quote unquote valid combat arts. Karate and taekwondo make for better kicking, king fu. And kali make better hands, fencing makes better footwork and tactics. So many forms that deserve recognition
Tai Chi practitioner made that space beautifully but failed to fill that space with a counter, these practitioners used to have Shuai Jiao to use here, look at Dr Yang Jwing Ming's techniques, you can see the relation to Aikijujutsu, Jujutsu and other wrestling styles.
@@inside_fighting @inside_fighting That's so cool man, I've never had the luck to meet someone whos trained in it. It's part of the real Kung fu puzzle, that has wrestling submissions/locks and newaza, aswell as hard striking like in Sanda. It's been broken down into constituent arts like in Japanese styles, but Kudo and other arts like Jon Bluming's seek to combine what was never meant to be parted or learned in isolation. I myself started in JKD and have gone full circle, I now appreciate that historically most arts were comprehensive in their scope, I'm back looking at native British arts just now aswell as the whole genesis of American martial arts hybridisation from Kempo/ Mitose in Hawaii to Wally Jay and JKD and how all that history is linked. I watched a movie The King and it had armoured fighting in it, some cool wrestling and unarmed striking that led me down the native British/Irish arts rabbit hole, I'm lookign at jacketed wrestling e.g Devonshire and Cornish aswell as Collar and elbow and how these arts were displayed back in the day in Japan, so the idea of Kimono/jacketed wrestling may be more native than once thought!! e.g we may have exported that idea just like we borrowed from Kushti/ Pehlwani in Catch as catch can probably similary through the armed forced being stationed in India.
A small clarification, I don't think the Tai Chi practitioner does Chen style Tai Chi, but his surname is Chen. It's confusing I know, Chen is a common Chinese family name, and it also is the name of the style. I could be wrong about this though - he was a push hands competitor from the South of Taiwan where Yang style is far more common than Chen. Tai Chi people might get all upset about which Tai Chi style is best, but it doesn't take away from the point of your video.
Dude....only chen taijiquan does this type of wrestling drills and his back literally says Chenjia gou taijiquan......so yeah he is a chen taijiquan guy...
@@teovu5557 The back of his t-shirt says Tong zhong Taijiquan academy, 通中太極拳院 it doesn't mention Chenjiagou 陈家沟. Chen was introduced to Marcelo by Josh Waitzkin, who fought him in a Push hands tournament in Taiwan. Josh practiced Yang (with William Chen, a student of Chengmanching, a student of Yangchengfu). Mario Napoli who is another CMC/Yang stylist was a champion at the Chen village annual tournament. Push hands with throws is found in all Taiji styles, but not necessarily practiced in all Taiji schools.
@@inside_fighting That's partly true, but not entirely. Chen style is often promoted as the most martial, but these things go on a school by school basis. The styles do have different flavours though - Chen very spiral, Yang/Wu more linear, Sun very simple with high stances are a few oversimplifications ;) For example the Chengmanching subset of Yang has some of the most new age, woo and noodley people out there. But it also has schools where people like to mix it up, whether in push hands tournaments or sanda. Of course the the usual martial arts disease of people believing they are the only ones doing the *real style* is rampant in Tai Chi.
The issue I’ve heard about Tai Chi is that one, like all Kung fu styles, applications are not explained freely like you would get at a Bjj, wrestling, sambo club. Also so many styles of tai chi, this is Chen style, but I know a lot of Yang stylists that believe that Yang is better and more direct for fighting. I’ve also been told that Yang engine fits better with Wing Chun system. It was pointed out to me that when Marcelo goes low and takes the legs, the TC guy could of placed his hands on Marcelos face/ head simulating a neck break which would show the none sporting application of TC compared to sports grappling bjj. All arts offer a way up the mountain, I believe some take the fast track, others take the scenic route and can take years to reach the higher peaks. Unfortunately because of this, we still have high level grapplers available in Bjj, Wrestling etc, while others have fallen off the path while taking the scenic route, hence arts like Tai Chi, Aikido, Daito Ryu, Wing Chun and plenty others have lost masters / teachers that can guide students to the top of the mountain and now we see substandard students being taught a sloppy art instead of a once effective and practical combat system. Very interesting video, never seen it before. But would really like to see. More on the Pak Mei system and learn about its connection to the triads as this must have really battle tested it regularly.
Mantis and Taiji guy who who pressure tested the hell out of it in mma. This is very generous of you, and yes you are noting the few good things Taiji guys obsess over, yet the smaller guy outclassed the larger. Bjj is a better grappling art and often more internal as the top guys do pranayama. Taiji is a polearm art so the rotations are to get dudes off of you so you can cut them. It never really developed as an unarmed art.
I have to disagree. Taijiquan , especially Yang form, is a grappling art. Yang was a big guy in his day. The pushes logically come from a big person and the momentum can be used from having more mass than their opponent. There are a ton of grappling techniques within the. One of the first ones apparent in the classical 108 is "strokes peacock's tail" ( I've heard it translated in other ways, but it's stroking a stork's tail or some bird). Depending on where you can catch your opponent's arms, it's an elbow control or a go to break the humerus bone or cause a nasty sprain at best. I've had a few instructors for the Yang family form. Everyone had very different interpretations of its use for self-defense. And , I feel, body types had to do with it. and as an aside. One of my last instructors was a martial art's "lunatic". I've seen very few people as dedicated to the arts in the modern day as him. He really trained for 4-5 hours a day and this was before I moved away when he was 72. Man was in great health for his age. but it was evidence of the low-impact exercises inherent to the form. Which is what I'm after more at 52 years old. I love the art; it gets a black eye for no good reason.
As you asked for suggestions about future videos: there is a channel here on youtube, named "Karate Breakdown". The owner, his name is Michael, has a black belt in Karate and in BJJ. I really like his approach towards things. It would be really cool, if you could do something together. Or another channel: McDojoLife, the owner, named Robert, has a black belt in Karate and also ptratises Jiu Jitsu (not sure if it is BJJ). Recently you made a good video about Systema. And Robert from McDojoLife is a huge critic of Systema, he released a video about how shitty it is and stuff like that. I think it might really be interesting if the 2 of you could come together and exchange some thoughts and experiences.
The push hands technique seems not to far off from wrestling hand fighting. From what I understand Erik Paulson has even mentioned that Wing Chun and wrestling has very similar hand fighting.
As mentioned, Tai Chi specializes in using the shoulders as a weapon to counter grapplers but it was not utilized. Perhaps any form of striking was disallowed in this friendly.
The "no name" taichi guy was able to put some serieous resistance against the legend and I think surprised him a bit. I couldn't understand his footwork, maybe if you could explain a little it in some video...
Thank you sir for not bashing the traditional arts. While BJJ is obviously effective the traditional arts are no joke either . They are effective. Also in some of these art v art vids you have a trained full time fighter v a teacher of another style that is not pro , works a full time job but does not do as well as the other guy then he and his style is bashed . That is B.S
You should look in to "I Liq Chuan", its not TaiChi, but shares some principles, their top players get a lot of medals at TaiChi competitions, and their push hands type practice is very hands on, no pun intended.
Chen guy is being nice as the barge technique that you refer to as a "trip" is most optimal & efficient when you keep the head in place in space so you leverage the body around the head or can be shoulders waist & into slam or spin around lol @:::))
@@terryryan2701 sorry for the disappointment. It’s just a thumbnail. Not intended to be clickbait but i didn’t know who to put and this was one of the highest resolution images of a tai chi guy
He's good at takedowns. He's not world class but if you watch him in ADCC he wasn't pulling guard that often compared to people today. he has a beautiful double entry and is fast and short.
It was considered the highest martial art in China. Only the aristocrats were allowed to learn it. Much like Chinese martial arts the combat ability died when Mao killed most of the sifus.
Think about what you are really saying. There are some guys in China that can also survive for up to 20 seconds against Marcello when they are standing and Marcelo isn't shooting from the outside?
No im saying that he was able to drive Marcelo off balance and generate immense force with his relaxation. He clearly has no idea to defend a double… i don’t disagree… but that’s like saying Marcelo doesn’t know how to defend a punch… it’s a correctable hole in his game.
@@inside_fighting Fair enough. Maybe we are saying the same thing. But I don't find this remarkable. I was the first GJJ Black Belt to own and run a BJJ/MMA school in China and I can confirm that there are a number of guys (mostly Shuai Jiao wrestlers and San da guys) that can represent very well and even toss Marcello in a stand-up grappling format.
@@inside_fighting guess my point is, sure there are useful techniques in these side martial arts, but wouldn't a better use of your time be invested in getting better at one of the pillars of mma wrestling, jiujitsu, kickboxing, and boxing? This is coming coming from a judoka.
@@jimhendericks no because their are diminishing returns at some point… my coach used to tell me to stop working out and that more time on the Matt was what i needed and i disagree with that too. Strength training may not make me a directly better fighter skill wise but it helps my fighting in a way that bjj wont… if you only have a few hours a week to train then sure I’d stick with combat sports if your goal is direct fighting but if you have time open this is great
@@inside_fighting you're right, your goals are probably different. I'm probably biased as an MMA fan, I think about what would be the most effective in the cage, but everyone has different reasons for being in the martial arts. You win. 10-9
I began judo and jiujitsu since childhood til adulthood, had some collegiate folk wrestling experience, but out of curiosity I trained with a Daito Ryu guy and then with a Wing Tsun KunFa sifu who was a direct student of Leung Ting.
Daito Ryu and Wing Tsun are very much internal arts, relying upon relaxed muscles and explosive tendon strength.
Internal refers to focusing upon tendon activation while relaxing the external muscles so the opponent can not feel tension and counter one's movements.
Despite my two decades in grappling arts, primarily Judo & Jiujitsu, I got rag dolled by a Daito Ryu expert and by a Wing Tsun KunFa sifu in the 1990s.
Now my long time student, whose a Judo & Jiujitsu instructor himself, is currently training under my old sifu Keith Fain in Wing Tsun KunFa in Clarksville TN.
I learned to not judge anything until I've tested it myself. Experience is a great teacher.
Experience is the best teacher :) it’s cool to be able to feel these guys first hands sometimes and how different it feels.
No, those aren't internal arts. Wing Chun is absolutely NOT an internal art. There are no Japanese martial arts, the closest to internal the Japanese have is aikijujitsu. There is a lot more to internal arts than you mentioned. Yes there is work from the tendons/ligaments and springs of the body, but that is far, far from the whole of it. Just one element of many. That said I love your attitude, it is good not to judge as you said until you tested it for yourself. I too once good rag dolled by an internal arts instructor despite 8 years of wrestling, muay thai, FMA, and other arts. That started me on my journey into the internal arts.
@@huwhitecavebeast1972you forgot to mention the fascia activation and gliding your opponent's fascia.
@@inside_fightingyou want to move the opponent's fascia with your fascia.
@@inside_fightinghere is a good channel that covers fascia activation @pheonix mountain tai chi on UA-cam covers using the fascia instead of muscles.
Taichi push hands is underrated, it might not take you to UFC level, but it has tons of value people (especially American people for some reason) tend to overlook.
Good pushing hands is hard to find but here are a few places (among many) you will find crazy good people : Peace Park in Taipei-Taiwan, Penang Malaysia, Chen family Village in China.
I think it’s just not shown here enough or marketed in any way so people don’t know
@@inside_fightingthe issue is mostly that when its taught, many traditions like to imitate things their teachers used to demonstrate, like showing their students getting thrown ridiculously off balance or hopping around like idiots, and it it makes it all look very fake...but it's just lacking context.
Those principles are very real, it's just the way it's being demonstrated/practiced that prevents any real and progressional fighting application from being developed and appreciated.
I've trained in Baguazhang and Taijiquan for over 20yrs, with Traditional Japanese Jujutsu, and a mixture of inconsistent yrs of Judo, BJJ and boxing (those last 3 to increase my sparring time with resistant partners).
What I can say is that Taijiquan really benefits those who are already good at fighting, more than those who only study Taijiquan (particularly those of Yang, Wu, Hao and Sun) and nothing else.
I say that because the principles of Taijiquan will immediately translate to something any grappler has already been exposed to, just in a much more subtle way.
I would say rather than look at Taijiquan as a different martial art (it has all the strikes, throws and locks being applied in combat sports today and then some)...think of it more as trying to develop a specific quality to what you already know.
That's really what it did for the Chen Village in the first place: added a subtle, elastic quality to very old external military fighting arts.
The issue westerners have today, or modern fighters maybe, with Taijiquan/Tai Chi, is the claim that by and of itself its a competent fighting art purely based on the Legends of late 19th century early 20th century exploits the can't be reproduced today on the biggest combat sport stages.
That's a valid issue. However, approached with the possibility that it can be a valuable quality to add some different tricks to the MMA game, might be received differently depending on who can demonstrate that efficacy first.
If you train for UFC level you can take it there. It's not so much about the style but about the Mindset you are training for
Push hands is not the epitome of Taiji. Its a training tool.
In national push hands competitions in China the winners are guys who train Shuai Jiao. In fact, it doesn't even look like push-hands.
It is so impressive that an incredibly high level BJJ practitioner like Marcelo Garcia was willing to do this. There are so many critics on UA-cam and social media generally who feel a need to bash non-MMA and non-BJJ martial arts and martial artists. But Garcia’s attitude seems to be, “this art’s been around for a long time, let me see what it’s all about and let me see whether I can learn anything useful from it.” Open minds and curiosity make truly great champions like Marcelo Garcia.
He’s a martial artist at heart not just a fighter. A warrior in every sense
@@inside_fightingso you're sayin it works against buakaw or saenchai too? Or bivol?
@@icanaja8192 the comment above is about Marcelo being a warrior… i so t think a random tai chi guy could beat Jon jones… buakaw
…Sanchai… they are world class champions and legendary fighters… who spend all day every day training and fighting… why is that the standard? I can’t beat buakaw either lol
I am not a wrestler/grappler, and I never was (nor was I ever a striker or submissions guy). My way of fighting has always been taking the opponent's balance away and/or deflecting their strength, with just enough striking and grappling thrown in to keep them honest. I've studied martial arts for about 36 (37?) years now... starting with karate, delving into several kung fu styles, and then later exploring just about everything out there (including more modern styles like kickboxing and the MMA approach). Tai Chi is easily my favorite, and the one that I believe is most useful for self defense if you aren't physically strong/fast/durable. It emphasizes movements anyone at any age can do and perfect, and it is very effective when taught as self defense rather than just exercise and meditation ("park Tai Chi"). The strikes are good, the wrestling/grappling is good, and it's much easier on the body to practice than any other martial art (by design). You will never form a chronic muscle/joint problem from practicing Tai Chi, so you can keep this style of self defense practiced well into old age and remain effective with it. It's pretty much the only self defense art that can boast this. Even most of the other soft arts cannot say this about themselves.
What most impresses me, and should impress everyone watching that video -- there is a huge difference in reflexes, explosive speed, explosive power, and brute strength between the two artists. One is an athlete of the absolute highest caliber, trained in the basics of multiple disciplines (how I see MMA training). The other is basically just a regular guy who knows how to apply Tai Chi well. He's relaxed relative to his opponent, mainly losing energy only when he gets taken down and falls to the mat. If he was just a bit better at avoiding leg takedowns, he'd just tire out his opponent and win on fatigue despite not being nearly as physically gifted/capable.
But also, being the "one" in a a two-on-one is generally the worst position to find yourself in. There are literally 100+ ways for the opponent to make use of that position, and you can't do much from there yourself. Some arts, like Aikido, are almost built around creating that position because to do so keeps you safe and enables many ways to attack. But in this video the Tai Chi guy is just giving him the arm and is fine. That may not look like much to the untrained eye - just two guys grappling. But it's actually absurdly impressive that the Tai Chi guy is not only able to hand him the arm but also still be the attacker a fair amount of the time.
I never like dedicated wrestling practice like this. There are a lot of very nasty strikes that come out of Chinese grappling positions, and a number of times I saw those openings (mostly snappy jabs and elbows to the face) created in the video. The Tai Chi guy just passed on taking them, since that's not what the two of them were exploring at the time. There may have been some wrestling takedowns by Garcia, but the Tai Chi guy had the better of pretty much every exchange by my eye as a Tai Chi enthusiast who knows wrestling reasonably well. Amazing to see Garcia struggling that hard.
Trained tai chi for 27 years. Trained with alot of famous tai chi masters in china and Won a lot of pushands tournaments in the early 2000s. I also sparred with alot different grapplers and had great fun learning from each other and seeing the surprise on their faces when they realize I was not going down. Basically there are 3 approaches common in the modern tai chi community… there are “empty wrigglers”, “seaweed slappers” and what I do which I don’t have a derogatory name for and just call Taiji ;) … this guy is a seaweed slapper and a pretty decent one. The guys I trained with at the chen village all do this. They rely a lot on momentum and waves from the center like seaweed in the ocean but personally I think it’s a misinterpretation of “silk feeling” that still has some benefit but is not ideal. Then you have your more common “empty wrigglers” these people are very soft and wiggle trying to run away and trap or off balance people who are easily off balanced. They would not do as well as this guy against any decent grappler. They tend to be from yang or Wu style and think tai chi is like water without structure. The seaweed folks have structure but they whip it around and are not neutral. Then there is the third approach that I now do after spending a decade each doing the other 2 methods. What I do is from a few lesser known lines of chen… basically striving for neutrally at all times from all directions it’s very difficult and hard to explain but there are a very small group of masters out there that understand this method I think it’s objectively better and was the original method by the founders of this art. You need to train your structure so that you can connect the floor to any part of your body but having no exploitable tension chains to push or pull or drag on. This takes lots of form practice to change your movement habits combined with pressure testing from many angles. The goal is to feel immovable and slow down the momentum of the attacker at contact but to immediately lever and transfer force using 2 distinct points one yin that is the an inward spiral acting as fulcrum of the pressure and one yang that is an outward growing spiral that issues force around the fulcrum. With enough practice you can spiral the opponents force around any contact point that you can get ahold of using the pressure off of the floor and be really annoying to them ;)… I usually do not try to be an arm chair/keyboard warrior commenting like this but your enthusiasm and open mindedness inspired me to share my experience. I might make a channel someday but for now I am super busy teaching in person and raising my kids.
Like your comment 😊
The gentleman in the video is a Yang style practitioner, from the William CC Chen Taiwanese affiliates. The video poster got his info mixed up a little bit.
Where to find the style you're talking about?
What you describe kinda sounds familiar to me. Wondering if you may perhaps be talking about the Hong Junsheng lineage of Chen Taijiquan (a.k.a. Chen Practical Method and other denominations)?
Bc what you describe are certainly key concepts there...
Chen Tai chi is the original tai chi, according to what I looked up and was told, coming from the Chen Village in northern China; you’re right to say that it’s the most aggressive style of tai chi. Tai chi techniques can be applied in nearly ALL grappling, and the TuiShou/Push hands is an exercise to teach balancing and structure to test how grounded the practitioner is.
I love that you’re taking more interests in internal martial art and what they bring into the world; granted many modern practitioners don’t really know how to apply it in a fight because they don’t normally spar in many TCMA, but does that do practice properly and think on how to apply it properly in combat or spar are the ones that keep making us traditionalists proud of practicing them.
I think I’m going to spend some time learning internal systems to see how i can implement them in to my sparring and training more
@@inside_fighting That would be amazing if you could document your experience on youtube
@@camiloiribarren1450 ua-cam.com/video/fucj8soGDWg/v-deo.htmlsi=83khgvDwvkxFpaU0
@@inside_fightingthat’s not what learning internal is about. It’s about redifininf the base mechanics of everything from the bottom up. It’s more like you will carry knowledge of the past to refine the expression of what you learn in the internal. Your approach will yield no good results. And also you need good teachers. Ideally 1 great 1 to start and help you grasp things clearly.
The chances of finding multiple good teachers is almost nill and for them to not contradict or hurt each others capacity to help you is also hard to avoid. Tho if your the right mind you can balance the approaches and egos involved, but that is hard.
I’ve seen push hands and some static stance push hand competitions online were it looks like a version of GrecoWrestling in particular with the arm-drags and the whipping motions. But I never understood why we don’t see that in the Olympics in the same style this is.
you do see some whipping like movements but not in that same subtle and total body synergistic way as posed to a ballistic whipping movements that may occur.
But i think you nailed it when you said the tai chi guy loses his ability when he doesn’t have contact, no cohesion and sensitivity. As apposed to wrestling that his still has body awareness and sensitivity don’t get me wrong but not really in the same style as demonstrated here. Might also be a case of Rules and competition dictate tactics and techniques too. Grappling matches start far apart and these tai chi matches begin in contact and others don’t even allow you to move. This is super impressive! Great video coach!
@@Wise-Fool97 thanks brother you are exactly right with your view on it in my opinion. The rules and focus dictate how the style evolves
One of Marcello's black belt students is a tai chi practitioner and world champion push hands, Josh Waitzkin. Yang style under W. Chen. So I'm assuming Marcello already had some experience with push hands before this interaction.
It’s sad there isn’t more real push hand schools available
@@inside_fighting Man I would love to find one in my areas. I’ve always tried to use sticky hand type stuff when doing bjj. But would love to dive into push hands
That guy is trash tho as is the guy if video. Not Marcelo , he is awesome but the taiji guys being talked about
@@inside_fightingit’s too hard to learn. And there are like 5 or less actual good people in the world, if.
Would love to hear from other grapplers like myself and their experiences in these softer internal systems. Share a comment below!
@@inside_fighting I think upper body grappling is so important for self defense when you are likely to have collars and sleeves. Push hands has a play and sensitivity to it that I think is valuable to hand fighting, trapping, upper body wrestling. I think mixing the sensitivity drills and live sparring would be very beneficial.
When I teach bjj classes I always do a stand up drill. I’ll often do a light randori where I remove techniques. So it will be something like “no leg grabbing” or “whoever takes the back standing wins the round.” Makes students focus on good sleeve grips, arms drags, 2 on 1, etc.
I've been wrestling for over 35 years, and have been training bjj and Sambo for a little over 25. I've learned more about subtle throws and takedowns from my Baguazhang practice than in all the other areas combined. I've been lucky to train grappling with my friend Steve Cotter, who is also a long time bagua guy. Very interesting "rolls" have ensued And I'm also a huge fan of Marcelo! I was a personal student of Renzo Gracie right before he got beat by Marcelo, and it blew my mind!!😊
I hope you do one of these breakdowns and explorations on Aikido and also Daito Ryu.
Push hands is actually not an exercise for fighting.
It's an unbalancing exercise which is originally highly restrictive (fixed stance, below the neck, above the waist -only interaction, no clothes grabbing), and therefore also quite safe, which allows the practitioners to really focus on "outmaneuvering" each other in the softest and most sensitive way possible, which eventually can lead to quite amazing results, even against much bigger and stronger opponents IF and WHEN that soft development is truly there.
Tai Chi has however become the laughingstock of martial arts, pretty much since UA-cam, because of delusional idiots who think they have that development when they don't or when they've only trained in push hands, which is not a fighting system. Even a decent development in push hands would need to be pressure tested and restrictions would need to be gradually removed to make it a full grappling system. So allowing moving steps combined with collar ties and body lifts (without the throws) would turn it into stand-up Greco-Roman, adding in leg-to-leg (trips, sweeps, bumps) would broaden it even more, adding in hand-to-leg attacks (singles, doubles, ankle picks) would turn it into folk-style standup, and then the gi can be brought into the mix at these different stages as well.
The overarching goal however has always been to do all of this with "soft" power. And it's very difficult to practice this "soft" power when too much is going on, which is why push hands is originally so restrictive (it also makes it safer for experimenting with soft in case soft fails, lol). It is, however, only the first step in a system that has mostly become a ritualistic representation of what it used to be. And there's also striking and different weapons.
On top of that Tai Chi has devolved quite a bit into cliques, clans and cultish crap with the little local guru's tightly controlling their environments and even local governments in China forcefully perpetuating delusional nonsense. Rokas (from "martial arts journey" YT channel) has told some interesting tales about his experiences in the Aikido world. Well, I've experienced worse crap in the TC environments.
Overall, I'd say currently TC can be a great supplemental if you can find a good school/ environment, of which I'm doubtful tbh. But it could be similar to what you experienced with systema. Maybe Vasiliev can hook you up with Scott Meredith, if he's still around, he helped author some books on systema if I remember correctly and was a student of the late Ben Lo (Benjamin Pang Jeng Lo)) William Chen is also still around according to wiki, so a visit to New York and his school could be worth the trip. Josh Waitzkin, as I mentioned in another comment, is one of his students.
@@Rome4787 100% agree, great to see someone blending it like that, I think it's the way to go
Aside from Rickson, Marcelo is the best in my book. Pure class too. Thank you, Ilan. Osu! 🥋
@@alantinoalantonio thanks man. He’s the biggest “non instructor” influence for me in bjj. I used to watch his instructionals daily. I developed my whole game around him. 🙏🏼
Thank you for sharing this! This is the flip side of the info on Taijituishou that is usually disseminated. For me, I love it all; catch, judo, csw, Bjj, Shuai jiao, freestyle, tui shou, etc, etc. I’m getting older, now, but cross training in folk grappling systems is pure joy!
Chen taijiquan broke all my prejudices against tai chi when I first discovered it a decade ago, I became obssessed with the history and mentality... I find it so ironic that 99% of the tai chi practiced today is a modified version that began when they taught the first outsider (it was a secret style taught only within the Chen Family at closed doors; Makes sense in a time of conflict right? Knowledge is gold), He modified the style when he was invited to teach in the court and found out that the nobles were not interested in hard training lol, so he took out the yang part of the system (hard, fast, strong, vigorous, etc), and left only the slow exercices that have a calming effect so the high noses could deal with their privilege problems hahaha. It's really funny because taoist philosophy is all about harmonising these two forces within the body, you train slow to pay attention to your body, make sure you are well connected, rooted, making sure your lower articulations are harmonised with the top ones to generate full power, strike from the waist, etc; so you could gradually speed things up and make it more and more ferocious (it was also a way of teaching kids in the family how to do the moves); don't believe most of what you see as tai chi today if you have a combat art kind of approach, most of it is more of a relaxing exercice than fighting, and thats ok for who wants that, but theres a lots of different levels in the art that you can't really see unless you drop the prejudice and dig a little further; Great video man, ty ;)
Thanks brother. Would be cool if there were more Chen tai chi schools around so it could be seen more
I like to see Taichi practice like practicing music, you don't start of playing super fast jazz, you start slow, learning good posture, positions and breathing, then you learn small bits and scales and you keep practicing these basics all your life even when you get to a decent level.
@@inside_fighting Ikr, I think there's a little poetry in that, what's good tends to be rare and you can't find it anywhere, we need to dig at the right place and long enough to extract true value.. Also, I forgot brother.. I appreciate that you put a photo of Grandmaster Chen Xiaowang on the thumbnail, he's a lot more than meets the eye and it took me a while to find him and start learning from him hahah
@@inside_fighting most Tai chi taught is usually the Yang Style, which is the one you see old people practice in parks and highly populated places because the founder of Yang style learned from Chen style and then went to Beijing to demonstrate it. Hence why it’s got HUGE movements
Thanks for showing. I practice Chen style in addition to other styles. It is really good at the standing grappling/clinch range
I do modern wrestling and Chinese martial arts. My experience with people who do Chinese martial arts is that even the ones who never sparred in mma style have good grounding and are difficult to take down with force. It is especially difficult to uproot them by pulling thier arm. The ones who train properly have solid structure.
Couldn’t agree more
loved the lack of ego and the big respect these lads have for each other,a pleasure to watch
Got to say, this has to be one of the most underrated Martial Arts channels. Do you teach Ilan? IF so where?
@@lurker_dude1955 thanks so much! I’ve taught across the country. I used to have a school in La and Atlanta but now I’m in Florida and don’t currently teach other than Privates’s and the instructionals but eventually i hope to again!
The quick movements you see in Chen Style Taijiquan are not using the muscles to jeck or pull. They use relaxed heavy power to Fa Jin, from feet to whatever body part they want to direct force out of. Warning: Fa Jin requires specific training for tendons/connective tissues as they must be strong or you can injure yourself trying to Fa Jin.
@@Ninja9JKD it’s an interesting concept!
I started Silat and Escrima in 1993. In 2008 I found Tai Chi. I proceeded to find the Tao and quit practicing martial arts about 5-6 years ago. I meditate now. I have been Fasting a lot for the past 8 years while drinking herb teas.
I’ve started fasting more. Once a week for a day and i find it helps my body. You probably do very long intense fasts
I've been on some 40+ day Fasts. For the past 8 years, I have been eating once every two or three days.
I want to train with JFlo. He mixes Judo, Greco Roman Wrestling and BJJ. They call it American Jiu-Jitsu now.
Just meditate with it and set up sexy chokes and locks!
Yes, good observations. I've done Chen for the past 25 yrs.
We practice the push-hands the same way. I personally ran a tournament in Orlando for many years with this type of exchange also including ground and submission.
Thanks for sharing. If you ever want to discuss any Chen principles, contact me.
Awesome! Are you based out of Orlando?
@@inside_fighting just north of Tampa.
Amongst many Taiji Players (not all) push hands is overrated. It is a great exercise, but without free sparing, with of all the restrictions usually placed in Push hands, it is not close enough to get you ready for sports combat or Self-Defense against a skilled opponent.
@@stevecontes7811you’re absolutely right , push hands is just one step of the process , it is not the end goal in Taiji . Next step would be prearranged sparring, free light sparring leading to real sparring with the attention placed on adhering to Taiji principals and correcting the unnecessary stiffness that would be definitely showing when you are under pressure. Unfortunately there are probably a couple of teachers that can teach that and if you aren’t Chinese they would probably not give you all .
@@stevecontes7811you’re absolutely right , push hands is just one step of the process , it is not the end goal in Taiji . Next step would be prearranged sparring, free light sparring leading to real sparring with the attention placed on adhering to Taiji principals and correcting the unnecessary stiffness that would be definitely showing when you are under pressure. Unfortunately there are probably a couple of teachers that can teach that and if you aren’t Chinese they would probably not give you all .
I’m not a regular practitioner of tai chi but I’m told there are two basic hand positions: 2 on 2, and 2 on 1. And when a friend showed me their 2 on 1 it was one at the wrist and one on the elbow, and I immediately thought “this is the position from hubud lubud after checking the elbow”. That may not be a revelation to most people, but it certainly made me more curious about tai chi.
There a lot of overlap in and short time experience it.
Thank you so much 🙏
Glad you enjoyed
Because your analysis was so focused, I learned from this. Great video.
"It's not the style of the fighter, but the morale behind the style"
My friend, just some important info to clarify... this guy in the video is not a Chen style guy, he's from a Yang substyle made popular by Mr. William CC Chen in NYC and Taiwan. The gentleman in this video is also a former Push Hands champion nicknamed "Buffalo Chen" (no relation to the Chen Style family). One of Marcelo's prodigy BJJ students is Josh Waitzkin (genius chess prodigy too) that also studied with William CC Chen and Buffalo Chen. That's how Marcelo and Buffalo ended up having multiple friendly "skill exhanges".
You can probably reach out to them in NYC for more insight and firsthand experience.
The actual Chen Style (aka Chen Village) guys are outstanding too, but with a different flavor and tempo. Look up Chen ZhiQiang, Chen Bing, Ren Guangyi, or Stephan Berwick.
Thanks for clarifying! I’m not super educated on the lineages at all
Taiji push hands are used to create space. To me, it's very useful when weapons are taken into consideration. Try experimenting with adding taiji drills to your fma drills.
@@kevionrogers2605 i most definitely will. I’ll be doing push hands with sticks and knives next weeks
Awesome! Very impressive Tai Chi guy! I did Yang Tai Chi for a while (many years ago) and I found that it really helped my Silat.
you can do pushing hands in many ways. you can do it slow for drilling sensitivity, or fast as in a competition, you can fix step it or make it as a wrestling. basically as with all sparing, you can control the degrees of freedom you allow, thus controlling the intensity and the goal of the drill
I like it when it becomes completely alive
@@inside_fighting
me too, but one must build this step by step, to better this skill.
and it really depended on what skill you want to drill at a moment.
promise you a nice play time when you come visiting :)🙏
Arm Drag Marcelo?... INCONCEIVABLE!!!
Exactly... I mean. This guy did something that the top 10 ADCC athletes couldn't do - it's definitely an avenue that elite grapplers could get some value spending time understanding.
Tai chi hands down in the most effective combat art IMO but has a very very steep learning curve, so generally those who accel at it where already very skilled fighters.
You can gage effective Tai chi from the reactions of the opponent and not necessarily from the actions of the practicioner.
I always wonder what an expert of Push Hands could bring new to discussion.
I love looking at "off-meta" solution,and my solution for Bjj is Sumo/Tai Chi. Mix of " Can't let you get close" and "Can't let you take me down"
Not just beat,but invalidate their whole game.
Not to mention,Tai Chi is one of the styles known for it Kao, leaning blow,pretty similar to Baji,but more grappling focused. From what i have seen,the shoulder is also used for grappling.
@@junichiroyamashita they use the shoulder very nicely and in a way you don’t see often
There are a few taichi moves (like Kao) that can knock someone on their ass, basically crashing into the opponent with your whole body mass when they try to pull you towards them, but you can also use the elbow to focus the impact or bump their legs with yours etc...
@@Jenjak is a leg bump or hip bump? Like the Jeff Chan one?
There is also a vidéo of Flavio Santiago (luta livre and bjj black belt) playing with a taichi master, and he was impressed with by his control, balance and abilities. Vidéo is called Tai Chi vs Luta Livre
I gotta check that one out for sure
Thanks for this video. Most people in the west have only ever seen Tai Chi for Health which is a very limited sub-set of Taiji as a whole. I was recommended to do TCfH as I have a degenerative joint condition. Thank goodness, I found a Sifu who focusses on using it to fight rather than just following rote form. When I switched teachers the exercises he taught were much more effective at helping my body to repair by teaching me how to balance and move as efficiently as possible. My consultant told me in 2015 that I would be in a wheelchair by 2017. Here we are in 2024 and, thanks to a great teacher I am more mobile now than I have been this century. The slowness allows me to work in detail on the structure and forces used to stay balanced and relaxed, while putting the other person at a disadvantage. Seeing you explain how that works in BJJ (not something I've had much to do with beyond watching MMA) is really affirming. Cheers.
One of Marcelo's students is a grandmaster chess champion, who also happens to be a Push Hands world champion, aside from his Jiujitsu. Josh Waitzkin
Someone else mentioned that which is super cool. I had no idea.
@@inside_fighting I highly recommend The Art of Learning: An Inner Journey to Optimal Performance Written by Josh Waitzkin. It goes deep into this and the audio book is the best.
Thanks, Inside Fighter. As a short term, here and there, former practioner of Judo, Bullshido Ninjitsu, Wing Chun Gung Fu, Tai Chi Chuan from a legit _wooden leg_ Shifu, John Will's Shoot Fighting, Krav Maga and Boxing - I absolutely LOVE your try anything approach. Pushing hands to this day, is my favourite way of introducing people to partial farts, I mean- Martial Arts.
True, tai ji is build on tactile connection but remember this is an exercise in wrestling. The idea in taiji is also to strike from those tactile connected positions.
Hey Elon, great video as always! From my understanding of tai chi and internal arts, the foundational training is the most important, so it takes a while to get to the push hands stage. I do not believe you can start at the later stage of tai chi and be as successful as the gentleman in this video, he was very impressive. Adam Mizner may be a good one to look at as he has done film with some MMA guys. Cheers
Thanks so much. Many others have recommended him as well. I’ll definitely be checking him out
@@inside_fighting Mizner's explanations are very opaque to those not versed in traditional 'tai chi speak', which is one of the reasons why he is regarded by many as 'Bullshido'.
Just watched a career video on Marcelo yesterday. First time I've heard of him. Absolute best pound for pound I've seen. So it's super impressive this Thai Chi guy could do so well
Great video. Thanks. 🤙🏿🙏🏿
Ramsey Dewey was talking about tai chi being a grappling style
He’s a knowledgeable guy 🙏🏼
Bear in mind the Tai Chi guy is splashing in Marcello's puddle where Marcello is king.
Also bear in mind that Tai Chi is a multiple strike art, by that I mean that it utilises punches, kicks, grips, locks, and chin na grappling.
One last thing to note; if an attacker on the street was to put two hands on one arm, anyone with any intelligence would punch them with their free hand
Most definitely about the last part but i have separated self defense from sport “play” in my mind
Channel keeps becoming better and better. Check if possible to meet with Strider Clark and Zhang Yun. They practice the Yin Cheng Gong Fa lineage, highly respected. Strider is a beast himself. I have trained in that lineage for about a decade. Their pushing hands skills are exceptional. I also love the comments of the people in this video, it looks like people who are informed on the matter. You are gradually creating a community of intelligent practitioners mate! 😁
I totally agree with you all these traditional energy drills from different arts all have value. It all boils down to context. If you’re gonna use it for fighting then you have to insert it into the fighting landscape. It’s that simple.! at least that’s my understanding up to this point in my training experience. Always enjoy your discourse, man,…. Looking forward to meeting up with you again.
We will train more next time im in town brother!
If you want Tai-Chi, go find Adam Mizner...
Also yeah, with Tai chi it's crucial to remain in tactile contact with your opponent, not grapply or grabby per say, but maintaining soft contact and never letting your opponent slide his way up out of the mud.
Great observation!
The thing is Marcelo train with Joshua Watkins for years.
Great video and analysis. I've also found that good Tai Chi people have incredible rooting and are difficult to imbalance, aside from anything else they may do.
I really like this. You sound like you want suggestions, but honestly I'm interested in the same things you make videos about. I think martial arts are great, and I like watching people spar. The spontaneous, creative movement with intent is interesting to me.
Same here! Especially when it comes from different systems. The different approaches is so cool
Love the channel mate - always good stuff. The clip you're showcasing is with a Cheng style taiji player from Taiwan, not Chen style. Cheng man Ching is the guy who brought the softer approach to taiji to the US, but his students in the SE Asian diaspora - Malaysia, Singapore (and of course Taiwan) can be pretty hard customers.
Taiji bases itself on the theory of yin and yang. Too much yin/softness - and you don't have taiji.
Thanks for clarifying brother. Another person mentioned that. I am uneducated in this area so didn’t know. It’s all a bit confusing when you start diving in 🙏🏼
@@inside_fighting All good - you're doing an awesome job. Chen and Cheng sound the same as well. How were you supposed to know? Cheng Man Ching developed his ideas from the Yang style.
Some people like to talk about 'martial' taiji styles and 'health' taiji styles. It's really just how you train. The concepts and postures aren't all that different between the schools.
Daniele bolelli does tai chi as well as Shuai Jiao I mention it because like he said the soft style shares movements with the hard style. He holds black belts in BJJ and Judo so grappling wise he knows what he's on about. Theres a Tai chi and yoga instructor who trains at one of my local bjj gym hes amazing on his feet.
Very cool to hear. It seems like a lot of this stuff is taboo in the combat sports world.
Love me some inside fighting!! Comment for engagement 💪
Appreciate you brother 🙏🏼
My pleasure!@@inside_fighting
Another awesome video I was taught a little bit of chi sou by my last teacher that’s it but he was also the one who taught me filipino martial arts so
It’s really enjoyable i find and a good way to train some stand up grappling with reduced injury
Have you done a sumo video? If not I’d love to see your take on sumo matches and how it could incorporate into the martial arts meta.
I’m a fan of sumo recently because of Sensei Seth’s videos. I really enjoy it and in some ways feel it is really heard for self defense better than some other systems. I’ll definitely do Video on it
@@inside_fighting That sounds cool. Pushing people around is really underrated in self-defense. Also a lot of street fights are brief and intense. Just like sumo.
Thanks for posting, good video. That was a good training game by marcello and the tai chi guy, very respectful on both their parts. Tai chi has a concept called the 7 Stars and 3 Points, The three points are the hands and feet so like punches and kicks. The seven stars are everything else, especially shoulders, but also elbows, forearms and knees etc. In most styles the 7 stars make up about 80% of the counter attacks. Tai chi It is sort of a counter punching art, but in a stand up grappling way.
Chen competition push hands has no touching below the belt, and there is no touching the head or neck. So Tai chi guy has already handicapped himself compared to someone who isn't using the same limitations.
Good video it would be nice to a see a more experienced Tai Chi Quan person
I’d love to see a really high level tai chi guy do this
Dan the Wolfman would loves this,😊👍
Does he like tai chi? He’s got a very open mind
@@inside_fighting he has great sensitivity in his grappling
@@inside_fighting lol I just realized woman instead of Wolfman lol, yes he has very good sensitivity and yes I believe he would incorporate aspects of it if he hasn't already done so
@@inside_fighting Dan the wolfman is like doing brute force aikido version. Have a look at his videos with martial arts journey rokas, he is a wild card
I didn’t know Marcelo had stomach cancer.
Good video
He caught it early luckily from what i heard. He’s a warrior
Hey Ilan! Great to see practical application of Chen style against the GOAT, and your commentary. I see a lot of value in softer styles as an aging BJJ player. Great content! 👍
We seem to be on the same journey. I’m really gaining an appreciation for these systems. Bjj gets rougher on the body with age and supplementing it with this kind of training can do wonders i think.
@@inside_fighting Agreed! The soft restorative stuff ☯️ balances out the mata leao 😂 but seriously all those older folks in the park doing tai-chi can’t be wrong. Looks great for the joints!
This was very cool
Omg how many minute round vs MG??? This is incredible demonstration of both athletes. Tai Chi is a riddle for graplers. I wonder what will be the future grapling style. I think both arts have something to teach us.
If Taiji is trained properly, and I don't mean "traditionally", its a very stable martial art. You cant just do forms in your yard and expect to be anything other than healthy.
Agree with that it’s just so hard to find people who train it that way
@@inside_fighting I have better luck cross training with people who do combat sports. I think that's the only real way to promote Chinese martial arts at the moment.
Karate people were a hundred years ago practicing forms for health too, still no one thinks of it as complete useless
The 2 arts need to ne trained like this all the time, Tai chi people need this type of pressure and intensity all the time to develop real skills
Look into Stephan Berrick in the DC area. A great martial artist and Chin style practitioner. Also read his wiki
@@ajaniwinston8117 i most definitely will! Thanks man 🙏🏼
@@inside_fighting his organization is called true tai chi
@inside_fighting .. Stephan Berwick has been involved with Chen for more than 30 years, is a good resource, and was also my teacher.
Tho is an exciting premise, there are many martial arts that are valid, if only as supplemental to the quote unquote valid combat arts. Karate and taekwondo make for better kicking, king fu. And kali make better hands, fencing makes better footwork and tactics. So many forms that deserve recognition
Tai Chi practitioner made that space beautifully but failed to fill that space with a counter, these practitioners used to have Shuai Jiao to use here, look at Dr Yang Jwing Ming's techniques, you can see the relation to Aikijujutsu, Jujutsu and other wrestling styles.
One of my good friends is amazing at shuai jiao and is a beast
@@inside_fighting @inside_fighting That's so cool man, I've never had the luck to meet someone whos trained in it. It's part of the real Kung fu puzzle, that has wrestling submissions/locks and newaza, aswell as hard striking like in Sanda. It's been broken down into constituent arts like in Japanese styles, but Kudo and other arts like Jon Bluming's seek to combine what was never meant to be parted or learned in isolation. I myself started in JKD and have gone full circle, I now appreciate that historically most arts were comprehensive in their scope, I'm back looking at native British arts just now aswell as the whole genesis of American martial arts hybridisation from Kempo/ Mitose in Hawaii to Wally Jay and JKD and how all that history is linked. I watched a movie The King and it had armoured fighting in it, some cool wrestling and unarmed striking that led me down the native British/Irish arts rabbit hole, I'm lookign at jacketed wrestling e.g Devonshire and Cornish aswell as Collar and elbow and how these arts were displayed back in the day in Japan, so the idea of Kimono/jacketed wrestling may be more native than once thought!! e.g we may have exported that idea just like we borrowed from Kushti/ Pehlwani in Catch as catch can probably similary through the armed forced being stationed in India.
You could say the same thing about jiu jitsu guys doing take down and locks but then missing the finisher that stops the fight or the aggression
for people in disbelief, just imagine if marcelo starts to train pushing hands....
A small clarification, I don't think the Tai Chi practitioner does Chen style Tai Chi, but his surname is Chen. It's confusing I know, Chen is a common Chinese family name, and it also is the name of the style. I could be wrong about this though - he was a push hands competitor from the South of Taiwan where Yang style is far more common than Chen.
Tai Chi people might get all upset about which Tai Chi style is best, but it doesn't take away from the point of your video.
Interesting. I thought different families passed on the style with different intent. I also am not overly educated in this area
Dude....only chen taijiquan does this type of wrestling drills and his back literally says Chenjia gou taijiquan......so yeah he is a chen taijiquan guy...
@@teovu5557 The back of his t-shirt says Tong zhong Taijiquan academy, 通中太極拳院 it doesn't mention Chenjiagou 陈家沟.
Chen was introduced to Marcelo by Josh Waitzkin, who fought him in a Push hands tournament in Taiwan. Josh practiced Yang (with William Chen, a student of Chengmanching, a student of Yangchengfu).
Mario Napoli who is another CMC/Yang stylist was a champion at the Chen village annual tournament.
Push hands with throws is found in all Taiji styles, but not necessarily practiced in all Taiji schools.
@@inside_fighting That's partly true, but not entirely. Chen style is often promoted as the most martial, but these things go on a school by school basis. The styles do have different flavours though - Chen very spiral, Yang/Wu more linear, Sun very simple with high stances are a few oversimplifications ;)
For example the Chengmanching subset of Yang has some of the most new age, woo and noodley people out there. But it also has schools where people like to mix it up, whether in push hands tournaments or sanda.
Of course the the usual martial arts disease of people believing they are the only ones doing the *real style* is rampant in Tai Chi.
When I live in China one of my friends went to the Chen village and it full on stand up grappling.
The issue I’ve heard about Tai Chi is that one, like all Kung fu styles, applications are not explained freely like you would get at a Bjj, wrestling, sambo club.
Also so many styles of tai chi, this is Chen style, but I know a lot of Yang stylists that believe that Yang is better and more direct for fighting. I’ve also been told that Yang engine fits better with Wing Chun system.
It was pointed out to me that when Marcelo goes low and takes the legs, the TC guy could of placed his hands on Marcelos face/ head simulating a neck break which would show the none sporting application of TC compared to sports grappling bjj.
All arts offer a way up the mountain, I believe some take the fast track, others take the scenic route and can take years to reach the higher peaks.
Unfortunately because of this, we still have high level grapplers available in Bjj, Wrestling etc, while others have fallen off the path while taking the scenic route, hence arts like Tai Chi, Aikido, Daito Ryu, Wing Chun and plenty others have lost masters / teachers that can guide students to the top of the mountain and now we see substandard students being taught a sloppy art instead of a once effective and practical combat system.
Very interesting video, never seen it before. But would really like to see. More on the Pak Mei system and learn about its connection to the triads as this must have really battle tested it regularly.
Mantis and Taiji guy who who pressure tested the hell out of it in mma. This is very generous of you, and yes you are noting the few good things Taiji guys obsess over, yet the smaller guy outclassed the larger. Bjj is a better grappling art and often more internal as the top guys do pranayama. Taiji is a polearm art so the rotations are to get dudes off of you so you can cut them. It never really developed as an unarmed art.
I have to disagree. Taijiquan , especially Yang form, is a grappling art. Yang was a big guy in his day. The pushes logically come from a big person and the momentum can be used from having more mass than their opponent.
There are a ton of grappling techniques within the. One of the first ones apparent in the classical 108 is "strokes peacock's tail" ( I've heard it translated in other ways, but it's stroking a stork's tail or some bird). Depending on where you can catch your opponent's arms, it's an elbow control or a go to break the humerus bone or cause a nasty sprain at best.
I've had a few instructors for the Yang family form. Everyone had very different interpretations of its use for self-defense. And , I feel, body types had to do with it.
and as an aside. One of my last instructors was a martial art's "lunatic". I've seen very few people as dedicated to the arts in the modern day as him. He really trained for 4-5 hours a day and this was before I moved away when he was 72. Man was in great health for his age. but it was evidence of the low-impact exercises inherent to the form. Which is what I'm after more at 52 years old. I love the art; it gets a black eye for no good reason.
As you asked for suggestions about future videos: there is a channel here on youtube, named "Karate Breakdown". The owner, his name is Michael, has a black belt in Karate and in BJJ. I really like his approach towards things. It would be really cool, if you could do something together.
Or another channel: McDojoLife, the owner, named Robert, has a black belt in Karate and also ptratises Jiu Jitsu (not sure if it is BJJ). Recently you made a good video about Systema. And Robert from McDojoLife is a huge critic of Systema, he released a video about how shitty it is and stuff like that. I think it might really be interesting if the 2 of you could come together and exchange some thoughts and experiences.
This is a tai chi guy with two years of high school wrestling.
If this guy knew a bit more about shuai jiao then he'd be a beast - from watching this, i don't think he did but boy if he did...
You can apply Chen style without "tactile" sensitivity like any combat system. You just did not see it here!
The push hands technique seems not to far off from wrestling hand fighting. From what I understand Erik Paulson has even mentioned that Wing Chun and wrestling has very similar hand fighting.
As mentioned, Tai Chi specializes in using the shoulders as a weapon to counter grapplers but it was not utilized. Perhaps any form of striking was disallowed in this friendly.
Ilon is right, a lot of the push-hands guys do it more as a martial moving relaxation drill.
I just wish taijiquan used more leg grabs. They have them just like Shuai jiao, Sanda, Xingyiquan, Baguazhang etc, etc.
I'd like to see Tai Chi vs. a legit Aikido practitioner like the guy Jesse Enkamp sparred with. May the best soft style win!
The "no name" taichi guy was able to put some serieous resistance against the legend and I think surprised him a bit. I couldn't understand his footwork, maybe if you could explain a little it in some video...
Anyone with a solid arm drag takes that man’s back for two points on the takedown…
Thank you sir for not bashing the traditional arts. While BJJ is obviously effective the traditional arts are no joke either . They are effective. Also in some of these art v art vids you have a trained full time fighter v a teacher of another style that is not pro , works a full time job but does not do as well as the other guy then he and his style is bashed . That is B.S
Engaging......subscribed.
Taijiquan is a grappling art. No one seems to get this.
Marcella Garcia is far from the best wrestler in the world. He was the best Brazilian jiu-jitsu guy in the late 2000’s.
Don’t disagree… it’s still a great exchange
Tai chi will definitely improve grappling in other arts
🙏
❤
You should look in to "I Liq Chuan", its not TaiChi, but shares some principles, their top players get a lot of medals at TaiChi competitions, and their push hands type practice is very hands on, no pun intended.
Totally agreed! A high level I liq quan guy trained in the Sam chin linage is a nightmare to grapple with.
True Taiji goes soft to become hard hence iron wrapped in cotton.
That’s a cool analogy
yeah like getting beaten with a wet towel, although i doubt ilan having watched Once Upon a Time In China 2 1992 Jet Li vs Donnie Yen
@@FuryoTokkosho I’ve watched it 😅 I’ve eat yes all of jet lis films. He’s my favorite action star
Chen guy is being nice as the barge technique that you refer to as a "trip" is most optimal & efficient when you keep the head in place in space so you leverage the body around the head or can be shoulders waist & into slam or spin around lol @:::))
Why show a photo of CHEN Xiaowang but show basically an unknown Taiji guy 😢
@@terryryan2701 sorry for the disappointment. It’s just a thumbnail. Not intended to be clickbait but i didn’t know who to put and this was one of the highest resolution images of a tai chi guy
Tai chi guy has had some wrestling training it seems
Marcelo Garcia is taking it easy on the other guy😂
@@ROCOROrthoboi they are both playing and not trying to kill each other.
He's like DJ. He's small and bad azz
how good is marcello at takedowns? I know he's an amazing grappler but would a good wrestler not do ok against him?
He's good at takedowns. He's not world class but if you watch him in ADCC he wasn't pulling guard that often compared to people today. he has a beautiful double entry and is fast and short.
Also to anyone who has rolled with him he has freak strength.
Tai Chi is not a fighting art. Tai Chi is more for health recovery and well being.✌🏿
It was considered the highest martial art in China. Only the aristocrats were allowed to learn it. Much like Chinese martial arts the combat ability died when Mao killed most of the sifus.
Think about what you are really saying. There are some guys in China that can also survive for up to 20 seconds against Marcello when they are standing and Marcelo isn't shooting from the outside?
No im saying that he was able to drive Marcelo off balance and generate immense force with his relaxation. He clearly has no idea to defend a double… i don’t disagree… but that’s like saying Marcelo doesn’t know how to defend a punch… it’s a correctable hole in his game.
@@inside_fighting Fair enough. Maybe we are saying the same thing. But I don't find this remarkable. I was the first GJJ Black Belt to own and run a BJJ/MMA school in China and I can confirm that there are a number of guys (mostly Shuai Jiao wrestlers and San da guys) that can represent very well and even toss Marcello in a stand-up grappling format.
👊🥋👍
Marcelo is being easy on the guy frfr
Let's see the tai chi guy against jordan boroughs
I mean… it’s like asking to see a tai chi guy in an mma fight with Jon jones
@@inside_fighting guess my point is, sure there are useful techniques in these side martial arts, but wouldn't a better use of your time be invested in getting better at one of the pillars of mma wrestling, jiujitsu, kickboxing, and boxing? This is coming coming from a judoka.
bet you almost any varsity wreslter in high school could take this dude down, jordan just illustrates a point.
@@jimhendericks no because their are diminishing returns at some point… my coach used to tell me to stop working out and that more time on the Matt was what i needed and i disagree with that too. Strength training may not make me a directly better fighter skill wise but it helps my fighting in a way that bjj wont… if you only have a few hours a week to train then sure I’d stick with combat sports if your goal is direct fighting but if you have time open this is great
@@inside_fighting you're right, your goals are probably different. I'm probably biased as an MMA fan, I think about what would be the most effective in the cage, but everyone has different reasons for being in the martial arts. You win. 10-9