Tai Chi is a Martial Art

Here is a nice little example of Tai Chi fighting

I was talking with a friend today who happens to be a skilled Tae Kwon Do practitioner. He was chuckling as I mentioned that Tai Chi is a very powerful martial art. I asked him why he was laughing. He was under the impression that Tai Chi was a no contact discipline. Tai Chi has a good and well deserved reputation as a meditative health exercise but it is more than that. It is a powerful fighting art.

Most people want to learn Tai Chi for health. That's good and it's ok. You simply attend a class, learn some gentle movements, breathe deeply, and come away satisfied. However there is more to Tai Chi than health practices.

With proper training a Tai Chi practitioner becomes an incredibly powerful and capable martial artist. The quality of touching hands with a good Tai Chi player are a feeling of softness coupled with an iron like immovability. Wherever you attempt to touch him or her your force just falls into emptiness. You push as hard as you can on them but your force never reaches their body and pushes them over. Then they can without warning strike or push you with tremendous power that can knock you back or take you to the ground in agony. If you try to grapple them you find that your best throws don't affect them they are incredibly strong and heavy no matter how big or small they may be. Their power is subtle and goes beyond simple understandings of muscle and mechanics. Tai Chi and the other internal Chinese martial arts Xingyi and Bagua are truly beyond the normal experience one has with martial arts.

Beyond the form and the healing exercises Tai Chi has a two person practice called push hands. Push hands is an exercise that teaches you to relax and adhere to Tai Chi principles all while being touched and pushed by a partner.

After Push Hands you move on to learning San Shou or free fighting. This is where you take the lessons learned in form and push hands and apply them to an opponent situation. Without proper two person training Tai Chi can never be a martial art.

Aside from the form and two person exercises there are training methods to help build a Tai Chi body. The kind of body that creates the qualities I have described earlier. Tai Chi is definitely a martial art and a very powerful one.