Tai Chi, Often Not Seen As A Martial Art???

[ovine king]

It isn't that the thing they teach is watered down as often it is very good form. It's just they don't tend to know what that form is for and hence don't practice the applications of them. The same can be applied to moast arts where a form is used in training; if all you do is the form and nothing else then eventually, all that is left, is the form, which, whilst it is part of the art isn't all the art is.

[JusticeZero]

remember though, that most of the old western martial arts were simply hitting someone with a large weapon...(..they are VERY simple fighting systems)

Uhm.. actually all the Western martial arts i've seen are actually technical as all heck. Fencers know obscene amounts about opening gates and such, and that's western. Several striking arts use it as the core. Boxing is pretty darned technical.

[nanfeishen]

One of the most complex, diverse and practical fighting arts, as well as being one of the least known is Savate, being entirely developed in France. Started very basically with leg techniques and then developed through the years into a very effective fighting art. It was being taught to the plain clothes police in Paris in Victorian times, and is incorporated into the training in the military as well.

There is a french movie dubbed into english with Jean Reno as one of the lead roles: i dont know the french title, but the english is : Crimson Rivers, there is quite a good scene with two savate fighters having a go at each other.

I think we often get caught up in our desire to see martial arts as purely Eastern, sometimes we tend to forget there are arts that developed other than in the East.

[fallen_milkman]

A move with Jean Reno I've never heard of, eh? Crimson Rivers will be rented by the end of this week. Thanks much! I've always been interesting in some of the western martial arts anyways. Show me a good double-handed broadsword school and I'll sign up that very second. Savate would be cool to see as well.

[Taiji Mistress]

The simple answer to this is that Tai Chi isn't seen as fighting art is because there are too many people in robes and with long moustaches teaching it as a slow dance.

I agree with this wholeheartedly. There are too many people setting up Taijiquan classes without the depth of knowledge needed to teach the martial side and cloak it in the old myth of 'inner door secrets'.

[Ted T.]

"Why is it that Tai Chi Chuan is often not seen as a Martial Art in the Western World?"

Because it isn't one...

Even in China most tai chi isn't martial. Even in Chen style, which has the strongest martial roots, many teachers have dropped ( or not learned) the power aspects and at best do push hands for sport.

On the other hand, even those styles that proclaim to be a"practical style" base their sd on techniques that take many years to perfect and most people, when they think of sd, want it now!

[taiji fajin]

"Why is it that Tai Chi Chuan is often not seen as a Martial Art in the Western World?"

Because it isn't one...

Even in China most tai chi isn't martial. Even in Chen style, which has the strongest martial roots, many teachers have dropped ( or not learned) the power aspects and at best do push hands for sport.

On the other hand, even those styles that proclaim to be a"practical style" base their sd on techniques that take many years to perfect and most people, when they think of sd, want it now!

I would be careful of statements like this. You aren't really incorrect. Most taiji is taught poorly and incompletely (yet most taiji practicioners think that their taiji is the real stuff. Something doesn't quite add up ), even in China.

However, there are still a lot of people out there who know really good taiji. Are there tons and tons of masters? No, but there are a lot of people who are on the right path, can use it for self defense, and if they keep practicing will hopefully become "masters".

That's not my real problem with your statements, though. My two main problems are this:

1) You say taiji takes "many years" to be able to use as self defense. If you have a system and practice, you should be able to use it as self defense in about 3 years. Maybe that's what you meant by "many", but most people are going to interpret it as 15-20 years, if not more. If taiji took that long to be a good self defense, how could people have ever used it in the past as a self defense? It would have never survived. I've also seen many people do it in roughly that time.

2) You talk about how people want self defense "now!" and don't want to take "many" years to learn it. While you probably didn't mean this, it comes off seeming like people are going to have good self defense very quickly with other styles. This simply isn't true. While a person might have decent self defense after 3 years with another style (and I admit that in many cases, external styles advance self defense quicker than internal styles in the early stages), people do not gain useful self defense very quickly. Just because someone gave them a black belt in a year does not mean they are a great fighter. Even with 5 years I would hesitate to call most martial artists great fighters. If anything, a short amount of time studying martial arts (3-6 months, if not more depending on the person and style) HINDERS their ability to protect themselves. They will try techniques they are not good enough to use yet, or will be so caught up in what they are "suppose to do" that someone just swinging their fists will "win" the fight.

Again, maybe you didn't mean the first one, and you probably didn't mean the second, but it can easily be taken that way and I don't want other people to have the wrong idea about taiji (or other arts).

[mantis]

i think because when you perfect your Tai Chi you are ready to die already.. takes like 90 years or so...

at my mantis school they teach tai chi to help us focus, to help us breathe

[dtstiachi]

good piece fajin

[taiji fajin]

Thank you dts