My coach was totally cool with people training with other people. Anyway, surely Weili means his taiji coach had to fight ninjas, that's why he got so good.
now that I thought about it more they were right. I was there to learn their stuff. I just read your post better this time,my teacher wasn't mean to me,it was just a couple guys there that didn't like me anyway LOL.my shihan was great. I guess it's like you said there "The long haul". Thanks!
How to train Tai Chi for self defense. Tai Chi will not teach you how to fight. Nor will Muay Thai, Jiu Jitsu or any other style you can name. Far too many people indulge in my-style-is-best criticisms. Every style teaches us certain skills or techniques. The effective use of those techniques is a skill in and of itself. Any statement that denounces the effectiveness of any art as a whole should be dismissed. Regardless of how well stated the denouncement is, focusing on the question of which style is best misses the point entirely. So, whatever your training, if you want to be able to rely on what you've learned, you need to practice fighting.... The particular skills and techniques one can develop from Tai Chi are high quality movement, greater awareness, relaxation in the face of force (allowing one to “roll with the punches” and leading to faster response times) as well as many effective traps and joint locks. Tai Chi forms train a person to utilize their body as a whole unit in every action. This principle is applied in any movement; punch, kick, push, elbow, whatever. High quality movement coupled with “right” timing are the source of legitimate displays such as a Tai Chi player hurtling a larger person back across a room with a push. With Tai Chi you train to apply every technique to maximum effect. Push hands exercises help develop a players ability to neutralize force while maintaining good position. Keeping your opponent off balance effectively minimizes their ability to apply force to you or to counter blows to them. The sensitivity to force that you find in push hands is particularly useful in grappling ranges The fluidity of movement and sense of how to leverage your partners force translate nicely into Jiu Jitsu style rolling. This is just a brief example of some of the self defense skills developed by training Tai Chi. Now, high quality strikes, heightened awareness, and relaxation in the face of force mean nothing unless you learn to apply them. Likewise all the Chin-Na (joint locks and traps) you know does you no good if you can only pull it off in the lab, so to speak. You need good sparring partners, preferably from different styles, and regular legitimate practice. Sparring should as intense as each of you are able to handle but always keep in mind it's about developing your ability to fight and testing yourself. It's not about tearing each other apart. Find a group of people you can trust, then throw away the rules. Try everything thoroughly, keep what works for you and discard the rest. These observations are based in my time training in Tai Chi, Muay Thai and Jiu Jitsu at Northwest Fighting Arts in Portland, OR. I am curious to hear about others experiences training the martial aspect of Tai Chi. If possible, let's stay focused on our personal experiences (successes and failures) rather than speculations on theory. It would be excellent to have a substantive discussion that could help guide people in developing their practice. -Russell
'Uke' means "receive" - the person who 'receives' the throw, or the act of 'receiving' an opponents attack and dealing with it. My point being, to WhitePanda, that Japanese words are often mistranslated, or have various translations.
Yeah, I admit I read the Jutsu part to fast, it was translated correctly, but ju doesn't translate to Welcoming no matter how many different translations there are. You are also ignoring the context in which the word(s) are being used. uke agreement, defense, holder, receiving (n), reputation, streak of good luck (n) I would hardly think that in the context of martial arts and self defence, "streak of good luck" would be the appropriate translation even if it could be technically correct.
