Efficacy of Tai Chi, from a grapplers perspective (longish read)

bLikeWater

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So my best friend in the world visited me in Denver today. Both of us have been into martial arts for the last decade or so, and we love to spar whenever we drink together, though unfortunately that becomes less and less often as the years go by.

Both of us started in more or less the same place; we both grew up watching kung fu movies, and were really into eastern philosophy, and that brought us to things like tai chi and qi gong. Though, while he mostly stuck with those arts, I got into the more modern and what I considered practical arts like BJJ and Muay Thai.

Fast forward to now; it's been a year or two since we've sparred, and in that time, I feel like my standup game has advanced tremendously. I certainly wouldn't be anything special in the world of Judo or wrestling, but I can recognize and unterstand the mechanics of the major takedowns (single-leg, double-leg, knee-tap, high-crotch, ankle pick, fireman's carry, osoto gari, kosoto gari, uchi mata, o goshi, harai goshi, kouichi gari, ouichi gari, seo nage) I also understand the basic clinch positions, and how closely they relate to the same movements in the butterfly guard that I love(collar-tie, collar-grip(gi), tricept, bicept, under-wrist, over-wrist, underhook, overhook, 2-on-1, arm-drag.)

Anyway, I still can't take him down. In fact, a few years ago, when I knew shit about takedowns, and his tai-chi was still rudimentary, my takedown percentage against him was higher than it is now. Now it's almost impossible to establish any kind of position on him. His maintenance of his center of balance is excellent, and in the hand-fighting, he's with me every step of the way, from a purely defensive standpoint. And if I get even remotely close enough to him to to try to establish underhooks, he drops his weight puts both hands on my waist, and just pushes me away. Maybe I'm missing something about standup grappling, but if I can't establish my grips and press my hips into someone, I don't know how to take them down.

That waist-push seems to be the 'A' move in tai chi, from what I know and it's actually really effective at shutting down my grappling offense. And while we were purely grappling, I think, with as good at controlling distance with that as he is, it would also be really difficult to ever land power punches against him.

It's definitely not an offensive martial art, and he likes to remind me that in a real fight he thinks I would take it easily. But nonetheless, if I was the aggressor, and my sole goal was to kick his ass, and his sole goal was to stop me; a grappler of over five years from doing so, I'm not sure I would succeed.

In over half-an-hour, I was able to take him down exactly one time and it was using a Jon Jones/Rashad Evans strategy of advancing on hands and knees. Of course with that takedown, I was able to achieve high mount within 1-1.5 seconds, at which point he verbally tapped. But that advance is not exactly a viable strategy in any kind of real fight, and still, after hitting it once, I wasn't able to repeat it. Honestly, in a real fight, I could see it coming down to cardio.





tldr: Tai chi techniques would likely never fair well in a competition of martial artists against martial artists like mma, because it lacks offense. But for pure self-defense, where your opponent likely knows nothing about fighting and has shit cardio, I'm pretty sold on it's legitimacy.





I lack reading comprehension: I'm not saying Tai Chi is better than grappling. I think grappling is better. But I'm also now convinced that Tai Chi is way more legit than a lot of modern martial artists give it credit for, and probably contains principles that many of us could benefit from. That is my point.
 
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Better ask him for advice to step up your game. If his technique is as good as you say, then add it to your game. :)
 
If you watch videos of Chinese tai chi masters doing push hands, it looks like really subtle Greco. It is a waiting game until someone overextends or "unroots" themselves then they explode into the throw. I think it is a great complimentary art.
Does anyone know if Josh Waitzken has ever commented on applying tai chi to bjj?
 
If you watch videos of Chinese tai chi masters doing push hands, it looks like really subtle Greco. It is a waiting game until someone overextends or "unroots" themselves then they explode into the throw. I think it is a great complimentary art.
Does anyone know if Josh Waitzken has ever commented on applying tai chi to bjj?

In the video of him rolling with Marcelo he seems so spastic. At first it blew my mind that a guy moving like that could be a high level tai-chi artist much less a BJJ brown belt. Then I figured out that they were positional sparring and he was really just exaggerating the movement of a single concept (which I think is totally legit when learning a new move or concept, and also as I understand it totally in line with Tai Chi which seems to be even more basics-focused than grappling(as I understand it, if your hips aren't centered and your spine isn't straight throughout your movement, you're not doing Tai Chi, and as I mentioned earlier, it seems to me that the the practical application revolves around a single move (Ryan Hall mentions this in a video, something like "Yeah, it's awesome that you know the fifteen details that make this move work, but what are the most important two?))) and in that roll I was watching, Josh actually probably advanced his understanding of that position significantly. Wish there was more footage of the way that guy trains...
 
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In other news, when someone with sub par takedown abilities fights someone with sub par takedown defense, the end result is often not many takedowns being landed.
 
Fast forward to now; it's been a year or two since we've sparred, and in that time, I feel like my standup game has advanced tremendously. I certainly wouldn't be anything special in the world of Judo or wrestling, but I can recognize and unterstand the mechanics of the major takedowns (single-leg, double-leg, knee-tap, high-crotch, ankle pick, fireman's carry, osoto gari, kosoto gari, uchi mata, o goshi, harai goshi, kouichi gari, ouichi gari, seo nage) I also understand the basic clinch positions, and how closely they relate to the same movements in the butterfly guard that I love(collar-tie, collar-grip(gi), tricept, bicept, under-wrist, over-wrist, underhook, overhook, 2-on-1, arm-drag.)

It sounds like you're training absolutely everything and getting competent at nothing. You need at least one big gun, ideally two, and rep the shit out it.
 
Tai Chi is a fine martial art, but a fighting art it is not. But that's ok. I think the biggest concept for you to remember is that it is difficult to do something to someone if they don't want you to. Like in fights where guys will back pedal, disengage, run etc. That's what your buddy is doing. Eventually you might get him, because you can go faster forward than going backward so you'll win the race eventually.

Its much like the luta livre vs. tai chi master video that has been posted before. The tai chi man does a good job of not engaging in the hand fighting and the luta livre expert doesn't get in (even though it looked like he was being very gentle and nice about it). But as soon as he goes low, its all over since that's not part of the tai chi guys system. Its hard to engage in a fight with someone who doesn't want to engage. Also see Cyborg vs. Schaub. Schaub is the inferior grappler by far to Cyborg but he didn't engage so he walked away unharmed. Well except his reputation.
 
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It sounds like you're training absolutely everything and getting competent at nothing. You need at least one big gun, ideally two, and rep the shit out it.

Oh I get that, I'm totally not trying to work all of those into a single game. Those are just what I think of as the basic set you should learn to recognize and defend against, and I was trying to demonstrate that I'm not completely ignorant about takedowns and should really be able to get anyone who isn't a legit martial artist to the ground pretty easily. My take-down game is definitely still rudimentary but is at least narrowed down to uchi, kouchi, oucihi, single-leg, double-leg, and knee-tap. Would love to narrow it down to an a-game of 1-3 moves, unfortunately, I just lack yet the standup sparring experience to really decide which takedowns and chains work well for me. Either way though, I'm not getting shit if I can't establish that clinch on my terms...
 
Tai Chi is a fine martial art, but a fighting art it is not. But that's ok. I think the biggest concept for you to remember is that it is difficult to do something to someone if they don't want you to. Like in fights where guys will back pedal, disengage, run etc. That's what your buddy is doing. Eventually you might get him, because you can go faster forward than going backward so you'll win the race eventually.

Its much like the luta livre vs. tai chi master video that has been posted before. The tai chi man does a good job of not engaging in the hand fighting and the luta livre expert doesn't get in (even though it looked like he was being very gentle and nice about it). But as soon as he goes low, its all over since that's not part of the tai chi guys system. Its hard to engage in a fight with someone who doesn't want to engage. Also see Cyborg vs. Schaub. Schaub is the inferior grappler by far to Cyborg but he didn't engage so he walked away unharmed. Well except his reputation.

Absolutely. Watching mma has affected my game in many ways, but one of the biggest is just remembering that at any given point, standing up is an option, and if your opponent is disengaged and standing and you're on the ground, you're losing any kind of real fight.

I thought really hard about and decided against drawing the analogy to Schaubing. As an exhibition match, that was an atrocity. But the fact remains that Cyborg failed to kick Schaub's ass that day, and from a self-defense perspective, not losing is winning. If we pretend that that wasn't a Metamoris match, and was instead footage of Cyborg trying to mug Schaub in a parking lot, then Brendan did a really good job.
 
Absolutely. Watching mma has affected my game in many ways, but one of the biggest is just remembering that at any given point, standing up is an option, and if your opponent is disengaged and standing and you're on the ground, you're losing any kind of real fight.

I thought really hard about and decided against drawing the analogy to Schaubing. As an exhibition match, that was an atrocity. But the fact remains that Cyborg failed to kick Schaub's ass that day, and from a self-defense perspective, not losing is winning. If we pretend that that wasn't a Metamoris match, and was instead footage of Cyborg trying to mug Schaub in a parking lot, then Brendan did a really good job.

Yeah I wasn't trying to defend Schaub. Schaub signed up for a mutual bout of combat, he wasn't simply defending himself so no excuse for his actions. But still a good example of someone with even a little less training than the other person getting by on not engaging.
 
Tai chi makes for a pretty solid fighting art with high offense and good submissions. Very dangerous style. Every grappler should study the works of Dr. Yang.
 
This is why all takedown sports have rules to force the action and prohibit pure defense.

Just playing pure defense is too easy, especially if no strikes are allowed.
 
Tai chi makes for a pretty solid fighting art with high offense and good submissions. Very dangerous style. Every grappler should study the works of Dr. Yang.

Who is this Dr.Yang, and which works should we be studying? Not being a dick, I honestly want to know.
 
Tai Chi can improve BJJ or Grappling skills a lot. The ability to lower internally the center of gravity can make it very difficult to get taken down.

It
 
Who is this Dr.Yang, and which works should we be studying? Not being a dick, I honestly want to know.

I assume he's talking about Yang Jwing Ming? Very good Qin Na (kung fu joint locks) practitioner.

Some of that stuff can be applied in BJJ, but it's not a 1-to-1 fit because the positions on the ground are just so different. Still, I find it interesting to watch just for my own personal curiosity.
 
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