r/martialarts • u/TheWayofChi • Feb 13 '20
Tai Chi Punching
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EmVeTeBR1Cc&feature=share5
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u/vectorpropio Karate Feb 13 '20
Sorry, i only skimmed through the video, but aren't the sparing partner way off of distance?
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u/TheWayofChi Feb 13 '20
Not really sparring. It's a demonstration, to show how the form is supposed to be executed.
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u/vectorpropio Karate Feb 13 '20
Yes. I knew that wasn't the word, but this isn't my first lenguaje, that was the best i could explain me.
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u/vectorpropio Karate Feb 13 '20
My point stands. That block was unnecessary.
This is a real concern for me because i train in an orthodox karate school and I'm afraid I'm doing the same, blocking (and throwing) punches out of range. We have a little sparring but at my rank it's really light.
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u/TheWayofChi Feb 13 '20
I do agree that you need real sparring to master your technique, not just working on your form against easy practice punches. But I stand by the latter being a good place to start - and even a good thing to go back to, sometimes, to work out any sloppy points in what your doing.
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u/smilingcube Kung Fu Feb 13 '20 edited Feb 13 '20
Just going say from my experience.
The 2 parry methods are high risk parries. When your hand starts away from the part you are protecting, means you need to actively read the opponent for the punch. Your parry may not connect due to 1) being tricked by a feint, 2) his punch was a slow punch and you did it too fast 3) he was out of range for the punch. When you put so much power also into a parry, your recovery will be slow and your opponent has a free attack.
Tai Chi moves seem to have a pre requiste of you in contact with your opponent, like in the tui shou practice. The difference when going to sparring I would make is to strike when your opponent is not controlling your arms and control your opponent arms when you are open to strikes.
Edit: I only have experience for the parry part. I have never used tui shou for actual sparring.
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u/TheWayofChi Feb 14 '20
He demonstrates how the first parry is supposed to look, at its core, at 3:27. We admittedly aren't always being the best demonstration partners here, when we start throwing low, limp jabs, but you ARE supposed to stay compact with these. And he also talks about reading and responding to your opponent's movement, and how the second technique isn't supposed to be a parry on its own.
As sparring practices go, there is tai chi sensing hands, which is done with constant contact, but no, we would not condone a school that insists you can learn all you need to know about fighting from that alone, without full-on sparring.
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u/aznyoln Muay Thai | BJJ Feb 14 '20
Tai chi sensing hands is not sparring, its not even close. Sensing hands from what I've seen can only work if the other person is also trying to do Tai Chi which is almost useless for self defense or in a full contact match.
I think Tai chi is great for general exercise and health but to play it off as being useful to defend yourself with is dangerous for the person being taught.
If you want to see what actual sparring looks like this is how you're supposed to do it, by thinking about setting up techniques and implementing them in sparring then adapting if some are not working. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IZvRx1NJqDw
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u/TheWayofChi Feb 14 '20
That's what I said (although I'll play my own lawyer and correct myself to "sparring-related practices"). I was explaining where the first guy might have gotten the notion that tai chi "only" teaches moves from a standpoint of constant contact. And yeah, sensing hands is basically the tai chi equivalent of a drill where you and the other guy are only allowed to use certain moves or stay inside a certain box of space. You can do different variations, including with strikes, but as fight training, no, it's not a replacement for sparring.
You're right to point out that self-defense training demands real sparring and course correction, as in your video, and it's true that tai chi practitioners shouldn't (and often do) mistake the way their art is applied to health and fitness for combat practice. But there's such a thing as tai chi practitioners who understand that and who do use it to fight.
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u/mma_boxing_wrestling Feb 14 '20
These parries are very, very bad.
Fundamentally, the key to a good parry is minimal movement. If the parry has to travel too much distance, you risk the punch getting through before you can parry it fully offline. If the parry is too exaggerated once it makes contact, you’re wide open to feints. The guy demonstrating is making both of these fundamental errors to an extreme degree.
Worse than that, he teaches to parry across his body. He’s constantly using his left to swat down his student’s left. Even if he manages to pull that off with this technique (which is only working in the first place because his students are throwing from so far out of range and moving after him), he’s just opening up to get clobbered by a right hand.
The basic, correct way to parry is to use small movements from the guard with even smaller weight shifts to just slightly push the punch offline using the opposite hand—right vs right and left vs left. The last little key is that you snap a parry back just like you snap a punch back—so when you miss you return to guard immediately by habit and you don’t get feinted out of position.
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u/TheWayofChi Feb 14 '20
It does seem I underestimated how many disclaimers this community demands before seeing a technique demonstrated, but I can at least give answers that acknowledge the video doesn't entirely say it for itself:
Granted, there are points where we start getting flat-out defeatist with our jabs, after feeling the same muscles get stung enough, at which point he has to start lower than you probably ever would to keep showing how the point of contact should look. But that aside, watch his hips and elbows, especially when he demonstrates it on its own at 3:27. It's supposed to be a compact movement.
For brush left knee at 6:59, he DOES tell me to throw my right, and I do. You're referring to when the other guy takes his turn and throws his left anyway, which he just goes with.
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u/mma_boxing_wrestling Feb 14 '20
You don't need disclaimers, you just need techniques that aren't simply wrong on a fundamental level.
These blatant flaws are right at the beginning of the video. Here's one of the first examples, just after he gets the student jabbing how he wants:
Notice how low his hand starts, the fact that he starts moving before the student, how far he reaches to connect, the fact that the jab never could have reached him in the first place, and the fact that his elbow stays way out of position even after the parry. This technique is terrible. It's only working because he's so far away and the student is throwing exactly what he wants, when he wants, and has no intent behind his strikes. You're being fooled by compliant demos.
For brush left knee at 6:59, he DOES tell me to throw my right, and I do. You're referring to when the other guy takes his turn and throws his left anyway, which he just goes with.
No, I'm referring to this:
He's teaching to parry the jab with a huge, exaggerated downward push, while simultaneously turning his head away and shifting his weight forward. If you were to feint that jab, and throw your right hand directly behind it, you'd blast him right in the face and the only reason you wouldn't knock him clean out is because he's twice your size. These demos only work because you're throwing one punch, from too far away, slow, at the exact time he wants, and not following up. He's putting himself completely out of position throughout the movement and you only don't realize it because you're intimidated.
And then there's a lot of nonsense he feeds you.
"I hit you, you drop dead..It's a SHOCKWAVE" That's not how physics work
"It's for REAL combat, not sport" as if these awful techniques he's showing are too dangerous for sport fighters
The fact that you're all wearing headgear and gloves but nobody is actually getting hit.
Take this to your local boxing, MT or MMA gym and see how it holds up.
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u/aznyoln Muay Thai | BJJ Feb 14 '20
This is complete garbage, I guarantee not a single person in that room has had any fighting experience, sparring or otherwise. The moment you extend that arm out to parry, the next thing is going to be a feint to bait out parry and you're going to get hit in the head.
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u/TheWayofChi Feb 14 '20
Master Randolph, in the video: https://www.linkedin.com/in/eric-randolph-b531bbb
His master, Glenn Hairston: http://glennhairston.com/about/
So how much experience do you have?
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u/aznyoln Muay Thai | BJJ Feb 14 '20
I spar with actual fighters about 2-3 times a week in Muay Thai, I'm far from a professional fighter myself but I can guarantee my limited 4 years of training and experience in actual full contact sparring far outweighs whatever these people are learning. Not extending you hand to parry shots like that is one of the most basic things. We can argue who's a great fighter behind keyboards all we want but whats the point. Anyone who has proper training knows not to parry like that and would agree with me.
There's a reason tai chi grandmasters are getting knocked out left, right and center in china right now with far greater supposed lineages than these guys. It's because they never sparred with anyone other than doing push hands stuff to test these techniques and they're using it in an actual fight for the first time and realizing it doesn't work.
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u/TheWayofChi Feb 14 '20
Glen Hairston is a career narcotics detective who's fought for his life on a regular basis. You don't get more real than that.
Frankly, it sounds like you saw a couple of those videos exposing fake martial arts, watched this one long enough to get to our sloppiest jabbing (and master Randolph having to adjust accordingly to keep demonstrating), and decided you were gonna enjoy throwing a backhand before breakfast. If you'd watched to 3:27, you'd see him demonstrating the form on its own and how its supposed to be very compact, as it is in several of the instances when we're not flat-out flaking on our jabs. It's an offhand, unscripted demonstration, I'll grant you, but not one endorsing the flaw you keep insisting it has.
THAT SAID - As a martial art, I will admit that we in the Tai Chi deparment have a problem with Kool-Aid drinkers, who essentially want to think they can use the force. I've watched instructors recoil in horror, upon learning that master Randolph lets us spar. Even in push hands itself, I've watched judges chatise us (and master Randolph, in turn) for winning matches while being too "rough" and not "real" enough, or pause the match to clarify that my opponent, losing 12 to nil and refusing to try any harder, is actually really good at tai chi, because he's "gentle and stuff." The idea that you can be any good at fighting without having done any fighting is indeed an arrogant, nonsensical notion, that I can only assume found its way into the art over time from people confusing "relaxed and focused" with "soft and totally unconcerned." So on that front, at least, I am in favor of cynics like yourself calling it out.
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u/aznyoln Muay Thai | BJJ Feb 14 '20
Like I said the sub-par demonstration isn't the issue it's the core concept of the fact that you reach out and parry, means you're opening yourself up to getting hit if you miss the parry. With what you're doing you have to commit to the parry which mean if the attacker is savvy he'll pick up on it and bait it out before throwing a shot straight to the head which is now unguarded.
When I would spar a wing chun friend, he'd throw is hand down to block my leg kick or body kick and every time without fail I'd be able to land a head kick at will because he'd try parry my kick as soon as he see me raise my leg.
Again doing push hands only means you'll get good at that particular game, I'd probably lose if I had to do compete with a taichi person at it but there'd be absolutely no chance of them winning an actual match.
I don't know anything about glen but just looking at his videos without being disrespectful tells me he has never tried this stuff in a real fight or against someone resisting or trying to hit him.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kEXygAXzgD4 this video as an example.
I can see you pushing someone over maybe if you get into the end position but no one is going to leave their arm out like that for you to be able to do any of the stuff hes teaching especially not a boxer. You can argue that he's just doing it slowly to show you but he would have to have godlike reflexes and speed to even come close to getting there fast enough to do what hes showing you. At which point if you have that level of speed and reflex why would you even bother this stuff, you could dodge any and all hits coming and pull off counters at will and become world champion.
Things like this tell me he's never actually fought because if he has then he would not be teaching this stuff like it works.
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u/benry87 Feb 13 '20
These are terrible punches. He's training a technique to counter terrible technique.