Can Tai Chi be used for Self Defence?
There is a short answer and a longer answer to this question. The short response is best summed up by something Master Gao Jian once said:
“If you learn Karate or Judo, you could probably handle yourself in a fight after only one year but even after learning Tai Chi for 10 years, it is still better you stay at home”.
If you are really interested in learning Tai Chi as a martial art, I hope you will stick around and read the ‘longer’ answer.
Let me begin by saying, I wouldn’t pinch Master Gao Jian’s beer in a pub. This is of course hypothetical. Master Gao Jian probably wouldn’t waste his time drinking in a pub and he’s not about to get angry with someone who is that desperate for a beer.
My point is, is that Gao Jian is a Tai Chi Master and a very accomplished martial artist. Despite his advice, he himself is able to use Tai Chi as a martial art, very effectively.
Master Gao Jian performing Tang Lang
Tai Chi is ‘easy’ to learn yet it is the most difficult martial art to master. Fire and rust are essentially the same chemical reaction. If a fire were to rip through a metal framed factory, it would cause enormous damage. The destruction may occur in matter of minutes. On the other hand, rust is slow and may take a generation to affect the metal but the outcome will be the utter annihalation of the entire factory. Something a fire could never achieve.
Tai Chi will take many, many years to master as a martial art but the end result is supreme power.
So why does it take so long to master the martial aspects of Tai Chi?
Before discussing that question, it’s worth mentioning that probably the main reason Tai Chi is not considered an affective defence art in modern times, is that most students and teachers don’t have any intention of treating it as such. Most people practicing Tai Chi today are not doing it as a martial art.
Like everything concerning Tai Chi, nothing exists without its opposite. There is no Yang without Yin. Night requires day, black exists because of white. Male and female, hot and cold, hard and soft. Like iron wrapped in silk, Tai Chi can manifest extreme force out of liquid motion. Energy is transmitted like the cracking of a whip. By developing softness and stillness the potential is there for creating the perfect vessel for the outward explosion of force. In Tai Chi this is called ‘fajin’.
Human beings exist in a natural state of tension. Our fears, insecurities and ego all help to tighten our actions and responses. If someone tried to punch you, the natural response would be to block. Meeting hardness with hardness. The stronger person would win.
The hard ( or external ) martial arts, like Karate, seek to exploit this natural response. You can quite quickly and effectively develop techniques that improve your reflex actions. Your fighting ability improves but is generally limited to the level of your muscular strength.
Tai Chi seeks to neutralize and deflect the opponents force. This is a wonderful, almost perfect theory. Tai Chi classics talk about 4 ounces deflecting 1,000 pounds. It is possible but the timing and balance required is extraordinary. So herein lies the reason why Master Gao Jian advises Tai Chi students to ‘stay at home’. To achieve a proficient level of martial skill in an ‘internal art’, like Tai Chi, requires a massive amount of training under the direction of a genuine Master.
Nobody is happy with that approach anymore. The craftsman has been replaced by the conveyor belt. Fast results are expected. I have even seen an Advertisement on-line promising complete mastery of Tai Chi in 6 months. Anyone who signs up for that course will get what they probably deserve – nothing.
Unfortunately most of the ‘combat’ Tai Chi you see in competition, is little more than kick-boxing. Tai Chi competition is now either gymnastics or wrestling. The real internal skills of Tai Chi are nowhere to be seen.
You should understand the martial applications of every Tai Chi move in order to correctly tone the posture and move energy correctly. We call this ‘a sense of enemy’. There may never be any intention to apply these applications in a fight but they need to exist if Tai Chi is to genuinely improve your health.
Gao Jian performing double-handed Praying Mantis Sword
Mindless movements will do nothing more than burn a few calories. Schools who disregard the martial aspects of Tai Chi are teaching an unbalanced curriculum.
In conclusion, perhaps another, more applicable interpretation of Master Gao Jian’s advice, would be that if self defence is your main reason for learning a martial art, then Tai Chi should not be your first choice.