Taiji traditionally was known as formidable fighting system.   The founder of Yang style taiji was employed as an instructor to Chinese Imperial Guard which in skill levels was similar to modern special forces, a testament to his contributions for professional warriors.  The founders of taiji would likely be surprised that these days their art is mostly recognized for its health benefits.  Below follows the description of fighting part of our class, for healing part please click here.

Fighting Foundations

Modern taiji martial training  often lacks foundation of basic punches, kicks, ground work, and fight tactics.  Traditionally students develop such skills before they began learning taiji which would be an equivalent of graduate education in fighting.  One cannot be successful in graduate education without getting basics first.  Therefore in our program we cover basic pugilistic skills in parallel to learning taiji skills.  Students with experience in other disciplines often enjoy the enhancements and new ways to generate power.  We also teach foundations of fighting tactics, environmental awareness and de-escalation, and fighting with and against weapons, primarily sticks and knives.

Class Taiji Topics

  1. Fighting applications from foundational YLC form
  2. Advanced body mechanics including explosive striking (fa-jing) based on Small San Sau partner form
  3. Push hands and sticky hands including Da-Lu partner form
  4. Large San Sau partner form and its toolbox of fighting techniques.
  5. Taiji ideas of centering, applicable to other activity areas such as heavy physical work or dancing
  6. Internalized striking skills at vulnerable locations
  7. Self and partner energy reuse
  8. Weapon forms (stick, spar, knife, saber, sword)

Class Self Defense Topics 

  1. Learning basic fighting skills
  2. Fighting capabilities including understanding of bare knuckles fighting in unfamiliar environment vs. fighting with gloves in controlled environment
  3. Analysis of street fight videos followed by hands-on practice
  4. Distracting maneuvers and fakes
  5. Counters to grabs and chokes
  6. Understanding how to fight against larger and stronger opponents
  7. Light sparring (requires some equipment)
  8. Awareness of environment, de-escalation techniques
  9. Fighting with and aghast weapons (mostly knifes and sticks)

Other Side of Taiji

In addition to fighting we also teach healing part of taiji, click here for description.  While a few of us will need to fight for surviving, all of us hope to have and maintain good physical and mental health.  Our taiji program contains both healing and fighting, and their yin/yang interaction of both sides make the whole system stronger.   The learning is supported by written syllabus with videos available to students.  Additional information about the program is available here.  The instructor is certified by World Taiji Boxing Association.