Striking Power Archive
This is a martial art; you’ve gotta know kick, punch, slap, elbow, shoulder, knee, hip, and head strikes. Or it’s simply not T’ai Chi Chuan nor Pa Kua Chang.
Extreme Boxing Immersion
Every month I put on a mini-workshop to immerse practitioners in Tai Chi Chuan concepts. Immersion allows more time to study peculiar and specific aspects of this Supreme Art. I attempt to move from yin to yang, healing concepts with slow, qigong work to intense, explosive practices with combat ideas. Both are potent pieces.
The best immersion includes both combat and healing, and then emphasizes one or the other. It’s difficult, at least, to achieve real fa-jing, explosive energies without sinking and relaxing enough to generate whip-like actions and ease. Likewise, healing and health benefits are impotent without visceral stimulation and mind-shift states achieved in the shake of combative applications or inside the mind of an awakened-state animal. Each workshop includes both combat and healing work, and, month after month the focus rotates from fight to heal, one after another.
The November workshop was by invitation only. We covered the 4 of 12 Devastating Mother Applications from the Short San Sau. We worked out numbers 4, 5, 6, and 8 as follows
- Squeeze (Ji or Chee) then Elbow, Punch, Angled Elbow
- Press (An) Punches Throat into Vibrating Punch, Neck Clap and Head Smack
- Press (An) Tiger Punches Throat, Wrist Snaps Head Back, Palm Slams Collar, Jerk into Elbow
- Jerks the Arms to Headbutt, Pressing (An) below Collars, Swipe the Neck, and Beak Punches
Read Short Fight Form and Mother Applications »
Motility, Long Form, Applications, Pushing-Hands, Striking!
The system of Tai Chi Chuan begins and evolves through five methods: light, sensitive body exploration, properly executed form practice, amplified and visualized self-defense and/or healing scenarios, precise push-hands training, and coiling striking motions. Real Taiji classes include
- exploring natural joint motions
- form practice (and some Qi-gong)
- application visualizations
- push-hands training (structural, not spaghetti-style)
- striking practices
Classes and class components evolve and compound upon one another.
