Like
riddles? "When is a martial art not a martial art?" Well, the
apparent answer, at least according to posters tacked to telephone
poles, videos in drugstore spinning racks, and ads where instructors
hug redwood trees is "When it's T'ai Chi". Yet this has never
rung true to me. Perhaps it's because, for the last twenty years,
I've hung around with, photographed, and studied with so many
martial artists who commonly discuss this topic. I've visited
Chen Village, the birthplace of T'ai Chi, where they definitely
consider it a martial art. I guess I'm prejudiced. But, to me,
the martial aspect is self-evident; yet I still wondered about
the specifics: How did the idea get started? What's the relation
of martial to health practice? How does the whole picture fit
together?
I
don't think I'm all alone in this. In fact, I would venture that
the majority of T'ai Chi players feel some confusion on these
issues. So I decided to investigate, by questioning three thoughtful
and dedicated teachers of T'ai Chi, all of whom are deeply involved
in preserving traditional martial arts, and all of them with schools
directly affected by this issue.
Through
discussions and written correspondence, Sifu Adam Hsu addressed
this issue. "Of course T'ai Chi Chuan is a martial art style.
But at the beginning of the Republic, around 1911, T'ai Chi "switched
gears" and developed more into a health exercise. Had it strictly
kept the martial art format, it would not be accepted by so many
people; in other words, not as many people would be able to do
T'ai Chi Chuan. But as a martial art, its spirit is strong and
outreaching, containing attacking or defensive movement, which
means when we do T'ai Chi Chuan our mental state never - well,
almost never - shifts away from the martial art, the usage." He
explained that the stances for instance all represent possible
kicks or close range knee attacks. And T'ai Chi does punch and
strike, with lots of takedowns, holding and grabbing techniques.
"Just
judging by the movements themselves, you have a martial art."
said Ted Mancuso, " T'ai Chi is a healthful exercise and
a form of play. But T'ai Chi moves also have a purpose. It contains
the attitudes and disciplines of a martial art. The body must
be correctly aligned, the centerline must be covered, so the martial
attitude is expressed in the functioning of the moves. All those
ideas are encompassed in the Chinese idea of a martial art. "
TAI
CHI'S SPECIFIC FLAVOR
Next, the question of the specific flavor of T'ai Chi arose. "T'ai
Chi principles are in all of Kung Fu," explained Sifu Linda
Darrigo. She detailed some of these aspects as 'connected',
'progressing', and 'circular', performed with various tempos,
then defined T'ai Chi's specialty: the ability to adhere to an
opponent's movement and neutralize the initial force to redirect
it.
However,
Sifu Hsu pointed out, nowadays many people do T'ai Chi
Chuan"...more like a slow motion exercise, and you cannot find
the martial flavor in that kind of performance." Even so, Sifu
Hsu says, "As long as you do it as a martial art, you will
show the martial flavor; then its almost everywhere. It's pretty
hard to say what the flavor is, because the style is so complete.
Others specialize - like Ba Gua, which utilizes a palm strike
- but in T'ai Chi it's really everything."
Sifu
Mancuso answered: "T'ai Chi is concerned with the practitioner
staying in an envelope of movement; this creates a shape closer
to the form a wrestler might have. Within that shape, T'ai Chi's
flavor is one of military engagement; T'ai Chi is about strategy,
tactics, positioning, withdrawal and lightning attacks."
In
discussing the martial benefits of T'ai Chi, Sifu Darrigo
offered, "The martial takes the student to a healthier level,
because it involves the whole body in the mechanics of doing the
moves." Sifu Mancuso added that, "T'ai Chi starts you from
the position where you're functioning less than normal, and keeps
going until you are functioning above normal, unlike Western medical
practice which simply repairs things."
Sifu
Hsu wrote, "I want to emphasize that it's because it's
a martial art that you have to use every part of your body, get
into the details." When moving the whole body, exercise is more
complete. "In other arts you might move your arms or legs, but
you must move your torso too. The most needed area in exercise
is the torso. Arms and legs - you're using them everyday. But
the torso area - you know it's really very scary - days - come
on - even weeks go by and you never really move it. But all of
our internal organs are situated there. If the torso isn't exercising
enough, this means the internal organs aren't exercising enough.
When people do T'ai Chi Chuan the real way, the original way,
they could use it as a martial art but at the same time they earn
their health. "
THE
NON-MARTIAL STUDENT
I knew, from my own association with martial artists, that there
is a trend among many new students to actually avoid the martial
aspects of T'ai Chi training. I asked each Sifu about this situation,
how they dealt with people who did not want to learn the martial
aspects at all.
Sifu
Hsu explained his view that some people, of course, didn't
qualify physically or mentally to do T'ai Chi Chuan as a martial
art; they want to do it as an exercise and he encourages them,
even those whose purpose is a kind of cultural exchange. He frankly
admitted that he admires that, he never refuses to teach these
students . "I just teach them as a health exercise. They're getting
their health. They're satisfied with me and with my class. It
makes everybody happy. Not everyone wants to learn a martial art."
But he explains that he doesn't call this health exercise "T'ai
Chi Chuan", but T'ai Chi Chiao - Chiao, meaning physical exercise.
"The
answer to this question will vary exactly to the degree that the
student wants to disassociate from the martial," said Sifu Mancuso.
"I had a lady who, when she came to Tangle exclaimed with astonishment,
'That's a punch !' I never saw her again. But I make everyone
do the martial art anyway because it's more efficient for them.
And working with a partner will give you an experience that you
wouldn't have practicing on your own for ten times the amount
of effort."
Unlike
many teachers who try to finish the assignment of the Solo Set,
Sifu Mancuso breaks down each move, with particular emphasis
on posture and pathways, then has students work segments of the
move singly and together. Finally, he takes the entire movement,
given the self defense situation, varying the application so students
never get fixated on one method.
DIFFERENT
STYLES
I wondered about the differences between the various T'ai Chi
styles; did the martial application vary greatly from, say, Yang
to Chen?
Sifu
Darrigo gave the example that Chen is seated lower, there
are fa jing related movements, and the usage is more evident;
Yang seems gentler and Wu has smaller movements, smaller circles.
"But the principles are the same across the board." Sifu Hsu also
pointed to the similarities. "You can grab any T'ai Chi book,
all the texts are the same or similar, based on the same principles,
they share the T'ai Chi Classics."
"There
is a saying that 'all T'ai Chi is one'," explained Sifu Mancuso.
"I think the problems one deals with in T'ai Chi are just about
the same in every style." He said the problem is the way styles
are taught: completely backwards, unlike the traditional way .
The primary goal of teachers nowadays is to teach the set, but
it should be reversed: the set should be a long term goal and
the exercises, the curriculum, the methodology should be the short
term goal. In the applications, the styles look much more alike.
"It's like a clock. Every teacher's going around it but they start
at different numbers. When people see differences among the styles,
they are judging from the first year or two of training. This
makes the styles appear very different, but they ultimately resolve
themselves to be pretty much the same."
THE
INTERNAL QUESTION
The next question - Is it valid to distinguish internal styles
for health and external styles for martial purposes? - garnered
a resounding "No!" from all three teachers.
Sifu
Darrigo stated bluntly that there is no such separation;
it just has to do with a level of approach. Sifu Mancuso
agreed that the distinction is absolutely invalid, while Sifu
Hsu simply called it a lie.
Sifu
Hsu elaborated, "Some masters have told people: when you
do 'internal style', you don't have to lower your leg, change
your shoes, you don't have to bend your knee, do you believe this?
Martial artists still need to eat their rice, but I think this
is too much. Several masters got their names known by doing this,
not just in T'ai Chi, but in Hsing I, Bagua; and that's when people
lumped them together and called them internal. But that's a big
misconception and still widely spread. First of all, there's no
such thing as internal/external styles. There are different LEVELS.
The lowest levels are external, and when you can reach the higher
levels, you can start to learn the internal. Trying to place the
internal with health and the external with the martial is pretty
smart and stupid at the same time."
Sifu
Mancuso commented, "This whole idea of internal and external
is again a matter of where you start on the clock. The masters,
realizing that only a few students would stay very long, emphasized
styles where you could start on the internal part of the training
before you started on the external. This particular style of teaching
put posture, breathing, relaxation first even though it's all
low level. Ultimately it's the same curriculum in a different
order. Since very few people get very far, T'ai Chi's now considered
an "internal" style. There's no such thing as internal styles.
There's only internal training."
SELF-DEFENSE?
Then what about the complicated issue of the distinction between
usage and self-defense? Sifu Mancuso absolutely distinguished
between usage and self defense. "Self defense is a particular
answer to a particular problem. Usage is taking one of those answers
and practicing it with a mind toward perfecting a type of energy
or body relationship - in other words, a theme. Think of usage
as learning to throw a baseball and self defense as specific pitches.
We teach both the specific self defense and the general usage."
Sifu
Darrigo told me she doesn't teach just self defense. "That
approach is not accurate at all. There is usage in regards to
all that you do. It is an overall comprehension, an overall usage.
One movement has many usages."
Sifu
Hsu also defined them as entirely different, saying that
when people learn a martial art they must do usage, because it
is a martial art. "When people learn usage, they can defend themselves.
They don't have to take another class called self-defense; a self-defense
class is NOT a martial art class. A self defense class is supposed
to teach, number one, common sense; that's more important than
any technique you can teach in a self defense class. I see many
martial artists teaching self defense, and most of them I don't
agree with. The movement they are teaching must have some martial
art background; this is my most conservative opinion: most self
defense classes are helping the bad guys. If I haven't learned
so-called self defense, I can run away; I can press my knee to
the ground and beg for my life or yell for help. I have a chance
at least. But if you really believe in your self-defense training,
you're just helping yourself get killed. This is not a happy matter,
I feel pretty bad. People cheat themselves when they learn just
one or two techniques: can you believe this? If two guys attack
me I can take care of them one at a time; then there's a knife
attack or a pistol pointing at me, and how can I take the pistol
from his hand? Oh my god, that's a kung fu movie."
WORKING
WITH A PARTNER
What about partner practice - is it essential to learning T'ai
Chi?
All
touted its benefits in advancing the student's understanding of
the application and meaning of the solo form, not to mention offering
an alternative to long hours of individual practice. Sifu Hsu
wrote, "Practice alone is hard to continue after a while; we get
lazy, we're all human. A partner in class always helps." Sifu
Mancuso thought, "All this is not to mention the sense
of community that's developed, the cooperation which itself is
a pretty good martial strategy. When people are doing the set
next to one another that's also partner practice. You see through
other's examples many different ways to deal with the problems
of T'ai Chi. Partner practice allows you to deal with a controllable
reality. At first you think everything that goes wrong is because
of your partner. Then you realize that possibly you aren't so
perfect either!"
Sifu
Darrigo's opinion was that, "...although it's not essential
for health, it is highly recommended, because it deepens a student's
understanding." She and Sifu Hsu both emphasized that it
is essential to the martial art. "Most people do it as a health
exercise," explained Sifu Hsu. "You don't need a partner
that much. But, if you're doing a martial art, eventually you
have to do free sparring and you need a partner before you can
face the enemy. Push hands is good practice, where lots of ideas
start; you need a partner to do that. The purpose of push hands
practice is to prepare for real usage."
Sifu
Mancuso outlined the three levels of training in T'ai Chi:
single practice like Ch'i Kung, parallel practice where the group
is performing together, and partner practice where you test your
skills, listening and posture with a specific individual "T'ai
Chi has to do with a strategic relationship to other people. The
system is brilliant. All you have to do is use it."
So,
according to these Sifus, the solution to the riddle is false.
Not only is T'ai Chi a martial art, the martial actually enhances
the style's well-known health attributes. In other words, martial
usage determines the depth and efficacy of the benefits. As Sifu
Hsu put it, "This article will remind people that T'ai
Chi Chuan not was, but still is, a martial art."
