Muay T(h)ai Chi

When people are trying to figure out the application of various techniques from Chinese Martial Arts forms (katas), my most common piece of advice is "what would that move be for if a Thai Boxer was doing it in a kick boxing match?" This is most particularly true of one of the most esoteric martial arts, Tai Chi. In fact, the person who originally taught me both kickboxing and Tai Chi marveled how similar Tai Chi was to Muay Thai in contrast to other kickboxing and martial arts, and wondered how closely related the two arts might be in actual lineage.

(He wasn't the only Kung Fu teacher out there teaching both Kicboxing and Tai Chi side by side, just for example:

Chinese kickboxing in general scores high for landing Tai Chi style takedowns.)

The most obvious example of how Tai Chi moves resemble Muay Thai techniques is blocking leg kicks:

Compare that Muay Thai block for leg kicks to the basic Tai Chi technique called "Golden Rooster":

But as I have gone on to explore other schools of Tai Chi, I have come the conclusion that real Tai Chi (as with other Martial Arts,) is found in the sparring more so than the forms. Let's take for example the most laughably obscure move in Tai Chi forms, called "Wave Hands Like Clouds":

There are so many conflicting ideas out there about how Wave Hands Like Clouds it would be used in self defense - head locks, blocks, wrist strikes, groin strikes, elbow strikes, joint locks, breaking wrist grips - with almost no consensus on what this infamous technique could possibly be for. But it wasn't until later in life when I was taking classes from MMA coaches and fighters that it started to dawn on me what this was actually most likely for... going for what is sometimes called in Muay Thai a "steering wheel grip":

But in Chinese kickboxing the clinch time is far more limited than in Muay Thai, so we don't see this as extensively. So let's look at one of the greatest Tai Chi masters of our time sparring, Chen ZiQiang:

And there you have it, the power of steering wheel grips demonstrated in sparring by a Tai Chi master, used in an almost identical way as it is used by Muay Thai champs. And just in case you think that is too-good-to-be-true or that somehow Chen ZiQiang has unique skills, here are other Tai Chi practitioners sparring using the same sort of techniques (especially before arm drag throws and in the case of the guy in the yellow shirt):

Muay Thai is called "the art of 8 limbs," and Tai Chi is considered to have "8 Gates" or types of attacks, one of which is "elbow":

What is full contact elbow fighting called in today's world? Muay Thai.

I have noticed so many similarities between Muay Thai and Tai Chi over the years that it seems to me that if you spar full contact using the 8 gates and techniques found in the forms with a modest amount of safety gear, you will get something nearly identical to Muay Thai. When free sparring is pursued seriously, the differences between various martial arts become much smaller: