Tai Chi: Before and After

This kid is a Tres Espadas member who has already fought in a Tipon, but who is relatively new to unarmed sparring. This is where he was shortly before the pandemic in the grey T-Shirt, and you can see his sparring partner has no problem taking him down four times in 2.5 minutes:

For about a year this kid trained in Tai Chi with me about once per week as we were locked up together during the COVID 19 pandemic. In bad weather we would work inside on stationary push hands and on individual techniques from Yang style Tai Chi. In good weather we would work outside on different types of moving step push hands, sometimes bordering on Lei Tai sport fighting, (as all Tai Chi styles are supposed to traditionally,) as well as Yang style forms. We always covered a little Zhan Zhuang/standing mediation out of tradition and for the sake mental focus and good posture. As the pandemic was subsiding before the delta variant outbreak, this kid got a chance to spar the same person as above under the same rules with the same gear, and the results were impressive (as he was taken down zero times in 5 minutes):

Our Dog Brother's issue Super Stiff action flex padded sticks were falling apart after a decade of hard free sparring. Fortunately the famous Blood and Iron HEMA club from (Vancouver BC) Canada was at the last gathering (NW Warrior Tipon Tipon) we participated in, and they had introduced us to a new brand of sparring weapon, Nihonzashi. Nihonzashi's padded swords are designed to be:

1. As heavy as a real metal sword.

2. As stiff as a real metal sword.

3. As long as a metal sword.

4. As safe to spar with as any other sparring sword.

When we got our first pair of padded swords from Nihonzashi over the pandemic, we knew we were going to have knowledge gaps on how to fight with real weight metal weapons, because most of the weapon sparring done over the last few centuries was with wood or bamboo sticks. In the following video we start off talkative and safe, and as we get used to the weapons we start trying to use our previous techniques full force and speed with these real weight weapons. Though there's free sparring by the end of the round, we still aren't sure how to adjust to the real weight of the weapons:

I went back to my Tai Chi for solutions. I re-examined the Yang style saber form. I cross referenced it to the Wu style and Chen style saber form for context, and compared it to a few other kung fu saber forms. I was pleasantly surprised by how straight forward the Yang style Saber techniques are (and without the mystery surrounding the Tai Chi straight sword/gim.) After a month or so of more practice with my Yang style saber technique, I gave it another go with my same sparring partner as in the above video. You can see how much more comfortable I am with the real weight weapon than my sparring partner who is still basically trying to use stick technique:

On one hand Tai Chi comes with a LOT of baggage if you are a lineaged instructor (which I am not.) On the other hand there is a wealth of knowledge in Tai Chi returning from the past through free sparring that is very helpful indeed.