Weaponized Tai Chi

When I was studying MMA in 2018 at Kitsap Combat Sports, I was surprised to discover that light contact continuous sparring had returned to the USA as the preferred form of sparring for training fighters. This picture is a screen shot from their website, the person who's back is facing the camera is me, and the guy with the beard is an amazing instructor:

I was there mostly to learn more about clinch fighting to improve my Tai Chi, but this revelations about light contact was a rude awakening for me. When I had been training in combat sports in my prime in my early 20's (mid 1990s,) we were going beyond full contact, more like daily gym fights, as the only true way to learn how to fight. Even our instructors were telling us back then to take it down a notch, even though they themselves were advocates of full contact training. In retrospect I can see this wasn't healthy, but it did get us to learn the basics of what would now be called Dutch Kickboxing very quickly.

My very first martial art style was Tae Sho Arnis, also known as Tae Sho Karate Do. It was considered "full contact Karate" (similar to "American Kickboxing,") but the regular form of sparring in class had highly controlled contact, basically light contact continuous sparring, which I think originated in the Tae Kwon Do community in the 1970's. We never had matches outside of point fighting tournaments, but the thing is that EVERY SINGLE STUDENT WHO STUDIED THAT ART LATER OR AT THE TIME PROVED TO BE COMPETENT AT DEFENDING THEMSELVES. Was it the strong Arnis influence on the style? Was it some kind of lingering martial benefit from 1960's Shotokan or TKD? Some combination of influences? Who knows, but it worked at the time (late 1980's,) and though I learned later (1990's) mostly through gory full contact slug fests, this new revelation in 2018 helped me connect the dots with that first art I studied.

 

By the time the 2020 pandemic started, I had studied at another martial arts school all together, and realized that I had learned more techniques I wanted to master than I had time left in my life to master, and I wasn't in need of new regular instruction outside of occasional private lessons. I am one of the founders of weapon fight club Tres Espadas, and I do not lack for sparring partners willing to beat on me while I work on my techniques against them.

But in the social abyss of the pandemic, people reached out to me, wanting me to teach them martial arts. The problem was teach them what? Where do you start on something like that? As a martial arts consumer advocate I had strong opinions on what this should entail, but I had no curriculum to go by.

At the same time controversy was erupting about an MMA gym owner in China promoting his line of MMA gyms by beating up cult leaders who thought they knew Tai Chi. It bothered me the state that Tai Chi was in, because in most cases people don't even practice Tai Chi as a martial art, but rather as a much more reliable form of Yoga than mainstream Yoga. Then I got to wondering, what if I applied best practices from a martial arts consumer point of view to Yang style Tai Chi?

My Weaponized Tai Chi project is applying the best practices I have described on my blog to the worlds most common and most controversial martial art: Yang style Tai Chi. Here's the general idea:

1. Every training session or lesson starts with the core Tai Chi exercises, including some minimal posture & strength training, stretching, standing meditation and push hands (including the single hand sensitivity drill, the two hand resistance balance drill, and the moving step free sparring.) 
   
2. I strongly believe that real fights involve weapons. The only way they don't is if YOU are unprepared. I start with the Knife Badge from Tres Espadas, as it teaches evasive movement and a real way to handle multiple attackers if necessary. The knife can easily be substituted with pepper spray which is legally encouraged in my state.
3. Mostly because of popular demand, I then include some Arnis basics for stick fighting. 
4. Once the student understands the basics of knife and stick free sparring, then they are ready to get into real-weight fighting weapons, such as Nihozashi Padded Katanas. This more closely resembles the weight and heft of most improvised weapons, and the Yang style Saber Form (which I have modified mostly to include the same moves practiced on both the left and right sides,) is the perfect way to show how to swing heavier weapon around with precision, power and defense in mind. So yes, the way _I_ teach Tai Chi is the way Kung Fu would have been taught originally to ancient soldiers, Saber (or Spear) first (spear being the less practical option in today's world. The following picture is not me, but it is a picture of the Katana-like Yang style Tai Chi Saber.)


5. Once the student has mastered the long journey (40 or so training sessions) of learning the Tai Chi saber, they are ready for adding controlled contact sparring with punches, kicks and other techniques from an unarmed Tai Chi form. (I use a modified version of the Yang Style 16 movement form, replacing moves I don't like (stork spreads it's wings) with moves I do like (golden rooster, high kick) and again rearranging the form to make sure the same moves are practiced on both sides of the body.)
   
6. Once I am satisfied that the student is prepared to fight with and without weapons, then we explore grappling deeper. Head grabs, chokes and leg grabs are added to the moving step free sparring to form Tai Chi Wrestling. Also an attacker versus defender focused sparring is practiced, where both partners start on the ground in side control; the one on bottom is trying to escape to their feet and the one on top trying to get in a guillotine or RNC, and when one wins, they trade roles and continue.

As for the longer Tai Chi forms or famous Tai Chi straight sword, I don't bother, this curriculum is intentionally brief. It's all limited to 100 lessons. After that 100 lessons, if they want they can keep training with me on the same curriculum, if they want a wider variety of weapon sparring they can participate more fully in Tres Espadas, if they want to learn more about knife and stick there is plenty of Filipino Martial Arts in the area, if they want to perfect their striking they can study Muay Thai at a few different gyms in this area, if they want a wider variety of martial arts knowledge there's plenty of Traditional Martial Arts around here, if they want to work on their grappling I would send them directly to Kitsap Combat Sports for MMA, and if they want to get more serious about Tai Chi there are a few legitimate Tai Chi masters within a few hours of here that I can refer them to. Weaponized Tai Chi is only intended to be for beginners or to augment someone's training if they are not a beginner, it's not meant to be a comprehensive martial art for the life long martial artist, nor is it a catalogue of all the knowledge I have regarding self defense or martial arts.