Why people said Tai Chi fights like kickboxing?

[Gezere]

The one baji class that I know of in the Toronto area has the same requirement

James Gou's school? I didn't know that

[Bang!]

Yup. I went to check out a class once. All the general students practice mantis style -- although they do a lot of boxing style combinations and some students train for san shou. I wanted to check out the baji, but he only teaches it to his disciples. That, or he just didn't like my white ass. Still . . . seemed like a very good school, though.

[Cullion]

On the Taiji / Kickboxing thing I don't thing some of you guys don't understand why pple are downing the notion.

Taji, Bagua, Xing Yi are all very distinct forms of MA which characteristic movements and techniques. However when you see the SPARRING IMA clips they are just kickboxing and doesn't resemble the art.

I thought that the takedowns and throws from the clinch I saw looked related to
the moving step Tui Shou, but I am in no position to tell anybody what 'real' Tai Chi looks like. I also noticed a lot of 'catch the kicking leg, then throw' from the Tai Chi stylists, and I was under the impression that this is a classic Tai Chi form application.

Granted, I couldn't tell the difference between the punches thrown in those clips, and the punches a boxer/kickboxer would throw.

I just think it's cool to see a CMA association that trains for full contact competition, and does well, and I don't really care if it's 'pure' or not.

[Bang!]

My understanding of what tai chi looks like is essentially a few basic principles applied to whatever works. And I think that this is the only expectation that you can have of something that is not a dead art.

[Sophist]

And look at Savate, good with both fist and feet but don't look like normal kickboxing.

Doesn't Savate start from the assumption you're wearing steel toecaps? Wouldn't that tend to make it look quite different from an art that spars barefoot?

I think the differences cited between arts here are surely artifacts of the rules they fight under and the assumptions they make. If a barefooted kickboxing art rewards people for kicking as fast as possible, you'll surely end up with something like TKD. If it rewards them for destroying the opponent, depending on the physiological weapons allowed and target areas it may end up looking like boxing (punches only, hitting above the belt) or Muay Thai (punches, elbows, knees, kicks) or Kyokushin (punches but not to the head, kicks, don't know enough about it to know about elbows and knees).

If I hypothetically introduced a new art to an existing competition, and tailored it to be successful there, I'm sure it would come to resemble the arts that do well in that competition; any differences would be born out of physiological weapons I didn't emphasize as much in training showing up as lacking in the ring.

I believe competition rulesets shape an art as much or more than techniques. If you took a random wrestling art and made its focus for twenty years winning judo competitions, it would have ippon seoi nage in its syllabus by the end whether it started with it or not. As soon as winning competitions becomes more important than passing on what you were taught exactly as you were taught it, the art begins to evolve. Whether this is a good or bad thing probably depends mainly on the competition ruleset.

[Ronin]

Look, there will always be issues with the fact that very little IMA looks like the IMA when its is used in a fight.
Its just a fact, no one ever sees Bagua being done in a fight , like it is done in training.
Certainly not in a "open competition", maybe when its is done VS itself, but not when faced with other systems.

[Cullion]

Ronin and Sophist both make good points.

I don't think looking different when fighting is a feature of IMA specifically. I think it's a feature of most arts that have forms or Kata, and looking at Kyokushin as an example, it's clear that such arts can still teach fighting as long as they spend plenty of time on all the other 'good stuff'.

[Shooter]

Repulsive Monkey wrote:

To begin with, that base will look a lot like kickboxing, etc. for all but the most gifted students

That aint true.

[Bang!]

Well . . . I'm making some assumptions here, including the notion that the player is competitive in a (striking only) sport environment. I personally try to work on a few things that I consider to be standard for kickboxers. And you're right in the sense that taiji doesn't have to look like anything in particular. But I haven't seen a lot of guys (I've certainly seen some) who are able to be competitive without maintaining at least some of those characteristics.

You've got some substantial competition experience, though. Do you have any footage to counter the whole "looks like kickboxing" argument?

[Cullion]

San Shou vids I posted links to ? repeated takedowns with throwing from the clinch, 'scooping' the kicking leg ?