Why Study Tai Chi Chuan as a Martial Art?

Authored by Sifu Alan Ludmer

There is a major problem in the Tai Chi (Taiji) Community regarding accepting and practicing Tai Chi as a martial art.  Many Tai Chi practitioners are averse to the art’s martial aspects. They see TCC’s martial aspects as conflict, unharmonious, dangerous or just unnecessary?  I believe the problem is that that many have very little understanding of value of studying the martial.  It is unfortunate that many current Tai Chi teachers have no or very little martial experience.  We are in danger of losing an incredibly valuable component of our art and a critical vehicle that can enable us to maximize the value of Tai Chi Chuan.

I was fortunate that I came to the internal arts with years of western boxing and hard old school karate experience.  It exposed me to the most immediate value of the martial arts, self-defense.  Like almost everyone else, I got into the external martial arts to resolve personal issues. The external martial arts provided me with an important measure of self-validation, but never addressed my desire for internal growth. However, over the years I began to redefine my concept of self-defense.

The marital is the key to understanding Tai Chi Chuan

My Tai Chi teachers always stressed the critical value of the martial in understanding the art.  My first introduction to Tai Chi was in Chicago, IL in 1969 with Professor Huo Chi Kwang.  Professor Huo was both a scholar and a superb martial artist.  My size, strength, and years of boxing and karate meant nothing when we sparred. He could dissolve at will and touch me with enormous power.  When we discussed the martial, he always stressed that Tai Chi Chuan was boxing, but boxing for physical and mental health.  The self-defense was secondary.  However, one had to master the self-defense aspects in order to attain the understanding in order to access the higher level physical and mental health benefits. 

In 1975, I moved to St. Louis, Missouri and was very fortunate to become a student of Tuey Staples.  Tuey had an excellent external background and became a profound internal martial artist and teacher.  When I ask him why he practiced the internal martial arts, he replied, “To become one with the universe.”  He teaches that the study of the martial is the key to understanding Tai Chi Chuan.  He sees the internal arts as a vehicle to be in the now, to be truly present.  When you are in the now, you can respond appropriately to any situation, physical, emotional, or psychological.  This is what I now see as Self Defense.

Tai Chi is an art of change.

One can only harvest limited value from the practice of solo form and push hands.  Form tends to foster a rigidly of thought; the form is always this, never that way. Master Somebody always did it this way. So after time, form trumps function. We take an art of infinite flexibility and make it rigid.  We forget the most basic premise of Tai Chi which is the ability to accept and redirect all energy, and that all art is contextual. Although, push hands is an excellent drill for helping interpret your own and your partner’s energy, it is way too limited and structured.  It is now either Tai Chi Sumo or Mush Hands.  To learn the internal, you must expose yourself to those with real internal martial experience. One needs to learn how to execute energetic movement within an appropriate context.

To truly grow, one needs to liberate themselves from the tyranny of form. Tai Chi is an art of change based upon the individual practitioner’s interpretation and understanding. It is an art of change and constant movement. The intent is the ability to respond to all situations. It is like music. To grow as a musician you transcend from playing other artist’s music to playing your own songs.

Why is the martial critical to mastery? 

Back to the question, “Why study the martial aspects of Tai Chi Chuan?”  This is what I have learned from the internal martial arts:

• The ability to accept and redirect energy.  Life is not a game of soft pitch.  Life throws all kinds of pitches, at all kinds of speeds, in every direction.  Most practitioners can accept soft slow energy.  What happens when opposition is hard, fast, and focused? Unless our art prepares us to address all situations, then it is incomplete.  The martial teaches the ability to respond to all types of energy and safely redirect it.  This isn’t just physical energy, but also emotional and psychological assaults.  See a parallel to real life?
• The ability to create your own art.  Form has value, but in time practitioners must learn to make their own movements. Form is like a scaffold for a construction project.  At some point, the scaffold has to come down, and the entity to has to exist on its own.  If you would like a musical analogy; learning a form is like learning one song. However, if you learn composition, melody, timing, etc you can make your own music. There is as much opportunity for creativity in martial arts as there is in any other art form.  The martial stresses creativity under fire.
• Accept the unexpected.  The martial teaches one to expect and accept the unexpected.  Life is constant change.  Tai Chi is an art of changes.  One learns to detect the energy, blend and redirect it.  The unexpected can cover a universe of encounters, much more than just physical.  The martial teaches us to better handle the unexpected moments of life. 
• Being in the moment. I have judged a number of Tai Chi tournaments and I’m always dismayed by the lack of focus during form and push hands. Life is what is happening while one is thinking about the past or the future.  We are so caught up in getting to the destination, that we lose the present. The martial teaches one to stay focused, centered, and definitely in the present.  The martial is true reality therapy and woe to those who can’t stay in the now.

Fear of the martial has everything to do with our own perceptions.  I am enormously grateful to my teachers who showed me the true value of the martial. I have learned that kindness, good, and mercy come from the strong, never the weak.  The strong can be elderly, small in statue, any gender, and even disabled. It is not a physical attribute, but a mental one. I see myself as a warrior. Not for evil, but as a warrior for our better values.  Martial arts have made me a better father, grandfather, husband, employer, and human being.

(Edited by Sifu William Phillips. Note: The Editorial Board of www.VioletLiTaiChi.com is not responsible for the content of the article.)

About the Author: Sifu Alan Ludmer is a St. Louis, Missouri Tai Chi Chuan and Ba Gua Chuan teacher, author, and long-term student of Tuey Staples. He has over 50 years of experience in the internal and external martial arts and can be reached at alanludmer@gmail.com.