Tai Chi - UCD

LegacyUser

Hey all,

Very interested in taking up Tai Chi in UCD. Know one of the instructors through a friend and pretty impressed.

Any pros/cons to learning this form in your opinion so I can put them to him and see what he says?

Thanks,
Cheese

Best to question why you want to do it!

- Are you primarily concerned with fitness?

- Are you primarily concerned with stress relief?

- Are you primarily concerned with self defence?

etc etc etc.

So maybe ask how tai chi is for the above 3 or any other factors you feel are important.

Puck

Tai chi's great in my opinion. Excellent for your ballance and posture and teaches you good weight distribution (for putting more weight behind your attacks and for knocking your enemy off ballance).

There are two down-sides that I can see. Really it's just one downside because the first one is not necessarily a bad thing:

1. It takes a long time to be any good.
2. It attracts a certain new-agey type who seem to be more than happy to stop the class to talk about chi and psychic powers and ghosts and "energy" and all that stuff. It can get to you after a while but hopefully you'll fall in with a good crowd.

LegacyUser

Ye the bloke who teaches it in UCD says you get straight into it and within three months of attending once a week, you can get pretty good at it. Of course it all depends on your fitness levels etc. My fitness levels are pretty average and thats what he said. I would be using it as self defence and fitness.

Do you guys thinks its good for self defence and fitness?

Puck

I'd be sceptical of anyone who says that I'd be "pretty good" at an art after only 12 classes (once a week for 3 months) especially when applied to self defense.

LegacyUser

No. He said you "can" get pretty good at it.

Puck

My view is still the same. Maybe you can do a nice looking form within that time but in my opinion there is far more to tai chi than the forms.

Colm_OReilly

Do you guys thinks its good for self defence and fitness?

Personally I don't believe Tai Chi will help you with regards to Self Defence.

As regards "fitness" it's a very broad term. Do you mean strength, cardio vascular fitness(aerobic and anaerobic), increased flexibility, endurance?

My advice to you would be to try out the beginners classes in UCD next year:

Boxing, Wrestling, BJJ

then

Lau Gar, Aikido, Tai Chi, TKD.

Then you'll be able to figure out for yourself which are more geared towards realistic fighting skills (self defence). If learning self defence and getting in decent shape are your primary motives, and more importantly what you feel you'll enjoy doing more, stikck with them.

If you want to do something that looks impressive and, once again, you feel you'll enjoy doing more, you'll know which one you want.

Take Care,

Colm

LegacyUser

Hey Colm,

Thanks for the post. It is a flip of a coin right now between BJJ and Tai Chi. Both interest me greatly.

I was attracted to Tai Chi as another guy I know is being trained by a former free form european champ and from what I have been told and shown, has impressed me.

Then there is BJJ which I like since it seems excellent and has the style I like and you represent it well on the boards here too so that is an added incentive.

vasch_ro

cheese dude , the style of Tai Chi they study in UCD
is practical Tai Chi under the auspices of famous UK martial artist Dan Doherty , its a no bull**** style( compared to lot of kung fu styles) and they do cater for Full Contact competition thus I would imagine there is an amount of fitness training involved what aspect of fitness they work on most I cannot say perhaps this is one area you could explore with your friend,
and they also chi kung (internal training ) etc and the slow exercises that are so sterotypically associated
with the style. The head instructor Dr Alan Peatfield is a world renowned martial artist who has studied a number of obscure chinese martial arts.

The advice about training in a few clubs come freshers week next sept is a good idea , what I would advise though is to say to your self that you will make at least 3 or 4 classes before making a decision as for the first week or so all the martial arts clubs numbers swell and i feel it gives a false impression of what the clubs are really like.

In UCD BJJ I am referred to as Baloo ,so if your are thinking of trying it out make yourself known to me and I will assist you I any way I can .

There is a great range of clubs in UCd who will be anxious to attract members so use this to your advantage. Hope this is of some assistance

also read this taken from an interview with Dan Doherty

what differences did you find between the 1976 and the 1980 South East Asian Martial Arts Championships?

In 1976 I was very raw, with only one year of Tai Chi behind me and so my defence in particular was not that well developed. That was also a particularly vicious competition because the gloves we used were like driving gloves with the fingertips cut off. In my first fight against a hard stylist from Malaysia I got two black eyes a bleeding nose, puffed lips and heavy bruising from the left hip down to the foot from Thai Boxing kicks. My left foot was so bad I couldn't get a shoe on and I had to have a tetanus shot followed by herbal mudpacks to reduce the swelling. I won the fight by the way! Four days later I stopped my next opponent as well, but lost on points the day after in the final of the Heavyweight division, to Lohandran of Malaysia and Chi Ke Chuan. He was fully fit as he'd only had to fight one contest lasting one round before the final. I felt really frustrated because I was sure I could have taken him if I'd been uninjured.

The next South East Asian Martial Arts Championships was held In Malaysia in 1980. This time we used Thai Boxing gloves. In fact the Malaysians had been training with Thai Boxers and they had a top Thai Boxing coach as one of the corner men for their fighters. This time there was a Superheavyweight Open Weight category for those over 220lbs. I weighed around 190lbs., but, against my teacher's advice, I opted to step up two weight categories to fight in this division as I figured there would be more 'face' to gain and in any case I'd be faster than my opponents. In my first the fight against Roy Pink of England and Five Ancestors, who weighed over 300lbs., I knocked him out in the first round. Then I was in the final against my old friend, Mr. Lohandran. I beat him on points in front of his home crowd in Kuala Lumpur. The only other Hong Kong boy to emerge as a champion was my fellow student, Tong Chi-kin who won the Middleweight title. After all that, I decided not to fight in competition again.

Why would a well-educated man like yourself take part in this kind of bloodbath?

I felt that the only way to test the system and to have credibility as a practitioner of the system was to fight the best people from other styles in full contact competition. Apart from that my teacher asked me to fight . . . and I do come from Glasgow.

taken from http://www.taichichuan.co.uk/

Hardcase

ah Roy Pink should have had em, he chased him around he ring, that was his mistake. Walked straight into a punch.

smacl

Cheesedude,
I have been practicing Practical Tai Chi Chuan for the last nine years and can vouch for the fact that it as strong on practical self defence as any other martial art out there. For those interested, the style includes, among other things, san shou (full contact boxing, kicking, grappling, throws, locks, etc..), stand up free wrestling, and as much pad work and conditioning as you are willing to do. Included in those currently training in UCD are the current IMAF world shuai jiao (chinese fast wrestling) champion, and the world number 4 sanda (san shou) champion. In addition to the UCD club, there are also regular classes in Rathmines that focus heavily on full contact training, see http://www.freewebs.com/sanshou for details.

The UCD classes do also cater for those not interested in competitive martial arts, and as mentioned earlier, the Tai Chi name does attract its share of hippies, new agers, nerds, geeks, and the likes, but IMO, the same is true of most of the college martial arts clubs. What can you do....:(

If you were going to try more than one martial art, I would try to make sure you catch at least two classes a week of what ever you go for. If you are new to martial arts, IMO, one class a week is not enough. Apart from Tai Chi, i would consider Boxing, BJJ, and possibly Capoeira. Boxing for the fitness, BJJ for the ground work, and Capoeira simply because it looks like great gas. This said, everyone has their own MA favourites, and you'll get a chance to see most of them in action once in UCD.

Regards,

Shane