Freefighting within Tai Chi

Just as we cannot learn to swim without direct experience of swimming in a pool or the sea, as martial artists we cannot expect fighting skills without experiencing fighting.

Self defence and fighting are not quite the same thing.

They do share commonalities. In self defence the objective is to act in order to keep ourselves (or others) safe. Fighting skill is about having the ability to defeat an opponent, either ‘on the street’ or in a competition.

Theoretically you could have good fighting skills but make decisions in a dangerous scenario that could leave to personal injury or worse. Personally when working in nightclub security I soon learned that keeping the environment safe for staff and customers required good tactics and diplomacy more often than combat skill, particularly when dealing with potentially armed potential adversaries.

Conversely, we could be mediocre fighters, but by using the correct body language, tone of voice and de-esculating techniques, certain dangerous situations could be easily neutralised and a potential aggressor dissuaded from his or her aggressive actions. We may even simply be able to neutralise an aggressors pushes and shoves, using simple grappling skills from pushing hands, and an opponents will to continue their attack could dissipate. This is self defence as opposed to ‘fighting skill’.

Studies with predatory prisoners have shown that they use body language as a primary gauge to determine who they will attack. Fixing your posture and communicating greater assertiveness to the world could be one of the better strategies for defense against these more serious threats. Hand form training and Neigong training would be a great starting point. Predatory violence that these prisoners specialised in is the kind that could leave you seriously injured or even dead, as the perpetrator has zero interest in appearing cool or tough in front of friends or to fortify their ego in any way. They will attack you by surprise, from the rear, with a weapon or any combination of such things. They only want to hurt, kill, rob or otherwise harm you. Defending these attacks successfully requires truly adaptive reflexes.

In thirteen dynamics Tai Chi (which comes from the Cheng Tin Hung version of Wudang tai chi) we use the tried and tested method of intense drilling to develop rapid, instinctive responses to a wide variety of potential self defence attacks.

With time students become skillful at defending against full power and speed attacks from a variety of punches, kicks and wrestling or grappling moves.

At more advanced stages of development the techniques all become one and we can freely adapt and use the basic tai chi principle and concepts to respond to any type of previously unseen attacks or situations.

We could be sitting on a bus or on the edge of a tube platform when a self defence scenario could occur. No training scenarios can be designed to encompass all possible situations, so tai chi training has to simply allow you to express the core principle and react spontaneously to whatever happens. We need ‘emergent properties’ from good core training that will express themesleves effectively should the need arise.

This is the goal and effect of good Wudang Tai Chi training (done properly). Drilling combined with the movement training and basic conditioning can develop solid self defence skills quickly for the average person, provided it’s done intently and regularly.

However, this alone won’t make you a ‘tai chi fighter’ of high order. For this you need to experience more combat related scenarios against high quality opponents to develop your potential to face and defeat all manner of opponents in real combat situations.

So as well as response development drills which teach us to react quickly and effectively, as well as to counter, we also need to spend as much time as possible in games/activities that so much as is possible without injury give us experience in scenarios which are as close to fighting as possible.

How much time an individual needs in sparring or freefighting activities seems to vary considerably from one individual to the next. Some competitive fighters prepare by sparring very regularly, even daily up until an event. Others leave sparring to the last few weeks of training preparation.

Some, such as my own Tai Chi teacher Dan Docherty, said they required very little sparring to achieve ‘sharpness’ and exhibit excellent skills, timing and instincts within their fights. However, this state can only arise once you’ve already experienced a decent amount of fight experience and understand what it is to face an opponent who is seriously trying to do you harm. The speed, momentum and aggressive intent is a lot different to most training experiences.

As detailed in a previous post, classical tai chi fighters from history all engaged in plenty of drilling and sparring activities, which modern tai chi practitioners simply don’t do. However as also stated the Wudang lineage of tai chi as taught by Cheng Tin Hung and his students, maintained heavy contact sparring as a normal part of the curriculum. Modern practitioners however, again seem to have drifted off course and don’t often practice in a spontaneous enough way to reach their full potential.

Dan Docherty noted that despite having a karate black belt when he arrived in Hong Kong, in his first sparring match at Cheng Tin Hung’s place he got knocked about so much blood was pouring from his face. Rather than stopping the spar, Sifu Cheng simply considered it normal and allowed the match to proceed to dans surprise.

Wudang Tai Chi classes in London in the early 1990’s.

As a professional tai chi teacher, training fighters can easily lead to losing students and empty classes. In Hong Kong there were apparently two streams of student on the rooftop gym.

Younger tougher types would be in the Yang stream, whilst the older more gentle types would be in the Yin. For the Yang stream students there was plenty of fighting, sparring, wrestling, conditioning drills, internal strength training and so on.

The Yin stream would focus on forms and pushing hands drills and so on. Each stream would take part in other activities for rounded development but you would focus on the types of training that would bring you the types of results you needed more quickly. This was a great solution to teaching the complex art of tai chi to general students and also fighter types.

I came to tai chi interested in it as a fighting art. At the time my teacher, Dan Docherty, whilst having been a full contact fighter himself now found himself trying to juggle the interests of his tai chi teaching business and also his personal interest in tai chi as a combat art. His classes were mainly full of people who had a general interest in tai chi but not so much as a full contact system. There were a few exceptions however.

So to solve this problem and allow for those of us interested in fighting with tai chi in competitions, he prescribed us a daily conditioning plan to be done in our own time at home. This was the classic routine taught to him by Cheng Tin Hung and would be precisely the right type of strength, power and stamina needed for full contact fighting.

  • Tai Chi Neigong (around 1 hr 10 mins)
  • Handstand training (2 mins per hold)
  • 4 pound handweight (3 punches per second for 20 mins)
  • Forward rolls (3 to 5 rounds of 80 repetitions within 2 minutes. Minute rest between each)
  • Chasing the pad (running after someone who runs backwards holding a pad – you hit hard as possible with each step).  3 to 5 rounds of 2-3 minute intervals. Minute off in between rounds.
  • Practice the Hand form to relax the body and self heal from all the harder elements.
  • Heavy bag work ideally without gloves or trainers to toughen up the hands and feet, while practicing basic punches and kicks.

So fighters did at least 2-3 hours of training daily on their own and then as much attendance at class to practice the freefighting drills.

Due to the general nature of the classes, as it was Dans full time job and income, it was sometimes tricky to find people who wanted to train at the higher intensity levels needed to fully develop the drills. This is a common situation in most martial arts classes, except for perhaps arts that are more known as combat sports. Boxing gyms or Thai boxing gyms tend to attract people who expect to train hard and spar, Tai Chi generally does not at all, despite the syllabus (of Wudang Style at least) offering plenty of potential development for fighters. This challenge continues.

Sparring sessions

Once you were familiar with the basics to a decent level and fit enough Dan would instroduce full contact sparring, usually over 3 minute round at workshops. This worked well because people would come to the workshops from different places so your opponent was usually not a regular training partner.

The full contact spars would be carried out using small gloves under ‘kuoshu’ rules usually, or sometimes boxing gloves under ‘San Shou’ rules, which was closer to kickboxing. In kuoshu rules you could use knees and elbows and is closest to street fighting. Also the use of very small gloves or bag gloves made you have to develop very good parrying skills and defensive skills generally. The bigger gloves of San Shou sparring changed the dynamic considerably.

As the spars were full contact against people you didn’t know, they were basically fights. And often there were knockouts or stoppages. Some of us went into some of the competitions that were around at the time – usually prefering the kuoshu types which had more flexible rules and included knee and elbow techniques.

As a teacher a few years later I had some talented students who wanted to compete. The classes were a close knit group and so sparring hard and full contact against their friends wasn’t always enjoyed by most of them, so they would often gain their fight experience in actual matches more than in class.

The first couple of times they competed they would often look very amateurish and skills wouldn’t be well expressed, but after this period they would usually start to show different elements of the things trained in class. As their exposure to the full contact environment became more normal and their experience grew they would usually end up winning tournaments and most events, provided they did the necessary class and homework.

In classical tai chi there are various ways we can spar, either with heavy or light contact.

Pushing hands fixed step: learning to feel for and neutralise full power attacks at full speed from an opponent. We also learn to become expert and applying forces to control and destabilise an opponent.

Wrestling: adding steps and throws to the pushing hands training develops our experience in applying the sweeps, trips and throws of the art as well as moving them into positions of disadvantage for them

Combined pushing hands and striking. Reeling silk pushing hands teaches tactile defence and circular striking, which can be combined with general pushing hands body control skills for useful close quarters striking development. Below are a couple of examples of these exercises, from myself and also a branch of Wu style that comes from Cheng Tin Hung’s uncle and who share a practical approach to their tai chi.

Freefighting or sparring using various rules: using varied rules and equipment we can encourage the growth and development of different facets of our tai chi skills. A more point based approach could develop range and distance control for example. From light contact to full contact each sparring task or game can build different skills and abilities. In earlier times Chinese martial arts always tested themselves through platform fights using various rules. Classically there were very little and in recent times the Taiwanese promoted these under the banner of ‘kuoshu’ which means national art. They were interested in maintain the ‘old ways’ and maintaining the practical fighting skills of the Chinese martial arts, which can drift if the flowery forms take precedence. In our tai chi we generally trained using similar rules, but used small bag gloves.


The problem with sparring or freefighting done inappropriately is that it can lead to injury or just be plain unenjoyable. Not many people want to turn up at the gym after work and be punched or kicked in the face with very heavy contact.

So training needs to be flexible in accordance with the needs of the practitioner at that time of his or her life. For those wanting elite skills, it’s unavoidable to engage with full contact experience at some stage.

How much and how often this is done however is variable and should be balanced with the need to promote good health all around. As a serious student you should discuss how much contact sparring you’d like to take part in with your teacher/trainer and balance your ambition with the need to avoid injury.

The objective of tai chi, beyond fighting skills or self defence abilities is classically stated as being to achieve a long life and exhibiting and having a youthful appearance (and perhaps nature). However for some people real fighting skill is useful and necessary and so you should train appropriately.

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Combat Tai chi Chuan: Historic and contemporary approaches to drilling

Combat Tai chi Chuan: Historic and contemporary approaches to drilling

Modern Tai Chi Chuan in most cases cannot be considered a practical martial art

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