Back in 2019, one of my students invited me to a Tai Chi class at Rancho Bernardo Community Park. There, I met a woman named Jailene who did some qigong exercises and practiced Tai Chi. She learned it from Dr. Paul Lam, who had developed a Tai Chi for Arthritis and fall prevention program.
His Tai Chi for Arthritis form seemed to be great for senior citizens who were looking to stay active and physically move around with little risk of becoming injured. Fascinated with a Tai Chi program that was actually studied for its benefits, I decided to attend a seminar and get certified.
Over a three-day training, I learned the Tai Chi for Arthritis form. Because I’ve always been good at memorizing material, despite not knowing the entire form when I showed up, I managed to get my Level 2 certification in Tai Chi for Arthritis.
What cracked me up while I was there was that some of these people actually believed this could be used to help defend themselves.
Now, back in the day, I’d learned the traditional 24-posture form for Tai Chi. Are there fighting applications in the form? Yes. But there are also fighting applications in swinging a baseball bat, and I find that caveman style to be much more effective for self-defense.
It’s people like these instructors who really make me hate the martial arts industry. I don’t want anyone to ever think that they’re going to be able to use Tai Chi to defend themselves. Not from physical violence.
Practicing movement slowly violates one of the main rules for self-defense. Although it creates better interoception, proprioception, and bodily awareness, when something is introduced too quickly, you’re naturally going to be put off balance because you’re going to be surprised. Violence loves speed. And if you’re never doing things from an off-balance position, you’re not going to be able to apply these skills.
Learning to train off balance is one of the main things I learned from the SPEAR System and Tony Blauer.
But I don’t want you to think that Tai Chi is useless. I don’t really think any martial art is useless. I just don’t think it’s as holistic as the art I teach now.
In 2011, I went through Jon Kabat-Zinn’s Full Catastrophe Living. It was a book that had an eight-week course attached to it that taught mindfulness-based stress reduction. It’s probably one of the reasons I never developed full-blown bipolar II or schizophrenia.
After my Tai Chi certification, I’d been seeing a new therapist, working through my grief over losing my twin. She recommended that I do a course she went through that was like an MBSR course 2.0.
This course finishes with an all-day meditation. Getting through the whole eight-week course was no problem, but I vastly underestimated how much anxiety I would have doing something in a room full of people for an entire day.
I was still working through my complex PTSD, and being in a room full of people without talking all day long essentially put me in the fear loop for about eight hours.
But you know what did help me? Going through my Tai Chi for Arthritis form. While other people would do mindful walking, I would practice my Tai Chi. It gave me some respite so that I didn’t end up endlessly looping in an anxiety attack.
So, for me, I do enjoy Tai Chi, and I still practice it on occasion to this day when I need to slow my mind down. Some nights, I have restless legs syndrome, and I’ll get up and go through my Tai Chi form.
I’ve also used it when I have to get one of my babies to sleep at night: going through the Tai Chi walking, feeling the floor, and using it to allow me to stay present so my mind doesn’t get overrun by the needs of tomorrow.
So, when it comes to mental and emotional health, I think Tai Chi has many benefits. I just would never use it for fighting. I don’t understand how anyone could think to use it for fighting.
Now, you could say it’s possible to do things with biomechanical quickness from Tai Chi. And if you can’t do something slowly, you can’t do it fast. So, training at Tai Chi speed to make sure that you’re 100% efficient and there’s no wasted movement is a great thing that can enhance your performance as a martial artist or as a self-defense practitioner.
But if you try to use Parting the Wild Horse’s Mane when I’m trying to stab you with a knife, you’re going to be left just like the poor guy in the Tai Chi video I’ve posted here.
Tai Chi Masters by ilramchoi — the comedy parody referenced in this article, not footage of a real attack.
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