You can judge a style of taijiquan or other martial art in various ways depending on what one wants to gain from it, but various things can be attained from various styles of martial art. Different styles have different benefits…

However some taijiquan styles are useless and sometimes harmful, but you cannot judge all styles of taijiquan as false only because some styles are false or harmful.

Martial arts are not always primarily for combat efficiency, some are art forms for cultivation on various levels, body, mind, internal energy, spirit etc… Other martial arts are for combat efficiency or sport…

Taijiquan can be quite good in combat when practiced by a master, but would a master of something more straightforward such as mixed martial arts or jeet kune do be more efficient if mastered for the sake of combat? I cannot say, for I am far from being a master of any martial art…

OK, so apparently deriving from his own knowledge of Neijia, he has deemed orthodox Tai Chi to be outmoded at best and dangerously limited at worst. He was also apparently personally acquainted with the Yang grandmasters.

Now, I’m puzzled at his characterization of Tai Chi as “mechanical”, when I have seen it to be nothing more than fluid and (yes) natural. Certainly more than Wang’s prized Xingyi – now THAT’S a mechanical (dare I say, robotic) martial art!

I might agree with him in criticizing the use of the taolu/kata/form as a manner of training. That seems to gotten over everyone’s heads here in the comments (including my own).

I myself am not familiar with Yiquan, but it appears that Wang decided to dispense with taolu altogether, and instead decided to focus on sparring form, akin to Western boxing.

Consensus? I think that Wang was just trying to promote his own art, and in the process disrespectfully pooh-pooh’d other arts. If he believed that his training method was more practical and superior, and that orthodox Chinese MA practice was to be thrown by the wayside, then that’s a perfectly valid opinion to have for himself. (Perhaps it wasn’t as malicious as it was framed here.) But then he couldn’t bash those arts with such vitriol and still claim he had wude.

The POINT of slow Tai Chi forms is that the coordination (breathing, hand movement, and center of gravity) is perfected to a degree that when if comes time to fight, everything comes together in a snap movement.

The core of Tai Chi is strong root and balance. This fact alone make Tai Chi a favorite form of practice for Shuaijiao practitioners. Don’t believe me? Look up YouTube for a list of Tai Chi masters in actual fights.

Many of the redirection moves in Tai Chi show up in Aikido and Jujutsu, and subsequently Judo. Is the latter a “pussy martial art”?

Punching and kicking is NOT always the solution.

Why waste time claiming you can use Tai Chi in unarmed combat, if you’re gonna deflect into armed combat. That’s nice a gun can beat an unarmed guy, big deal … there’s nothing saying the other guy can’t have a gun too, and if neither of you do, your Tai Chi gets your ass kicked.

Muay Thai, Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, Boxing and wrestling work. Of course that kind of thing actually hurts to learn and is too real “fighting” for most people who just want a fake badass feeling.