I am reminded however that our progress and skill is not a sign of the veracity or prowess of a martial art so much as a sign of how we have worked and applied ourselves to it. Judge the effort, not the art and we can then transcend the petty opinion based consensus that has in reality; no bearing upon martial reality.

Beyond that, absolute statements about any martial art are always very questionable – so much depends on the reasons why people practice in the first place. I wonder if someone who claims “Taiji is bad, because it looks good without being good for fighting” would despise Belly Dancing for the same reason. If he does not, how come he criticises students of Taiji in the first place? Can he know for sure that there is not a single student who learns it simply because it looks good? If he doesn’t know that for sure, then such an absolute statement is at the very least patronizing and presumptuous.

I don’t mean to say that Taiji “just looks good”. I just wanted to point out that students are in it for different reasons. You probably won’t ask a 70-year old to start practicing 100 knuckle-push ups so that he can hit really hard and compete in an MMA competition. So before even starting to make recommendations of teachers or styles, a student should find out what he is looking for. Any good teacher respects that. Bad teachers don’t.

So I wondered who this “Master Wang” is to begin with. There is limited material on the web, but from what I have read so far I tend to believe that what he teaches seems to be about standing meditations. So that is more “effective” for health and for fighting? Yeah, right. (Maybe there is more to it, but given his moronic statements from before I don’t care to find out more.)

It is quite annoying that so many fakes open their business these days. Frank Dux got a movie about his alleged legendary victory. There are people teaching how to knock out others with a kiai alone. And he we have a guy calling himself “Master” and teaches standing meditation.

It isn’t easy finding reputable teachers these days with so many frauds and fakes around. Admittedly, finding good teachers is difficult. But recognizing certain types of bad ones is easy – just avoid everybody who says “System X sucks” (without even asking what a student is seeking) and who claims to have superior, secret knowledge that other teachers don’t have.

I practice Yang style Tai Chi, and my source is the most genuine there is – Master Yang Jun, 6-th generation of the Yang family. Tai Chi is both an effective defence method and useful for your health. How many martial arts there are which old people can practice? It literary prolongs life! Can you see and old grandma doing Karate? I don’t think so. But you can see 70-year old people with black hair and soft skin doing Tai Chi everywhere in China.

Quote: “Originally, Taiji consisted of three fists, Wang Zongyue changed it into thirteen postures, and it was later embellished into as much as one hundred and fifty postures.” This is bullshit. Tai Chi has 13 postures. 150 is ridiculous.

The wide difference in opinion arises mainly due to the fact that it is radically different from other forms of martial arts, where the emphasis is on hard training, kicks, blocks, punches, etc and also on the techniques.

Tai Chi on the other hand, views all attacks simply as a flow of energy. Now, how do you intercept that energy? Do you stop it with an equal amount of force? Do you evade and simply let the energy run its course and exhaust itself? Do you channelize it in such a way that the attacker loses balance or ends up hurting himself? This is where Tai Chi differs from other arts.

When an attack happens, you don’t need the same aggression of the attacker to stop it. Neither the aggression, nor the force. Tai Chi emphasizes on soft energy. Now most people seem to confuse soft with weak, which is not true. Soft means less physical strength and more of a flow. It means the mind does not lose its tranquility. It means that your strike is more of a proper channelizing of your energy which penetrates into your opponent, than a hard strike which hurts on the surface.

Do you understand it? Perhaps not. And most people don’t. Not because the theory is flawed, but because it takes time. A lot more time than a hard martial art like Karate, Wusu or Judo. It is more difficult because the practitioner cannot immediately gauge his prowess like in other arts where he can show off a well practiced kick.

Tai Chi involves a deep calming of your mind, a sound understanding of your balance and centre of gravity, a natural softening of your movements which make your punch or strike more flowing than a hard muscle filled exercise. It’s like a Tiger Woods teeing off. There’s very little force or strength. But there’s a beautiful, uninterrupted flow. There’s optimum use of body mechanics. Thats what Tai Chi is about, and it takes years to master.

And one final word: Tai Chi isn’t separate from every other art. The principles of Tai Chi can be applied to any activity, any sport and any martial art. And thats also the reason you will find that most authoritative practitioners of Tai Chi usually have a prior martial arts experience of over 10 years.

Tai Chi isn’t crap; the understanding that people have about it is.