The latest way of selling tai chi is to say it gets you jacked
I’ve seen a lot of things come and go in the Tai Chi universe over the years, but the latest marketing trend has got me scratching my head. Almost every advert for Tai Chi courses I see on Instagram and Facebook at the moment promises ripped muscles and a hyper-masculine physique, mainly for men over 50!
Tai Chi, with its soft, slow, flowing, gentle movements, is perhaps the least masculine-looking martial art you could imagine, yet here is “Master Lee” strolling around a TV studio with his top off showing off his impressively-muscled abs, which he says he got from tai chi.
Or this guy, who claims tai chi is the path to a six pack. “Real men don’t starve… they do tai chi”, he proclaims.
So, what’s going on here?
Firstly, these confident, super-tonned Chinese gentlemen, are clearly creations of generative AI video apps. Everything about the videos looks as fake to me as the idea that tai chi on its own will get you that shredded.
Tai chi is good for many things, like learning how to use qi and jin and producing a feeling of tranquility, or as a self-defence system, but producing athletic-looking people over the age of 50 is really not one of them. *
When you look deeper into the exercises being offered here they look like simple, repetitive qigong-style movements. The idea that you’d replace weight training and body weight exercise with these and still build muscle is wrong, as far as I can see.
There’s no getting away from it, if you want to lose weight and build muscle you need a diet, cardio and weight training routine.
—-
* Now, I’m aware that there is another trend at the moment to train intensively with kettle bells and call that “tai chi” or “internal”, but really it’s no different to doing a kettle bell workout and not calling it tai chi.
I’ve actually only just noticed a comment on my Contacts page from January by Robert Lepper:
“I suggest you do an article about the 1974 historic visit to the United States by the elite Chinese National Wushu Team. There was a famous visit to the White House Rose Garden with President Nixon, Dr. Kissinger and other dignitaries. In October 2024 the team celebrated their 50th year celebration of the U.S. performances in Beijing and Qingdao City. After the U.S. demonstrations in 1974 they demonstrated in Great Britain (1975) and many other countries. These martial artists were the best of the best. It was the opening of China and Chinese martial arts to the world. Jet Li at age 11 was on this famous team.
There are many pictures available and a news video (poor quality) of the demonstration in the White House Rose Garden.”
Well, this actually seems like a good idea, especially since it was Jet Li who was demonstrating. I had a quick look online, and yes, there is a video of the event, showing a young Jet Li demonstrating a 2-man wushu form in front of President Nixon:
From what I can see, this looks like a version of the ‘Shaolin 2-man form’ that I learned years ago. Certainly some of the still postures – like the one in the video thumbnail cover – are postures I recognise.
Nixon first visited Beijing in 1972, in an effort to start establishing relations with the People’s Republic of China, after years of diplomacy that favoured the Republic of China, based in Taiwan. The visit was a huge symbolic gesture. This 1974 visit looks like a return visit, with the PRC trying to push the image of Chinese Wushu to the West.
It’s interesting to think of how Wushu is being used here as a demonstration of China’s soft power, and there’s no sign of any Taijiquan. This was not long after release of Enter the Dragon, when Bruce Lee had introduced kung fu to the international stage for the first time. Li would later become famous as a kung fu movie star in his own right, starring in films such as Shaolin Temple, the single most influential feature film in Shaolin history, and the film that many people suspected to have caused the re-population of the Shaolin temple with monks and the creation of a major tourist centre in China. I’d recommend Matthew Polly’s book American Shaolin.
It’s such an interesting historical footnote to see both a young Jet Li and President Nixon interacting together, back in 1974.
The age-old debate on sport vs self defence training opens up again, and this time, I’m in it!
“I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. If you had somebody who has only ever trained sport jiu-jitsu and they’ve done the most sporty of the sport jiu-jitsu – they’re only ever training berimbolos, crab rides and rolling back takes – that’s their whole game, but they’re training against resistance, and they compete, especially if they compete, they are 100 times better at self defence than a guy who just practices self defence techniques in isolation.” – Stephan Kesting
That’s a quote from the first part of this clip that has been making its way around the Internets from Stephan Kesting, one of the shining lights in the Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu community.
He goes on to say more, but the above quote is the essence of what he’s saying.
I completely agree with him, but not only that, I’m actually in the clip – I’m the guy with the glasses at the bottom of the screen.
This clip was part of the longer podcast we recorded I recorded along with my writing partner Seymour Yang (Meerkatsu) with Stephan about our new BJJ book, which is currently being shipped out to people that brought the pre-order.
Incidentally, the book is not on sale anymore, that pre-order was a limited run, hard back, collectors edition. We’ll probably release a softback version in the future on a similar limited print run idea, but we haven’t decided for sure yet.
But back to the clip.
Obviously, because this is the Internet and people can’t read or listen to something without immediately copying and pasting their own opinions about what they think he said, or wrote. So, this clip caused a bit of a ruckus online, attracting comments such as:
“This is hilarious BJJ is not good for fighting at all in sport (MMA) or self defense.. but ok keep believing that “
“I don’t know not all fights end up on the ground right away. And no one’s is gonna wait for you to sit down and start fighting. My complaint with some of the sports jiujitsu has to be Takedowns, it’s like they forgot to do takedowns.”
Now on their own there is some merit to the points being made, however they don’t refer to what was actually being said by Stephan. Let me reframe his statement in the way that Bruce Lee used back in the 1970s with his article called “Liberate Yourself from Classical Karate”:
Stephan is saying that the spontaneity and natural reactions that ‘live’ training will develop is worth 100 times what you’ll learn by practicing ONLY dead forms.
That’s the point, not the applicability of BJJ to self defence or whether all fights end up on the ground. And obviously it’s not an either/or choice, and there’s a lot of grey area in regards to marital arts triaining, but that’s the crux of the matter
Bruce framed the argument around the idea of live, spontaneous training vs repeating dead forms. There are a lot of great quotes in the article by Bruce Lee, but here’s a couple I particularly like:
“It is conceivable that a long time ago a certain martial artist discovered some partial truth. During his lifetime, the man resisted the temptation to organize this partial truth, although this is a common tendency in a man’s search for security and certainty in life. After his death, his students took “his” hypotheses, “his” postulates, “his” method and turned them into law. “
“Prolonged repetitious drilling will certainly yield mechanical precision and security of that kind comes from any routine. However, it is exactly this kind of “selective” security or “crutch” which limits or blocks the total growth of a martial artist. In fact, quite a few practitioners develop such a liking for and dependence on their “crutch” that they can no longer walk without it. Thus, any special technique, however cleverly designed, is actually a hindrance.”
To me the argument that Stephan is making and the argument that Bruce is making are different aspects of the same thing. It’s the ‘learning to swim by never getting in the pool’ analogy all over again. You simply can’t learn to swim without getting wet, no matter how great your theory of swimming may be.
We would all laugh in the face of a theoretical swimmer who only ever practices on dry land and yet we tend to revere the opinions of the theoretical martial artist far too strongly, especially if they have a cool uniform and a black belt with lots of stripes on it.
Personally, I find that the less I practice sparring in a week the stronger the need for coming up with solutions for theoretical situations becomes in my mind. The more actual resistive sparring I engage in, the less my mind craves these sorts of questions. Instead, I’ve actually got something useful to be thinking about, like how I would do a technique from that last round better, or how I would escape a particular situation that actually happened, next time.
Just imagine if you haven’t done any actual sparring for years. There are plenty of ‘martial artists’ like this. Their heads must be full of theoretical knowledge, most of which probably wouldn’t survive an encounter with reality. And all of which can be silenced with just a few seconds of actual sparring practice.
I lost my mum to bowel cancer in May this year. In her memory I’m doing a special class on one of my favourite BJJ topics, butterfly guard, to raise money for Bowel Cancer UK. It’s on 28 June at Gracie Barra Melksham, UK, 12.00pm. All welcome.
This event is in support of @bowelcanceruk and all donations @justgiving link or in person at reception will be donated in total to Bowel Cancer UK.
I wanted to share the process and journey of how Seymour Yang and I made our new Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu book.
First of all it’s worth noting we are both black belt instructors with many years of teaching experience. The book is aimed at beginners to developing white and blue belts and covers everything we felt was useful and relevant in today’s Jiu-jitsu club environment.
After much time planning and researching we then set about creating the contents. Every illustration is based on a photograph or video still that we took of our students or training partners. These stills Seymour used as references to hand draw the line art images. I then wrote the text.
That was just the beginning. The hardest stage was making sure the book was as accurate and tight as possible as a work of reference. For this we spent a long time proofing, editing and redesigning it. We then tested sample after sample from independent book printing companies to find the best one (we did not want to go the Amazon print on demand route)
I’m proud to say the book is finally available for our followers to buy (as a pre-order) and so far it’s proving very popular.
We decided to make it a pre-order as we just didn’t know quite how many to print in advance. A two week window was decided and after the pre-order window closes (June 11) we can then tell the print house how many to make.
If you want to know even more about how we made it then check out this informal 2 hour (2 hour!) video where we chat about making the book (it will be released in a more thoroughly edited audio-only version as an episode of my Tai Chi Notebook podcast shortly):
My new book Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, the Ultimate Illustrated Guide, co-authored with Seymour Yang is now available to order from Meerkatsu.com!
This is a self-published limited-edition print run. It’s a gorgeously-printed hardback edition. At over 260 pages, with 970+ beautiful illustrations this is the ultimate coffee table BJJ book, but it doesn’t just look good, it’s designed to teach you the techniques of BJJ.
We’ve got all our favourite BJJ moves from basic movements, standing techniques, sweeps, guard, guard passing, submissions and escapes. There’s also a section on the history of BJJ and lots of advice on training, strategy, concepts and principles of the art.
Shipping shouldn’t be too expensive either. Remember, this is a limited edition run and when they’re gone, they’re gone! Get yours today at Meerkatsu.com
My co-author, Seymour Yang, and I have written a brand new BJJ book: Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, The Ultimate Illustrated Guidebook, which will go on sale very soon.
If you want to see a free preview chapter, sign up to the Meerkatsu newsletter by visiting the website (Meerkatsu.com) and filling in the details in the pop up box.
The next newsletter will be released tomorrow (Wednesday 21st May).
A: Not confirmed yet but we will try to make it as affordable as possible for a premium independently published hardback book.
Q: How long will the pre-order last?
A: The pre-order window will last two weeks, then we send to printers to make the book (about two weeks), then we ship it out to you.
Q: What if I miss the pre-order?
A: We will print a few more books as spares and have them in stock but once they sell out, that’s it, they’re gone.
Q: Do you ship international?
A: Yes we do, see the drop-down list of destination countries in checkout.
Q: Shipping is gonna kill me, right?
A: See the shipping fee at checkout, it should cost no more than when ordering a kimono (it is calculated by weight).
Q: Will the book be available on Amazon?
A: Not in hardback form. This format will be exclusive to my store and when it sells out it sells out. But we may launch a softback version at some point later on. And this may or may not go on Amazon. We will see.
Q: Will you do an e-book version?
A: Maybe, we’ve not decided yet. We want this to be a tangible physical beautiful object you hold in your hands and cherish for years.
As some of you will be aware I’ve been working on a book about Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu for the last year, and well, that book – Brazilian Jiu-jitsu: The Ultimate Illustrated Guidebook – is finally finished, and will be available for pre-order very soon.
It’s a collaborative project with renowned illustrator and author Seymour Yang who goes by the brand name Meerkatsu, and is famous for his BJJ-themed illustrations, which are used in all sorts of BJJ clothing products like rash guards and gis.
The book is a hefty hardback one-stop resource for everything a beginner, and even a more experienced person, needs to know about Brazilian jiu-jitsu. It contains over 260 pages containing over 970 hand-drawn illustrations that show each technique in detail. It covers all our favorite standup techniques, positions, different guards, guard passing, sweeps, submissions and escapes.
Get your free chapter!
Head over to meerkatsu.com, enter your email address into the popup box to sign up for the Meerkatsu newsletter and you’ll receive details on how to get your FREE chapter very soon.
(FYI AI-generated image of a monk practicing martial arts at Wudang).
This is an excellent article called The Sacred Cash Cow: Wudang Mountain’s Martial Arts Tourism Empire by The_Neidan_Master on the massive amount of commercialisation of the martial arts in Wudang, which has really leaned into its claims as the birthplace of tai chi.
I don’t think it’s worth debating the authenticity of these claims again, I’ve done a couple of podcasts with people who have lived at Wudang and trained there, one with Simon Cox, and the other with George Thompson – both very different experiences, which reflects the diversity over such a wide area, since Wudang is a vast collection of mountains and temples/schools, rather than a single place – and I don’t know what more is gained by going over that ground, but I think it’s better to simply accept that there is a growing cultural force that is pushing Wudang, a traditional home of Taoist studies, as one of the centers of modern tai chi training.
If your goal is to train tai chi at Wudang then its worth reading the article to get a balanced view of the place before going there.
Here’s a great quote:
“For travelers seeking authentic martial arts experiences at Wudang, awareness of these commercial realities provides crucial context. Understanding that most schools are modern businesses rather than ancient temples allows for more informed decisions about where and how to invest time and money.”
I think we have to accept that for ancient traditions to exist and continue in the modern age there needs to be some soft of commercial aspect, but that means that you need to approach these traditions with eyes wide open.
I just saw an advert for a week long “Tai Chi for beginners” intensive with the teacher in question demonstrating a tai chi posture with the head thrust forward, so the chin juts out, the hips and pelvis thrust forward so it looks like he’s doing a bad Elvis impression, the arms awkwardly twisted so the shoulders lock up and the souls of the feet rolling to the sides and coming off the floor, so the ankle joint is not stable.
And yes, he was calling himself “Master”.
I think “buyer beware” is good advice in the tai chi market.
One thing I’ve observed in so many tai chi teachers is this desire to be the teacher way before they are ready. People don’t want to be the student – that’s boring! – they want the glory of leading something, of creating something, of being the person at the front of the class sharing their vast wisdom with their adoring students…
Why is this? I think it’s just ego. I’ve definitely felt it’s twinges in me. It’s a subtle trap that you need to avoid. And one I try actively to avoid all the time when I teach.
It is undoubtedly a nice feeling when people ask you for advice, and look up to you. However, I think it’s nearly always a mistake to want to be that person. People are rarely ever ready to teach tai chi when they start. You could say it’s the curse of tai chi in the western world. That’s why we have people called “master somebody” who can’t do basic tai chi postures or understand tai chi movement leading week-long intensives.
But what do we do about this? After all, somebody has to teach something or there would be no tai chi for anyone!
Perhaps some guidelines if you are teaching:
1. Think of yourself as a coach, or a guide, not ‘a teacher ‘master’. After all, people need to do the work themselves, you can’t do it for them.
2. Don’t let people start to treat you like some guru or master – if they do instantly stop that behaviour developing. You’ll be surprised, a lot of people want a guru to take away all their self responsibility.
3. Self reflect. Are you constantly talking about things you can’t actually do? If so, just stop. There’s never any need for that.
4. The most important thing: Be honest. Tell people what you know, how long you’ve been training, where you got it from. Don’t make yourself into something you’re not in other people’s eyes.
5. Finally, you also need a teacher. Find people you can learn from and don’t stop learning.
The Tai Chi Notebook 