Greg Souders on the Grappler’s Perspective podcast.
In the last episode of my podcast episode with Alan Wycherley about fantasy vs reality in tai chi we mentioned a subject that might have been unfamiliar to some of you – the ecological approach. This is a training method that is finding a lot of familiarity with BJJ right now, but I believe it has always been a part of tai chi training too, since tai chi contains push hands as a training method, which has the potential to be a free and playful exploration of movement.
Rather than try and explain the ecological approach myself, I thought it would be better to hear directly from the guy who made it famous in BJJ, Greg Souders. As you’ll discover, he’s not afraid to say controversial things about the learning method adopted by most BJJ academies!
So, here he is on a no punches pulled episode of the Grappler’s Perspective podcast. Have a listen and see what you think:
Thanks to everybody who has listened to The Tai Chi Notebook Podcast over the last couple of years! And, if you were wondering, I’ve got a new episode already recorded and coming out in a week or two…
I had a chat with Alan Wycherley from the In Defence of the Traditional Martial Arts YouTube channel for my podcast and the episode is now live. We talk about how Tai Chi can be used as a realistic self-defence system and Alan’s encounters with traditional martial artists from different kung fu systems.
I often wonder what most people’s biggest fear is in Tai Chi. Or what it is that stops them trying it out? Is it looking silly? Is it the fear of other people in the class looking at you as you struggle to get the movements? That you won’t fit into the group?
Believe me, everybody feels the same. You do need some willingness to be open to new experiences if you’re going to try a Tai Chi class for the first time, but just say to yourself, what’s the worse that could happen?
You can learn Tai Chi online these days, but nobody I’ve met in real life who learned online had much of a real practice, as far as I could see anyway.
To learn Tai Chi you need somebody to point out everything you’re doing wrong, because on your own, you won’t see it. Even if you know that your knees aren’t supposed to bend inwards, and are supposed to be in line with your toes, you’ll let your knees collapse in without realising your doing it.
Often those ‘light bulb’ moments in Tai Chi occur when somebody points out what you’re doing wrong without even realising you’re doing it, and for that you need a teacher.
If you’re thinking about starting Tai Chi classes in the new year then dig deep and give it a go. You won’t be the only one who is a bit nervous, and once you realise that everybody else is just as worried as you are you can relax a bit and enjoy it. Believe me, your teacher will simply be pleased to see you. What have you got to lose?
Doing both BJJ and Tai Chi I love seeing moves from one art crop up in the other. Imagine my surprise when I happened across this BJJ seminar clip where the coach seems to be cycling unawares through a variety of Tai Chi moves.
At one point he says that one of the moves looks like “some karate bullshit that looks silly but works”, which is funny because you could describe Tai Chi like that as well 🙂
If you do Tai Chi or Bagua or pretty much any long fist style Chinese martial art, or probably Aikido, you’ll recognise these moves. I’ll give them Tai Chi names:
Breakdown
It starts with a grip break, that is similar to Hidden Hand Punch from Chen style (0.00- 4.00) The first technique from here is like Needle at Sea Bottom (4.17- 6.15) The second is like Diagonal Flying (6.15 – 9.20)
After that it becomes more traditional wrestling/judo takedowns, but it was nice to see some Tai Chi appearing fora minute there.
While the rest of the video is much more of the usual jiu-jitsu fair, the initial positions have a strong similarity to Tai Chi moves, and could definitely help Tai Chi practitioners become more aware to the martial potential of Needle at Sea Bottom and Diagonal Flying.
Now, you can agree or disagree with Rantwo’s opinion on whether the Pak Mei guy can fight or not. Personally I think Rantwo brings up some good points, but I’ve heard other people argue that he’s kind of missing the point – sparring never looks good.
Anyway, I don’t want to get into that. My comment on the video would be that Rantwo is making the classic mistake that a lot of people make when looking at videos of traditional master getting beaten up by average/bad kickboxers and then deciding that martial art XYZ must be no good: It’s always a reflection on the person involved, not the whole style.
I don’t think you can view a couple of videos of Pak Mei guys then decide the whole style is “not for fighting”. I can guarantee you there are Pak Mei guys out there who have no problem throwing down. To just dismiss a whole style like that seems to be incredibly naive.
When it comes to sparring, I don’t think there are styles, there are just individuals. At least that’s the way I look at it.
One of the first things I talk about when it comes to alignment is:
Head over shoulders Shoulders over hips Hips over ankles
These three are the basic alignments for standing upright at the beginning of almost all Tai Chi forms and looks something like this (ignore the arm positions):
If one of these things is out of alignment then you are leaning forward or backwards, or your posture is out of whack.
It’s easy enough to keep these three alignments in a standing stance, but things can get more complicated in movement, and when you introduce forward and back-weighted stances. At that point I try and keep the following two alignments:
Head over shoulders Shoulders over hips
The ankles can now be in different places, as reacquired by the stance.
It depends on the style of Tai Chi you do, but if you do a style that advocates a forward lean then you need to make sure that there’s a straight-ish line between your back foot and your head. If you do a style that doesn’t advocate a lean, then your back knee must be bent and you want to keep your body upright with your shoulders vertically over the top of your hips.
But the real answer is that no one style of Tai Chi only does things one way. Most styles contain some moves that lean and some that don’t. Wu style, for example:
If you compare late Yang Cheng Fu to early Chen Man Ching postures, you can see that they are very similar, and are both trying to keep the head over the shoulders, over the hips:
While doing the tai chi form, take a moment to think: ‘where is my head in relation to my hips?’ You don’t want to be sticking your bottom out and destroying your alignment, which often happens in transition movements between postures:
A picture paints a thousand words, especially in Tai Chi. I recently found an incredible source of Tai Chi images drawn (I think) by Anthony of Brisbane Tai Chi.
Just scroll down the main page and look at the images – they’re great! Full of tips on alignment and posture for Tai Chi and Zhan Zhuang (standing practice).
One of Anthony’s best images for thinking about how alignment relates to the tai chi form is this one:
Anthony/Brisbane Tai Chi
I think that image very clearly shows head over shoulder over hip over ankle, and how easy it is to mess that alignment up once you start moving in Tai Chi. You basically want to keep the blocks aligned over each other.
Why?
As it says in the picture, if you align yourself correctly with gravity then your legs become the primary weight holders in the body. That means you can be more relaxed (Sung) in the upper body, so that you can use it to transfer force, instead of tensing up to hold weight that is misaligned. Plus, it just feels better.
The UK is having a bit of a women’s safety moment right now, and since I’m in the UK and it’s a topic that crosses over into subjects I discuss on my blog, I think I should address it. As well as being about self-defence it’s also about how women and female perspectives are often ignored by a male-focused society. It all relates back to comments made by actress Saoirse Ronan on the Graham Norton Show, a clip of which has gone viral.
You can view the clip here:
She’s sitting on the sofa with fellow actors Denzel Washington, Eddie Redmayne and Paul Mescal. They’re having a lighthearted discussion about training martial arts/self defence for movie roles. While the men laugh and joke about something as ludicrous as thinking about a phone as a weapon of self defence, (can you imagine, lol!?) Ronan points out (she has to try twice to be heard) that this is something women have to think about all the time. The resulting awkward silence speaks louder than anything else.
That this one moment seems to have captured something very familiar to a lot of women – it’s captured men’s ignorance of women’s lived experience in terms of feeling unsafe when moving about in the world and having to think about using things like keys or mobile phones as weapons. Things that men generally don’t have to worry about.
I don’t want to jump on any kind of bandwagon and write an article about how to use a mobile phone as a weapon, because a) you can’t learn self defence from articles! And b) that seems like very opportunistic behaviour.
But what I would say to any women reading this, Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu (BJJ) is a great martial art that will benefit you more in the long run way more than a one-off 2-hour seminar on “self defence for women”. If you really want to feel more confident and less unsafe (of course, there is no guaranteed panacea for this, unfortunately) then I’d recommend starting regular BJJ classes at a BJJ Academy you feel comfortable with, and with an instructor you feel comfortable with (please shop around!), rather than going to a one-off seminar that aims to provide you with a quick fix.
And to the men who might need to become more of women’s lived experience (yes, you at the back!) You might like to read this article from the Guardian, detailing six women’s reactions to the clip, that’s worth a read.
And in the words of the sergeant from Hill Street Blues, “let’s be careful out there”.
My guest for episode 35 of the Tai Chi Notebook podcast is Edward Hines, a long time Baguazhang student of Lou Dexiu. Ed started training Bagua in Taiwan way back in 1991, and has continued ever since. He now teaches online at I-bagua.com and has books about Baguazhang you can find on Amazon.
To frame our chat we decided to cast around for the most common misconceptions you hear about Baguazhang, and address each of them, one at a time.
Emei Mountain is the latest hot Kung Fu trend coming out of China, and a group of Kung Fu girls is leading the charge, according to a new article in China’s GlobalTimes.
In April 2024 a video appeared showing nine female Kung Fu performers doing Kung Fu moves against the backdrop of Emei Mountain.
Chen Yufei, 23, one of the group members is quoted in the article: “Unlike the dramatized versions of Emei kung fu in TV shows, which focus on legends, our practice is rooted in the practical skills and traditions of Emei martial arts.”
The video shows performance with a variety of Kung Fu weapons including double whips, swords and of course, the famous Emei needles *, but the phrase “traditions of Emei martial arts” raises a few red flags for me.
A standout line from the article reads “In 2008, Emei martial arts, with a history spanning over three millennia, were designated a National Intangible Cultural Heritage.”
Ok, hang on, what?
Mount Emei has long been a sacred mountain for Buddhism, sure. But a 3,000 year old tradition of Kung Fu?
If you look up Kung Fu training camps on Mount Emei you’ll find a complete history of the martial arts and styles there: “Emei School has 1,093 bare-hand fighting skills, 518 skills with weapons, 41 pair practice routines and 276 practice methods.”
Call me a cynic, but I don’t believe any of this. It appears to me that the Kung Fu traditions of Emei Mountain really belong to the work of modern wuxi fiction of author Jin Yong who wrote a lot about a fictional Emei Sect. In his book, The Heaven Sword and Dragon Saber, the Emei School is founded during the early Yuan dynasty by Guo Xiang around the same time as when the Wudang School is established.
Of course, this being a complete fiction hasn’t stopped the Kung Fu tourist industry from setting up shop on Mount Emei. As this 2012 article describes, there was not much Kung Fu on the mountain back then, but it was starting to be set up, complete with a history. But if you look up Mount Emei today you’ll find Kung Fu competitions are held there, and very much like the operation at Mount Wudang, you can go there to study Kung Fu, for the right price.
The all-female Kung Fu troop heralding from Mount Emei seem to be as much a creation of the Kung Fu tourist industry as anything else, at least to me.
So where does their martial arts come from? Looking through various pages on the Internet I found a Reddit post that sounds true to me: ” “Emei” is just a generic term for martial arts from Sichuan, extremely few styles have any actual direct relation to anyone who loved or practiced on Emei shan. Also almost everything called “Emei” today are modern offshoots of northern Chinese martial arts brought to Sichuan with nationalist troops as they were forced westward by the Japanese in WWII.”
None of which, of course, is to take away from the performance of the Emei all-female Kung Fu group, who are pretty damn good at WuShu.
Note 1: Mount Emei even has its own weapon, the Emei Ci which are sharp steel rods known as needles or piercers, that can be worn on a ring on your finger and spun around.
A visit to Mount Emei by Will of Monkey Steals Peach:
The Tai Chi Notebook 