Tai Chi & Wing Chun

[red_fists]

Hi.

I am totally ignorant when it comes to WC.
So maybe one of you Guys could reply to this question.

I have spoken on many Boards to WC-Students, now a lot of them said that they had to study TCC before they were taught WC.

Now with the current "Chi in WC" thread going on it made me wonder if this is a common practice.

Or simply some newage thingy at a few Schools.

Looking forward to your replies.

[Ish]

After i had done wing chun for about a year i started doing tai chi i found it helped me relax a lot but when i started to do pushing hands it had a negative effect on my chi sau. Not a great deal but i started to move more circulaly instead of directing my energy forward. I dont really do tai chi any more but i still do a bit of chi kung, which also helps me relax.

[yuanfen]

A partial response to red-fists question.
I dont know where you got that information but IMO tai chi and wing chun involve quite different mechanics. To improve one's taichi you do tai chi. To improve one's wing chun you do wing chun.If you have nothing else to do all day you can fiddle with different games. The external/internal distinctions are quite arbitrary amd mean different things to different people in CMA.
In JMA apparently several prominent senseis reportedly have been learning taiji in order to become more fluid.

[Enree]

Hey there,

I never really thought of it. I did Tai Chi first as it was an excercise class in my University. It helped relax and calm me while making me flexible in certain ways. It was later on that I started in Wing Chun Do. IMO, it has made me a better WCD-ist by teaching me how to relax all my muscles and letting all the tension of the day go away. While, TC wasn't part of the program that I'm studying, I think it's more of a suppliment than a requirement.

Enree.

[red_fists]

Originally posted by yuanfen
I dont know where you got that information but IMO tai chi and wing chun involve quite different mechanics.

This Info was relayed to me by a few WC practicioners that are now Instructors on other Boards.

Just struck a Cord with me as Bruce Lee supposedly also started in TCC.

So I was wondering if it is new Idea or if it has been done so previously.

Thanks, for the Info from everybody so far.

[azwingchun]

I know some may cringe at what I am about to say, though I found this topic very interesting when I saw it. This is due to the fact that I have studied Wing Chun for about 13 years now though have been training Yang style Tai Chi for several months now. My Tai Chi teacher Sifu Chow mentioned to me on a couple of occasions that in China some refer to Wing Chun as Southern Tai Chi, this is referring to a certain style of Tai Chi (which I can't remember now) which has Wing Chun similaities. I am not sure if this is a wide concept in China or just in the area he is from, though again kinda interesting.;)

[CanadianBadAss]

Proper VT(Tsui Sheng Tin lineage) body mechanics and forword energy would dominate a tai chi practitioner(the ones I've trained with any way) even at push hands. Ex. push hands: When you push out, the other person rolls back and then tranfers his wait back out as he pushs forword and you roll back and so on... bad discription, but you know what i mean... But a person with the VT skills couldnt be pushed back, once his arm goes forword it doesnt come back. VT is very internall, and I think some other lineages that don't train WC internally the way we do, try to train tai chi to fill a gap that they think is missing in WC.

But please, before some crazy tai chi person starts yelling at me, relize that I'm not very smart, and that I'll always be close minded and ingnorent, so dont bother going ape **** on me.
Besides my WC could beat you any way ;) and if I did lose it would be because I'm having a bad day....