Preffered tai chi styles?

[svenfeynord]

What are some preferred styles? What are the differences between styles? Chuan, yen, yang, etc. I am looking for a good style to study for health benifits as well as self defense.

[PHILBERT]

Well...even though I moderate the board I don't know much on internal styles. However, when choosing a style of Taiji you need to take some things into consideration.

1.) How far are you willing to travel to study?

Take me. If I want to learn Hsing-I or Bagua, I might not be willing to drive 45 minutes to the schools in Dallas. Thus my schools are very limited. To one. However, if I want to learn Taiji, I have 4 that I know of in my driving distance.

You need to figure out what is in your immediate area and what is beyond. If there are 10 schools that teach Taiji within a 20 mile area, then wow, good for you. But odds are there will be maybe 3 tops within 20 miles. Check out local colleges as well, they often hold classes in Taiji.

2.) How much are you willing to pay to study?

This is a major thing. If you make a 6 figure income and live in a $150K house, have no bills and saving up for retirement, then good for you. You can pay higher prices that some teachers charge. However, just because the price is higher does not mean the teacher is better.

3.) How often are you going to attend class?

Some classes are only once or twice a week. You need to see how this conflicts with your schedule. Some schools only hold Taiji classes during the day.

4.) Self defense.

Not all schools teach self defense. Some only do just the health aspect. Or as some call it, *******ized Taiji.

5.) Style.

Naturally of course you wanna make sure the style is for you. Sadly I couldn't tell you the difference between each style of Taiji. Alot of schools though allow you to watch a class, if not attend it physically. If the school only lets you watch, then that should be fine. However, if the school says you can not even watch, then just leave.

[svenfeynord]

I have a strange travel route. I am in Maryland now. I will be in Raleigh in 3 weeks. Then from there I will go to Lake Tahoe, Nevada at the end of June. Then to Antioch, Ca. outside of San Fran. Then down to LA, then back to NC. Does anyone know of any schools, teachers on the west coast region I can visit? Can you give me history on them? I understand the LA region was big in martial arts back in the 70s.

[dleungnyc]

In general, Yang family is the most popular, you should not have trouble finding people teaching this style.

In terms of popularity/ease of finding a teacher. I would list them in the following order.

Yang, Chen, Wu (NG), Wu(Hao), Sun and then Zabao style.

The difference between the families in this day and age is quite hard to nail down, especially with the 'influence' by 'wushu' from China. But I will try with my limited knowledge, maybe others can add info also.

Chen family - the original- has both fast and slow forms, qinna and grappling(not ground fighting).

Yang family - some consider it to have two different branches. The current more popular one originated from Yang chen fu - mainly the slow form only, the fast form, qinna and grappling are disemphasized(sp?). The old yang form, the one taught by Yang chen fu's grandfather closedly resembled the Chen family.

Wu(Ng) - Has the slow form from the Yang family, also incorporated the fast form from the original Chen family.

Sun - Its more of a hybrid system, it has elements from Wu(Ng) style Taichi if I remember correctly, plus Xingyi and Bagua.

The other, I have no idea.

[neilhytholt]

Who in the U.S. that teaches tai chi has a high level of fighting skill?

I've been searching and searching and I have yet to find ANY combat oriented taiji people with high skill.

The only person who seems like he might have skill is a guy on here called Shooter, but I've never seen him in person. There were some clips somewhere else where he was sparring, and it seemed like he could spar, but that's about it.

[Shellhammer]

have you checked out B.K. Frantzis? I have seen him fight and my sifu did some training with him a few years back. Dr. John Painter who posts on this forum, normally a Bagua fighter does indeed use Tai Chi as well.

www.energyarts.com


Might be of some use in your search.

good luck!

Mark