Develop bad habits from sport

[LaRoux]

I had many hours discussion with a Chen Taiji teacher yesterday. He told me that one of his students was a wrestler. When that student trained Chen Taiji form, his head would move infront of his hands. The Chen Taiji teacher tried to correct him but without much luck. It seems that student's body posture was developed at much younger age.

I got on Google and find some pictures and clips. Indeed, their postures are to put their head before their hands.

http://imageshack.us/a/img43/2371/wrestling1h.jpg

http://img687.imageshack.us/img687/6206/wrestling2z.jpg

In the following clip, we can see that wrestling special posture at 0.15, 1.30, ...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pVCegcfWXp8

All MA sport can develop bad habits. Should we try to avoid it to start with, or should we try to fix it later on?

Your thought?

I'd say the one with the biggest bad habit would be the magical thinking of that Taiji instructor.

Bad habits developed in styles like Taiji, in which the most resistance one gets is in doing push hands, are going to be far worse than those developed in a fully-resistant sport like wrestling.

Any "bad habits" developed in the sport specific environment of competitive wrestling are easily adapted to the full range of unarmed combat, which is why wrestlers have been some of the most successful at adapting to MMA.