Turning Karate into Tai Chi Chuan? Maybe…

First, comes the question, why would anybody want to make karate into tai chi chuan?

Lots of reasons, actually.

First, learning how to do Karate Tai Chi style opens the doors for people who are old or injured to enjoy this most marvelous art.

Second, and this is important, it teaches people who study karate a whole new set of principles. It teaches them things about energy, how the body works, exposes a whole new set of form applications, and more.

Third, people who study tai chi chuan have the same learning experience: new techniques, different methods of developing chi power, and more.

The differences between these two arts is pretty sizable.

Karate, rightly or wrongly, is held up as an explosive and linear art.

Tai Chi Chuan is held up as a slow motion adjunct to good health.

Both arts are good, but they are only of the martial art entire.

A good karate practitioner should learn how to move slow, as this will teach a whole new style of energy production, and double potential striking (blocking) power.

Further, the slow movements increases understanding of ‘emptiness,’ which increases the ‘zen’ spirituality of the art form.

And, most important, the viewpoint on bunkai, form applications or self defense moves, undergoes a radical shift.

Karate explodes, tai chi absorbs, thus the karateka learning  tai chi concepts is going to learn a totally different, and sometimes diametrically opposed, method for applying the self defense moves built into the forms.

And, from the other side, people who study tai chi for health, or who don’t fully understand the applications of that discipline, or only buying half a loaf.

Building energy through a simple motion with no resistance is useful, but only of ten per cent of the real value. Learning the applications will create deeper understanding of the form, make the moves mean something, and therein lies the real potential of chi power and health benefits.

There a lot of benefits to combining the two arts, and only a fluff martial artist would not want to avail himself (herself) of the benefits of translating karate into tai chi chuan.

The author has written the first and only tome on this fascinating subject of turning karate into tai chi chuan. The title is ‘How to Translate Karate into Tai Chi Chuan.’ The book is bundled into the video course available at MonsterMartialArts.com. The book will become available in paperback, but it may be some time before this occurs. The video course is over five hours of hands on instruction.