Qigong or Tai Chi?

Qi Gong, but I am still learning.

Halcyon wrote:

Manami wrote: If this helps, should you look for a Tai Chi program: One of the the things I've noticed (at least in my part of the US) is that stand-alone Tai Chi courses (such as ones offered by health centers, yoga schools, or exercise programs) tend to lean toward the meditative movement aspects. They've become very popular as a low impact exercise, stress-relief, or wellness program, and those kind of courses usually don't focus much on the martial aspect, if at all. The more martial-oriented programs (or at least the good ones!) are harder to find and often part of a curriculum or development sequence with other martial styles.

Thanks, Manami. I was part of the Shaolin School ,so my perspective on Tai Chi is a little skewed. I think most any course on Tai Chi you take State side is going to emphasize moving mediation.

Enoch, I'd say complete your Qi Gong course. If it's what you're after then follow that road. If it wasn't your cup of tea then you might try Tai Chi. I would even recommend some Aikido courses. They have a pretty deep meditative philosophy backing their practices last I heard. Then again, I believe anything, with the right mindset, will perform the way you want it to with enough dedication.

May The Force be with you.

I agree. Stick to what you have started and get a real good FEEL for it. I believe it's not the style it's just doing and sticking to what ever works for you. I've evolved slowly. I rather do one thing very well rather than jump from one thing to another looking for what is best. It's all good! Have fun and be happy with what you are doing.

After studying both... it depends on what you're looking for (and who your teacher is). My experience has been that Qi Gong is meditative and breathing focused. Tai Chi allows for a much wider variation of speeds during practice (the slower you do the form the more work it is) and is focused, at least in some cases, on application (it can be a great precursor to Kung Fu).

Locksley wrote: After studying both... it depends on what you're looking for (and who your teacher is). My experience has been that Qi Gong is meditative and breathing focused. Tai Chi allows for a much wider variation of speeds during practice (the slower you do the form the more work it is) and is focused, at least in some cases, on application (it can be a great precursor to Kung Fu).

I can't agre with you more .

Based on my experience with T'ai Chi Chu'an classes years ago - which were complemented by warming-up sessions using Qigong - both provide an excellent means of meditation. Qigong, while it involves stances and some repetitive movements, is in terms of meditation the most like seated meditation styles. It stills the mind, steering it to focus on just one unchanging pattern.

T'ai Chi, on the other hand, involves a more complex set of movements. The endeavor to learn those movements in sequence, to initially perform those movements in near-perfect compliance to the instructions of a teacher, and ultimately to feel the energy of those movements and let them gently guide your body into the pattern best suited for it, requires unwavering concentration and focus, ultimately putting you into a meditative state which in my opinion puts you into a deep and dynamic relationship with the Force - in contrast to the more passive relationship inherent in Qigong and many forms of seated meditation.

In terms of practical, outer-world benefits - Qigong places a stronger emphasis on physical healing, while T'ai Chi offers a method of self defense.

If I were taking lessons now, I'd opt to T'ai Chi. I really like the sense of unity with my surroundings that it provides. If you're still trying to figure out which discipline to begin with, you can't go wrong with either choice; but I'd recommend planning sooner or later to try both, so you can discover which suits you best. The answer won't be the same for everybody.

Thanks again for the advice and insight. I will at some point try tai chi, but will stick with qigong for now.

Ever seen Tai Chi in action? Ever used it , personally , in real life ? Just wondering and if so how ? There are a million uses and functions you can use tai chi for , have you found any uses - yourself? Feel free to pm me if you like . I'm always looking and making room for new ideas and lights!

An article about Tai Chi from Harvard University . My Tai Chi teacher shared this with us a while back, it's a nifty way to review some of the benefits of Tai Chi!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RZkoH6hN1R8&ebc=ANyPxKpInKTVux8weZTffqMKWCjUfMUIQAFu3a0gV-wEVIDzdMWXKp-Sj2_CrjZvxwz-tFIF5Oqw6-hTWQPoJzqNTu26zGxUyQ

I love tools
And the diffrent ways they can be used . I my self practic this art to this extent - not directly formulated as such but there are benifits as well as diffrent applications.

I'm inclined to believe the best answer to this question is "yes", as by using them together, you'll see interesting results.

That makes a great point!
It actually seems to me like Qigong, Tai Chi, and Kung Fu are a perfect trifecta -- if you do them all you're getting the whole package. Which makes sense, since Qigong and Tai Chi are connected to the earliest martial roots in China, with Kung Fu being a later development but based off the same "tree" as it were.

Read this (if youre interested) AFTER watching video!



This fight caused a sh!+storm in China awhile back. A respected Tai Chi master vs (what would in the States be considered an entry/amateur level) MMA guy.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LbhFdjiPe6w&app=desktop

I think styles are specific to circumstances, like MMA is for hand to hand (in a ring). This of course has wide applicability outside the ring, but if its for serious physical confrontation, then the first lesson probably is what legal options are available for self defense and how that itself is defined - because I imagine in a serious fight it is a case of using whatever you can, to end it as fast as possible on the best terms possible. Add a weapon, and MMA's relevance starts to diminish...... and so I view the Eastern Martial Arts as more a spiritual training in the art of movement more then anything.

OB1Shinobi wrote: Read this (if youre interested) AFTER watching video!

Warning: Spoiler!

If youre looking for a meditative practice then by all means Tai Chi is excellent. As is Qigong. Im not bashing either and i dont want to insult anyones hobby or passion. These styles are fantastic for general health, well being, and flexibility. But its important to know what is what: these are not fighting systems. Theyre not. Perhaps they could be if they were trained differently, but they are trained as meditations by people who meditate.
If you want to learn SELF DEFENSE, if you want to learn something that will work when someone comes after you for real, you need to train with people who fight for real. Not saying it has to be "mma" but if youre not getting punched in the face then youre not learning something thats going to work when someone comes punching you in your face. If youre not being taken to the ground and held there, youre not learning something thats going to work when someone bigger than you (or just someone who is good at doing it) grabs ahold and lays on top of you.

Anyone can make a video where their fancy ninja moves work when theyre paying the other guy to take a fall or when theyre using one of their friends or students to demo the technique. If you want a system that works in a real fight when the other person isnt playing along, its not Tai Chi. Look for fight gyms. Find people who compete or who coach those who compete in some combat sport, and learn from them; their techniques (and most importantly, their training methods and training culture) were developed under conditiong where things that werent effective didnt survive, and are therefore proven to work under pressure.

And Im not just being a freakin jerk! If you choose to dedicate yourself to a martial art because you want to be able to protect yourself or others from real violence then youre basically trusting your life to the effectiveness of the style. Many popular styles simply dont work in real life fighting. Im sorry.
And i feel i should add that the best real lifeself defense = CCW.

This fight caused a sh!+storm in China awhile back. A respected Tai Chi master vs (what would in the States be considered an entry/amateur level) MMA guy.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LbhFdjiPe6w&app=desktop

Any tool can be used properly in the right hands and in many difrent ways.
If one wants to use this for that , then to their own path - let them take. You never know what somemone or some thing will align in any way shape or form. Hence so many ways to mimic nature in different kata forms. One is never greater than another in things like this. No two people are ever at the same level and at the same degree as another or even in the same mind frame. How and why and when and in what amount make the most unique forms avalible. Leave room for the ability to expand and contract what is needed . For the others as well.

Edit : this Fight ...

The feud started when Tai Chi master Wei Lei posted the personal contact information about the self-taught MMA fighter Xu Xiaodong.
Xu was pretty pissed and hit back by saying the traditional forms of Chinese martial arts are outdated and don't work in real combat. So Wei told Xu to put his money where his mouth is. The two got together in Chengdu, Sichuan province, to see whose practice was better.

http://www.ladbible.com/now/sport-awesome-chinese-mma-fighter-absolutely-destroys-tai-chi-master-in-20-seconds-20170504


Fights like are usually for gain and ego driven. This one was and the end result was as we see ... silly.
Both fighters were "self taught" nothing
Wrong with that at all. But it was just kind of silly to me. Like watching two college kids play pong war with a ping pong ball and a red solo cup in hand.

That's only my own opinion though. I got two and they probly both stink.

Either way there was very little "art" or "mastery" evident

Wrong with that at all. But it was just kind of silly to me. Like watching two college kids play pong war with a ping pong ball and a red solo cup in hand.

Agreed. There's so much ego involved it clouds the point.

Edit: Here's a good article about Aikido, which I used to practice when I was a teen, that illustrates some very important points (nullifying this nonsensical "MMA is teh good, other martial art is teh bad" argument that I am honestly so sick of seeing -- not, mind, because it lacks truth, but because it misses so many crucial points that it's just plain silly on all accounts of underlying premise.

http://tampaaikido.com/articles/aikido-vs-mma-the-unflinching-comparison/

Edit #2: I actually want to add that I have basically zero respect for any fighter who enters into a competition match like the ones so frequently touted as being between an mma artist and someone else -- or even specific artists in the same form against each other. That sort of sport interests people, which is fine, but when it becomes this "better than" competition it's all ego -- and lowers the standing and moral character of all the participants in my view.

Good article, Locksley, and thanks for sharing it. Taking it back to Tai Chi, there are some similar conventions now in the way Tai Chi is taught (on the average) that make it what it is, and while there can be some good benefits from it, I would definitely not look to the average Tai Chi program as the place to go to pick up fighting skills (and most instructors I know would be okay with that). There are some styles of Tai Chi that do produce impressive development which could be a good boost to one's abilities, but they're far more rare, and in many ways opposite to what the more common Tai Chi programs teach.

One of the important things stressed in my training has been realistically matching the training to one's goals and needs, rather than getting caught up in the satisfaction (so often just pride) of one's lineage and claim to a style. We train in internal Chinese styles for what they produce in terms of development (when done correctly, and there's a whole host of issues in the transmission there), but we go to combat specialists for combat training. My instructor frequently remarked on how the presence of adrenaline changes everything, and folks' training often goes out the window when they're in a fighting situation (whether sport or life-threatening) as they fall back on whatever the body has internalized as the method of dealing with crisis. So much of training is actually about altering those patterns, and it's a lot harder to do than just learning new forms and techniques. Some of the "women's self defense" programs out there are downright dangerous in their failure to understand this, given what they teach as "effective" techniques.

My early training was with an instructor that belonged to the proto-MMA community that was forming around the principles of taking what works from a variety of systems and mixing it rather than identifying with one style. In those days the focus was much more on utility - or how to build a better martial artist and *why* it was important to do so - rather than the tournament fighting. To be honest, I saw schools and personalities change radically when the emphasis shifted to the MMA sport "scene." The focus became about fighting - or rather, who could win in the tournament match, as if that was the be-all/end-all of measurement - and much of the things related to better personal development through the martial arts really became down-graded. At least in my area, it's really hard to find something other than heavily commercialized programs and sport culture, and you sometimes have to look very far off the beaten path.

For me, given the awareness of my limitations and the conditions under which I would most likely be attacked (ie - where someone is going to trying to seriously harm or kill me), my greatest self-defense tool is the attunement to the energies around me & environmental awareness (layered on a foundation of general common sense), and the qigong practices have been essential to developing that. It's good to beware of the "myth" in martial arts, but sometimes the real benefits are hard to see from the outside.

Carlos: You ignored the new York Times article and a filmed interview with the fighter himself in order to post something from some church? The article you posted has a comment from some Chinese athletic commission..aka the "traditional martial arts of China" commission aka the "we have to protect the reputation of Tai Chi" commission. In that article it only says the MMA guy was self taught (which he wasnt) it never says the Tai Chi man was self taught. But think of the implications of that: a self taught mma guy beat the snot out of a traditional tai chi master. Anyway, neither were self taugh. Also the article says they are both out of shape but the MMA guy wasnt, nor was the TC man by TC syandards, and it says they are both amateurs, but they both get paid to teach their styles, which makes them professionals by definition. The article you shared was biased and unreliable.

Im going to let you guys in on a secret...one that youre probably not going to believe but which is true anyway: fighting is not (and never has been) a spiritual activity. Being "spiritual" doesnt make you a competent fighter, and being good at fighting doesnt make you more spiritual.



A real fight is a physical contest. The more powerful or athletic person usually wins. Training and skill in real fighting systems can make a huge difference, but the first piece of the difference they make is in the fact that the training itself makes you stronger and more athletic over time.

Generations of hollywood kung fu movies and (more recently) anime and manga (not to mention the hubris and marketing savvy of real life martial arts "masters") have generated faith in a mysticism of martial arts that they dont really have. I could write you an essay on the origins of this stereotype but i dont feel like it. The abbreviated version is this:
1) Temples were education centers in certain ancient societies, so people who lived in them were better educated than the peasantry who didnt.

2) Soldiers have to be courageous, dangerous, and ethical. They have to be willing to face death, be good at killing, and obey their superiors. A real martial artist will have skills that non-martial artists dont have. Governments whose military men lacked any developed sense of ethics were often displaced by their own generals. Real Martial training (aka military training) almost always includes ethical and psychological priming meant to instill a sense of honesty, duty, and loyalty into soldiers. This is just as relevant today as it ever was. Someone with real martial arts ability can literally kill nearly everyone he/she encounters. Its generally good if such people have some sense of moral restraint aka if they have "good character"

3) People are fascinated with power and magic and heroes who have them.

Locksley wrote: http://tampaaikido.com/articles/aikido-vs-mma-the-unflinching-comparison/

That is a decent article, and I summed up nearly every damn thing it said when i wrote this:

OB1Shinobi wrote:
....These styles are fantastic for general health, well being, and flexibility. But its important to know what is what: these are not fighting systems. Theyre not. Perhaps they could be if they were trained differently...If you want to learn SELF DEFENSE, if you want to learn something that will work when someone comes after you for real, you need to train with people who fight for real......if youre not getting punched in the face then youre not learning something thats going to work when someone comes punching you in your face. If youre not being taken to the ground and held there, youre not learning something thats going to work when someone bigger than you (or just someone who is good at doing it) grabs ahold and lays on top of you.

Heres some examples of what real fight training looks like, and some inpt from people who can actually fight.

Edit #2: I actually want to add that I have basically zero respect for any fighter who enters into a competition match like the ones so frequently touted as being between an mma artist and someone else -- or even specific artists in the same form against each other. That sort of sport interests people, which is fine, but when it becomes this "better than" competition it's all ego -- and lowers the standing and moral character of all the participants in my view.

Do yo have respect for people who compete in chess? What about tennis? How about a contest to see who is the best Call of Duty player or WoW clan? Competing is the best method for improving ones skill, but if someone competes in martial arts you dont respect them? Dont you think thats pretty arrogant of you?
What do you know about the fighter's lifestyle, background, or motivation? Are you judging something that you dont understand?

Do you have respect for people who sell a product that doesnt do what it claims to do? Competing is how people find out if their systems actually works. Either competing or going out and fghting in the streets. People who dont compete have to take it on faith that their skills are legitimate and very VERY often, they arent. Like this TC master. People who do compete are the ones who have the heart to face real pressure and find out if what theyre spending their life on is what it claims to be.

From what i have seen in researching this fight and these two men, the MMA guy is kind of an asshole lol... but he is not representative of every MMA fighter or of every combat athlete in general. Steven Seagal is one of the biggest assholes to ever walk the face of the earth (narcissist, liar, and by many accounts a sexual predator..google it if you dont believe) but that doesnt make him a representative of aikido in particular, or traditional martial arts in general.

I have nothing personal against you guys or against Tai Chi or traditional martial arts. But its important to know what is what. If you want to do an energy meditation or a "spiritual practice" then that is the realm of tai chi and qi gong (though id particularly recommend traditional yoga, personally). If you want to train the skills necessary to protect yourself from a violent attack, start with CCW, then go sing up with a gym/school where people actually put themselves and their skills on the line in some kind of competition. Boxing is one of the best places to start. Brazilian jiujitsu or judo, also. Sanda, Muay Thai, full contact Karate, MMA....some place where people look fit and strong, and where you are expected to sincerely contend and compete with other human beings.

No your right Obie . I was simply showing difrent applications of things is all. How I use it and how I find it fascinating things can be used for difrent ideas and difrent ways. Some people fight to find spirituality. Some don’t . Not defending either side. Simply stating there are more than one side to things is all. Thanks for the reply ! I myself find help in many denominations of Tai Chi and in Quigong practice myself. Happy seeking to those looking for their nitch or multiple ! Ide dare say to add a bit of both to anything and see what bakes !

No your right Obie . I was simply showing difrent applications of things is all. How I use it and how I find it fascinating things can be used for difrent ideas and difrent ways. Some people fight to find spirituality. Some don’t . Not defending either side. Simply stating there are more than one side to things is all. Thanks for the reply ! I myself find help in many denominations of Tai Chi and in Quigong practice myself. Happy seeking to those looking for their nitch or multiple ! Ide dare say to add a bit of both to anything and see what bakes !