Hello everyone I am an avid practitioners of martial arts. Started with Judo and Jiu Jitsu. Then my health and phisical condition degraded due to external causes. I switched to Aikido for three years and now Tai chi chuan, which I am now strongly committing to.
Aside from obvious positive effects (balance and agility) I wonder what you all think about inner martial arts.
I tend to ingest as little taoist folklore as I can, not because I think it's not interesting, but I want to avoid the exotic sounding mysticism tailored to impress westerners as a kind of new age marketing strategy. Fortunately, my teacher is a medical doctor working in the field of work related injuries.
I know I love Tai Chi Chuan and I truly mean to get better at it, but I can't ignore all the... weird stuff connected to it (no, Mr. Grand Master, I refuse to think that you single handedly pushed 10 people by the power of chi mastery). At the same time, I've been impressed by how, sometimes, finding adequate balance can make you able to sustain a strong push without even making active use of muscular strength.
So Il just wondering how you feel about this (or the other) inner martial art.
For me, it's a demanding and rewarding practice, full of great health and self discipline benefits and a few truly impressive perks, but with a..weird decorum I can't begin to understand.
May I suggest that tai chi is very much a combative fighting style that simply has a larger audience with two chi for health. All of the forms can be sped up and effectively used as a martial art.
This is not exactly the case. "It can be used for combat" does not necessarily mean "it's the best/ideal/ready for combat". I would stress readily that if you are in the west, Judo and or Brazilian Jiu Jitsu are good for grappling arts. For striking arts Muay Thai is great! Some alternatives are sanda or dutch kickboxing. Though I'm not too sure on availability of Sanda schools in the west. If you really want to go the Chinese martial arts route, Choy Li Fut is a good style, and has supposedly gone toe to toe with Muay Thai on a few occasions.
I suspect it depends on the school. Also I think it depends on the student's needs and intentions. Tai chi can be very effective against many competing styles.
Tai chi is playing mario cart and drifting but at 1/10 speed.