 Hey welcome to the Wing Chun Kids channel where martial arts is the way of life. Today we're going to talk about Wing Chun versus Tai Chi. A lot of the subscribers here are asking what's the difference between these two martial arts? I've had training in both of them for several years each of them and I have some basic understanding of how they work. Now the more you understand about the principles and theories and philosophies of these martial arts, the more you'll become a better fighter and the more you understand and deepen your knowledge about martial arts and your own skills in training. So here we go. The first major difference between Wing Chun and Tai Chi is the shape, the geometric shape. Martial arts is basically physics. A lot of people explain it that way. Wing Chun, the shape is a triangle. Now you've seen this a lot of training in Wing Chun. They have this triangle. That's why the wooden dummy is a triangle, arms are a triangle and a lot of the form form this triangle. From the top view the triangle is like this, like this, okay. When you're doing your Chi Sao, it's in the triangle. So the basic structure of the arms in Wing Chun is a triangle. It goes into the center in a wedge format. Now you make that a 3D shape, it becomes a cone. If you make a triangle and you spin it 360 degrees, it becomes a cone. So the shape of Wing Chun is a triangle or you make a 3D, it's a cone. What is Tai Chi? Tai Chi is a circle. That's why you see a lot of round movements in Tai Chi. It's based on circular movement because Tai Chi is not focused on one point. They attack the whole picture. Now what happens when you turn the circle into a 3D image? It becomes a sphere. I don't know how to draw a sphere on that board, but it's a sphere, right? Okay, it's a sphere. It's a 3D image. So that's the first difference. It's Wing Chun will focus on one point, attacking in one center point, where Tai Chi will be attacking on a 360, even behind you from the side, up and down, all right? So if you do a 3D image, Tai Chi will be a circle and Wing Chun will be a cone. The second major difference is the strategy of each of the forms here. Wing Chun's strategy is to dominate the center line. So that's why they have a triangle structure is they want to attack the middle and dominate the center line of the person and attack the person in the center line. So anywhere from the nose down to the groin, all right? So that's their strategy is the center. So most of the techniques are centered around either moving the person to move and dominate the center or to get around things to get into the center and overwhelm the person from the center. Tai Chi is not always concerned with attacking the center. Tai Chi is more concerned with attacking the person's balance. So instead of overwhelming the attacker with force, Tai Chi would use the person's balance against their themselves, right? So Tai Chi's strategy is attacking the person's balance. The third major characteristic difference Wing Chun and Tai Chi is how they deal with force. What do they do with incoming force? Well, what Wing Chun would do is once again use a triangle to fortify the center, but how do you fortify the center? They do that by moving around the obstructions to get back into the center so that if there's an incoming force, they will move around it and then go back into the center, right? So either they move it out of the way like a Pak Da. If a force is coming, they move it out of the way Pak Da or they will get around it with a lot or rolling back this, they'll go around it to go back into the center. So basically what Wing Chun does is they will basically move around the incoming force to go back and attack the center. Now what Tai Chi does is it dissolves the force. So what happens is when the attack is coming, they will suck it in and then dissolve the energy. It's like it's like octopus, right? If you try to punch an octopus, you'll just grab your arms and just suck you in, all right? So that's what Tai Chi does. It actually dissolves the force. Okay? You see how it's coming together? You use a triangle to fortify the center and use a triangle to move around to get back into the center. When Tai Chi uses a circle and you to attack the person's balance and then use a circle to absorb and dissolve, it's like your big bubble, like a big, uh, big sponge absorbing the energy and dissolving the energy so that the person's energy is gone and is given to you, which you could use to bounce back to them or to use it against them and take their balance. Another strategy for Wing Chun and Tai Chi is how they do trapping. Now what is trapping? Trapping is basically being able to disable somebody's arms or legs. Most of the time it's arms and be able to hit them while they can't hit you because you've trapped them and you've trapped their arms. Now with Wing Chun, the primarily trapping is they're going to trap the hands or trap the arms. So that's your strategy. So you go like this, you trap the hand, you trap both hands with all this Wing Chun movement. Now you trap both hands with one hand and you get one hand free to attack the person. That's what Wing Chun mostly does. Now what Tai Chi does is it traps energy. So they're not concerned too much with trapping the hands, but they're more concerned with tracking the person's energy, hence the dissolving and the circle. What did that do is they absorbed the force that the person gives to you. So now the force is all dissolved and sucked in. Now the force is now trapped in the ball. So instead of going forward and trapping the person's hands so that they can't move, you're absorbing the energy so that it traps the person's energy. So the guys pop balance like this and your energy is trapped because you're off balance. You have no force when you're off balance. You cannot attack and generate any force when you don't have balance. So what Tai Chi would do is trap energy or force, not necessarily arms. It could be using the person's spine or legs or ankles. Any part of the body is to trap that energy. Another strategy for fighting in Wing Chun that's different from Tai Chi is how they train their sensitivity. Now Wing Chun's sensitivity drills like in Chi Sao that you learn when you start learning how to do sticky hands is learning to have sensitivity in your forearms in this area of your body so that when you can feel that there's an empty space you attack. If you feel that there's energy coming you're directly with the Bong Sao or you feel energy going downwards you're deflecting it down with the Tong Sao. So all the sensitivity is in this area of the body and which is very good especially in your close range and you want to fight very quickly because your tactile sensitivity which means your touch responds a lot faster than your eyes. With your eyes you have to see the target then your eye sends a signal to your brain then the brain sends a signal to your hand to tell how to do something. With tactile sensitivity which means touch in Wing Chun your hand will tell your brain exactly what's happening and go back to your hand so your eye doesn't have to interpret what's happening. Actually it is proven scientifically to be at least two to three times faster than reacting with your eyes is reacting with touch. So that's why Wing Chun uses this Chi Sao to develop sensitivity in your forearm so that you feel the energy and find those openings and redirect the energy with the triangle. Okay so the sensitivity is in the forearms and the hands mainly the forearms. Tai Chi sensitivity is real to the whole body. Obviously it's a lot harder to develop sensitivity in your whole body than the forearms that's why in my opinion Tai Chi is a much deeper arts than Wing Chun. Wing Chun is much easier to learn and it's very useful but if you want to master Tai Chi it may take you a lot longer because you have developed sensitivity not just your forearms because they do have sensitivity drills for the arms in Tai Chi but then they also have drills for entire body even your back which Wing Chun doesn't have. So with Tai Chi with sensitivity to the whole body you can feel energy from any point and be able to redirect and attack with any part of your body not just your arms. That's where I think Tai Chi is superior if you can train it to that level. Okay next one is another strategy in Wing Chun which is forward pressure. Forward pressure. A lot of Wing Chun strategy is to put forward pressure on the opponent so that you can apply this triangle and force your opponent to make a mistake or to redirect you so that you can move around the target trap his arms use the sensitivity and attack the center line. Remember back to the center line it all connects. What Tai Chi does is it uses 360 degree movement and attack so instead of always going forward Tai Chi is actually doesn't move. The theory of Tai Chi is like your tree if you pull a tree branch what happens it just whips back right if you push the tree branch it just whips back again. Is the tree doing anything? No it's just standing there. That's what Tai Chi is. Tai Chi is training yourself to be like a tree. If energy comes you whip it back send it back either a push or a pull. Okay so Tai Chi is 360 degrees instead of just forward. Can Tai Chi go forward? Sure. Can Tai Chi go backward? Yes it can go up or down or anywhere 360 degrees. Wing Chun most of their techniques are forward I'm not saying it doesn't go backward or sideways yes they are but most of the techniques work best when they go forward okay whereas Tai Chi energy is not forward okay it is 360. It's waiting for energy to come so that it can trap the energy using senses every of the body and dissolving the energy to take the person's balance so it's all connected. All right next the final strategy of each of the martial arts Wing Chun and Tai Chi is the distance. Wing Chun is a close range arch close range that's why we have a triangle like this you see the triangle is not that big it's only this width of your forearm so your attacker has to be about this distance away from you for you to use this triangle like this mostly a close range most of the time and most of the trapping okay and the centerline dominant centerline happens when you're in close range and that's where the Wing Chun really shines is in that close range because you're using this tactile sense of the of your forearms to be able to do all these fast things when you're too close for the other person to react that's what Wing Chun is for that's why they use close range. Tai Chi can be long or short range there is no um there is no close range or long range for Tai Chi it can be both so all ranges there are techniques that you can Tai Chi like this single whip that are long range there Tai Chi that can be short okay so in the Tai Chi forms you see these big movements like this very big movements why do they do such big movements well they train it so that they can get their body to coordinate and the muscles to coordinate so that when you do it fast and slow the same body mechanics happen a lot of times when you do really small movements it's hard to train the muscles to work properly in the right order that's why in Tai Chi they have big movements in the form you see very big movements but in reality when it's used it's actually very small and that's how you can generate short range power with very little movement because you've used the long range movements so that you develop your muscles to work in coordination with your scale those structure and your body and then now when you do it slow i mean when you do it fast and do it small then it adds a lot more power to that movement so these are the seven tactics and seven strategies for Wing Chun and Tai Chi some are better than others depends on your situation so which one is better that's what we have to use how much time do you have to train can you train Wing Chun can you train Tai Chi at the same time of course you can how long does it take to master each one depends how much time you have can you train three hours a day to master Tai Chi can you train three hours a day to master master Wing Chun if you can do that then great then you can do all these things but now that you know the roadmap and the strategies for both will help you understand what you're doing when you're training each of these martial arts and help you become a better fighter hey let us recap what we just learned today so Wing Chun strategy is shaped like a triangle and a cone to attack the center it will move around the targets so that i mean move around the person's arms or move the arms away so that you can fortify and strengthen the centerline of your attack while it's doing that it will trap the arms using the sensitivity of your forearms so that you can attack and use for momentum in a close range those are the strategies of Wing Chun in Tai Chi the energy and the structure is a circle it'll use the circle to attack the person's balance using the trapping the energy and dissolving the person's incoming force with using by using your body and 360 degree movement and sensitivity um in order to take the person's balance so that they cannot attack you and you can use your energy their energy against them it works in all ranges so those are the main differences between Tai Chi and um the strategies in fighting and you may find these strategies and tactics in other styles too so i hope you enjoyed this lesson if you have any questions make sure you make a comment and subscribe to this channel and we'll see you in the next lesson train hard and martial arts is the way of life