Taiji and Aikido?

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[Pete Knox]

Does anyone here study both arts? Do you find them complementary, or do you get confused between the two? Do you think a beginner would be able to do both simultaneously?

[Michael Karmon]

Hi,

I have practiced Tai-Chi Chuan before entering Aikido (not in parallel).

I found very similar lines between the two systems. the soft approach, the 'sticky hands' and 'pushing hands' practices of the Tai-Chi are embeded in the Aikido work. I know of at least one Sensei who is a Tai-Chi teacher as well.

A major issue I had was with grounding/rooting. In Aikido when pushed you step or role. In the Tai-Chi I studies you would sway back and forth but w/o moving (or moving very little) and generaly seeking to be well-connected to the ground. It took me a long time to get over the instinct of "grab the earth with my feet"

When someone asks me I generaly would advise begginers and mid-level practitioners on studying only complementary arts (Karate and Tekwando, Aikido and Aido) and avoid non-comlementary (Aikido and Mui-Tai). Tai-Chi Vs. Aikido is in the gray area and depends on the specific schools.

[Amendes]

I have studied both at once.

The only conflict I found was my check book.

:eek: Either which was I found it a great art with Aikido.

My Sensi teachers both arts. He also has a few Aikido students that do both.

I think its great to do both.

[erikmenzel]

I studied both and will study special seminars on the Aikido and Tai Chi Chuan if given the opportunity. I found no conflicts whatsoever once one is able to rise above the unimportant details (which might be difficult for a beginner)

[Nick Simpson]

One of my sensei studie's Tai Chi, he often experiments with techniques and mix's in some tai chi principles, its always a refreshing change. I believe he thinks it's complimentary with aikido because of the chinese roots of jujitsu as well as the similarity between the flowing movements of both arts.

[tea]

Hy!

I practice both for about a year and a half. Tai chi comes from China. Naturally, it has the elements of their culture. It uses beautiful, decorated movements that can be compared with their fancy-work with silk. Those movements also often imitate some animals (crane, rooster). Aikido comes from Japan, which is a small country that has been very poor in the past, so that people got used to save. All the mooves in aikido are natural, simple and as short as they can be, like haiku poetry. Tai sabake is actually appropriate to a human being and is not trying to imitate any other living form.

For example: body weight is always in center in aikido (hamni) and in tai chi there are few different stances in which you have to keep your weight at the left or the right foot, or not even stand on the whole foot!

I was a bit confused at the beginig, but not anymore.

On the other side, it seems that those two martial arts use two different ways to get the same goal: to use attackers aggression against himself and to develop ki or chi.

[Atomicpenguin]

I took some tai chi a couple years ago. I had, at that time, quite a bit of aikido training under my belt (I was just sub-shodan). For the first two weeks I kept thinking that I understood exactly what was happening. The words the instructor was using to describe principles were exactly the same as those we use in aikido. But there were a couple habits I had that kept slipping in that the tai chi instructor had to repeatedly point out to me. For example, I would straighten my back leg as I might for an aiki throw and she would tell me to put a lot of bend in it. At any rate, a couple of weeks in it suddenly dawned on me that the center from which a tai chi practioner operates is very different from the center an aikidoka utilizes. After that I did it for another month and my aikido became absolute mush. I felt as though I was reading the aikido or taichi program with two different programming languages. I had a very difficult time switching back and forth. Shortly thereafter, I dropped the tai chi. I'm sure that with some practice it's possible to do both. A couple of my seniors do so and don't seem to have a problem. I don't personally, however, think that it's at all a good idea for a new person to practice both. If you have a grounding in one or the other I think you can discern what is happening. Interestingly, as an aside, the tai chi practioner under whom I was studying had first acquired some dan rank (don't recall which) in aikido before switching over to tai chi. I don't think that the two arts are really contradictory. They seem to me now in some ways complementary but also just different, though superficially(that is in words) the same.