Developing the softness of cotton in Tai Chi fighting through the use of yielding and folding with Tai Chi Forms and movements, while striking with the strength of steel utilizing dropping and the issuance of Fa Jin energy including the benefits of meeting force with looseness or softness to absorb, redirect and re-issue opponent’s energy.
Also, guiding and redirecting opponent’s strikes with your hands, while yielding and dropping to issue energy through the elbows.
Also covered will be how to issue Fa Jin energy through dropping and testing the effectiveness with elbow, shoulder and hip strikes.
- Tai Chi fighting distance
- Why Tai Chi is difficult to compare in a ring
- The importance of Sung or total emptiness
- The concept of ‘Accepting the gifts’
- Being the ‘First in Motion’
Jim started in the external art of Shotokan Karate as an inner city teenager and branched out into competitive Judo in college. As a Police Officer in NYC he studied other disciplines including Jujitsu, boxing and Tang Soo Do Karate along with exposure to street style fighting.
Jim was introduced to Tai Chi in 1998 as a rehabilitative exercise due to fighting injuries. Although the non-internal practice of Tai-Chi (outside student) helped heal long term back and neck injuries, Jim credits his transition to the internal energy arts to meeting Sifu Richard Clear at a Tai-Chi event in Pennsylvania in 2017.
“Sifu Richard Clear’s understanding and knowledge of the internal martial arts, and his openness in sharing that knowledge make him both a guardian and teacher of everything that internal Tai-Chi practice should be.”
At the age of 56, Jim still active in law enforcement, and runs a school in Boca Raton FL, where he is the Southeast Florida Regional Organizer for Clear Tai Chi.