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Taikiken: Full-Contact Tai Chi?
by Keith Vargo

"The most important thing in the martial arts is strength"

That wouldnt be a surprising quote if it came from a kickboxer or bare-knuckle karate fighter. The fact is, it comes from a book on internal Chinese martial arts. Its the first sentence in the introduction of Secret Techniques of Yi Quan and Taikiken.

The surprises don't stop there. As you read the book, you see lots of familiar postures and soft-style techniques. There's also a heavy emphasis on sparring. Moving meditation is a core concept, but the authors quickly dismiss things like mysterious powers and no-touch knockouts. What you get is a martial art that's nicely summed up by another quote: "If one wants to master the movement of ki, there is no shortcut but to continue primarily training one's internal strength and to accumulate lots of real combat training."

So what is this soft style with hard sparring? Is it really full-contact tai chi? Armed with a little knowledge and a lot of questions, I headed off one evening to meet one of taikiken?s leading masters, Michio Shimada.

At the time, he taught students a couple of nights a week in Tokyo's Shinjuku Park. Although it was around 9:30 p.m. when I arrived, the park was alive with activity. Among all the other visitors, a bunch of guys on a tennis court were standing perfectly still with their arms extended. It was the taikiken group.

I later found out they were doing ritsuzen, which is the heart of yi quan and taikiken practice. Both a warm-up and a form of standing meditation, it encourages practitioners to focus their concentration and find the body's natural balance between muscular tension and relaxation. Everyone carries on at his own pace until the movement is finished.

Some students came over and talked with me while we waited for Shimada to arrive. The first thing I learned was that taikiken isn't a species of tai chi chuan. While the names of the two arts are similar, they spring from different sources: Taikiken descends from yi quan, which emphasizes internal principles over complex forms, and yi quan is an outgrowth of hsing-i chuan (also spelled xing yi quan). Taikiken's founder, Kenichi Sawaii, studied yi quan in China and brought it to Japan. He modified the style he learned, incorporating principles from Japanese martial arts, and named his art taikiken. Shimada was one of his top students.

Next, the students described what the classes were like. They said each session starts with the standing meditation I saw when I arrived. Then they do slow movements. Gradually, they speed things up and eventually do two-person drills. The goal of practice is to maintain the balanced, focused state achieved in ritsuzen, going from slow drills to quick, relaxed fighting techniques.

When Shimada arrived, he greeted me with a broad smile and a firm handshake. He was tall, with longish hair and baggy trousers. He had thick, meaty hands and looked young for his age. After some semiformal introductions and my asking again if it was OK to watch the class, the master went to check out his students one at a time.

At first, Shimada appeared uncomfortable with my presence. However, after 20 minutes, he returned and seemed eager to talk about the art. He reiterated the basic themes his students had told me, adding: "Inner styles are the hardest. Outer styles look harder, but the inner ones are more explosive."

That led straight to questions about the ki in taikiken. What is it and how does it differ from other martial arts? concepts of ki? ?Ki is natural movement-instinct,? Shimada explained. "Taikiken is about beating an opponent and beating a disease through natural movement, focusing the whole body as one muscle."

"It's not about standing and trading punches; it's about throwing techniques with inner energy and using motions to cut down on wasted movement."

That sounded reasonable, but it also sounded like the principles of several internal arts. When I asked why other internal stylists don't emphasize sparring the way he does, he looked as if the answer was obvious. "They don't because they don't know how, he said matter-of-factly. "All the styles are the same if you develop inner power. Sparring is just checking your inner power."

After demonstrating some sparring techniques with one of his advanced students, Shimada tutored the others. I went over my notes and waited for him to finish. The thing that stood out in my mind was that he was a karate champion before taking up taikiken. He says he was an instant convert to the art after Kenichi smacked him down in a match, which caused him to devote nearly 25 years of his life to it.

When Shimada finally returned, it was almost the end of the training session. I thanked him for letting me watch and promised to return, but I had one more question. I wanted to know about his plans for the future of taikiken. He said he was focusing on passing the art on to others the way it had been to him. While he wasn?t interested in popularizing it, he qualified that by saying, "We practice with other people from around the world, and sparring is like a greeting." So if you're into internal martial arts, stop by and say hello. Just remember to bring some headgear.

About the author: Keith Vargo is a freelance writer, researcher and martial arts instructor who currently lives in Japan.