Tai Chi type Japanese Martial Arts?

I want to stick to japanese culture but I like Tai Chi, is there a japanese martial art that is like Tai Chi or should I just learn it instead?

I am unaware of a Japanese martial art that is similar to tai chi and I have been involved in the martial arts for 10 years. Off hand, not having studied tai chi much myself, it seems to be based on slow movements with or without a sword. Since Japanese swordsmanship is different I am unaware of any Japanese martial art that comes close to tai chi. Of course there are kendo and iaido but I would say they are nothing like tai chi. I suggest you try tai chi and not worry about feeling disloyal or something to the Japanese arts. Bruce Lee looked at the good and bad points of many differnt kinds of arts and kept what was useful and discarded what was uneccessary, so maybe by learning more then one art you can do the same.

goju karate mixes hard okinawan styles and shaolin white crane gung fu. Katas like tensho epitamize the soft aspect, while katas like sanchin (oddly, a chinese kata) demonstrate the hard aspects. However, the hard seems to outweigh the soft until advanced levels. the movements tend to be circular.

probably the closest would be either taikiken or aikido.aikido believes and utilizes in the use of 'ki'.(japanese for 'chi'). another one would be taikiken,this one was said to have roots in yi-quan(which also came from hsing-yi,a sister art of tai-chi).try to look it up in google or yahoo.hope this info helps your search..

to find out more about taikiken.visit this website www.taikiken.org. there you would learn about the style's history,founder and the book he wrote.

good page, was interesting to see...

Bit late, but to clarify the matter:

Both taichi and aikido uses idealised form practice to train the body to undertake the most efficient movements to neutralise an incoming force.

Taichi starts slow to enable precision of movements. It emphasises understanding the incoming force, then yielding to create space to deflect / neutralise and form vectors to destablise.

Aikido is very very similar in principle and there is an element of reinforcing the direction of the force then applying a another force to create a loss of centre.

Friendly crossing of hands with an accomplished taichi practitioner feels like being bounced by a firm gym / beach ball, while the same experience with an aikido practitioner feels like being sucked into a whirl wind.

Words being, open to interpretation, can be misunderstood. Please note that there is no intended slighting of either martial art.

I'm in Japan now studying taikyokuken. While I don't know how that translates, it's what they call tai chi here. I studied Yang style tai chi in Texas, and my instructor knows that style as well as others.

You've found your answer by now, I'm sure, but here are a few places to look:

http://www.google.com/#pq=japanese+tai+chi&hl=en&sugexp=kjrmc&cp=0&gs_...

I fully realize that this post will probably more info than 99% of the people want...but in the interests of laying it all out here goes.

Generally ALL asian arts train a specialized way of using the body, which produces an odd way of generating force.
Most demos in arts are shown to isolate and illustrate this skill : From Aikido's unbendable arm, Ueshiba's "push on my head, see you can't move me" tricks, to various Chinese arts showing guys getting tossed and bounced around.


The various arts are simply different ways of developing this skill.

Putting it down simply, they all train Ki/Qi/Prana (all those terms are equivalent, anyone who says differently probably has no skills), to produce Jin/Kokyu-ryoku/Shakti.

(Ki/Qi is a physical, trainable trait, and interchangeably and frustratingly either refers to the fascia that connects the body as a unit, or the specialized use of inter-abdominal pressure)

Dantien/tanden is a trainable area comprising the core muscles, spinal erectors and pelvic floor, and incidentally is where the fascia of the body, which ties the body together is thickest.

All the arts, Aikido, various Koryu, Karate, all the Chinese arts, typically try and train the dantien/tanden, and some use the tanden area to control the entire body (think of a large balloon man, if you want to control the limbs of the balloon man, you move the middle, and its the stretch that moves the arms, not local muscle).
This kind of body mechanic produces the ability to generate disproportionate amounts of force for the amount of movement used, and also involves the clever use of physics (and not the kindergarten level of physics seen in Judo)

In short...if you're serious about training this stuff, find the best teacher that teaches this stuff directly.
They aren't woo-woo skills, they can be trained, there is a certain IQ skill required to figure it out, and its not for everyone.

Personally I train at the Aunkai under Akuzawa Minoru, who's 160cm, 64kg and can throws around guys twice his weight with ease, but I train there because of the direct instruction offered.

Hope this post my shave a couple years of wasted time for some.