太极拳能否实战?

　　Can tai chi be used to fight?

　　如何才能战?

　　How can a practitioner gain the ability to fight?

　　有多少太极学习者能战?

　　How many tai chi practitioners can fight?　　

　　4月27日，综合格斗教练徐晓冬和自诩为“太极大师”的魏雷之间的一场约架，引发了国人对太极拳，乃至传统武术实战能力的质疑。

　　On April 27, the face-off between mixed martial arts coach Xu Xiaodong and self-proclaimed tai chi master Wei Lei sparked a heated debate about whether tai chi and other traditional martial arts are still as strong as they have always been claimed to be by practitioners.

　　当国人还在纠结于这些问题时，一个拥有跆拳道黑带和空手道棕带的美国武者詹姆斯• 希里(陈高兴)，却毅然转投河南陈家沟陈氏太极宗师陈正雷门下。这是为何?

　　While the Chinese are questioning tai chi’s status as a martial art, James Healey, an American martial artist with a second-degree black belt in taekwondo and a brown belt in goju karate, shifted to Chen-style tai chi and became a disciple of tai chi grandmaster Chen Zhenglei from Chenjiagou Village, the cradle of tai chi, in central China's Henan Province. Why?

　　全国十大武术名师、陈氏太极传承人陈正雷在“约架”事件后，曾拒绝了30多家媒体的采访邀约。近日，陈正雷携其美国弟子，接受周报君独家专访，看看他们如何评说!

　　Chen Zhenglei, one of China's Top 10 Martial Artists and inheritors of the Chen-style tai chi, after declining more than 30 interviews, recently talked to Beijing Review reporter Li Nan about what the real tai chi is in Beijing.
 

　　陈正雷：太极拳，能打人

　　Chen Zhenglei: Tai chi can definitely be used to fight

　　陈正雷 Chen Zhenglei

　　河南陈家沟人 Born in Chenjiagou Village, Henan Province

　　陈氏太极第十一代嫡宗传人 11th generation descendant to the creator of the Chen-style tai chi

　　中国十大武术名师 One of China's Top 10 Martial Artists

　　中国武术九段 Passed the ninth-ranking Chinese Wushu Duanwei exam, the highest national martial art evaluation system

　　Q

　　太极拳能否实战?

　　Can tai chi be used for fighting?

　　A

　　太极拳，它就是武术。武术要不能打人，不能用，不能实战，那还叫武术吗?在冷兵器时代，太极拳就是上阵打仗的。

　　Tai chi, definitely, is a martial art. If it can’t fight, is it still recognized as a martial art? It was first created for combat in the cold weapon era.

　　(魏尧摄)

　　Q

　　怎么练才能实战?

　　How can a practitioner gain the ability to fight?

　　A

　　学习太极拳，分三个过程：套路、推手、散手。第一个过程，在没有完全掌握内气之前，叫练套路。练拳术套路，然后练兵器，刀枪剑棍，这段时间都是叫知己的功夫。然后练推手，练知彼的功夫。要了解对方，掌握对方，你明白了对方他的来龙去脉，你才有取胜的可能。然后才能达到第三步，叫散手。突破不了这三层功夫、过程， 那你出去不是纯挨打吗?

　　Tai chi practitioners have to go through three steps: routines, pushing hands and sparring. First，they practice routines before gaining the internal power. One should practice boxing routines, and then weapon routines, which include the saber, spear, sword and stick. Routines help practitioners get to know themselves. Then, they practice “pushing hands,” a skill that helps to understand the rival's movements. Only by understanding the rival's movements, can you have a chance to win. Then comes the third step, sparring. Without accomplishing these three steps, a tai chi practitioner would be doomed to being knocked over in a fight.

　　Q

　　练多长时间才能实战?

　　How long does it take a tai chi practitioner to be able to fight?

　　A

　　太极有一句话，太极十年不出门，少林三年会打人。因为它着手的方法要求不同，外家拳和内家拳嘛。外家拳上去就教你拳打脚踢，你练3年拳打脚踢，不是自然就会动手了?十年为啥不出门?因为太极拳最重要的是练内功。练它，不是练死力，而是练灵活力。

　　As a saying goes, it takes a tai chi practitioner 10 years to gain the ability to fight, and three years for a monk in the Shaolin Temple. That’s because they adopt different training methodologies: external boxing and internal boxing. External boxing trains one to punch and kick from the very beginning. After three years of training, practitioners certainly can fight. Why does it take a tai chi practitioner 10 years? Tai chi focuses very much on exploring inner power. It emphasizes flexibility, rather than hard strength.

　　Q

　　多少人能实战?

　　How many tai chi practitioners can fight?

　　A

　　练太极的人几亿人，真正打的人，能占5%-10%，就相当不简单了。

　　Among hundreds of millions of tai chi practitioners, those who can fight make up only a small fraction, say 5 to 10 percent, and it's not an easy task.
 

　　洋弟子陈高兴: 太极让我之前所学武艺大有长进

　　James Healy: By practicing it, my previous martial arts were both improved

　　陈高兴 James Healy

　　美国人 American

　　陈正雷的入门弟子 An advanced student of Chen-style tai chi Grandmaster Chen Zhenglei

　　习武多年，拥有跆拳道黑带二段和刚柔流空手道棕带 He has a long experience in martial arts and a second-degree black belt in taekwondo and a brown belt in goju karate.

　　练习太极拳后，我之前所学的跆拳道、空手道等技艺，也随之大有长进。这是因为，太极拳动静结合，刚柔并济。当你的动作慢下来后，你会形成精准的肌肉记忆。当你需要快速移动时，你会像条件反射一样，迅速就位。但是，陈氏太极也教你如何快速发力。它训练你的机能，让你无需提前蓄力，便可瞬间发劲，爆发力极强。把这一技巧运用在其它武术中，能让你的出拳、踢腿、阻击和肘击，比之前更快，更强劲。

　　By practicing it, my previous martial arts, taekwondo and goju karate were both improved. Part of that is because tai chi has slowness as well as quickness. It has hardness as well as softness. The point is that when you move slowly, you are really developing the precision network of your body memory. So when you need to move quickly, you have actually trained your reflexes so that when you do move rapidly, everything moves into places as it should. But in Chen-style [tai chi] we also practice quickly. Chen-style tai chi trains any part of your body so it can suddenly [react] very quickly, having an explosive power that doesn’t require you to set up first. And so applying that to other arts means that a punch or a kick or a block or an elbow strike could be done much more quickly and explosively than I might have done it when I originally learned it.

　　与其他硬功夫比起来，太极更柔和。毕竟等你年纪大了，关节可能会出现问题。练硬功夫会使关节承受更多的压力。而太极讲究推手打轮。即使我老了，受伤了，也能继续练习。

　　And it’s much easier on your body than the harder martial arts, which as you get older, you start having maybe some joint problems, because there is a lot of tension on the joints in the harder styles of martial arts. And in tai chi things are more circular and rotational. It became something I could do no matter how old I was or even if I had injuries.
 

　　陈斌：最大的挑战是如何进行标准化、规范化

　　Chen Bin: Standardization of every tai chi movement is the biggest challenge　　

　　陈斌 Chen Bin

　　陈正雷儿子 son of Chen Zhenglei

　　陈氏太极第十二代嫡宗传人 12th generation descendant to the creator of the Chen-style tai chi

　　“推广太极拳最大的挑战是如何进行标准化、规范化。太极拳有很多隐于内而不漏于外的方式，所以真正的量化，还是比较难实现。我们只能在传统的套路基础上进行教学的标准化，包括招式解析的标准化，”陈斌告诉周报君。

　　“Standardization of every tai chi movement is the biggest challenge. Tai chi, as part of the internal arts, boasts many concepts that are not easily clarified by straightforward language and specific figures. What we can do now is to standardize the training methods and the explanation and performance of the basic routines," Chen Bin told Beijing Review.

　　(部分图片来自正雷太极书院和网络)

　　文章来源：《北京周报》 微信公众平台

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