One of the more famous sayings about Tai Chi that is included with this program as part of what we are going to be teaching all throughout it is “steel wrapped in cotton.”
“Steel wrapped in cotton” is a fairly common saying, to a certain degree, amongst people who are really studying Tai Chi in-depth and are interested in the combat Tai Chi. Interestingly enough if you go to find ’steel wrapped in cotton’ most people either don’t teach it or don’t know it, and that is part of what we are including in the Combat Tai Chi program.
What “steel wrapped in cotton” is referring to is basically if you took a crowbar and you took a piece of cloth a little bit thick, but certainly if your hitting your hand with it you’re feeling that there’s metal under there, and you wouldn’t want to get hit on the arm with it because even though the surface would be soft that crowbar is going to break your arm.
It’s that kind of a quality. So when someone feels the surface , it feels like there’s just a thin layer of cotton wrapped around it so it’s soft, but as soon as that layer gets penetrated now they’re hitting an iron bar.
And again its a high level Tai Chi Quality, it is in the program and we’re teaching it.
It’s part of what makes the Tai Chi just deadly. If you take a crowbar like that and smack somebody in the head at the speed and direction I just moved my hand at “BAM” how many people could take that hit from a crowbar.
Or if he’s hitting me, he takes the force of the hit and it’s nothing to me on the receiving side.
The quality is actually through the whole body. It is Tai Chi’s version of Iron Palm & Iron Body. It makes it so you can withstand a pretty serious shot, and you only have to hit them once. If you graze them maybe you have to hit them twice and that’s it because its got this crowbar quality to it that we’re talking about. Whether you hit them with with your elbow, your palm or even your fingers.
Photo by Peter Gene