Bruce Lee vs Jet Li | Wing Chun vs Tai Chi

Before watching the video below, let’s get acquainted Wing Chun and Tai Chi style differences and more.

Tai Chi vs Wing Chun – Origin and Key Differences

Wing chun dates back to the 17th Century and it’s origin is not clear for a handful of reasons. It was passed down verbally from teacher to student so there are very few written records. Secondly, it is believed that wing chun practitioners were associated with rebel groups working against the Qing dynasty so not only were practitioners targeted during the 17th and 18th centuries, but they were not establishing open schools. We do know that wing chun was a prolific martial art because by the 20th century there were several unassociated wing chun masters. The most famous wing chun master was Ip Man, Bruce Lee’s teacher.

Choosing Between Tai Chi vs Wing Chun – Which is Better?

Choosing between tai chi vs wing chun is a very important decision because they attract very different people. I want to take a minute here to describe why and then head into each of the areas specifically so that you can make a choice for yourself. Even though I am a tai chi practitioner hopefully you can see that I have an amazing respect for wing chun and love sparing with WC practitioners to put push hands up against sticky hands. It’s a lot of fun! But I have seen a lot of students that are new to the martial arts quit martial arts entirely because they began at a wing chun school, it wasn’t what they

Jet Li vs Donnie Yen Wushu vs Wing Chun

wanted, and they thought it was what all Chinese martial arts were like. Wing chun is very distinct in that it had its origin in kung fu but has removed much of the form work. There is very little talk about philosophy or internal development. This isn’t a criticism of wing chun and is exactly why many people love it. They want to spend most of their time focusing on sparring and partner work. Let’s compare tai chi chuan vs wing chun in seven ways and then at the end I made a table to summarize the comparisons.

Tai Chi vs Wing Chun Fighting and Self Defense

Wing chun is better as a fighting art, it’s that simple. If fighting and sparing are a primary goal of yours and you are trying to choose if wing chun or tai chi is better, go the wing chun route. Yes both tai chi and wing chun have open hand forms and drills, but all of wing chun’s work is directly tied to fighting. They focus on arm movements with the purpose of intercepting and attacking. They have form work with the intended purpose of improving turning, punching, kicking, and stepping. Lastly, they focus on sensitivity training which is the one focus that has the greatest amount of overlap with tai chi. Tai chi has a concept called ting jing or listening energy which is akin to wing chun’s sensitivity training where they work to remain soft and relaxed as they pay close attention to the opponent’s attack.

Tai Chi vs Wing Chun Fight

As if having Bruce Lee as a practitioner wasn’t enough to add to its popularity, film maker and martial artist Donnie Yen took up the Ip Man story and made it even more famous for modern martial artists. It’s not exactly true that Donnie Yen is a wing chun practitioner. In an interview he explained that he grew up practicing tai chi and kung fu and worked diligently with wing chun masters for the year leading up to making the first film.

Physical Fitness:

As far as physical fitness goes, wing chun wins over tai chi as the training for sparring requires strength and stamina. Overall, wing chun can be a good workout as a practitioner can use the forms to stay in shape as well as working with a wooden dummy to practice which you then test out with a sparring partner. Tai chi has a similar process IF you are doing push hands in your practice. The processes still look quite different. Check out the differences between chen tai chi vs wing chun chi sau (sticky hands) in these sparring examples.

Popularity / Availability of Both Arts

Tai chi and wing chun are by far two of the most popular martial arts. In most western countries you can find associations related to different teachers of wing chun where as tai chi is organized by families. I know that for many wing chun practitioners who move or whose school closes, the other wing chun schools are very different and not always a great fit. Whereas tai chi practitioners have an easier time finding others who practice their style. That being said, if you are on either coast in the US or in big city throughout the world, you can probably find a school.