What are the diffrent schools of tai chi chaun?

Question

and what are there strong/weak/focus points

also im lookin 4 sumthin thats has pratical combat... its not my main focus and i know theres more 2 a martial art than technique... but my martial art must be effective... and taichi sound like it goes nicely with aikido.. u know theri both soft and has strikes n stuff the other has throws n pin' n joint minipulation
oh and what is "pushing hands"

Answer 1

I am familiar with Chen, Yang, Chang and Wu styles of traditional Tai Chi Chuan which are hundreds of years old. There is also the modern Taoist style (1968?), although this is an exercise rather than a martial art. The traditional styles are used as exercise also but they can be used for fighting too. There is lots of info available on line.

Answer 2

There are five major families of taijiquan: Chen, Yang, Wu, Wu Hao, and Sun. Yang is the most widely practiced and readily identified as taiji; Chen is the original and would not be recognized as taiji by most people due to it's explosive movements. The others I am less familiar with, but I believe that they are generally mixtures of Yang style with other internal systems.
There are also several "modern" and "combined" systems with no internal element to speak of--just sort of a slow dance.
Push hands is a sensitivity drill.
The strongest point of taiji is the development of internal power, especially qi and jing. Its weakest point is that so few contemporary schools focus on the original combative applications of the martial art.

Answer 3

David N. seems to have the most complete list of the styles. the major ones are yang, chen, wu, and sun.

imho, i think bagua would compliment your aikido much better than taichi. i heard from bagua ppl watching aikido and aikidoka watching bagua that the two styles have very similar principle. but in the end it all comes down to watch school is near by for you and which school has the best teacher that fit you.

side note: chen, more martial oriented. yang, bigger forms and more health oriented usually. wu, smaller forms.(by small i mean the action of the movement not number of movements) sun, Master Sun Lu Tang created this style after learning the three major internal arts and combining their principles.

Answer 4

In addition to Chen, Yang, Chang and Wu; there are also:
Sun, WuDang, Zhaobao (He), Lee .and combination forms.

There are probably many other small / splinter branches established within the past century in China and in other countries where Tai Chi has been introduced.

Answer 5

you be looking chen style and psuh hands is just of learning your opponent