What made people stop treating Tai Chi like a martial arts?

Tai Chi is a martial arts used for self defense purposes as you all may already know. Why is it that people have stopped training in this art and now treat it as if it were an exercise (In the west)?|||Ultimately it is the instructor's responsibility to maintain the integrity of the art. The watering down of Taijiquan is the result of numerous instructors going to China for a few months and coming back with an incomplete and inferior product. If you are unable to back up the martial art then you may be forced to modify the way you teach it so that you still get a paycheck. This is what most instructors have done.





It takes a lot of effort and shall I say, "balls," to back up the martial aspect of the art. You need to be willing to take on some challenges and to keep up with your students if you want the general public to accept what you do as a martial art, otherwise it becomes "Taiji for health." Too much teaching and not enough training results in inadequate teachers. Now don't get me wrong, I have nothing against people practicing the Taiji forms for health alone - it's great to find something that motivates you to be healthy. I, myself, have students that want nothing to do with the martial aspect. But don't TEACH that Taijiquan is not a martial art. And if you want to call yourself an instructor, much less a Master, then be able to show the complete curriculum.|||Yang Cheng Fu simplifed it to make it easier to teach. The martial forms are very complicated and hard to do, let alone teach but taijiquan is very healing, so what he did was to take out all the complex movement and leave the healing aspects in the form.





What you have left is something much abstracted from martial combat, but it is very effective at healing, and easy to teach so can reach a wide audience really quickly.