Okay, but, frankly, if someone wants to learn to save their life in a year, let alone tomorrow, I'd say take tongbei or baji. Both are considered 'internal' (emphasizing qi development, etc), depending on who you talk to. They're just harder to find than tcc.
Ime, and I'd guess for the majority of tcc schools that actually focus on fighting, they take segments of the form and work on them -in a 'fighty' way. Speaking only for myself, we practiced kicks, but not like "Kick with left heel" in the form.
I think this is exactly why we see so many videos of tcc 'masters' not having the fundamental tools to simply defend themselves. Imo, it's only because they didn't learn how before they started practicing tcc. Even you wayne have mentioned that many of the students you've met were already skilled in some other martial art or sport.
Oh, found an article from Black Belt magazine about one my old schools in competition. Richard was an NCAA ranked wrestler, and Vincent had studied FuJow Pai at Wai Hong's school. Vincent and I started at the same time, only he was two days my senior. So we never competed,
"Tai Chi Wins Full Contact Competition"
https://books.google.com/books?id=zNIDAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA85&lpg=PA85&dq=vincent+sobers&source=bl&ots=AHU7Y4b6Sd&sig=ACfU3U3B7KitjuC5oOJzahD2xhzta5G5lQ&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjWxP2NreyEAxXDFlkFHVTNBeMQ6AF6BAgjEAM#v=onepage&q=vincent%20sobers&f=false
"A man is rich when he has time and freewill. How he chooses to invest both will determine the return on his investment."