Mysterious taiji power

[Bugang]

So for those who felt it can you explain what happened? Were you willing to fight it & still ended up jumping around? And do you think it would work in the same way if they take on a person with conditioned killer intent & physical ability or will it devolve into the sad kia master situation?

When my sifu is demonstrating this sort of thing on me I've made the following observations:
1. With relatively little exposure to these sorts of techniques and to be honest a reasonable amount of scepticism as to their effectiveness (jaded by 30 years of Karate, TKD etc) I was of the mindset that I wasn't going to allow any 'airy fairy' technique to shift me from my tried and trusted Karate stance.
2. Despite my best intentions (understand I wasn't trying to be an ass - just honest in my technique) I found myself being propelled across the room with an energy which appeared to be far greater than the energy applied to me.

Good explanation! My Teacher tells me "to stay relaxed". But "stand like a mountain" , he says "DON'T MOVE!" to help me activate my YI, which is the gateway to the connected structure without which this - in our case as a trining method - will not work.

[everything]

Same experience.

No, it wouldn't work against an armed and angry Fedor or other hypotheticals. Dunno.

[Bugang]

I don't know. I've only just found out about this lama guy, and man do his demos look bad. I think no, but hey I could be wrong.
Jess

To me it seems bogus. The Guys in row load themselves up with movement and begin bouncing before lama does anything. When he pushes, the first ones in the row occasionally start jumping after the later ones which seems ridiculous to me. Well but, "you never know" said the prince to the fox...

[Bugang]

I meant the "Wondrous World of Chi Monks"

[Bugang]

That's certainly true John, and that's the problem. People have been able to do these things, but the explanations fall short. I think,that's why it's hard to pass on, and it's also hard for some teachers I think to maintain. I think most have only a piece of the picture, and that it's really not that easy to do, much less explain what is being done. I am pretty blown away to hear about what Dan Harden is doing, and that he can explain it and help others to understand it. I've learned a lot of stuff, and while a lot of it was good internal work, it's all been like a drop or two of information here and there until I found my taiji mentor. Anyway, people need to start taking more stock in the value of their own experience, and really defining their own experience at a higher level of conscious creativity before internal martial arts will be as good as it was 150 years ago, and we will have something that we can understand better and develope further vs. being the caretakers of shreds of a once rich and vast tapestry of possibilities and methods.
Jess

+1

My Teaqcher says he can't explain it completely but he can use it and train us with it. And by training we "get it", not in Words but in our Bodies. So what the hack? I don't want a patent, I just wanna get as much out of my training as possible, and this practice definitely brought me further on my way to strong connection. I want to learn enough that my students too can benefit and pass it on.

[Bugang]

I haven't posted here in forever, but this stuff really irks me. I tried not to respond, but I just couldn't help it...

I believe that, at least in some cases, the instructor has convinced their students that if a student is connected (or insert some other internal buzz word) properly from hand to body when the instructor issues some force, that they will become injured if they don't perform those ridiculous little jumps and such to mitigate the force.

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I believe that in most of these cases your belief is just plainly wrong

Our teacher never said anything about hurting, we never get hurt (except for the very rare cases that we stumble and noone catches us) , we just can't stand still when the power comes, even if we try to very hard. From what I said in brackets you can see that bouncing around is more dangerous and potentially hurting than standing still, and still we can't resist doing it....
hmmm...

[Bugang]

I was taught that when someone pushes me, I should

- use my "wheeling step - move my back leg in a big arc" to move myself to be out of the way,
- borrow my opponent's force, and
- lead him into the emptiness.

If I start this kind of training on day one, nobody can make me to jump up and down. Is this pretty much just common sense, or did those Mexican jumping beans never have this kind of training?

Let me try to ask this question again. Is "to move your body to be out of your opponent's moving path" part of the Taiji training?

To this I can only quote my teacher (who can be very soft if he wants to) . If asked by a fellow student about "move your body to be out the opponent's path" he says "why should you if you can peng him? Just bounce him out!" And this kind of training is for developing the connection for strong Peng Jin.

[Bugang]

Which begs the question "why in the 30 billion or so vids up on the net" is there not one video of the JUADT done on an opponent at speed? The master in the clip throws his opp out in very convincing fashion and at speed at 1:12. Why not make him jump there or in any other place in the vid? When engaging with an opponent at speed the application is always going to come from a combination of opportunity and momentum. Surely if the JUADT is a real ability/tactic there would be at least 1 case of where it would be the appropriate application...especially if you'd trained to do it forever but I've still never seen one. It might be that it can only be done at slow speeds where the mind of the opponent can be led in a fashion that allows you to get them off balance and use their reflexes against them, but if so, then why study it for martial arts. It seems if the most likely way for it to work isn't viable for combat then it's simply a trick.

My 2c.

Best,

S

OK let me put your Syllogism one step further: Zhan Zhuang will surely not be "applicable" in combat insofar as without moving and maybe even standing still on one leg in an awkward position it will be very hard to win a fight, right? Ergo Zhan Zhuang is simply a trick.
Hmmm....?
Just joking and don't want to offend!