Grab

[Ian]

Choice 3. We should try hard not to block/deflect yet still make contact with the person's arm while absorbing and redirecting their energy.

How do you "not deflect, yet redirect their energy"?

deflect
cause (something) to change direction by interposing something; turn aside from a straight course.

I put up some clips in the videos section, and you're welcome to check out my youtube channel. But this disagreement won't be resolved by looking at clips because I readily admit it's something very hard to see when done anywhere near full speed.

There are no clips on your channel of you working against punches.

[dspyrido]

solving this problem will be not going into punch range with a boxer - but then is it not the range where shuai jiao excell above other grappling styles?
Damn I wihs there was some Shuai Jiao school near where I live Internet discussion its just going in circles:)

I'm guessing you are referring to the nice little slip and punch to the face picture you posted but keep in mind - a boxer will aim for a target like the head or torso. They dont win points hitting arms and 16oz gloves dont give you much control. A grip fighter will aim for a limb (normally arm) control first as a setup to the next move. This puts their range at a slightly longer than the (pure) boxer.

Of course this generalization all depends on the skill of the fighters involved.

[daniel pfister]

Choice 3. We should try hard not to block/deflect yet still make contact with the person's arm while absorbing and redirecting their energy.

How do you "not deflect, yet redirect their energy"?

deflect
cause (something) to change direction by interposing something; turn aside from a straight course.

Very important distinction. To be more clear perhaps I should have said "make contact with the person's arm while absorbing and then redirecting their energy." When we catch a ball we normally do not say that the ball's course is "deflected." Deflecting it would be batting at it in the air or holding your arm up at such an angle that it glances off of it. Catching something coming directly at us requires some degree of yielding, so that we are slowing the ball's force by making contact while we are moving in the same direction, however briefly. (I have caught a baseball by simply stopping it with my palm, and it hurt quite a bit.) If it's a punch, the catching energy gives you a bit of time to then flank the opponent often attacking/controlling the extending joints.

I think the main point is that we're initially not trying to change the direction of the force and yet still make contact. That's what we call yielding.

If this distinction isn't made and understood, then there really is no advantage to practicing push hands or most of the unique IMA energies, and we'd all just be better off studying wing chun, BJJ, or shuai jiao with JW.

I put up some clips in the videos section, and you're welcome to check out my youtube channel. But this disagreement won't be resolved by looking at clips because I readily admit it's something very hard to see when done anywhere near full speed.

There are no clips on your channel of you working against punches.

I am happy to work with people that throw punches, the energies involved are the same. What I won't do is put up a clip of me asking someone to throw a punch at me and showing my response because that would be a far too manufactured situation than what I'm looking to train, and I doubt it would change anyone's mind as it is.

[wayne hansen]

Alas most so called internal artists think of themselves as the batter not the catcher

[johnwang]

Catching something coming directly at us requires some degree of yielding,..

When someone punches at your face, how do you "catching it coming directly at you" and "yield"?

[daniel pfister]

Catching something coming directly at us requires some degree of yielding,..

When someone punches at your face, how do you "catching it coming directly at you" and "yield"?

Learn Taijiquan.

[Ralteria]

Someone mentioned catching a baseball barehanded a while back ( not the reference in this thread). The way you hold your hand/body doing that is very similar to how one holds bricks and stays "sung"(another recent reference).

Indecently, its still a deflection.

[daniel pfister]

Again, if we cannot distinguish between a catch and a deflection then we also can't make a distinction between IMA practice and other MA practices.

Put it another way: IMA/TCC ppl believe there is a clear distinction, while others do not. No amount of clips will change that belief IMO, and there isn't much point in discussing the matter further.