if the connection is correct, the power will go through

[rojcewiczj]

How simple, but I've been ignorant. If the connection is correct, the power will go through. If your grip does not slip, you can lift a hundred pounds in an instant.
If your fist does not glance, a short strike will break the nose.If your hands do not loosen on their touch, your full weight will go into the opponent in a blink.
How often do we feel the power is not enough, when our contact point is slipping, glancing, loosening. I think I'm not strong enough because the connection is weak at the contact.
When the connection is strong, I make a movement as small as a flinch and full power goes through the contact point instantaneously, simply, as if opening a door.

[Bao]

Yup, weak or strong structure at the point of contact. Indeed, here lies a big difference. How the structure is before contact is not as important, it's exactly when the two bodies meet and make contact. your own body needs structural support.

[Josealb]

If you have good connection, but your opponent has a better one, will power go through? Both connections can be correct, but a scale exists.

[junglist]

In my experience, structure precedes connection. If you're not connected, you will not be connected to the other person.

[rojcewiczj]

If you control the contact point, then you control the balance of the scale.

[Itten]

Sorry guys, maybe I'm missing it.how can you control point of contact if you do not have the structure in you. Whoever arrives fastest at the point controls the encounter so you need to be there before the engagement happens?

[Interloper]

My interpretation of "Being there" before the physical engagement is that awareness and intent, structure and 6-directional energy are already activated in you. So, you are "already there."

[Itten]

I agree with that definition. To me that is the goal of internal training, the rest is method and application.

[rojcewiczj]

In Solo training we develop all those prerequisites of structure, strength, agility, etc. When faced with the opponent it is to late to "get" structure, one only hast time to realize the connection, the contact, the grip. When I go to open the door I grab the handle, the shape of the door, its size and weight, are all things that I must understand and manage through my grip on the handle. No matter if I push or pull on the door, I do so through the grip on the handle. If I can't open the door, I see if there is a better way to grip and, if that fails, at last I accept that the door is probably locked and I leave to look for another door.

[rojcewiczj]

How many on this board have praised the skill of Chen Zhonghua? As the answer is many, I should think people would want to discuss the specific action through which he expresses his body skill; namely, his ability to form and retain effective grips/connections on his opponents during tuishou. The game of tuishou is one in which to develop this exact skill: the forgetting of oneself in order to follow the opponent. Practically speaking what does this require? Action towards insuring the grip at the same instant power is being generated. Sounds too simple? It is just simple enough. All coordination is focused on the one point, or "dot" as Chen Zhonghua calls it. The whole body only backs up and supports the point of connection. Loosing all moves for its own sake, the body gains the focus to transmit its power through the point and into the opponent.

[windwalker]

a little "demo" that speaks to what some have commented on


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rytqORjyJVc

[Bodywork]

.....

[windwalker]

I never make a connection to the other guy. I move me

In many aspects the opposite approach of taiji

[jaime_g]

I never make a connection to the other guy. I move me

In many aspects the opposite approach of bad taiji

Fixed

[windwalker]

I never make a connection to the other guy. I move me

In many aspects the opposite approach of bad taiji

Fixed

ok I'll play

cite where what is written about taiji that says not to make a connection?
Understand that the connection starts with the understanding of how to connect ones self,
later to another person and later to other things.