Taiji push hands -> entering strategy -> free sparring

[robert]

Hey, John, you mentioned boxing in your list of studies. Would you consider yourself a mixed-martial artist?

I had tested my striking skill in the boxing ring. But I have never studied boxing myself. IMO, entering strategy is used when striking is allowed. If striking is not allowed, I'll call that grip fight which is a much more relax than the entering strategy. If you don't have to worry about your opponent tries to knock your head off, you won't have the feeling that your shirt is catching on fire.

Hi John, IIRC the rules for push hands in Chen village are that you can't grap clothing or hair and direct stikes, punches and kicks, are not allowed, but shoulder and elbow strikes and hip and knee strikes are allowed. I see taiji as more of a grappling art. Personally I like that - if you're knocked out due to a strike to the head your chances of developing parkinson's desease is 3.5 times higher. If people are concerned about health or aging gracefully they need to be careful about head strikes ...

[johnwang]

I see taiji as more of a grappling art. Personally I like that ...

If you don't use Taiji kick/punch as your "finish move", what will be your "finish move" then? So how do you kill your opponent by using Taiji as a grappling art? A Taiji throw that make your opponent's head to hit the hard ground? Does Taiji system even train that kind of throw?

[robert]

I see taiji as more of a grappling art. Personally I like that ...

If you don't use Taiji kick/punch as your "finish move", what will be your "finish move" then? So how do you kill your opponent by using Taiji as a grappling art? A Taiji throw that make your opponent's head to hit the ground? Does Taiji system train that kind of throw?

My interest is in body mechanics, I don't have a finishing move and I have no interest in killing people.

[johnwang]

My interest is in body mechanics, I don't have a finishing move and I have no interest in killing people.

I have no interest and intention to kill people either. But I do want to have the ability to do so if someone tries to harm my family members when the help from law is not available.

In this thread, we are talking about "how to use Taiji in fighting". So how to use Taiji "body mechanics" in fighting?

[Steve James]

May be they only train push and they don't train punch.

That may be true. It depends completely on the tcc people that "you" (or anyone) meets. But, the problem is that when they do incorporate punches and kicks, many people will say that they're either kick-boxing or doing sanda, not tcc. The same goes for throws. People say that it's judo, shuai jiao, or some other martial art.

Well, imo, a tcc person can punch, throw, chop, kick, sweep, lock, etc., just because tcc is a martial art. Can these skills be trained in push hands, sure. But, then it's not push hands anymore. Now, it's possible (and recommended) that students learn how to deal with punches, but that is cooperative. It's not sparring.

The cooperative aspect of push hands is, imo, what makes it non-competitive. Ok, your opponent should really try to push you, but then he gives you a turn. In sparring, that doesn't work. And, then of course, there's "face." Competitors don't want to lose. Years ago, there was a video of Chen Xiaowang pushing against a guy who had no interest in "push hands." Ok, found it. Btw, it's not a critique of the participants, only an illustration of the problems inherent in the context.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_aYtgIkJ5UE

[johnwang]

the problem is that when they do incorporate punches and kicks, many people will say that they're either kick-boxing or doing sanda, not tcc. The same goes for throws. People say that it's judo, shuai jiao, or some other martial art.

I agree that this kind of argument can make the discussion, "How to train a Taiji fighter" very difficult. I just don't know how to end a fight without using "finish move".

[marvin8]

He inherited Zhao’s ‘heavy’ punches and kicks."

That's the "finish moves" that I'm talking about.

More excerpts from that Zhao Daoxin (competitor in the 1929 Hangzhou Lei tai Tournament) interview:

Zhao:
The winners, although they were supposed to represent their traditional systems, used completely different methods of training for these fights.

Phillip Starr Commentary:
And he says that those who won these events trained in methods outside of their traditional systems, reinforcing his position that many of the old forms of training were ineffective.

Zhao:
“People like to compare xingyiquan to western boxing but they're also afraid of doing so. They want this Chinese "thing" to be pure. So, when there is even a small similarity they prefer to get rid of it. I think, as far as training methods and competition goes, that xingyiquan should learn from boxing.”

Phillip Starr Commentary:
As far as his statements about learning from boxing, look again at what he says...xingyiquan should learn from the training methods used in boxing and from the methods that they employ in competition (probably refering to rules). Boxers train as they will fight and they train with great intensity. Modern xingyiquan stylists tend to practice only their basic postures and forms without regard for how they are applied freely in fighting.

@ 8:50 Why are Wang's combat students training and fighting using Sanda, instead of Chen fist? Chen Village combat team trains Sanda without any visible Chen Taiji methods.

Published on Dec 14, 2014
Training at the famous school of "Master Wang Zhan Jun", the largest of Chenjiagou, with more than 300 pupils students.
I am deeply grateful to Master Wang and his instructors Seniors, since almost no foreigners teaches, but agreed to train very gentilemente.
It goes without saying that we are proud to be the "first Argentinos" to be trained by the Master of "Jet Li, Vincent Zhao and Wu Jing (Jacky Wu)" among others:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JolanPp ... e=youtu.be

I have always felt that there is something missing between the Taiji PH and free sparring. The more that I think, the more that I believe the missing training and that is the entering strategy - How to establish that initial arms contact.

You use kick to close the distance, use punch to establish arm contact.

Taiji PH -> entering strategy -> free sparring

What's your opinion on this?

IMO, I don’t think it's just a matter of an "entry technique."

Just as Chen Village's combat team (not the fixed Wulin matches) adopted practicing with modern pad work, other tai chi players can adopt the same type of pad work. Pad work needs to include the trainer moving while holding the pads, as if in a real fight, feeding incoming energy. Then, the tai chi player training can include controlling distance in all ranges, rather than just the push hands, contact range. This would be the stage before sparring.

[johnwang]

IMO, I don’t think it's just a matter of an "entry technique."

Agree that many Taiji training are missing in order to develop a "Taiji fighter". For example, to avoid

- foot sweep, all you need is to bend your leg at your knee joint.
- under hook, all you need is to raise your arm straight up.
- ...

IMO, all those training should be included.

[johnwang]

My interest is in body mechanics, I don't have a finishing move and I have no interest in killing people.

Thanks for sharing your opinion. I have always interested in your way of thinking.

Here are my simple questions.

1. What's your purpose to develop Taiji body mechanics if you are not interested in "fighting"?
2. If you are only interested in "Taiji for health" then why are you interest in "body mechanics"?

I can never understand when someone said that he is interested in Fajin but he is not interested in fighting. Faijin is to generate power to hurt/kill people. If someone only has interest in health, why should he care about power generation?

Is there anything wrong with my logic here?

[windwalker]

My interest is in body mechanics, I don't have a finishing move and I have no interest in killing people.

Thanks for sharing your opinion. I have always interested in your way of thinking.

Here are my simple questions.

1. What's your purpose to develop Taiji body mechanics if you are not interested in "fighting"?
2. If you are only interested in "Taiji for health" then why are you interest in "body mechanics"?

I can never understand when someone said that he is interested in Fajin but he is not interested in fighting. Faijin is to generate power to hurt/kill people. If someone only has interest in health, why should he care about power generation?

Is there anything wrong with my logic here?

Learning how to use a hammer and what you do with a hammer it's not the same thing. One can either use it to build a house or to hit somebody in the back of the head the main point is that they first understand what a hammer is and the skill to use it.

Ben Lo, would often say that taiji is like a machine gun it takes awhile to learn how to use it. A machine gun and a pistol do the same things. Most people can operate a pistol it takes some training to understand how to use the machine gun

[Bao]

1. What's your purpose to develop Taiji body mechanics if you are not interested in "fighting"?
2. If you are only interested in "Taiji for health" then why are you interest in "body mechanics"?

I can never understand when someone said that he is interested in Fajin but he is not interested in fighting. Faijin is to generate power to hurt/kill people. If someone only has interest in health, why should he care about power generation?

Is there anything wrong with my logic here?

In my opinion you can't get around that Tai Chi as a health exercise is built upon the martial art. The health aspects are developed from understanding and practice the martial art.

Every movement has a use of alignment and balance that comes from martial function. Tai Chi without the martial function will turn the movement into dance and the postures will be like statues. The head of my main lineage said that you can compare a posture with a tea pot. It needs a certain shape and balance to have a usable function. If you take away the functional shape and balance that make Tai Chi what it is, then it's not longer Tai Chi. So health and martial arts, you can't have one aspect without the other. Then it's no longer Tai Chi Chuan.

[robert]

1. What's your purpose to develop Taiji body mechanics if you are not interested in "fighting"?

My undergrad degree was in fine arts - painting and drawing and after graduating I wanted to study some Asian painting. I picked up an 18th century Chinese painting manual and it talked about painting with qi. The translator would write qi (energy), but energy didn't make sense in some of the quotes. Eventually I asked my wife's grandmother what qi meant in this context. I don't speak Mandarin or Taiwanese and she didn't speak English - she put in a video of herself doing a taiji double sword form. At the time I didn't understand the connection, but I thought taiji looked interesting. After studying IMA for some time and finding a good instructor I have come to understand the connection between CMA and Chinese brush.

2. If you are only interested in "Taiji for health" then why are you interest in "body mechanics"?

As I wrote above my particular interest is the body mechanics, not the health aspect, but I have always enjoyed sports and exercise so I like that as well.

I can never understand when someone said that he is interested in Fajin but he is not interested in fighting. Faijin is to generate power to hurt/kill people. If someone only has interest in health, why should he care about power generation?

I didn't say I wasn't interested in fighting, but fighting is a young man's sport - I'm too old to fight competitively. I like push hands and applications, but as I said my interest is body mechanics. I take things one step at a time. In taiji emphasis is placed on learning to move correctly first and I'm still working on opening the meridians. I'm starting to take push hands more seriously and, depending on who's teaching at a workshop, push hands can incorporate chinna and throws. I think power generation is part of the body mechanics of taiji. Taiji training is about developing jin and that leads to learning fajin.

I can never understand when someone said that he is interested in Fajin but he is not interested in fighting. Faijin is to generate power to hurt/kill people. If someone only has interest in health, why should he care about power generation?

Is there anything wrong with my logic here?

I think so. Although CIMA are obviously about fighting there is a lot of information contained in them. Since it is about fighting there are verifiable results of one's training so these systems seem to have done a good job maintaining daoyin/qigong practices. My wife's grandmother suggested this as a way to learn about Chinese brush. I've also learned about jingjin and that view of the body makes sense to me. I didn't start training IMAs as a young man so I don't expect to be able to use IMA as protection, at most it rises to the level of sport.

[johnwang]

Learning how to use a hammer and what you do with a hammer it's not the same thing.

If you don't intend to "do with your hammer" then why do you even want to "learn how to use it"?

It seems to me that people may have 3 different reasons to train Taiji:

1. fighting,
2. application,
3. health.

IMO

- 1 will include 2 and 3.
- 2 will include 3 but not 1.
- 3 will not include 1 and 2.

[Bao]

Learning how to use a hammer and what you do with a hammer it's not the same thing.

If you don't intend to "do with your hammer" then why do you even want to "learn how to use it"?

Why do people buy guns if they don't intend to use it?

[johnwang]

Why do people buy guns if they don't intend to use it?

I truly don't know. I have guns and I intend to use it if "I need to protect my family members when help from law is not available". To develop some killing power doesn't mean that you have to kill.