Bao wrote:The thread title is "starting push hands", but it soon turned into advanced theory and philosophy. Maybe not what you would teach beginners. Unless your goal is to keep them as perpetual beginners.
Beginning push hands is to learn how to adapt to physical movement, and then to learn how to capture the opponent's center and learn how to feel the opponent's balance to cut his root. And at the same time, you need to learn how to keep relaxed, balanced and your mind calm while someone is trying to push and drag you, get you out of balance. For beginners, all talk about consciousness, yi, jin etc etc is just confusing, redundant and make them focus on the wrong things.
So far, I believe from everything I have watched on Google, I have only heard teachers speaking a lot theory and philosophy, and not found one single teacher who really taught something practically valuable for a beginner to really learn and understand push hands. Well... maybe Chen Zhonghua has some videos. Maybe there is someone else, but I can't really think of anyone else.
go0g!3...pfft
Six Harmonies - 'consciousness', yi, jin etc etc - are the basics of tjq. If a teacher can't show someone how to physically experience and explore 6 Harmonies in solo training on their first day,...?
WW has been writing about these ideas as long as the intertrons has been hosting IMA forums - in the old chatrooms, and one long since defunct kung fu forum in particular - before the turn of the century. Shared some videos privately of his master playing the real while be tested by some genuinely 'skeptical' kung fu men way back then as well.
Some haven't changed their tune one note in those 20+ years because the song remains the same.