What Taiji techniques to train on a heavy bag?

[Chris McKinley]

Because it threatens the infallibility and unquestionable nature of the Confucian culture which permeates those arts. Allowing the possibility of the usefulness of anything outside of TCMA, nevermind anything Western, opens the possibility that those arts aren't already perfected and impossible to improve.

[daniel pfister]

IMO nothing could be further from the truth. Not only can it be used to gauge forward power, but horizontal and spiral power as well. You need bag training to teach yourself to deliver force into a SOLID OBJECT without fracturing your wrist or knuckles upon impact. As such, its purpose is to condition and develop power in your strikes.

Just out of curiosity, why do so many people seem to have this idea that anything remotely modern and/or Western is irrelevant and has no bearing on TCMA training?

Please do not put me into that box. I have done both kinds of training and am speaking from direct personal experience when I say that I prefer the long pole for impact training as well as development of the wrist and finger bones based on the results they brought. Also, I do not believe that heavy bags are all that modern or exclusively western.

If you are a practicing Xing-yi stylist, I would even more recommend the long pole to you for power development. Bags are fine for testing, but they absorb much of the impact (as they are designed to do) whereas the pole will send much of the force you put into it back through your hands as it shakes.

[bigphatwong]

Please do not put me into that box. I have done both kinds of training and am speaking from direct personal experience when I say that I prefer the long pole for impact training as well as development of the wrist and finger bones based on the results they brought. Also, I do not believe that heavy bags are all that modern or exclusively western.

If you are a practicing Xing-yi stylist, I would even more recommend the long pole to you for power development. Bags are fine for testing, but they absorb much of the impact (as they are designed to do) whereas the pole will send much of the force you put into it back through your hands as it shakes.

Nothing wrong with the long pole. It's just apples and oranges, is all I'm saying. One builds power, and other provides something solid and tangible to express it into. Really it's best to have both. And there's no reason why the same jings that are developed with a pole or staff can't be readily applied to other, more contemporary handheld weapons either. Principles are principles, no?

Besides... where I come from, if you shake it more than twice, you're playing with it.

[C.J.Wang]

I prefer working with sizeable trees that give a little.