"I can use my taiji for fighting"

[TaoJoannes]

That's a matter of terminology.

Taiji changes between yin and yang, but so does the sky and the ocean.

They play their game, you negate their game, and that is your game. If they don't want to initiate, then you draw them into it.

Ah, but isn't "change" the point? If they don't initiate, there is nothing to change, as in, no fight to fight. Drawing them in isn't really change, it's you initiating, which would go against the Classics, IMHO.

Fighting in Taiji should always be about blending with the other person, so if we "bait" them, doesn't that change the attitude, ergo. the softness and adaptability? (If we are speaking about a "high level" of ability that is)

Just a thought. My head hurts now....

Chas

Actually, no, drawing them in is the meat and potatoes of Taijiquan, in my opinion. Here's a writeup of it that seems eerily similar to senior wang's ideas expressed earlier.

On a side note, i think if John Wang spoke english as his first language, we would never find cause to disagree. Or perhaps if I spoke Chinese as eloquently as his english.

http://ofinterest.net/tifang/

"In the Ti Fang exercise, your initial contact with your partner is at 4oz of pressure. You should have a good feel for this amount of pressure from the preliminary learning of the Push Hands choreography. Suffice to say that it's just about 4oz. Once this contact is established you then start to gently push. When the pressure builds to just more than 4oz [say 5oz] they will reflexively raise slightly, you then withdraw to just under 4oz of pressure [say 3oz, but don't disconnect], and then you accelerate them [pushing through their center]. The withdraw "severs the root" of your opponent so that when you accelerate them away you meet little/no resistance. If you get it right both his feet will leave the ground as he hops away.

As you push into your partner the pressure increase above 4oz should be your mark to withdraw -- but never disconnect. Withdraw and push, "Attract to emptiness, and discharge - without resistance and without letting go". The withdraw is very subtle, but without it you do not sever their root and you would have to use brute force to move them. This is not an exercise of "mechanics" so much as an exercise of tapping into their reflexes.

In addition, there is a moment, a feeling, just after you withdraw and just before you accelerate them, where you must 'harmonize' with their body. Since their body is falling towards you, they deliver their "center" into your hands. Yet at the same time their muscles are reflexively pulling away from you, your acceleration meets no resistance. I refer to this moment, this feeling, as "catching" them. The push has been described as being "like pushing a child in a swing." - L.Jenkins. "

[Iskendar]

If we can get all the Taiji guys to talk about "finish moves", then we have draw Taiji as a system one step closer to the combat effective.

Throat hits, finger thrusts to the eyes, head turns, arm bars/breaks, kick to the nuts, foot stomps... Dunno, maybe it's not real taiji I'm learning, all these nasty moves... Main deficiency I see is too much application work and not enough sparring/free play, but that's a sore point in most of CMA (though obviously not in SC, which is something I admire...)

[Bhassler]

.

[johnwang]

Can you post a short clip (just one or two moves) of taiji.

Finish move are:

- kill your opponent.
- make your opponent to lost concious.
- make your opponent to give up fight.

You can use a

- punch or kick to knock out (or kill) your opponent.
- lock to disable your opponent.
- throw to allow the ground and gravity to do the job for you.

Just image that you are a MA instructor who is teaching a class for anti-terrorist group. When you are teaching that class, your students will care less about how to win a tournament fight but how to kill.

Here is a short clip that's the "more aggressive" version of the Taiji "diagonal fly". Instead of pushing your opponent back and assume you mission is completed, you pick him upside down and smash his head on the ground as many time as you want until he gives up.

http://johnswang.com/head_smashing.wmv

[Bhassler]

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[johnwang]

How about "turn around hammer" that you use your hammer fist to knock on top of your opponent's head? I have heard that strike could drop somone. The finish move ability is part of the Gung Li training and cannot be obtained just from the form training. IMO, this is the most important part of anybody's MA training - to be able to finish a fight if you have to. The difference between the sport SC and the combat SC is in combat SC, you go one extra step beyound just "throw your opponent down". There is a "finish move" after that throw.

[TaoJoannes]

Can you post a short clip (just one or two moves) of taiji.

Finish move are:

- kill your opponent.
- make your opponent to lost concious.
- make your opponent to give up fight.

You can use a

- punch or kick to knock out (or kill) your opponent.
- lock to disable your opponent.
- throw to allow the ground and gravity to do the job for you.

Just image that you are a MA instructor who is teaching a class for anti-terrorist group. When you are teaching that class, your students will care less about how to win a tournament fight but how to kill.

Here is a short clip that's the "more aggressive" version of the Taiji "diagonal fly". Instead of pushing your opponent back and assume you mission is completed, you pick him upside down and smash his head on the ground as many time as you want until he gives up.

http://johnswang.com/head_smashing.wmv

I move that we all chip in and buy you a Youtube account.

I don't know if that's more aggressive so much as it is inefficient. You're picking your opponent up and holding their weight, while that's fine if you're strong enough and have the energy level for it, but it seems wasteful to spend so much of your own money when the government is giving out checks. Doing it over and over is pretty much just squatting their weight.

What I mean is that the taijiesque way to get the same effect is basically the same, but you don't pick em up, you just let them fall over your knee and accelerate the descent, maybe hold on to the legs to give a little leverage against the head and neck once they're down, similar to a suplex.

[Jake]

http://youtube.com/watch?v=cmbhfI8f_Ek

[johnwang]

You're picking your opponent up and holding their weight, while that's fine if you're strong enough and have the energy level for it,

What I mean is that the taijiesque way to get the same effect is basically the same, but you don't pick em up, you just let them fall over your knee and accelerate the descent, maybe hold on to the legs to give a little leverage against the head and neck once they're down, similar to a suplex.

This remind me a Canton 10 tigers story. One of the Canton 10 tigers was good at head busting. Oneday he asked his teacher whether he was ready to leave. His teacher said that he would need one more training. His teacher found a large container and then collect a lot of glass bottles in it. His teacher then hold his student upside down like that and used his student's head to smash those glass bottles. After all the glass bottles in that contained was smashed into powder, his teacher said, "Now your training is completed and you may leave." I don't know this story is true or fake but it's an interest story anyway.

You may prefer this instead:

http://johnswang.com/head_smash.wmv

[Jake]

LOL!

That's sweet as hell John!!!

When's the last time you actualy did that to someone in a REAL fight on the STREET?

I mean it's a sweet move and all.... But it seems like this thread has moved long ago into the he said she said thing.

But hey, if that's what does it for ya...

CHEERS!!!!!

[TaoJoannes]

You're picking your opponent up and holding their weight, while that's fine if you're strong enough and have the energy level for it,

What I mean is that the taijiesque way to get the same effect is basically the same, but you don't pick em up, you just let them fall over your knee and accelerate the descent, maybe hold on to the legs to give a little leverage against the head and neck once they're down, similar to a suplex.

This remind me a Canton 10 tigers story. One of the Canton 10 tigers was good at head busting. Oneday he asked his teacher whether he was ready to leave. His teacher said that he would need one more training. His teacher found a large container and then collect a lot of glass bottle in it. His teacher then hold his student upside down like that and used his student's head to smash those glass. After all the glass in that contained was smashed into powder, his teacher said, "No your training is completed and you may leave." I don't know this story is true or fake but an interest story anyway.

You may prefer this instead:

http://johnswang.com/head_smash.wmv

Hey! Hey! What are you doing? Are you throwing something? Hey! That looks pretty big! Here! Throw this! It's small! It's easy! No, it's over here! Look, I'll put it in the middle! No! Throw the ball! Put that thing down! Here! I'll bring it to you!

Sorry, had to channel the dog for a second.

That's like a "embrace the tiger to carry it to the mountain", the move you do after cross hands at the beginning of the second and third sections of the Yang Long form. But still, grabbing that low seems to demand a lot of strength in the back and legs. We'd want to get the hip in close to use as a fulcrum, and then use more of a horizontal splitting type idea to push the top of the body over the hip and pull the bottom up simply by following the movement, more of a guiding on the bottom, there, than a vertical lifting.

[Schu]

Trying to bait a Tai Chi player into finishing the script is pretty funny!!

I assume the end result is to get them to end the script with a Yang move and somehow you have proved a point?

Tai Chi is not Yin or Yang but about the binary relationship between the two that gives birth to all movement and things internal and external. The very nature of the question Yin or Yang almost shows a complete misundersanding of the Tai Chi concept.

Lets talk about the nice little head drop we just saw. You can use Yin energy to enter between the legs, explode upward with Yang energy to standing position (while the arm that grabbed the opponents arm goes Yin and yields to get the guy moving off balance and forward) and then just go completely Yin again as you move out from between the earth and the body as gravity pulls the head towards the earth for the broken neck.

VERY TAI CHI!!! Externally it could look like any style and would need to be explained to satisfy those who say Tai Chi is not a fighting art but who cares to teach children when you are not at paid to do so??

[Jake]

It's really all about Nike and VanHalen...

[Aged Tiger]

That's a matter of terminology.

Taiji changes between yin and yang, but so does the sky and the ocean.

They play their game, you negate their game, and that is your game. If they don't want to initiate, then you draw them into it.

Ah, but isn't "change" the point? If they don't initiate, there is nothing to change, as in, no fight to fight. Drawing them in isn't really change, it's you initiating, which would go against the Classics, IMHO.

Fighting in Taiji should always be about blending with the other person, so if we "bait" them, doesn't that change the attitude, ergo. the softness and adaptability? (If we are speaking about a "high level" of ability that is)

Just a thought. My head hurts now....

Chas

Actually, no, drawing them in is the meat and potatoes of Taijiquan, in my opinion. Here's a writeup of it that seems eerily similar to senior wang's ideas expressed earlier.

On a side note, i think if John Wang spoke english as his first language, we would never find cause to disagree. Or perhaps if I spoke Chinese as eloquently as his english.

http://ofinterest.net/tifang/

"In the Ti Fang exercise, your initial contact with your partner is at 4oz of pressure. You should have a good feel for this amount of pressure from the preliminary learning of the Push Hands choreography. Suffice to say that it's just about 4oz. Once this contact is established you then start to gently push. When the pressure builds to just more than 4oz [say 5oz] they will reflexively raise slightly, you then withdraw to just under 4oz of pressure [say 3oz, but don't disconnect], and then you accelerate them [pushing through their center]. The withdraw "severs the root" of your opponent so that when you accelerate them away you meet little/no resistance. If you get it right both his feet will leave the ground as he hops away.

As you push into your partner the pressure increase above 4oz should be your mark to withdraw -- but never disconnect. Withdraw and push, "Attract to emptiness, and discharge - without resistance and without letting go". The withdraw is very subtle, but without it you do not sever their root and you would have to use brute force to move them. This is not an exercise of "mechanics" so much as an exercise of tapping into their reflexes.

In addition, there is a moment, a feeling, just after you withdraw and just before you accelerate them, where you must 'harmonize' with their body. Since their body is falling towards you, they deliver their "center" into your hands. Yet at the same time their muscles are reflexively pulling away from you, your acceleration meets no resistance. I refer to this moment, this feeling, as "catching" them. The push has been described as being "like pushing a child in a swing." - L.Jenkins. "

Tao,

Well honestly, in 25 years training, I've never heard that exercise described that way. I understand the classic it refers to, but I think its a bit of a reach on interpetation. But thats just me...., not saying its wrong though.

I've actually been lucky enough to train with Chen, Yang, Sun, and Temple style teachers, but none really explained that way. It was more a sensitivity of intent, not trapping or tricking. But all of those older teachers specifically said that it wasn't tricking. I see drawing in as a very small part of what Taiji should actually be. IMHO, but I'm old....

Thanks for the article though, a good read.

Chas

[johnwang]

"drawing in" is just a universal tactic. It has nothing to do with "internal" or "external". If you wait for me and I also wait for you then when will our fight start?

You

- comb your hair,
- put on your best clothes,
- expose the muscular part of your body,
- put socks between your legs,

so you can "draw girls into you". You don't need to be a Taiji master to know how to do that.