by ShortFormMike on Thu Aug 06, 2009 1:14 am
I'llcap, yea i've push hands w/ Henry Wang.
i could not put more than a couple ounces of pressure on him no matter how hard i tried. he just won't let you touch him and yet somehow this small amount of force is sufficient for dropping you--straight down in some cases.
he also did a couple other things i felt which were rather amazing. i've described one of them before. basically he stood straight up w/ his feet shoulder width apart at the very most. he let me pull on his limp arm and i couldn't budge him in the slightest. it literally felt like pulling a rope attached to a tree. (i was using both hands w/ my feet dug in and people were cheering me on. it was kinda funny.)
yea he has students that are quite good at push hands. others are not. i have mixed feelings about it since few spend that much time w/ him since he lives out in the boonies.
Henry stressed that as an absolute bare minimum he practices 2hrs per day. but he had several years of 8hrs minimum per day. he said he moved to the remote part of vancouver island to isolate himself so he could dedicate himself to practice. that's why he's so good IMO. no secrets, no magic, just tens of thousands of hours.
i think on top of that he may be one of those "outliers" Chris M talks about. used to be a gymnast and shit.
i've not been around for very long so i can't judge the difference of high levels. i think my teacher is better at that. he says in his almost 50 years of MA experience both here and in taiwan and china, he's not felt anyone like Henry.
if it doesn't make sense, it's because I'm "typing" with Swype or using android's voice to text, which is pretty damn good by the way