the rum soaked fist: internal martial arts forum

hey shortformMike have you touched hands with mr.wang? if all he does is this no touch and rooting demos how does anbody really know if he has real skill with real force. a lot of his students on his vids look like very weak people both physically and mentally . what are your exp. with his students. is there push hand better than yours?

push hands is a sensitivity drill. it will develop many different skills and increase your fitness. I think that turning it into an application drill changes the purpose of the training. it can build false confidence and bad habits as can many other types of cooperative training. it takes a long time to utilize Tai Chi Chuan. most of the great masters had previous training before they studied Tai Chi Chuan. if you really want to learn how to fight then study a martial art that emphasizes fighting like boxing, Muay Thai or MMA. nothing will prepare you quicker for fighting than practicing a competitive art in which you get hit and you have to be in great shape to perform. it all boils down once again to ego. who cares what people think or talk about. do you waste time fantasizing about an imaginary battle that you most likely will never have? the real question is can you be honest to yourself about your own level of skill and ability? can you see where you have weakness and work to improve?

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.

i got to do some push hands and freestyle fucking around w/ Miltownkid who's done tournaments in taiwan and shit like that. a lot of you guys have seen his videos of that, right?
i already posted that he said the only people he's met who had something "different" was this guy in taiwan "Jung" and Henry Wang.

so anyway Illcap, that is someone i would say is strong mentally and physically and pretty damn good at push hands and martial arts in general. he's one of Henry's students that i couldn't push out at all and i felt like he wasn't even trying w/ me.

humbleboxer wrote:. I think that turning it into an application drill changes the purpose of the training.

I disagree

humbleboxer wrote: it can build false confidence and bad habits as can many other types of cooperative training

very true if taught incorrectly