when the MA is not watered down.

[Dmitri]

Just another reason to be forever grateful for the gift of quality instruction and the training opportunity I had.

From whom did you learn taiji, again? TIA

[daniel pfister]

[quote="Chris McKinley"]

RE: "We're not talking about preparing for every possible variable; we're talking about preparing for the worst among the sadly all too common types of more likely situations" I agree with that, but you said before we should NOT base training on what is more likely to happen. You seem to be changing you position here.

RE: "You don't gamble your life on the probability that the guy you face will be weak, slow, untrained, undetermined, unarmed, lacking the intent to actually harm or kill you, and easily dissuaded from continuing his attack by a good shove." I agree, but I wasn't arguing that anyone should.

RE: "I mentioned my time-worn analogy of Drunk Uncle Fred as an example of a situation in which someone gets belligerent and needs to be possibly physically restrained or escorted out but without harming them or using any real damaging force." Yes, and I am saying that push hands skills, more than striking or throwing or even joint locking skills would be pretty useful in this specific situation. What's wrong with that?

We seem to be talking past each other, so I'll try to be clear and use less analogy. My position is that push hands done right, with an emphasis on softness to manipulate others and root for power and alignment, is a useful practice which can be applied to other types of combat training, and in certain limited cases like Uncle Fred, combat itself. This seems to be a very reasonable position which you disagree with. If you do disagree perhaps you could tell me what you think is counterproductive in the training method I've described.

[Dmitri]

RE: "I mentioned my time-worn analogy of Drunk Uncle Fred as an example of a situation in which someone gets belligerent and needs to be possibly physically restrained or escorted out but without harming them or using any real damaging force." Yes, and I am saying that push hands skills, more than striking or throwing or even joint locking skills would be pretty useful in this specific situation. What's wrong with that?

Note sure if you ever tried dealing with a drunk uncle , but PH in its "standard" format, at least IME, has nothing at all to do with restraining anyone. If anything, you'll just annoy the hell out of him. PH skills may be helpful in general, but probably not very useful in that particular case since no actual "restraining" ideas/techniques are present there, again IME. And the last thing you want to do is off-balance the guy even further than he already is...

[daniel pfister]

PH in its "standard" format, at least IME, has nothing at all to do with restraining anyone.

And this may in fact be where our disagreements come from. As I learned PH, it was always explained to me by both my main large-frame Yang and CMC taiji teachers that the main object of PH and Taiji in general was to control the movements of your opponent. This would naturally include restraining IMO. I understand many people do push hands just to learn how to push someone back a step or two, and that is the main reason why I have started posting more often on forums like this. There is so much more that can be learned about taiji from PH than what you see in "standard" PH competitions rules.

[Chris McKinley]

Dmitri,

RE: "From whom did you learn taiji, again? TIA". Li Xian (John Li).

daniel pfister,

RE: "I agree with that, but you said before we should NOT base training on what is more likely to happen. You seem to be changing you position here.". Not even remotely. In fact, I honestly don't know what it is that you don't understand here. If you're training to protect yourself in what is, by its very nature, an extreme situation, you must at least train for the intensity level that is native to that context. A real life-threatening assault is not served by training which does not prepare the individual for that level of intensity. Put as simply as I can make it, it's a matter of training that falls along a spectrum of intensity, not trying to brainstorm every possible way that intensity might manifest itself, i.e., torn apart by wolves on the way to a macrame class.

Once again, if your training prepares you for the most intense type of eventuality, then it's much easier to mitigate the level of your response, as appropriate, to situations that require a lesser response. If your training prepares you only for a lesser situation, it's impossible to play catch-up in the moment you find yourself facing a much worse scenario.

RE: " I agree, but I wasn't arguing that anyone should.". By arguing for the sufficiency of push hands skills alone, you are doing exactly that, whether intentional or not.

RE: "Yes, and I am saying that push hands skills, more than striking or throwing or even joint locking skills would be pretty useful in this specific situation. What's wrong with that?". No....I'm the one who suggested that analogy as an example of a lesser situation that doesn't require injurious tactics, and that doesn't qualify as a real combat situation, nor even as a real fight. You then twisted it into something where the violent relative was trying to kill you. While twisting my analogy was dishonest, it frankly helps make my point. If Drunk Uncle Fred were to decide he's going to turn Thanksgiving into a horror movie massacre, there isn't anything your mere push hands skills are going to be able to do about it. I meant the analogy as an example of a situation where push hands or other lower-intensity skills might be of value. By dishonestly twisting my analogy, you only furthered my point anyway.

RE: "My position is that push hands done right, with an emphasis on softness to manipulate others and root for power and alignment, is a useful practice which can be applied to other types of combat training, and in certain limited cases like Uncle Fred, combat itself.". Now who's changing their tune? I've said nothing critical of the ability of push hands to be "applied to other types of combat training". In fact, that's precisely what I believe it is useful for. From the beginning, what I've been arguing, and what you've been arguing against, is the fact that push hands by itself is an insufficient training method for real combat, and that those "other types of combat training" are absolutely necessary.

Further, I have very clearly, explicitly and precisely stated that the Drunk Uncle Fred situation is not an example of real combat, as you are hereby equating it. In fact, I believe the words I used were, "The drunk Uncle Fred analogy, yeah. There's only one problem...that's not a real situation. That's not even close to the real thing. That doesn't even qualify as a fight.". That you are taking my analogy of a low-intensity situation that doesn't require combat skill, and using it as an example of a combat situation, speaks volumes about your understanding of and experience with what real combat actually is.

There's nothing wrong with being uninitiate to that particular kind of experience in and of itself. I wish nobody had to experience it. The problem comes when you then try to argue to those who do have the experience that they don't know what they're talking about and that somehow you do. I'll save you some time....nobody on earth who has faced real combat is going to buy an argument that push hands, by itself, is sufficient for dealing with it, so don't waste your breath.

[Doc Stier]

If you're training to protect yourself in what is, by its very nature, an extreme situation, you must at least train for the intensity level that is native to that context.

A real life-threatening assault is not served by training which does not prepare the individual for that level of intensity. If your training prepares you only for a lesser situation, it's impossible to play catch-up in the moment you find yourself facing a much worse scenario.

....nobody on earth who has faced real combat is going to buy an argument that push hands, by itself, is sufficient....

Agreed on all of the above points.

Good tui-shou skills can certainly contribute to the quality of a fighter's combative skills, but can never exclusively prepare a fighter for the intensity of potential life and death combat as a stand alone training method.

Push hands techniques alone won't even work to survive Boot Camp combat training, let alone anything more intense on the battlefield or on the streets.

[daniel pfister]

I've said nothing critical of the ability of push hands to be "applied to other types of combat training". In fact, that's precisely what I believe it is useful for. From the beginning, what I've been arguing, and what you've been arguing against, is the fact that push hands by itself is an insufficient training method for real combat, and that those "other types of combat training" are absolutely necessary.

Very well, I think I understand position and do not have a substantive disagreement. I was not being dishonest with you, I just think my definition of real combat would include low-intensity and battlefield intensity. Perhaps you could be a bit more clear about exactly what you believe to be "a real fight" in the future because I would simply define it as any uncontrolled physical confrontation, your view evidently includes a level of intensity. Anyway, that was just semantics.

I will say something about my experience with the high-intensity situations that you spoke of. One of the reasons I got into taiji was that when I faced a one of those situations, even though I trained many years prior with a very high-intensity Vietnam Vet Karate instructor, I felt as if I nearly froze up and couldn't perform any of the techniques I had learned. Obviously, I survived the situation, but upon reflection I realized that training to keep my body and thus my mind more relaxed in general was a better way to prepare myself for those types of situations. Of course, much of this could be due to my personality, but training for intensity seemed to limit the things I could do, yet after I learned to relax and yield as the initial response to an intense situation, I found I was much more able to think and function. Thus, while others might be in high-intensity mode, I seek to maintain the low for as long as possible.

[daniel pfister]

Good tui-shou skills can certainly contribute to the quality of a fighter's combative skills, but can never exclusively prepare a fighter for the intensity of potential life and death combat as a stand alone training method.

Just to be clear, I do not advocate PH as a "stand alone" training method for any kind of fight. I don't even advocate push hands as a "stand alone" training method for push hands itself.

[daniel pfister]

Once again, if your training prepares you for the most intense type of eventuality, then it's much easier to mitigate the level of your response, as appropriate, to situations that require a lesser response. If your training prepares you only for a lesser situation, it's impossible to play catch-up in the moment you find yourself facing a much worse scenario.

Actually, I disagree with this. I have met Marines and SF guys whose very high-intensity training seemed to make it even more difficult for them to mitigate their responses. Every burst of anger or potentially violent situation would turn into a life or death situation. As the saying goes, "when all you have is a hammer everything looks like a nail."

[Chris McKinley]

daniel pfister,

You're a difficult guy to have a conversation with, but you do seem to be acting in good faith at this point, so I will do my best to address your points.

RE: "Perhaps you could be a bit more clear about exactly what you believe to be "a real fight" in the future because I would simply define it as any uncontrolled physical confrontation, your view evidently includes a level of intensity. ". I have already been painfully clear about my exact views on the subject for many years on this forum and others. Take a look at my post count; that's only since the most recent move back to this server. You're brand new here...some of the guys here would get irritated at my broken record act if I clarified all my positions on every topic I discuss every single time a new poster to the forum came on board. I have a large body of contributed input on this forum with a very high signal-to-noise ratio of on-topic posts if you really want to dive into the details of my various positions.

For now, I'll nutshell it this way: if a situation doesn't include the very real and present possibility of serious injury or death, it's not combat, whether you're wearing your coolest tactical camos or dressed for a night on the town. Guys get in plain old-fashioned fights all the time at local bars, clubs and frat parties. Usually, nobody gets seriously or permanently injured. Still lower on the intensity totem pole are "almost-fights".....situations where guys get a little hot at the bar over a spilt beer, or on the softball diamond over a bad referee call or a rougher-than-necessary slide into home base, or a couple of buddies are arguing over whether one of them stole the other's girlfriend.

Sometimes these situations even happen among friends or family, as in my Drunk Uncle Fred analogy. Unless and until they escalate, they don't even qualify as fights, nevermind actual combat. Nobody gets through life without having to deal with at least one of these "almost" situations, and usually they can be de-escalated. They also don't require any martial arts or any other training beyond common sense and a level head.

As to your experience with a real situation, it's all too common. Unfortunately, if you don't have more than just the training to keep your mind and body relaxed, you still aren't prepared to handle the situation. If all you've got is push hands skills, at best you're gonna remain calm and relaxed while the other guy crashes through your defense and puts you in the hospital. Real sufficiency requires both the ability to not freeze up and instead move with the attacker's force, but also the ability to withstand that force if the first strategy fails you, and just as importantly, the ability...both psychologically and physically...to return fire with enough damage to incapacitate and in some cases kill the attacker if necessary. That may sound harsh or whathaveyou, but that's the reality of real combat, and it takes no less than that to be truly and honestly prepared for it. In the immortal words of Wesley, the Dread Pirate Roberts, "anyone who says otherwise is selling something".

[Doc Stier]

I have met Marines and SF guys whose very high-intensity training seemed to make it even more difficult for them to mitigate their responses. Every burst of anger or potentially violent situation would turn into a life or death situation.

Well, that certainly hasn't been my personal experience. On the contrary, the personal self-discipline I acquired through serious martial art training and extensive military training has always allowed me to manifest a well measured and controlled emotional response in virtually any stressful or dangerous situation, as well as highly effective automatic reactions and spontaneous physical responses, regardless of the circumstances. I believe that my experiences in this regard are quite typical of those with similar training backgrounds.

When faced with dangerous or potentially life threatening situations, I don't express uncontrolled anger or rush forward with reckless abandon. Instead, in order to better assess my surrounding environment, I immediately become very quiet and more alert, which other people sometimes erroneously mistake for fear. I am thereby able to perceive and react more quickly in the situation at hand.

A good combat soldier or a good fighter can't afford the luxury of uncontrolled emotions and undisciplined reactions.

[Chris McKinley]

Ditto, Doc....same here. I've only personally known of one guy over many years who had any difficulty making that distinction, and he'd already had a history of acting out on anger before his training. Professional programs don't train people to be mindless brute rules by their emotions, but quite the contrary.