playing humble and not playing humble

[neijia_boxer]

I think there are alot of people who think my push hands and sparring skills are not very high because I tend to play nice and soft.

Mostly with Tui shou i like to learn new things and work on the softer approach to skill development and less competitive 'must win' at pushing . recently i was in the park doing push hands and this chinese guy was pushing me really hard, so I kept absorbing his strength and putting it into the ground until he got tired and out of breath. I stayed relaxed and wasnt tired or out of breath. His teacher said something in chinese to him and then he decided to play soft and intruct that way.

Another time was the muay thai gym in sparring, those who are new to class start to talk and teach you all the time in the middle of sparring, they keep talking and interrupting the sparring session, i'll listen and say 'OK' and then jab cross them in the face and totally surprise them.

sometimes I just get tired being mr. nice guy with the learning like they think I'm dumb or something.

[yusuf]

don;t worry dude, train your stuff and screw them.. from training softly you have managed to figure out how they move, what they can and can;t do.. you know where the holes are in their method and where they are better than you or not... you know how to defeat them.... as long as you aren't interested in getting some sort of group status thing going you've won!

[Daniel]

All warfare is based on deception.


D.

Sarcasm. Oh yeah, like that´ll work.

[C.J.Wang]

I understand your frustration. I've had similar experiences numerous times before in Taiwan.

One of the teachers I studied under was an old Fukien White Crane practitioner with a very unique and soft approach in PH. In order to be polite and learn what he had to offer, I'd usually just play the training dummy and let him push and shove me all over the place whenever we practiced at the park while other students and bystanders watched, thinking that I was a total beginner. Since I was also the youngest student, after a while I noticed that people started treating me as the guinea pig that everyone can knock around to show off.

Nowadays I don't play much Mr. Niceguy anymore. When I meet other martial artists for the first time, I find ways to let them have a sense of what I know and can do instead of being humble and downplaying myself. However, I usually try to achieve it inconspicously without making the other person lose face because, obviously, respect is something that should be mutual.

[justincasea]

I think there are alot of people who think my push hands and sparring skills are not very high because I tend to play nice and soft.

sometimes I just get tired being mr. nice guy with the learning like they think I'm dumb or something.

Pushing hands is not a fight, instead, it is a learning process. You have the right approach. you can learn more by being soft as long as your opponent has appropriate training or basic understanding of Tui Shou.
Playing nice and soft does not mean you have to be weak. I have yet to push anyone off balance in public, however, I know I am doing good when two things are happening during a pushhands:
(1) there is no double weighting on my part, my oppponent cannot get a hold of me. this is not a colllape
(2) My body is guarded by "peng jing" (soft but not collapse), even if my opponent goes all the way to my body, he can perceive the threat of my internal energy if he is to make more advance.
If you can do this, in no time your opponent will feel losing control. You will be perceived as being weak.

One more thing, please use internal body mechanics to do the push hands, otherwise, the pushhands become Shuaijiao, Cinnan, etc. you would not learn anything productive, instead, you will be farther away from the real taichi/taiji.

Please always be gentle, your opponent should feel like being massaged - a free massge what a treat!

[yusuf]

All warfare is based on deception.


D.

Sarcasm. Oh yeah, like that´ll work.

.. you are still there to learn what the teacher is sharing, but if the partner is being an asshole then you still get to learn what the teacher is sharing..plus how to fuck up someone who moves like your training partner

[neijia_boxer]

what i think is funny is when the new guy at the school or new person in sparring class (who probably been to other schools before) starting talking to you in the middle of sparring like you never sparred before with a mouth piece which you cant understand what the f%$^k he is saying anyways.

dont get me wrong. i mean i do respect and appreciate feedback, i just cant understand you with the mouth piece, heavy breathing, and spitting.

[Juan]

I think there are alot of people who think my push hands and sparring skills are not very high because I tend to play nice and soft.

Mostly with Tui shou i like to learn new things and work on the softer approach to skill development and less competitive 'must win' at pushing . recently i was in the park doing push hands and this chinese guy was pushing me really hard, so I kept absorbing his strength and putting it into the ground until he got tired and out of breath. I stayed relaxed and wasnt tired or out of breath. His teacher said something in chinese to him and then he decided to play soft and intruct that way.

Another time was the muay thai gym in sparring, those who are new to class start to talk and teach you all the time in the middle of sparring, they keep talking and interrupting the sparring session, i'll listen and say 'OK' and then jab cross them in the face and totally surprise them.

sometimes I just get tired being mr. nice guy with the learning like they think I'm dumb or something.

LOL...same exact thing happens to me. It does get frustrating at times but it's another opportunity to practice "letting go."

[fuga]

Please always be gentle, your opponent should feel like being massaged - a free massge what a treat!

I always gauge a good push hands session by how much it feels that I have received a massage. It's good feedback on whether I was getting mentally caught in any part of my body.

[Chris McKinley]

You can't train to impress other people; that's a long and ultimately fruitless pursuit. If somebody gets out of hand, warn them, then next time put them down and have them permanently removed from the training environment or leave yourself. Other than that, nothing succeeds like success....just keep at it and keep improving. Eventually it won't matter what they think. Personally, I had to learn to work past that whole thing of being assumed to have no knowledge/no skill years ago. Try telling a bunch of high speed/low draggers that you're there to teach them how to fight and you'll see what I mean.

[Taijikid]

Why play soft only at push hand? You are not trying to kill someone softly. You have not learned whether the holes you see are real or not if you don't execute your attack when you think the opportunities were there. You have not learned the counters to counters....holes in holes or the weak points of your attack. You may think that you are humble, but was it that you are just not in control.

[neijia_boxer]

Why play soft only at push hand? You are not trying to kill someone softly. You have not learned whether the holes you see are real or not if you don't execute your attack when you think the opportunities were there. You have not learned the counters to counters....holes in holes or the weak points of your attack. You may think that you are humble, but was it that you are just not in control.

That was well put. It is important for me to attempt not play the same game of tense, grab, and shove. My counter is usually to tense up and apply force back like in the story. To me the sense of control was to relax and take the incoming force and give the guy a hard time without getting tired of his shoving. that is where humility runs thin.

[MartialDev]

You may think that you are humble, but was it that you are just not in control.

I think the Taiji community, at large, needs a little more honesty and a little less "humility".

[bailewen]

For the most part, Shifu doesn't allow me to "fa" people in push hands.

At first I thought he just wanted me to watch and learn and not get caught up in "winning". Over time though I have realized he was aiming at something higher. When you only play "defense" and do not allow yourself to attempt any applications for a long enough time, eventually your hand gets forced. Applications "happen" but in a very different way then if you went looking for them. It kind of forced some light on how to apply things right at the moment when the other guy thinks he is taking the initiative.

Actually, in the little Muay Thai I did my coach had a similar idea, just didn't take it as far. Defense first. Once you had learned to comfortably stay "in the pocket" you could then start to pick your shots and not waste much energy.

[johnwang]

Why play soft only at push hand?

I always have a question on this. I have always believed that to prevent a problem from happening is better than to let the problem to happen and then try to fix it. Why do we allow our opponent to push us and then try to yield? Why not just prevent our opponent from generating that force in the 1st place? Some Fajin that we may not want our opponent to generate but some Fajin we may. It's up to whether we decide that we want to take advantage on that Fajin or not. At 0.04 of this clip, you can see GM chang uses his right hand to push his opponent's right shoulder when his opponent tried to punch with right hand. When his opponent used his left hand to punch, GM Chang then takes advantage on that. This way you control what you want your opponent to do (at least that's your intention) and not let your opponent to do whatever that he wants to do. It's different mind set IMO.

http://johnswang.com/central_police_col ... class2.WMV (at 0.04)