Slow vs Fast

[Bhassler]

I think you hit the nail on the head with your slow sparring example. The purpose of going slow is to be attentive. A beginner may go slow so he can remember where to put his feet. A little later, he he may know the form but be trying to feel how he balances himself. An intermedite guy may refine that to feel the connection from fingertips through C7 to the hip joints and on to the feet. An advanced guy may feel dozens of leaping off points along each circle of each joint for any number of applications.

So the outward form may remain basically the same, as may the speed of practice, but the attentive capacity of the practitioner may be many times greater for the experienced guy. When it comes time to go fast, the experienced guy doesn't have to interpret the incoming data of a punch, kick, throw, etc. because he's already felt it in practice hundreds of times. This is where taiji can follow so effectively-- it's not a matter of volitionally deciding to go where they are trying to take you, it's just a matter of relaxing and in a sense falling along any of the hundreds of paths already learned and available in the nervous system. This is a very different phenonmena than so-called "muscle memory" or any other skill learned by rote. A piano player can practice a song hundreds of times and get the notes and timing perfectly, but unless that piano player has approached the practice with beginner's mind and actually listened to the notes they were playing, then they will be lost when they try to riff with a jazz band. Of course, many people learn without consciously applying attention-- a person could just do a chin-na for example hundreds of times with hundreds of different partners and try making it work, and eventually that person would gain an intuitive sense of the adjustments they would need to make for all the slight variations in diverse situations. It has been my experience, however, that the learning is richer and more effective if we recognize what it actually is we are doing and how the learning process works, so we can become expert learners as well as expert fighters.

[internalenthusiast]

nice post. yours too, interloper.

[kreese]

My taiji teacher taught me a traditional saying, that from extreme slowness comes extreme speed. Anyone care to comment from their experience?

[SPJ]

Yes. Everything has to be considered within a context.

In classics, there is a sentence Yi Jin Zhi Dong. using things in stillness to overcome things in movement.

The concept escaped me for a long long while.

Then one day I was told to consider the yielding aspect.

Then the sentence started to make some senses to me.

The opponent would start to approach and start his attack based on our current position and posture.

We have to yield or move away from the current position when he comes.

The opponent is fast and starts early.

We are slower in time or start late. But if we move to a position that is advantageout to us, once the opponent started to approach us. We may gain upperhand.

This applies to steps, rotation of the waist/shoulder, forearm around the elbow, palm/fist around the wrist etc.

Yielding first is prefered in Tai Ji.

Once a contact is made, and we neutralize the opponent's attack, we then start our counter move.

So initially, we start late/slower. However, we are fast in the counter move or ahead of the opponent.

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Just to start some discussion.

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[SPJ]

In terms of practice.

1. the first routine of Tai Ji, we practice Peng Lu Ji An, we practice them slowly, evenly and continuously. They are about circles, and we cover space or plane. They are important for neutralization. They continue the opponent's movements and guide them or divert/redirect them away from us (from our new position or posture). So that the opponent's moves or force may not harm us.

2. the second routine of Tai Ji or pao chui, we practice Cai Lie Zhou Kao, we practice them fast.

They are to interrupt the opponent's force and movement suddenly and fast (Cai Lie). or strike (Zhou Kao).

another big aspect of practice and tactics and strategy slow vs fast.

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