How Serious Push Hands Training Oughta Be

[Michael Babin]

Threads like this are much like having a discussion about the value of faith in religion at a table crowded with atheists, agnostics, heathens, fundamentalists of every ilk as well as liberals. Lots of noise and heat but very few people change their minds by the end of the meal.

Hmmm. perhaps the real difference is that in a martial discussion, you can always resort in person to "Here, "I'll hit you and show me how your stuff works.".

Then the true believer can then look up from the ground and say derisively "Yes, but you used too much force." or perhaps "Yes, but my master would have handled that easily."

[gimpster]

Unitaichi

Dajenerit brings up some very good observations, Wang pretty much comes off as a showman doing parlor tricks with his minions. No one who has been in a fight takes that stuff seriously.

It's clear Wang's crash test dummies are over acting to make it look like the old man is some sort of electric eel or Jedi master. It's quite laughable.

I would just like to see for once some of the supporters of this stuff video themselves in a ring doing some hard sparring just to see if they can translate this material it into something useful as opposed to some sort of woo woo patty cake that you need minions to make work.

[Dajenarit]

I think you're confusing Wang Peisheng's video with the one Windwalker posted of Sifu Guo.

The video I linked to of Wang Peisheng's push hands actually look like it'll be effective in a fight, despite the demo that it obviously is. I was trying to juxtapose that to the other non-movement push hand videos. I'm trying to understand if what is being implied by the videos being posted and some of the things said in these conversation is whether you can actually defend yourself let alone win a fight with no movement whatsoever at just the level what is being called intent? Is it being said that the effects on the opponent (or compliant student in these cases) and the outcomes we see are made purely on the mental level?

Other than that I'm wondering even if those capabilities are official, is it really a smart way to train and to teach your students how to train in dealing with a wild violent confrontation? If an opponent can get behind you to be able to place both hands on your shoulders whats to stop him from just going the extra mile and putting a knife to your back?

[Dajenarit]

Hi Dajenerit,

I'm talking about at 2:45 when the chubby guy starts limp-wrist massaging the old mans shoulders and they start that little count down, the old man sinks down and then the chubby dudes swings one leg up, does a small hop in the air and stumbles back a few feet. Meanwhile the old man stays low after sinking and he doesn't even bother moving his shoulders. So what the hell is the chubby dude reacting to?

Let me asked you, when you touch the hot stove, do you see(as observer) or do you feel(as one touching it) what make you recoil your hand Can you see the energy coming out or emit from the hot stove

Do you see the connection here ?

In the 'Intent' thread, you did what others said is impossible by physics/science, using your reasoning and 'doing' based on 'natural (re)action of the body. But in the almost same breath, you wrote ;

Well all I'm gonna say is as far as I know its physically impossible to run backwards as fast or nimble as you can forwards. The physiology of our legs isn't meant for that. Even if you manage to get your legs behind you after being propelled backwards from a strong enough force your feet are still facing the wrong way. In my experience all you end up with is hurt legs and fucked up toes. Its better imo to breakfall the momentum away. I'll leave it at that.

So what happenned to 'natural reaction' Pls google youtube for ferdie Adoboe, the fastest man (running) backwards.

I will leave it at that as well as I have no interest to prove or disprove whether one can do the above .

I am more interested to emphasized ; using other type of energies(3 type mentioned in the blog) to compare to the specific type of energy in taiji in question, especially when one admits he has not experienced (don't even talk about doing) is simply not rigourous. How can one compare something one does not even know Speculation or analysis ? I leave it to other to decide for themselves.

Cheers,
UniTaichi

Just because I dont have experience in Push hands doesn't mean I'll turn my common sense off if something looks hocus pocus. I know enough to know the world is a big and strange place indeed, so I'm trying to be respectful in my questions about other peoples practices and give the benefit of the doubt.

To answer some of your questions though.

Let me asked you, when you touch the hot stove, do you see(as observer) or do you feel(as one touching it) what make you recoil your hand Can you see the energy coming out or emit from the hot stove

Energy is energy I understand but heat and kinectic energy are 2 different forms of itm with differing qualities and effects. I'm pretty certain the old man in the video wasn't burning the chubby guys fingers with his shoulders through his shirt.

In the 'Intent' thread, you did what others said is impossible by physics/science, using your reasoning and 'doing' based on 'natural (re)action of the body. But in the almost same breath, you wrote ;............So what happenned to 'natural reaction' Pls google youtube for ferdie Adoboe, the fastest man (running) backwards.

I don't know who said or believes that what I did was impossible. I never got that impression. You can see even more extreme versions of dudes landing on their feet after being launched at high velocities from motorcycles in the videos I posted for the other thread. If I was for whatever reason sitting backwards while going down that 45 degree hill at 25-30 mph and my bike was violently stopped in that way I'll be the first to admit I would prolly be dead now or ended up with serious injuries. In fact I suspect that the hill being on a downard decline actually allowed me the added space and time to pull the whole thing off, cuz lets be honest, if a person gets pushed with enough force even if its directing them forward they might not be able to catch their footing, feet facing the right way and all.



In the video you mentioned you can clearly see how difficult it is for people to actually run backwards with any type of grace or speed and some actually fall on their asses while under their own power. That guy Ferdie is a wonder but like the report says. He's been practicing that backwards run since '83 and I think we can all admit that running on level ground isn't exactly the same thing as being violently uprooted and thrown. Its certainly different from a push hand context when you're struggling with an opponent trying to actively manipulate your structure.

You see at about 41 secs. The guy gets uprooted and tossed with enough force that he has no choice but to roll out. Thats how I and everyone I've shown these videos to would expect someone to react, Throwing arts teach breakfalling not as a last resort but out of necessity when your center of balance is violently taken away..



Same thing here. Why did the guy just fall on his ass if it can be avoided?




Anyway I"ll leave it at that for now.

Cheers Uni.

[daniel pfister]

Hi guys,

Sorry I've been MIA on my own thread, but I can see it's gotten into the same old arguments about the supposed abilities of Tai Chi masters. I would actually prefer we discuss the topic "How Serious Push Hands Training Oughta Be" instead.

So on that note, if you don't like the clip I posted (and there are certainly things that I would train differently, such as teh hip throw, and perhaps substituting Santi for the Wuji posture) what suggestions do you have for intensive, well-rounded Tai Chi training, to make one capable of competing, sparring, or somehow dealing with another martial artist of a different style?

Thanks

[willywrong]

taiji was once called touch boxing ...

That's pretty sad way to look at the Taiji style.

where is the faijin?

I don't like that clip either.

As I have said before, even in those 2 Fajin clips, each Fajin would take about 1 second to do it. In combat, you may not have that 1 second. Again, we have talked about this power and speed trade off issue so many times in the past. When you move in the speed as shown in the following clip, a 100% Fajin is hard (if not impossible) to achieve.

John you've given me credit in the above quotes well they belong to WindWalker so I would appreciate you getting it right because it pisses me off when people credit me saying things I haven't said. So go fuck yourself John.

[Dajenarit]

Lol say huh? You must be taking the piss.

[johnwang]

John you've given me credit in the above quotes well they belong to WindWalker so I would appreciate you getting it right because it pisses me off when people credit me saying things I haven't said. So go fuck yourself John.

A good friend of mine once asked me, "Why do you want to waste your time on internet discussion? If someone tell you to go fuck yourself, what can you do?" He was right. There is nothing that I can do when you say, "So go fuck yourself John."

I quoted it from your post directly. Is this your post?

a small story.

I once met a chen stylist in one of parks here a while back.
he mentioned also that he felt yang style taiji didnt have any faijin.
I replied it does, do you want to feel it?
he said "yes" I place my hand on his shoulder and asked him if he felt it.
he said "no I didn't feel anything".

I said okay, this time I will follow with my body, he ended up on the ground and asked me if I would like to feel chen style
I said "yes" he fajined to my arm, as is done in the many clips...it didnt have anything to react with and so did not affect me. I told him it was pretty good
and we both went back to our practices.

taiji was once called touch boxing
respect to both teachers
clip used for illustration only

where is the faijin?



If both of these guys had any sense they wouldn't have engaged in such a limited way to demonstrate their various styles. The game they're playing is at the exact point where one finds an opening and should strike through the hole. To not strike is to solicit strength.

[Andy_S]

John:

What do you think of the current state of Henan (Chen and Zhaobao) push hands?

Many on this board think this is not "real" taiji as it is too much like rassling, while others (like you) think they don't use enough leg so it is not "real" SC.

Personally, I think it is a huge improvement over the old PH systems which were mainly about "pushing and pulling" but I would be interested in your opinion.

[johnwang]

John:

What do you think of the current state of Henan (Chen and Zhaobao) push hands?

Many on this board think this is not "real" taiji as it is too much like rassling, while others (like you) think they don't use enough leg so it is not "real" SC.

Personally, I think it is a huge improvement over the old PH systems which were mainly about "pushing and pulling" but I would be interested in your opinion.

IMO, the

- Taiji PH is a subset of wrestling,
- wrestling is a subset of Sanda/Sanshou/MMA.

So Taiji PH -> wrestling -> Sanda/Sanshou/MMA is the right progress.

You have to understand the hard before you can understand the soft. Unfortunately, many people try to skip that level of training. The OP's clip has addressed that issue. One of David C. K. Lin's student defeated a Olympic Judo silver metal because that Judo guy didn't know how to handle the "extreme hard".

[willywrong]

John you've given me credit in the above quotes well they belong to WindWalker so I would appreciate you getting it right because it pisses me off when people credit me saying things I haven't said. So go fuck yourself John.

A good friend of mine once asked me, "Why do you want to waste your time on internet discussion? If someone tell you to go fuck yourself, what can you do?" He was right. There is nothing that I can do when you say, "So go fuck yourself John."

I quoted it from your post directly. Is this your post?

a small story.

I once met a chen stylist in one of parks here a while back.
he mentioned also that he felt yang style taiji didnt have any faijin.
I replied it does, do you want to feel it?
he said "yes" I place my hand on his shoulder and asked him if he felt it.
he said "no I didn't feel anything".

I said okay, this time I will follow with my body, he ended up on the ground and asked me if I would like to feel chen style
I said "yes" he fajined to my arm, as is done in the many clips...it didnt have anything to react with and so did not affect me. I told him it was pretty good
and we both went back to our practices.

taiji was once called touch boxing
respect to both teachers
clip used for illustration only

where is the faijin?



If both of these guys had any sense they wouldn't have engaged in such a limited way to demonstrate their various styles. The game they're playing is at the exact point where one finds an opening and should strike through the hole. To not strike is to solicit strength.

a small story.

I once met a chen stylist in one of parks here a while back.
he mentioned also that he felt yang style taiji didnt have any faijin.
I replied it does, do you want to feel it?
he said "yes" I place my hand on his shoulder and asked him if he felt it.
he said "no I didn't feel anything".

I said okay, this time I will follow with my body, he ended up on the ground and asked me if I would like to feel chen style
I said "yes" he fajined to my arm, as is done in the many clips...it didnt have anything to react with and so did not affect me. I told him it was pretty good
and we both went back to our practices.

taiji was once called touch boxing
respect to both teachers
clip used for illustration only

where is the faijin?

[/quote]

If both of these guys had any sense they wouldn't have engaged in such a limited way to demonstrate their various styles. The game they're playing is at the exact point where one finds an opening and should strike through the hole. To not strike is to solicit strength.

This is what was actually posted John. And if you look underneath the clip you see the quote mark. I deleted everything above it and if you've read the prior posts by windwalker you'd know that it belonged to him not me.
As for you not been able to do any think because it's on the Internet let me enlighten you to something John if you and I are in a small room and it only had one door and it was locked you still couldn't do anything. So go fuck yourself again John.

[Dajenarit]

Willy? Fuck is wrong wit you. For 1 John never did nuthin to no one on this forum as far as I know to deserve that kind of disrespect. Windwalker edited that part of his post out. If anything it was an honest mistake which John didn't realize or certainly didn't do on purpose. .. You off your meds old man? Or better yet, learn how to use the quote function properly. That shit aint cool and its not that serious to be throwing a tantrum.

[windwalker]

the post was mine, i did edit it not really wanting to talk much about myself,,,seemed like it didnt make my point.
same as the clip, it didn't translate to well...my point was with the clip as in my own experience its to slow.
others may find different.

happnes

[Trip]

If WindWalker's name appeared above his quote, it may have cut down on the confusion of who said what.
The missing element that caused all the confusion was this: windwalker wrote:
Without that element when John hits quote, The quote system attributes the quote to the Poster. That poster happened to be, "Willywrong".

If the correct element was used, when Windwalker was 1st quoted, it would look like this:

*&)**=+ !@#$ ^&*!!

And, would have turned out more like below.

a small story.

I once met a chen stylist in one of parks here a while back.
he mentioned also that he felt yang style taiji didnt have any faijin.
I replied it does, do you want to feel it?
he said "yes" I place my hand on his shoulder and asked him if he felt it.
he said "no I didn't feel anything".

I said okay, this time I will follow with my body, he ended up on the ground and asked me if I would like to feel chen style
I said "yes" he fajined to my arm, as is done in the many clips...it didnt have anything to react with and so did not affect me. I told him it was pretty good
and we both went back to our practices.

taiji was once called touch boxing
respect to both teachers
clip used for illustration only

where is the faijin?

If both of these guys had any sense they wouldn't have engaged in such a limited way to demonstrate their various styles. The game they're playing is at the exact point where one finds an opening and should strike through the hole. To not strike is to solicit strength.

☮☮☮

[willywrong]

Willy? Fuck is wrong wit you. For 1 John never did nuthin to no one on this forum as far as I know to deserve that kind of disrespect. Windwalker edited that part of his post out. If anything it was an honest mistake which John didn't realize or certainly didn't do on purpose. .. You off your meds old man? Or better yet, learn how to use the quote function properly. That shit aint cool and its not that serious to be throwing a tantrum.

MOB