Re: Single Hand Push Hands Critique
Posted: Thu Jul 27, 2017 9:08 am
Bao wrote:no one is going to be "fighting" by first sticking out their right arms anyway
Exactly, it's a cooperative game.
Free style push hands requires a completely different mind-set. You must dominate your opponent's space as soon as it starts and keep dominating it. You shouldn't give your opponent a slice of opportunity to do anything. You shouldn't exchange give and take, there should only be instantly finding the gaps, fill in and continuing to fill in. The exchange between forces in drills: single, double or four corners, can really develop the wrong habits. If drills resemble the water moving back and forth on the beach, free play should be a flood or tsunami, completely flooding your opponent giving him no room for returning or even to flee.
Would you agree that perhaps there is spectrum of cooperation in drills? At the far end of the cooperative side of MA drills, mostly of the aikido variety, clearly show this duality that your describing, with one person doing the technique (nage) of the other receiving it (uke). Although I realize this kind of mentality in training is unavoidable to some extant, I try to have any "drills" shed the sense that there is this route give-and-take; rather, at any point in a good TJQ drill IMO, either party should be able to find the gaps (or protrusions) and assume the advantage. That's a big part of what I'm trying to express in this video, and really the main critique I have of much of the SHP I've seen.