the rum soaked fist: internal martial arts forum

What would be your thoughts on his explanation of what's going on at the 10 minute mark?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N621TuHNbPA

I think that this is the same dynamic as is shown in the “unbendable arm” that is commonly demonstrated in Aikido, and sometimes in TJQ.

My interpretation is essentially that the arm is in a rather weak position to oppose the force that is being applied to it, at least if one tries using their mobilizing muscles to produce a counter-force in the opposite direction to the applied force (i.e., resisting force, or force against force). Instead, rather than oppositional force, one can utilize the stabilizer muscles at a tangent (in this case along the length of the arm, 90 degrees to the applied force – then your structure will be stable and the person pushing the arm would then be pushing the entire body instead of just the isolated arm).

[Note that in this specific case, one would be slightly more successful opposing the force by activating the “yin” muscles (inner side of the arm and chest) to pull the arm outward towards the shoulder line rather than activating the “yang” muscles (outer side of the arm and back) which would push the arm against the applied force (i.e., by absorbing rather than projecting).]

The stabilizer muscles can feel effortless because they are small and not very noticeable since they tend to lie deeper in the body, and they consume little or no ATP (slow twitch muscles do not suffer from the rapid accumulation of lactic acid that fast twitch muscles do as a byproduct of activation). This is also a big part of “six-direction” force that can stabilize one’s structure and result in a “ball-like” quality. To me, this stabile structure is also what is developed in ZZ training, and should help stabilize one’s structure to forces coming from any direction.

The mind game (intent, qi, flowing water, or whatever other imagery is utilized) simply allows one to engage the structural stabilizer muscles rather than trying to oppose the force, which would likely activate the mobilizing muscles. In TJQ this is the same idea as thinking that one is practicing solo while interacting with an opponent (or using intent rather than force...) – you allow your structure to hold your shape (pengjin if you prefer) rather than activating oppositional muscles [“steel wrapped in cotton” is another image that comes from this dynamic].

I have written an article on this topic that should be posted soon on the Slanted Flying web site.

To paraphrase Bruce
The art of pushing without pushing

Most of his stuff is just typical chee soo stuff but I do like tape 3 of his ruler stuff

[youtube]https://youtu.be/kim4YsJEvfw[/

https://youtu.be/kim4YsJEvfw

GrahamB wrote:What would be your thoughts on his explanation of what's going on at the 10 minute mark?

Simply put, it's a very common technique taught to beginners in order to help them make use of the extensors to create power and stability rather than the flexors.

First he use one finger to push the "dummy" with the force going slightly to his left, pulling him off balance. You can see that he follow the movement to the left to drag him off balance.
Second, when he push with both arms, he pushes to the right, against the "dummy", straight in line with the "dummy's" right foot, so the effect will be that he is actually stabilizing him.

So it's a slightly deceptive trick, maybe hard to spot if you don't compare the directions of the first and second "attempt". Who he is trying to fool I have no idea, himself, his students or others. The "idea" to "stretch" the yi far away has very little with the effect you see here. The teacher stabilize the other guy's structure with a few shifts so that the structure supports the pressure in one specific angle. Keeping the arm out without bending it should be enough. But pressure in any other angle would make it collapse or have just the same effect as his one finger drag.

That's what I thought Bao - it's the wacky 'tests' of pushing with one finger, then pushing completely differently next time, without appearing to realise he's doing it....

Bao is correct, He changed the vector, which changes the result.

I don't think that there was really anything wrong with the concepts though.