the rum soaked fist: internal martial arts forum

Sifu Mark Rasmus
Published on Jul 9, 2018:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cIV2o9TvTvk

Sifu Mark Rasmus
Published on Jul 10, 2018:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KQJe79v8GXo

Sifu Mark Rasmus
Published on Jul 10, 2018:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lL6pPCakDEE

He says a lot about thinking but very little about what he actually does. He follows her movement while sinking and adapts to her structure and returns the stored movement against her balance point when expanding. His technique is very good and exact. But this is something you need to learn to feel and you need to be present in what is happening in the now. Awareness of your own body and to interprete what is happening in the interaction is what is important. The energy talk doesn't add anything that could not be explained in the details of doing. If you understand how to do, the energy talk is just nonsense. And you won't learn anything about how to actually do what he does by listening to him. So IMO, it's better to just turn the sound off if you want to learn anything from what he does.

I cant think of Mark Rasmus without thinking he is a student of Adam Mizner and i couldnt think why because i am pretty sure he isnt, I think it is that they both like to demo with pushing people away. Then i remembered it was a testimonial he wrote for Adam:

"In over three decades of martial arts training I have had the pleasure of touching hands with beginners through to Grand Masters. In this time, I have met none that have impressed me, as has Adam Mizner. His balance of softness and power lays testament to his spiritual essence and skill."

As for the videos, i think there is something a bit strange about a huge guy demonstrating soft methods on a tiny partner ... nearly as strange as a constant preference for pushing, bouncing or otherwise projecting someone away. Really not my bag.

He has very stable and secure feet in all his videos though which is a nice attribute.

In general I like his videos and the context in which they're presented.

His pov seems to be on based on push hands, ok in my view as long as one understands what they're doing and doesn't confuse it with anything else.

Agree it would be a little more interesting with the smaller person demoing the skill sets on him.

What a beautiful setting, looks like he has a nice Studio in Thailand. What more could one ask for out of life

Vid. 1. 1.05: "Now I'm going to let you go, so make sure to keep your balance..."

Subtle psychological cues, so you know to run/hop back further this time.

"Cues are internal or external events which have a signalling significance to an organism which subsequently affects learning and behavior. The cue may be verbal of nonverbal. Psychologists tend to manipulate cues in studies of memory perception etc."

Vid. 1. 1.05: "Now I'm going to let you go, so make sure to keep your balance..."

Subtle psychological cues, so you know to run/hop back further this time.

"Cues are internal or external events which have a signalling significance to an organism which subsequently affects learning and behavior. The cue may be verbal of nonverbal. Psychologists tend to manipulate cues in studies of memory perception etc."

Excellent observation.

When I work with people a lot of the time their balance is gone before they understand it. It can come as a surprise to them.

If they have some skill they will recover. If they don't have any skill often one has to warn them so they don't fall and injure themselves.

It may be as Graham suggested a type of suggestion, but one I would think not done for the reasons stated.

Looking at his video listing on his channel his focus seems to be on inner awareness and movement Dynamics expressed through a taiji medium

middleway wrote:

Vid. 1. 1.05: "Now I'm going to let you go, so make sure to keep your balance..."

Subtle psychological cues, so you know to run/hop back further this time.

"Cues are internal or external events which have a signalling significance to an organism which subsequently affects learning and behavior. The cue may be verbal of nonverbal. Psychologists tend to manipulate cues in studies of memory perception etc."

Excellent observation.

Don't agree. Hopping backwards is not necessarily a learned skill (but still obviously faked in quite a few demos). I've done this for real on a person (non-practitioner) who tried attacking me, making him hop backwards further away than this girl. He unexpectedly offered me his mass so I just returned what I got. It happened very fast, no preparation or time to think about what happened. (...Looking back at it I am happy that I didn't return a punch instead...)

I can't promise that I could make any of you hop, but I could surely teach you the mechanics and how to do it on others unexpectedly. IME, it's maybe hard to create this reaction in any type of body, but for the average body type it is quite easy. Setting the whole body mass in movement is not the same as pushing someone to fall backwards. There's a difference. You need to learn how catch the whole body mass when it's in motion. What is shown here is like tripping someone or open the door when someone runs against it trying to break it open. You can stumble quite far before falling down as you obviously instinctively trying to keep yourself from not falling. But here, the direction of force is controlled and returned to the other direction and the momentum is added to. Obviously, someone needs to give up his or her whole mass to make it happen, but the stumbling or hopping, at least as I see in these videos (certainly not real in all demoes) are genuine and hard for the opponent to prevent. It's like being thrown, when you are already in the air, it's already to late to prevent yourself to be thrown.

windwalker wrote:When I work with people a lot of the time their balance is gone before they understand it. It can come as a surprise to them.

If they have some skill they will recover. If they don't have any skill often one has to warn them so they don't fall and injure themselves.

Exactly

My comment on Grahams observation was not on how this is why the person was flying away, but how it is a common tactic of suggestion seen in many demos but often missed, even by people in the room. People will say 'I can make this happen' then they do somehting to a student and the student then searches their mind to justify what the teacher just said even if they didnt really feel anything.

I actually think making people fly away is pretty easy, especially the untrained. Making them fall like a rag ... now thats real internal skill.

Ward off is difficult because its principles and concepts do not approximate the actual reality o fit.
I will admit my own hardheadedness regarding the absurdity of the 2 person form where it does not teach application within the wider realm of martial but it is excellent performance. It can surely be made efficient by integrating shuaijiao (that is my default training method of refeene)) and even judo/jujitsu as core conditioning.

middleway wrote:My comment on Grahams observation was not on how this is why the person was flying away, but how it is a common tactic of suggestion seen in many demos but often missed, even by people in the room. People will say 'I can make this happen' then they do somehting to a student and the student then searches their mind to justify what the teacher just said even if they didnt really feel anything.

I actually think making people fly away is pretty easy, especially the untrained. Making them fall like a rag ... now thats real internal skill.

Agreed. I don't believe that what he shows is very advanced, pretty basic actually. Why push someone away? It's for practice only. When you meet someone you need much better control.

middleway wrote:I cant think of Mark Rasmus without thinking he is a student of Adam Mizner and i couldnt think why because i am pretty sure he isnt, I think it is that they both like to demo with pushing people away. Then i remembered it was a testimonial he wrote for Adam:

"In over three decades of martial arts training I have had the pleasure of touching hands with beginners through to Grand Masters. In this time, I have met none that have impressed me, as has Adam Mizner. His balance of softness and power lays testament to his spiritual essence and skill."

In a bio once Adam Mizner cited Mark Rasmus as a teacher and influence, but he doesn't teach "Mark's Stuff" that I can tell after 42 weeks of his curriculum. Their explanations and exercises (so far) do not seem similar at all. Another student said in a discussion that Adam had "moved away" from what Mark is doing. There was definitely some contact and influence, I think, but nothing formal.

Adam studied for a number of years with Mark. Mark kicked him out of his school due to a number of issues with misbehavior. I won't get into that here, but an internet search for Jason Mizer is all that is needed.

All of that being said, Adam has a very high level of skill at a number of Hermetic disciplines which power his tai chi and Mark acknowledges that. Skill talks and has to be recognized. Also keep in mind, that esoteric power has nothing to do with a practicioner's morality or character. It only has to do with putting the work in.

While Mizner is known for his tai chi, Hermetics, and his own development of Hermetics, is the core of what he actually practices.

As I have mentioned before, a number of "internet famous" people from various lineages actually got their stuff from Rasmus. Mark's openness and ability at transferring various yogic and meditative skills to others is astonishing. I've never seen anything like it. It is also why I keep recommending people to go study with him. I am unsure how much longer he will be publicly teaching. If you want the good stuff, check him out while you can.

Peacedog wrote:Adam studied for a number of years with Mark. Mark kicked him out of his school due to a number of issues with misbehavior. I won't get into that here, but an internet search for Jason Mizer is all that is needed.

Uhm, is that a typo (Adam=/Jason)?