the rum soaked fist: internal martial arts forum

I've posted this video before, but I want everyone to focus in on what's being said from 3:28 to 4:30. To me, this is the whole point of push hands. Would you guys agree with this? Also, if this is the point of Tui Shou, how do you take 'understanding' and apply it to practical fighting?

It would probably help if I posted the video, huh?

H2O wrote:I've posted this video before, but I want everyone to focus in on what's being said from 3:28 to 4:30. To me, this is the whole point of push hands. Would you guys agree with this? Also, if this is the point of Tui Shou, how do you take 'understanding' and apply it to practical fighting?

Well, you're developing attributes rather than some sort of technique right? That's like saying how do I apply speed in a fight? How do I apply being sensitive and soft? I apply them by manifesting those atrributes, right? I don't tense up, I read what he's going to do, I try and maintain contact so that I can continue to read him and I try and stay calm enough that I can read and take advantage of an opportunity to apply whatever is applicable to win the fight.

My 2c.

S

Basically, yeah. I'm a big fan of lifting weights as well. I still need to learn how to use that strength correctly on the fighting floor though or I'm just a big strong target for someone who knows what they're doing.

Same thing with being soft. Just cause you've built understanding, doesn't mean you know what to do with it, especially in a pressure situation. So how do you apply of manifest those attributes?

I'ma guess a mix of free fighting with both individuals who will work with you and let you stop and refine at various points and completely non cooperational sparring.

Either that or those cool programs from the Matrix.

Tom wrote:One of the curious things about Zheng taijiquan's teaching is that Zheng did not like to let the partner or opponent make contact with his torso. Now, in one sense that is practical--you want to try to keep space. But ultimately it's unrealistic--a heavy hitter or skilled grappler is going to come through and get your body. Zheng's curriculum and Zheng himself never really taught how to deal with the close-in grappling and takedowns. Royce would have choked Zheng out.

That's funny!

I've seen both men fight, although Royce only in the ring and Cheng only on the street.

Cheng was a small man by comparison to Royce, but employed integrated, whole body power with far greater speed than Royce has ever demonstrated.

I don't envision Cheng getting choked out by anyone. There would have been a serious price to pay in attempting to grab and grapple with Cheng at close quarters, as he was known to use dian-xue-shu with uncanny, pinpoint target accuracy on anyone who tried to do so.

To the best of my knowledge, nobody ever choked Cheng out back in the day.

Why, oh why can't the dead come back to life to fight for our amusement????

Sighhhhh....My life will never be complete without the answers to these unknowable challenge matches.

I felt that when he said "the purpose of push hands is..." he started to contradict himself on a few of the terms. Some of the terms he used he did not demonstrate in that segment (eg: investing in loss). But at least he was against it being some kind of competition.

meeks wrote:(eg: investing in loss). But at least he was against it being some kind of competition.

"Investing in loss" is not contridict to "trying to win". In SC, If you are good at "leg block" and you can throw your opponent 90% of the time, but if you want to train yout "inner hook", you may force yourself not to use your old skill "leg block" and only use your new skill "inner hook". Since your new skill is not as good as your old skill, your winning rate drop and your losing rate raise. You keep trying your new skill until one day your new skill is as good as your old skill, you then have 2 good skill instead of one for the rest of your life.

The goal is still the same between Taiji and SC and that is you still want to "win in the future". You can't "inverting in loss" for the rest of your life. One of these days, you will need to grow up and move on. The question is "Move on to where?"

johnwang wrote:The goal is still the same between Taiji and SC and that is you still want to "win in the future". You can't "inverting in loss" for the rest of your life. One of these days, you will need to grow up and move on. The question is "Move on to where?"

I think it's a cycle. You invest in loss until you gain a skill, and then you hone the skill. Once you have it, you invest in a different loss. I don't think this concept ever becomes invalid.

I didn't mean 'investing in loss' means "I cannot win". investing in loss is more about letting the opponent enter and working off of what's been dealt your way.

the fact that the next sentence was "at least he's not making it a competition" had nothing to do with the 'invest in loss' statement...I was simply refering to his demonstration in general too many people make push hands all about "push body/move opponent foot"

The more interest discussion may be "what's next?" If you have developed listening, following, sticky, yeilding, ... all those nice abilities through your PH, what will you train next?

johnwang wrote:The more interest discussion may be "what's next?" If you have developed listening, following, sticky, yeilding, ... all those nice abilities through your PH, what will you train next?

It seems to me the logical place to go then is to learn effective counterattack skills, because the above abilities pertain to defense.

The Taiji PH is like the SC grip fight. It will help you to get into a dominate position and set up your finish move, but it cannot finish your fight for you. So What's next? A punch on the head may be?

johnwang wrote:The more interest discussion may be "what's next?" If you have developed listening, following, sticky, yeilding, ... all those nice abilities through your PH, what will you train next?

Depends on where you want to take it. For a while, I used it for striking. PS became a weird sort of bob and weave that punches would come out of. Now, I'm taking it into throwing. Currently, I'm trying touse leading to misalign the hips and shoulders. I've seen nasty knifework come out of similar stuff too.