Trick wrote:I don't understand all this(but then there are loads of things I don't understand)showing one has real damaging power when not in an serious confrontation, how to show that on an somewhat compliant practice/demo partner that also might be an good friend?
My favourite method is to just hold up (hug) a sturdy kicking protection and let the other one punch. IME this is much better than work against a bag. The partner who holds the protection can tell the puncher when the strikes felt most powerful. And then if it hurts very good right through protection, you can tell quite easy if the punch have good power or not.
--About the Taiji punching you describe works the same for any good puncher not matter what style, nothing specific to Taijiquan...........
I am sure you are correct. I didn't say anything about how things work or not work in other styles, only what I believe, IME, works from a Tai Chi perspective. There are some things though, like that Tai Chi people usually don't like to sacrifice their balance while others maybe more throwing their whole body weight without caring too much about losing their balance. But in large, it should be very much the same. I agree. But again, I have never heard any karate or boxer say that you should relax all the way into the strike. Karatekas usually say that you should harden the impact on impact. The boxers I've heard say that you should suddenly squeeze the hand upon impact, however some of them say that you should still stay as relaxed as possible.
And the other of yours dislike MA's Aikido(the other is Boxing if I remember correct?)
I don't dislike these arts. I dislike crappy MA period. 98% of all MA is crap, regardless style. For Tai Chi it seems like it's more than 99.8% crap. So from that perspective, Tai Chi in general seems to be worse than MA in general.
Giles wrote: If the successful technique has been executed on me, a few have even accused me of suddenly taking a dive for them (after not doing so several times before). At which point I've had to assure them that nowadays I'm just a little too old to keep throwing myself on the floor for no good reason.
I remember something from my teachers class, an elderly woman totally convinced that my teacher faked his reaction to make her happy. Yes it's a funny thing.