windwalker wrote:Interesting, our experience seem to be very different. [...] A good place to meet and test.
I have no idea what you mean. I said, "The last time I went I met a number of very pleasant and helpful people. I found someone to work with for about a half an hour, ..." etc. How are our experiences different? Sun Lutang and Hao Weizhen at Tanagra?
I've seen many people try to install a side door to this art and I have seen where the doors come from and I have seen it lead to results I am not interested in every time. There are plenty of people who can push me around. It's not about that. It's about me refusing to capitulate with what I believe I want to learn. Maybe I should give up childish beliefs and fall in line with something, I don't know. But I am not ready to give up just yet. I have seen the light, and I want what I want.
Anyways,
As far as I can tell the demarcation line is a well-executed form. This is a bit of a cop-out because the question becomes, then, "what qualities of form execution are required to define 'well-executed'"? Lifting the crown? Relaxation? Chen jin bu gu? Kai kua? Heaviness?
Here's an interesting thought. If push hands was the way to increase one's skill, then who did Chen Fa-Ke push hands with? Ahh. So, while Push Hands might be important to check oneself or to develop something, apparently repeated practice of the form can be more important than push hands. So then I am left wondering, what is this energy expression one can learn from the form? Apparently, Chen Fa-Ke, for example, learned this skill solely from forms practice.
Here's the kicker. I know Chen style, Sun style, and Yang style. I did Wu style for a few years, and even so-called Taoist Tai Chi. I did Yang style for a long, long time and discovered many things doing it. One thing I figured in retrospect is that despite the wide variations in form and execution all of them can prepare you for push hands. This leads me to believe there is some subtle body gong that one acquires from the principles of tai chi in general that can prepare you for starting push hands. In other words, a "well-executed form" is not necessarily one with precise movements, only one in which the internal principles are correct (and the form is useful otherwise). Therefore, I prefer a form in which the movements have a greater propensity to induce the proper body gong.
I have also heard rumors, which gel with experience, that all of the push hands applications come from the form. Perhaps the ability to wei wu wei such things into push hands is the requirement. As far as requirements go, it seems a pretty decent one.