Push Hands Jamboree

[origami_itto]

So this weekend was the biannual Push Hands in rustic Plant City, Florida hosted by the Tampa Bay Martial Arts group.

It was phenomenal. About 60 pushers from all kinds of traditions with all kinds of skill levels and all kinds of approaches to the art of Taijiquan.

I found a defect in my approach that leaves me exposed to be pulled forward and down so I'm bent over and vulnerable. I do a pretty good job of hiding it usually and it takes somebody about five minutes of steady work and chipping away to find it if they can find it at all. Sometimes I show it to them so I can get more practice defending it and eliminating it. Some folks can't get it at all unless I show them, stop, and give it to them, which I also do to help the newbs out.

So this one guy big ol pot belly dude with snow white hair and I think glasses by the name of "Lee" offers to push with me, and literally within two seconds he had me in that position and is going for the follow up attack. I managed to slip the worst of it and he was a TINY bit impressed and complimentary, but then he started dressing me down. I tried to wipe his two handed push and he grabbed both my arms and pulled them across each other so I was completely immobilized. I'm trying this and that and responding to his attacks frantically and he's just talking softly, "You know, you have great coordination, and you're strong and have some good moves, but you're not doing Taijiquan." And all I can think is "Yes, sir, I know sir, I'm fucking worthless. I don't even know what Taijiquan is."

Later I overheard him say "Patrick Kelly? Ahh, he's a pretty good pusher." The "I guess" was left unspoken.

So there were several people like that. Nelson Ignacio Reyes from Ft Lauderdale was there. He's a Chen stylist, but pushing with him is literally like putting your hand into a cloud of cotton candy. Just enough there to give you something to chase but nothing to grab, then suddenly you find yourself going in a direction you simply hadn't previously considered going.

Jeff from Atlanta who said he was good friends with Bruce Reiter and Dmitri and Bill Miller was in attendance and he was very good as well. I couldn't do much of anything to get his center.

But it wasn't all high hands, there were plenty of punters in my pay grade to contend with, and plenty of fresh seekers to pass on what tiny bit of knowledge I do have to help them start to improve their own game.

The exercises and forms and meditation are the prep work to enable us to receive Taijiquan from hand to hand, and just a few minutes with someone who's got it can give me enough to think about and work on for months. Then once I do have something, I can pass it on and keep the knowledge alive. It's a beautiful practice.

Even though my study is currently 100% remote and I'm not the best about rigorous daily practice, the difference between this retreat and the one last November is profound. I feel a lot less like I got hit by a truck today, and I worked probably ten times as much as last time. The conditioning I'm doing is paying off and Sifu Alex's corrections in December have low key revolutionized my game.

The last thing I want to say is that if you get someplace like this you're going to get pushed. Invest in loss is more than just a pithy idiom. I don't go in to "win". I try to size up my partner, figure out our relative levels, find their weakness, then start trying to be as correct as possible in dealing with their energy. Even with untrained flailers, trying to be perfectly correct means I'm going to expose weaknesses. Sometimes I'll even do bad taijiquan and try to chase particular setups. That also usually results in getting pushed but I feel like it helps me learn how to find those better. If I feel like somebody is getting too big a head because they've pushed me five times in a row I'll usually gently manhandle them a bit (if I can) to serve my ego and show em who the boss really is right before we break.

Yes, I will go far in this art because I have so far to go.

But yes, you will be pushed, and even if you don't want to be pushed and try to win every encounter, Taijiquan doesn't care about your reputation or how many students you have. It cares about the quality and quantity of the work you put into achieving it, and these events are where you have the chance to strip away your delusions and discover the truth of your dedication.

There will be another one in November, and it would amazing to see some of you fistians among the scrum.

[cloudz]

nice. sounds like good times

[Giles]

The big guy with skill you describe could well be Lee Scheele. That would also fit with him having pushed with Patrick Kelly, since both are more or less within the Cheng Man Ching envelope, if you define it as broadly as possible. I pushed a little with Lee Scheele 20 years ago in France - it would be interesting to do that again today. See where he is, see where I am.

Yes, keeping an open, playful mind and being willing to invest in loss is surely the most profitable (and enjoyable) way to approach a push hands meeting. Well, the same goes for most training situations, but especially for one of these meets. All our egos potentially come into play, which is natural, but persuading it to take a back seat for the duration increases the learning experience. For me, that doesn't mean wanting to lose, it's more a question of trying to do as well as I can while remaining relaxed, upright, calm and if possible also friendly. If I start to tense, if I start to try and win (or just stay 'unpushed') by increasing speed and muscle, then I've already 'lost'. If I meet someone who is able to push me out of my stance/structure, be it often or just occasionally, then if I stay relaxed and accepting at that moment, take it with good grace, I can sense more of what he is doing at that moment and also what's happening in my own body and mind. So I can gather much more information, and hence learn more. If I try to remain 'unpushed' by fighting tooth and nail, then even if I 'succeed', I learn much less and cement myself in incorrect patterns.
This attitude becomes even more of a challenge at push hands meetings when you encounter a partner who has a very different attitude. There are usually a few at a larger meeting.

I'd love to be there in November, but I'd need the help of Scotty to beam me there and back.

[windwalker]

Sounds like a good time,,always good meeting others sometimes opens new insights...

If I meet someone who is able to push me out of my stance/structure, be it often or just occasionally, then if I stay relaxed and accepting at that moment, take it with good grace, I can sense more of what he is doing at that moment and also what's happening in my own body and mind.

Once one starts to understand there really is no structure to maintain
it will help them go a long way in their development in understanding "change" and "neutralization"

At one time taiji was known as "touch boxing"

in most venues of push hands, being able to issue from the point of contact is no longer seen,
some even feeling is like some type of stand up grappling ..

Might help in gaining some insights

The teacher of a friend of mine in Singapore

English subtitles


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nm51v3eaqWk

[Giles]

Once one starts to understand there really is no structure to maintain
it will help them go a long way in their development in understanding "change" and "neutralization"

At one time taiji was known as "touch boxing"

Language is always imprecise and often open to different interpretations. When I write/say 'structure' in the tai chi context, I mean organizing one's own body to constantly channel shifting physical forces through the body into the ground, and simultaneously back again into the environment (also into another human body). The one force constantly to be channelled is gravity; to this are added the forces generated by one's own body and by other bodies in contact with you. This has nothing to do with taking a big/deep stance, making oneself rigid or indeed 'strong' in the way most people think of it. The old gentleman in the video (some very nice stuff there, but I only sampled it here and there because it's quite long) is full of 'structure', has excellent 'structure', in the sense I mean. He's constantly organizing/reorganizing his body in response to changes in and around him: chiefly along the vertical heaven-earth axis (despite his overly rounded back), but in more ways besides. If one doesn't maintain good 'structure' as I mean it, then when one's body comes under pressure (and when you want to issue force) one will either be too stiff/immobile/brittle or too floppy/collapsed/weak. Or will oscillate between them without any good result. Good structure is the basis for being able to respond to pressure, to change sensitively and swiftly and precisely, again and again. Good structure is able to swiftly and dynamically respond, is subtle. The better it is, the harder it is to see from outside and the more sudden and surprising its effects on other bodies.

So perhaps we're not so far apart on this issue. Or whatever.

[Dmitri]

Jeff from Atlanta who said he was good friends with Bruce Reiter and Dmitri and Bill Miller was in attendance and he was very good as well. I couldn't do much of anything to get his center.

Good times.
Yeah Jeff spent many years at our school back in the day, and developed a monster root. Won a few nationals I think. Good to hear he's fully back on his feet, after a heart surgery a little while ago...

The big guy with skill you describe could well be Lee Scheele.

Heh, that's exactly what I thought also, but then I wondered how old he would be now (?) I met/pushed with him circa 2005 during the EF get-together at Terry W's hop gar school in AK. Hopefully it was him; a very nice guy and a true enthusiast.

[CheapBastid]

"Lee" offers to push with me

I see Lee Scheele on a monthly basis (at his OC Push Hands Practice Group). He let me know he (and Misha - the tough Russian acrobat) had a wonderful time at the Jamboree. He wanted to clarify that in no way was he hinting at an 'I guess' regarding Patrick Kelly: "...got a very important idea from him. It just took a couple of years of thinking about it and Tony Ho's confirmation for me to really get it."

[windwalker]

Once one starts to understand there really is no structure to maintain
it will help them go a long way in their development in understanding "change" and "neutralization"

At one time taiji was known as "touch boxing"

Language is always imprecise and often open to different interpretations. When I write/say 'structure' in the tai chi context, I mean organizing one's own body to constantly channel shifting physical forces through the body into the ground, and simultaneously back again into the environment (also into another human body). The one force constantly to be channelled is gravity; to this are added the forces generated by one's own body and by other bodies in contact with you. This has nothing to do with taking a big/deep stance, making oneself rigid or indeed 'strong' in the way most people think of it. The old gentleman in the video (some very nice stuff there, but I only sampled it here and there because it's quite long) is full of 'structure', has excellent 'structure', in the sense I mean. He's constantly organizing/reorganizing his body in response to changes in and around him: chiefly along the vertical heaven-earth axis (despite his overly rounded back), but in more ways besides. If one doesn't maintain good 'structure' as I mean it, then when one's body comes under pressure (and when you want to issue force) one will either be too stiff/immobile/brittle or too floppy/collapsed/weak. Or will oscillate between them without any good result. Good structure is the basis for being able to respond to pressure, to change sensitively and swiftly and precisely, again and again. Good structure is able to swiftly and dynamically respond, is subtle. The better it is, the harder it is to see from outside and the more sudden and surprising its effects on other bodies.

So perhaps we're not so far apart on this issue. Or whatever.

Understood that...

follow up...

My meaning was that it never gets channeled to the ground.

What one is responding to in my practice and others of like practices.


The intention of movement....


The teacher in the clip mentions this in other clips...the vertical axis he speaks of ,
more of a reference point at a certain level, discarded no longer needed once an understanding is reached
that doesn't rely on it.

Those not working on this tend to comment on clips of others working on this
it is interesting

Don't view it as an issue only a matter of training level and focus

[origami_itto]

"Lee" offers to push with me

I see Lee Scheele on a monthly basis (at his OC Push Hands Practice Group). He let me know he (and Misha - the tough Russian acrobat) had a wonderful time at the Jamboree. He wanted to clarify that in no way was he hinting at an 'I guess' regarding Patrick Kelly: "...got a very important idea from him. It just took a couple of years of thinking about it and Tony Ho's confirmation for me to really get it."

I meant no disrespect either way, just relating my impression.

[origami_itto]

My meaning was that it never gets channeled to the ground.

That took a while to get. It's not soaking the energy up into your structure so much as it's making it slide off the surface like water on a waxed balloon.

[windwalker]

My meaning was that it never gets channeled to the ground.

That took a while to get. It's not soaking the energy up into your structure so much as it's making it slide off the surface like water on a waxed balloon.

tried to outline some of the process before doesn't play too well here

The way the structure is thought of and used is quite different or maybe a different way of understanding....

It's not about the "energy" as the energy follows "intention" if one can feel the energy it’s to late it’s never allowed to reach the structure, any feeling of energy /any force felt is ones own resistance ie lack of feeling by which change transformation, can take place.

It is said, leading is following following is leading.



If one is trying to neutralize "force", its to late,,,,to slow...

it Happens

More so depending on type, level and intent of practice

The creepers and leaners I mentioned, common to some push hands practitioners an attempt to use the structure based on a feeling of trying to use a physical process to do something with what is essentially a mental "feeling awareness " one.

Takes a while,,,,,to get past this before it really becomes one.
A while as in a long time, depending on ones own inner inclinations

often written about, expressed in the Heart sutra


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G-wahm2ZKvo

Form is no other than emptiness,
Emptiness no other than form.
Form is only emptiness,
Emptiness only form.

https://journeytoemptiness.com/2014/12/19/emptiness/

[Mrwawa]

That sounds like a ton of fun. Thanks for sharing

I definitely am missing push hands in my practice, and not sure how to get experience as I have moved somewhere without a tjq group. Please keep us posted, as I am on the east coast of the US and willing to fly for a weekend. And if anyone knows of any other mixed push hands groups, I would be interested as well.

[wayne hansen]

The directing into the ground is a false path and a hard approach
You are right Ito it is more about just not being there

[Kelley Graham]

Directing, into the ground, or anywhere else, is the opposite of neutralizing and transforming. The mental and physical work needed is quite arduous. Few want to work so long and intensely. IMO worth it though.

[origami_itto]

Directing, into the ground, or anywhere else, is the opposite of neutralizing and transforming. The mental and physical work needed is quite arduous. Few want to work so long and intensely. IMO worth it though.

What it feels like on the outside to me is that my strength is just unusable. The harder I try to push them, the more unsteady I become. I haven't had much chance to try it in the wild yet though. The retreat should be interesting.