the rum soaked fist: internal martial arts forum

Ian Sinclair
Published on Aug 4, 2018

Tai chi Tuishou (Pushing hands) begins as a gentle and cooperative two-person dual pushing exercise. Over time, it can evolve to include all ranges of armed and unarmed combat.
In this video the student gets to experiment with striking ranges and techniques for hands. In some cases she uses and imaginary dagger. in others she uses fists. The pacing is cautious, but progressive and the structure is maintained to encourage a degree of realism without endangering either her or the teacher.
This type of training is not appropriate for everyone, and requires a degree of preparation:


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FyJ1ndmkFOg

I've watched it a few times and I do appreciate some of the ideas. But there is something about it, maybe due to lack of sparring practice or limited fighting knowledge... It's too passive. She stands there just waiting with her hands mostly hanging down to the sides. I don't expect a boxing guard, but the hands should be kept higher and ready, and there should be an attachment even on distance. Following and adapting to distance, angle and movement. If you are too passively waiting for an attack or for an opportunity to counter, and you don't have this awareness and sense of timing even on distance, you will find that it will be very easy to run you down, even by mediocre fighters.

Bao wrote:I've watched it a few times and I do appreciate some of the ideas. But there is something about it, maybe due to lack of sparring practice or limited fighting knowledge... It's too passive. She stands there just waiting with her hands mostly hanging down to the sides. I don't expect a boxing guard, but the hands should be kept higher and ready, and there should be an attachment even on distance. Following and adapting to distance, angle and movement. If you are too passively waiting for an attack or for an opportunity to counter, and you don't have this awareness and sense of timing even on distance, you will find that it will be very easy to run you down, even by mediocre fighters.

I've been watching more of his stuff and even listened to the podcast, and I think I know what you mean. There's just something about his stuff, I don't disagree with anything he says I just can't get enthusiastic about it. Maybe it's just his Canadian-ness to my southern-ness or something, I dunno. He speaks intelligently about concepts, but the expression that I can see looks very basic. That could just as well be my poor eye as anything.