Combat Taiji Training Methods and Chen Challenge

[chrislomas]

Right on, Doc!

[velalavela]

This link has been posted on a different thread on this forum but I'm interested to see where the methods used here would or would not be allowed in a push hands competition of the type you are talking about?

To me this is great push hands.

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=RHQv6fLpIoI

Incedently
This was shot in 1990 when Master Ma visited New Zealand. he was 90 years old.
They guy getting shoved about is everyones favourite on this forum....

[Bob Mnemos]

apply sudden force pushes . I have applied sudden force in push hand comp. and trips, sweeps or throws are allowed in the Chen style comp.

I was just reading this thread (trying to catch up since I dropped outta sight during the EF website wars) and a lot of the comments sorta raised my eyebrows. What is allowed in which Chen style competitions? They have all kinds of competitions, according to one of my instructors and according to a couple of the Chen guys whose workshops I have attended. They have everything from a more or less tourist thing they used to put on (really just a low-level push and shove thing. What Napoli was in. No really big Chen names go to it.) to a anything goes type of competition (I forget what they call it but I think it's like "confrontational push hands"). And there's a lot of in-between stuff with rules and qualifications. Try to get vids of the real good stuff and you can't find 'em. I tried through pals of mine in China.

My teacher said something along the lines of "foreigners are not supposed to see the high level". Same thing is true about Xingyi and other arts. Check out Jarek Szymanski's website about the Xingyi (good stuff) being kept from westerners and so on. What I'm getting at is that most of the stuff being talked about by westerners is pretty ill-informed and lacks even basic knowledge. Look at how many push hands tournaments in the west the rules are made up by a bunch of want-a-be-Chinese types -- the rules have almost nothing to do with the higher level rules in China. At a dinner I was at with one of the Chens it was sort of a friendly shoulder shrug about what westerners know about Taiji and push hands. Even the western guys who studied in China a lot of times.

2 cents

Bob

[Andy_S]

SNIP
What is allowed in which Chen style competitions? They have all kinds of competitions, according to one of my instructors and according to a couple of the Chen guys whose workshops I have attended. They have everything from a more or less tourist thing they used to put on (really just a low-level push and shove thing. What Napoli was in. No really big Chen names go to it.)
SNIP

Hmm, that was two of the younger Wangs getting shoved around by Napoli...ie the sons of the highly respected master who runs the oldest commercial Taiji school in Chen Village...

SNIP
to a anything goes type of competition (I forget what they call it but I think it's like "confrontational push hands"). And there's a lot of in-between stuff with rules and qualifications. Try to get vids of the real good stuff and you can't find 'em. I tried through pals of mine in China.
SNIP

The tournaments you are talking are not secret, they are public events! They are essentially what you see in this clip, though I confess, Napoli's technique does not turn me on....but it was effective in the format. If you visit Chen Xiaoxing's school, his two sons will be happy to play with you in any format you like. Chen Ziqiang will say: "Try anything you like..."

SNIP
My teacher said something along the lines of "foreigners are not supposed to see the high level".
SNIP

Who, pray tell, is your teacher?

SNIP
At a dinner I was at with one of the Chens it was sort of a friendly shoulder shrug about what westerners know about Taiji and push hands. Even the western guys who studied in China a lot of times.
SNIP

Sounds like an excellent reason not to study with this particular Chen...as (presumably) he is a teacher and (presumably) he is not passing on the real deal. Except, perhaps, for you and your teacher....?

[Bob Mnemos]

Hmm, that was two of the younger Wangs getting shoved around by Napoli...ie the sons of the highly respected master who runs the oldest commercial Taiji school in Chen Village...

This has been pointed out at other times on other forums because I've read it. There was a good discussion about it on the old Neijia list (they may still be around, I guess, but I ain't heard anything) when I used to lurk there. Neither of the two Wang boys ever even won a provincial title. They were low level players. That's easy to check. None of the top players bothered to enter and they had plenty of national level guys at that time. You can probably get someone you know in China to find out who the national level guys from Chen Village were at the time and ask yourself why the low level Wang boys were the best reps Chen Village bothered to send. Black and white.

I forget their names (maybe there are some Neijia archives somewhere) but two of the people there visiting the tournament who were on the Neijia list were both Chinese and spoke Chinese. Apparently the Chens complained to the government guys afterward about how hokey they were forced to make the rules and the outsiders won the argument forcing Chen Village to keep the watered down rules for that tournament. So say what you want I've heard it from enough angles to understand it was more of a tourist/foreigners competition than a serious push hands event. If it had been serious the national level guys woulda been there and apparently the Wang boys can't play in that league since they never even got past provincial tournaments. But if you know of the names of some of the national level guys who were in that tournament lets hear 'em. We can ask Jarek or someone impartial to check it out. Just think about it a sec. Real push hands is serious in China. You saw the films of the amateurish bull-fighting at that tournament. Do you really think that's the best Chen Village can do or China can do? Seriously? If that's China's best efforts then you need to give up Chinese martial arts because its a waste of time.

I mainly do Xingyi now but the same thing happens as you get deeper into things. What most people in the west think of as Xingyi has very little to do with the hardcore stuff. Read the article on Jarek's page about the guy who trained Chinese Special Forces.

B.

[Daniel]

Hello. Daniel, newbie, here, first post and everything . I´ve followed this thread from the beginning and would simply say that I agree both with Doc Stier´s opinions and now, very neatly and very politely put, Bob´s 2 cents. The level of material that skilled Chinese IMA-practitioners take for granted as "that´s a given, bozo" is often not even known to many in the West, and what they consider to be high level is very rarely seen or understood here.

I just re-watched the clip yet again, and, well, I haven´t attended any push-hands competitions in Chenjiagou, but this looks incredibly crude. I´ve seen good Chen-style. It seems likely that the "defenders" here are low-level, which also would be a normal Chinese face-game to play with a foreigner, wouldn´t it?

Has anybody asked Mr. Napoli about the facts? Just curious.

It is of course an obvious point, but the footage being discussed here at such length was edited by someone. Good questions might be by whom, for what purpose, and what was cut.

Also agree with Bob´s comment on Chinese views of foreigners and their skill. I have seen this both in IMA, Chinese Medicine, and, well, just in general, while living in Beijing. It is often correct, too...which makes me practice even more so that the good teachers see that well, yeah, he is a schmuck and a bit slow on the uptake, but at least he´s serious about the training...

D.





Sarcasm. Oh yeah, like that would work.

[Andy_S]

Bob and Daniel:

There are actually clips online of the Wangs winning PH tournaments; there is even a clip intercutting them doing so, then showing the techniques used (which refuted an EF member who had just gone on the record as saying that "there was no technique shown" in the clips, it was just pushing and shoving, etc, etc) CCTV also invited Wang Jr to be the Taiji representative for a televised PH match with Akebono/Chad Rowan when he visited China. While I would not consider the latter a serious athletic contest, I would In fact, the Wangs were quite feared around Chen village for several years for their violent behaviour (I believe one ended up in jail for a while...?) Whetehr they were at their zenith at Napoli's tournament, I don't know, but they are definitely name players...although one is now so overweight one has to wonder what his training regimen is.

What "National Level" PH tournaments are you talking about? AFAIK, while there are various national wushu (taolu and sanda) tournaments, but there is no single, recognized National Level PH tournament in China, with a league, ranked players, a grand champion, etc. If you know more on this, please let me know - I'd be interested to see it. And I can guarantee you, it will look not dissimilar to what you saw.

If anyone has clips of a real COMPETITION where people are demonstrating beautiful, effortless PH techniques, I would LOVE to see it. But so far....you may recall the thread a while back with several famed Taiji masters pushing each other in the 1980s. I am sure if you saw this, you would say that this was low level MA, that the men doing it had no skill. However, they were all known names.

RE: PH in the village.
I have trained PH with Chen Zijun and Chen Ziqiang, and watched some of the training of their young team. They are very, very good at what they do, but it is a form of stand up grappling: There is no magic. The tournaments they compete in are pretty much what you see above. It is not "watered down" for foreigners. There is a great deal of nonsense talken about Chen Village PH in the west - even by some "name" teachers. Here is a personal and germane experience.

There was one Westerner training at Chen XX's school this June who had been told by a name Western Chen teacher (yes, you can find him on YouTube) to absolutely NOT push with Chen ZQ as he was such a violent and deadly player, she would get hurt. For a week or two, she stuck to this advice. Now, while I am sure ZQ COULD hurt you if he wanted to, he has superb control...the westerner in question (a former sanda player) stated to me her anger at this crass and inaccurate advice, which cost her a couple of weeks sparring training under a genuine young master.

Finally, this. I have never trained "Xingyi with Chinese Special Forces" but I have trained with the gongfu/sanda coach of the Beijing riot police, Gao Mei-jin, a chaquan and sanda man from Shandong. He is a very nice fellow,and very good at what he does, but I doubt if he would tell you that he has invincible, secret skills that cannot be shown to Westerners.

[Daniel]

Hey Andy. Daniel here. Good. I like this comment from you much more. I like facts rather than just opinions.

Do you have any link to the vids with the Wangs? (Now that´s a great sentence only possible to construct on EF...hmmm, hopefully... ). Maybe the whole thread simply just goes back to the whole discussion of whether there are any tournaments where it´s actual Taiji skill and energy rather than something approaching wrestling going on. It would get rough all the same, mind, just not this crude.

I agree with you on the Chenjiagou-myth. I have heard comments about experiences both good and bad from there. Good teachers are good teachers, wherever they are. If one finds them, congratulations, now get to work.

"...techniques hidden from foreigners." Yes, interesting topic. I think there is much less of that going on than there used to be. It´s more of case these days of techniques hidden from students until they are on the level where they can do them, as it always has been. If you are serious about the training, I think most genuine teachers recognize that. There are a fewer and fewer young people in China doing this stuff - they all want to become westerners now - so I would guess that the teachers might simply be happy about the fact that they have a truly serious student, waiguoren or no waiguoren, no matter.

And yes, things get more crass and crude when the top dogs are wagging their tails together... I know the clip you´re referring to. I remember a friend of mine telling of an incident when his teacher, a forty-year practitioner who was a really really good fighter, "practiced" with a visiting kung fu-brother of same vintage. All the techniques, he said, turned very simple; most of their advanced skills neutralized each other out. The external packaging got down to simple stuff because that´s all they had a chance of getting away with on the other guy. But with this said, this clip still looks surprisingly crude. Maybe that is the current reality in competitions there too, but I find it hard to believe, I have to admit. Does anybody have any vids to recommend on this subject?

Just a comment on the subject of "Xingyi with Chinese Special Forces". Well, no matter whether one has practiced with them or not - a better question is always "Why would you?" I know people in similar lines of work, and have worked professionally in violent situations myself, and here in the West so many fall into the movie-trap of going for the macho thing instead of focusing on what might actually help their life get more on line, or that which would let themselves grow to become something more positive both for their life and others. I have seen some of the skills the Chinese have in the game mentioned, and many are simply very dangerous to learn and practice and will put huge amounts of unnecessary tension both in body and mind. Not secret per se, I guess, but if you don´t have to move in that environment you really don´t need that kind of skills, or the pressure on your mind that it is to know them. Some skills are very difficult to unlearn. Here in the West I can heartily recommend David Grossman´s seminal work "On Killing" as a recquired read for all real martial artists. It usually helps people get perspective on certain parts of the training, and the unnecessary patterns they might be running in their own mind.

There are people who want to work in the world of life and death, but being a real warrior can just as easily mean having wude to stand up for those who have no voice, or those who can´t protect themselves, or simply be a clear force for positive change in the neighbourhood. The latter is usually the more difficult battle to fight than the one with bad guys and guns.

Ah, well, that´s me off my hobby-horse, and away to practice. Here in Sweden it´s lunch-hour now, so Xingyi in the autumn sun, then lunch. Fried rice, fresh carrots, some crab, Bengquan.

D.




Sarcasm. Oh yeah, like that´ll work.

[RobP]

Do you really think that's the best Chen Village can do or China can do? Seriously? If that's China's best efforts then you need to give up Chinese martial arts because its a waste of time.

Yes. And I did One reason was getting fed up with all the bull around "the real stuff". On the one hand they want to tempt you in with it, on the other they will never show you it. So it is a waste of time. Personally I've sene little sign of "it" in anyone I've seen or trained with (of course I'm just a lowly Westerner). bits and pieces here and there and some useful and good things. But as a whole? You can keep it.

cheers

Rob

[GrahamB]

Well Rob, as a fellow "lowly Westerner" I've seen "it" twice in all my time in Chinese Martial Arts, and got both guys to teach me, so I think I'm doing pretty well on tracking down the "it". Unfortunately it soon dawned on me how much sheer hard work was required to get "it", don't know if I'll ever get "it" while I have distractions like a job and family, but I keep plugging away when I can...

I have to say I'm not sure I've ever seen "it" in Systema though... how's that for a red rag to a bull!

(Just yanking your chain )

G

[Ian]

Graham,

I can teach you "it" for a small fee.

[GrahamB]

I think part of "it" is not charging money for "it". Take money out of the equation and there's a higher likelyhood of "it" being the real shit (tm).

Therefore Ian, your shit is automatically fake

b.t.w. want to come to my $eminar?

[Bob Mnemos]

There are actually clips online of the Wangs winning PH tournaments; there is even a clip intercutting them doing so, then showing the techniques used (which refuted an EF member who had just gone on the record as saying that "there was no technique shown" in the clips, it was just pushing and shoving, etc, etc) CCTV also invited Wang Jr to be the Taiji representative for a televised PH match with Akebono/Chad Rowan when he visited China. While I would not consider the latter a serious athletic contest, I would In fact, the Wangs were quite feared around Chen village for several years for their violent behaviour (I believe one ended up in jail for a while...?) Whetehr they were at their zenith at Napoli's tournament, I don't know, but they are definitely name players...although one is now so overweight one has to wonder what his training regimen is.

But my basic point is still there -- the Wang broz never even won a provincial competition. They are and were low-level. I checked yesterday with a Chinese guy I know who trained Chen style a long time and some of it in Chen Village just to be certain of my facts. The fact that Chen Village didn't bother sending anyone good is easy to check up on if you simply look at the point that the Wangs never even won a provincial-level tournament and yet at the time there were national-level guys in the village. The rules, and I checked this part out with my friend, were indeed rigged for push-and-shove amateurs because they did not expect any foreigners with any real Taiji skills to be there. There weren't. And I'm not going to pass on my friend's comments about Napoli's push hands but I'd suggest that the video speaks for itself.

Without getting off course on who did what to whom I'll just drop the matter that my initial remark about that tournament and the Wang boys not being much pretty much stands. If you want to argue with Jarek about things being hidden I think he'll give you a pretty good discussion.

Bob

[Bob Mnemos]

Do you really think that's the best Chen Village can do or China can do? Seriously? If that's China's best efforts then you need to give up Chinese martial arts because its a waste of time.

Yes. And I did One reason was getting fed up with all the bull around "the real stuff". On the one hand they want to tempt you in with it, on the other they will never show you it. So it is a waste of time. Personally I've sene little sign of "it" in anyone I've seen or trained with (of course I'm just a lowly Westerner). bits and pieces here and there and some useful and good things. But as a whole? You can keep it.

Hi Rob:

I assume you're Rob Poyton from the UK. Never met you but I remember following some of your posts on various martial forums. I agree about the bits and pieces stuff. Maddening. But you've got one big Chen name guy in England. Lemme look. Ok it's Wang Hai Jun. When you say you've never seen anything in these guys it makes me want to ask if you've had a go with Wang HJ? Having someone supposedly pretty good so close at hand would be pretty tempting for me. I just gave up on the Chen stuff because we don't have any good teachers over here that are in Wang hj's league. Did Wu and Xingyi with a guy on the east coast but while there was some good stuff I think a lot of it was not shown too.

Bob

[RobP]

Hi Bob!

Yes, that's me.

We tried to get in to see WHJ some years back - it was made very clear there would be no contact allowed (ditto for CXW). to be fair I don't know if that was from W or the organisers. That's part of the problem perhaps.

I wouldn't say I haven't seen anything - just that what I have seen tends to be very specific, not overly adaptable and can, IMHO, be learned in other ways that are more accesible and lead to more practical use.

Graham - you little yanker you
cheers

Rob