the rum soaked fist: internal martial arts forum

Discover Taiji
Published on Mar 4, 2019

http://www.hmelondon.com:


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vjczCq0Q1Kg

PLUCK? As in taiji type Cai ....pluck?

Isn't this a video that is more about reach under and grab for the arm drag? (ok perhaps let him push me a bit and set up the arm drag?)

One of Huangs better exercises,swinging arms with some very important hand changes missing

I wouldn't call it swing arms, swing arms is distinctly different. Looks like a variation to isolate the pluck from that exercise to use it in another context.

It is step 5 out of 7 in swinging arms leaving out a couple of important hand changes that make it effective
I might be wrong though I have only been teaching it for 40 years

I'm not saying you're wrong, by any means. I'm saying that I'm pretty sure Duran knows the proper swing arms pattern and this isn't intended to be or replace that. It's a different thing that uses a piece of it, hence the title "working the pluck". Adam Mizner teaches the full swing arms pattern in his online course and calls it one of the main foundations of his push hands method. I think it's safe to assume that the son of one of his top students is familiar with it.

Yours is probably better.

A part or the whole the essence should still be there alas it's not

So are you saying that pluck is defined purely by its context within swing arms?

No just that is not just grabbing and giving a yank

This is not pluck. What they practice on here is an external technique for push hands. This shown here has very little to do with genuine Tai Chi skills.

Bao wrote:This is not pluck. What they practice on here is an external technique for push hands. This shown here has very little to do with genuine Tai Chi skills.

That's an interesting perspective. What, to you, makes it an external technique? How would you pluck in an internal fashion?

oragami_itto wrote:

Bao wrote:This is not pluck. What they practice on here is an external technique for push hands. This shown here has very little to do with genuine Tai Chi skills.

That's an interesting perspective. What, to you, makes it an external technique? How would you pluck in an internal fashion?

Jin in the eight jins means a skill. They all demand practice and precision of use. What is shown in the clip above is not a skill, it's a superficial and very limited technique that anyone can learn in two minutes. It has nothing to do with the Tai Chi Jin called Cai or pluck. Cai or pluck means that you are led into a hole. The opponent feels like he is plucked or snatched but that is the effect of suddenly having no ground under your feet, not the effect of beng physically grabbed.

Here is a better example from Eddie Kwong, still pretty simple and not one of the more advanced use of the principle.
Starting from 7.45
https://youtube.com/watch?v=CGZyiJartFk

GrahamB wrote:

This guy gets it on every level

After marvin explained his process I figured out how to make gifs from videos with VLC, ffmpeg, and the Gimp.
So that's an excuse to post me using this underhook/drag/pluck idea a couple ways in light push hands.