charles wrote:oragami_itto wrote: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.
Feng Zhiqiang included in his push hands curriculum an exercise nearly identical to what you've shown. Feng called it "lu" (roll back), not "cai" (pluck). In Feng's exercise, the person being pulled is performing a shoulder kao, or at least the intent of one.
Kao or Zhou can be an effective counter to this kind of pull in my experience. Or with slightly different timing this can be an effective counter to them. Traditions differ and sometimes in my opinion conflate lu with pulling. Sounds like a neat exercise.
As an aside, what you've shown reminds me of why I don't think fixed step push hands/two-person work has much value beyond a beginner level. As you pull your partner, he, in order to avoid stepping, is compromised. If he stepped in towards you, between your legs, he could easily neutralize your pull and simultaneously attack, leveraging your pull and displacing you. In your demonstration, after you've pulled him in, you push him out and in so doing are off balance, rather than step into him, between his legs, which would greatly increase the effectiveness of your push. The don't-move-your-feet reinforces/teaches ineffective and compromising habits.
It's a matter of knowing what you're doing and why you're doing it when you're doing it, in my opinion. You know what you're doing and so you do what you do to get what you want. Same here. Though I'm solving the problem incorrectly, mostly. I'm working towards a particular end. I am a beginner level.
Something you might like to try with your partner is, rather than simply pulling the back of his elbow horizontally, reach under his elbow, with your fingers on the outside of his elbow, and twist his arm/elbow while pulling towards the centre and upwards somewhat. The twisting of his entire arm, from the elbow, compromises his structure and eliminates the need for you to turn so far to the side, which would help maintain your hip/knee/ankle alignment. It's an application of single whip, the hook hand.
I'll try to keep that in mind.
Something else you might like to try if you are going to pull with your right hand on the back of your partner's right shoulder is to maintain contact with his right hand/forearm with your left hand. As your right hand pulls towards your rear/right side, your left hand pushes forward and to your left. Doing so applies a lock to his right elbow, the only release for him is to go with your pull on his shoulder, effectively throwing himself to relieve the overextension of his elbow. It's an example of "splitting" (cai).
Sounds pretty awkward, perhaps you could demonstrate the technique with one of your students so I could get a better idea? I generally look for that sort of qinna with the left hand on right shoulder and right hand on right wrist. The way you describe it seems like they would have free reign to pummel your right side with the other hand.
What I'm generally looking for with it is to go a little more perpendicular to my forward line, and I should be able to change their vector without bending forward as I tend to do.
One more, just for fun. In the second GIF, as you pull your partner, if he stepped with his forward foot to hook his foot behind your forward foot, he could leverage your pull to strike the inside of your knee with his knee, a knee kao. You won't like that much. (It's an application of a Chen "push legs" exercise.)
Sometimes people try that, even though it's not really the game I'm usually intending to play. I usually lift that knee into their breadbox as they come forward. Usually the contact is incidental, though, because as stated that's not the game we're agreeing to play. When people bring different intentions the game starts looking different. I hope we get to play sometime.