bruce wrote:well i agree with your description of what was shown ... i just think it is normal and a similar method to the way i was taught.
Adam S wrote:With Bruce
Yes a good clip
But pretty standard stuff & how we practice here
Perhaps I'm just seeing something deeper or maybe people have just been hiding their clips. I keep watching this and thinking about stuff I see in, for example, many of the Aunkai clips or certain other groups from time to time where nearly everybody in the room raises their hand and says that, "Of course we do that too....all the time...."
If it's so common, I have to wonder why I have never really seen any other clips demonstrating the particular quality I believe I am seeing here. The closest I can think of is actually Sam Chin's stuff but his is actually, IMO, more subtle and mostly highlights his very particular kind of stickiness and unbalancing. Extremely hard to understand what he really does. I have seen clips of Bruce's where he is, superficially, doing the same thing but really that means he's not doing the same thing at all. Bruce, (to address you directly now) I have seen that you certainly do like to mix up all sorts of striking and grappling and pushing and all that together in your push hands but .... and this really is no insult, I just don't think what you actually do is very similar to this guy at all. It's not an insult because I think that this guy is particularly good. I'd have a blast taking classes from. From you...I'd have a blast practicing together with you. This guy, OTOH, would be not so much a training partner as an instructor or, as he seems really down to earth, maybe more of a coach.
The only thing that I don't like about the clip at all is that particular pattern they always fall into for their "freestyle". It's basically a repetition back and forth of the opening move of 99% of all Taiji forms,"Raise hands". As I have said countless times before, I think that that particular version of the commencement is overly slow and keep wondering why, instead of always raising up under the double palms placed on the chest, nobody every "swallows" the palms and locks the arms. The alternative would be if the person is not expressing power through the palms but rather through the fingertips in which case, instead of swallowing from above, you would sink below it and simply push out with the fingertips. The way they are doing it it smells, to me, of chasing hands. I expect the big guy would have a wonderful answer to my question and handle my tactic just fine because he looks very skilled to me but nevertheless, I always wonder why I never see it done.
Ironically, the only youtube thing that has come close to what I am trying to explain was also posted by Tajikid a few years back. Not exactly what I am saying but close enough to get the idea across.