A few taichi tips

[zzj]

Zeny, while you are making actively making the distinction between your style (from Huang Sheng Shyan if i read correctly) and that of the Chen Village style, I don't really feel that what you are describing is different to what I am learning. You seem to imply that there is physical alignment of the body joints in order to issue force, where that would run counter to the idea that our structure is held by peng jin. Connected-ness as I understand it refers to the flow of 'qi' from the root to point of contact to manifest jin, and certainly not connecting the physical body in a 'stick' way. If you are referring to the physical structure of the body, than the Chen style I am learning is also 'disconnected', so it seems the difference is more in the explanation.

 

[Zeny]

Zzj, i have no knowledge or experience on the chen style so i am not qualified to comment on any of their methods. The discussion on this thread seems to have turned into a discussion of the chen style because it seems that that is the style practised by many readers of this thread. Whatever i say must be viewed in this light.

Yes i am saying that the physical body structure is disconnected. I have not gone into the subject of 'qi' yet.

 

[zzj]

Zzj, i have no knowledge or experience on the chen style so i am not qualified to comment on any of their methods. The discussion on this thread seems to have turned into a discussion of the chen style because it seems that that is the style practised by many readers of this thread. Whatever i say must be viewed in this light.

Yes i am saying that the physical body structure is disconnected. I have not gone into the subject of 'qi' yet.

Fair enough, I still think the core principles of what works in Tai Chi is still the same no matter the style, but the method of transmission varies. I am not criticizing anything thus far, in fact it may be useful to consider different points of view when it comes to understanding and applying the principles.

 

[ChenAn]

Here how did "upright" look in traditional taiji back in the days

 

[Zeny]

That looks so weird!

 

[Xue Sheng]

Zzj, i have no knowledge or experience on the chen style so i am not qualified to comment on any of their methods. The discussion on this thread seems to have turned into a discussion of the chen style because it seems that that is the style practised by many readers of this thread. Whatever i say must be viewed in this light.

Yes i am saying that the physical body structure is disconnected. I have not gone into the subject of 'qi' yet.

Actually, I'm Yang style.

Push hands from the son of my Sigong's oldest son

I have also trained a bit of Chen as well as a bit of the style that comes from Cheng Manching

 

[Zeny]

Great video, love the fajin at 0:24. The fajin that we do is the almost the same, the only difference is our body is upright instead of leaning forward. The taichi in the video is consistent with my taichi in all material respects.

In this post I will talk about ‘lianjin’ (connecting skill). Lianjin is one of the four skills in taichi push hands (zhan, nian, lian, sui). To lian means to connect. Lianjin is applied on our opponent, not ourselves. When we practise taichi we seek to disconnect our own structure, and to connect our opponent’s structure. What does this mean? Let me explain.

Imagine that our opponent is a ceramic cup (upper body) with a handle (arm), and the cup is glued on top of a small stool (lower body or legs). If we want to push the cup, we need not push the body of the cup. The cup (and also the stool) can be moved by us merely pushing the tip of the handle. The handle connects to the cup, and the cup connects to the stool, and by pushing the tip of the handle, movement can be applied to both the cup and the stool.

In other words, if our opponent’s wrist is connected to his elbow, and his elbow is connected to his shoulder, we can simply push our opponent’s hand to apply movement to his shoulder. If his shoulders are connected to his feet, then by simply pushing our opponent’s hand we can apply movement to our opponent’s feet and uproot them. Of course the handle of the cup is static, while our opponent’s hand is moving. But with sufficient practice, this lianjin can be applied onto our opponent subconsciously and without much difficulty. The same goes for ‘nianjin’ (sticking skill). When we practise nianjin it may be difficult at first because our opponent’s arms are always moving. But with sufficient practice, both sticking and connecting will become second nature.

What about our own cup? We must disconnect the handle from our cup, and disconnect our cup from the stool. So if the handle is pushed, only the handle is affected by the movement, while the cup and the stool remain unaffected. The separation of the cup (upper body) and the stool (lower body) at the contact point (waist) is the first step in taichi disconnection practice. This step is called ‘xu ling ding jin’. Practitioners who are familiar with ‘xu ling ding jin’ will recall that when they practise this, they are asked to sung and chen but at the same time they have to imagine that their head is suspended from the ceiling with a string. This opposite movement (up and down) allows the upper body to be disconnected from the lower body at the waist (splitting the rock into two pieces).

How does ‘lianjin’ assist in ‘fajin’? Lianjin allows for a bigger area for us to fajin. Our fajin contact point need not be a point in the upper body. With lianjin, you can apply fajin on any part of our opponent's connected arm because by pushing the arm you are pushing the body (and the legs).

My next post will give you some more tips on how to disconnect the handle from our cup when pushing.

 

[Zeny]

Continuing from my above post, because i love the fajin at 0:24 in the video, i will make use of that fajin to illustrate how to push with a disconnected arm.

At 0:24 in the video the master extended his arms and palms with speed onto the student's chest and caused him to jump back several metres. There are two ways the master could have done this.

The first is to push the student with a connected structure. In other words, the wrist is connected to the elbow, and the elbow is connected to the shoulders, and so on. It would not be misleading to call this manner of pushing as using whole body force, i.e. the whole body working together as one unit to produce a concentrated force, like how you would push a car with a flat tyre.

The second is to push with a disconnected structure. How does one do this? Instead of moving your shoulders, elbow and wrist at the same time, try do it in sequence of 1.... 2.... 3..... In other words, first move the shoulder, then move the elbow, then move the wrist. Do this with sung and 'negative' movement, recall my coffee cup example earlier. With sufficient practice the negative movement will become second nature and can be done with speed.

I will let the reader decide for themselves which manner of pushing will create the effect as shown in the video.

Next post i will talk about 'chi' or 'qi'.

 

[Xue Sheng]

Continuing from my above post, because i love the fajin at 0:24 in the video, i will make use of that fajin to illustrate how to push with a disconnected arm.

At 0:24 in the video the master extended his arms and palms with speed onto the student's chest and caused him to jump back several metres. There are two ways the master could have done this.

The first is to push the student with a connected structure. In other words, the wrist is connected to the elbow, and the elbow is connected to the shoulders, and so on. It would not be misleading to call this manner of pushing as using whole body force, i.e. the whole body working together as one unit to produce a concentrated force, like how you would push a car with a flat tyre.

The second is to push with a disconnected structure. How does one do this? Try this. Instead of moving your shoulders, elbow and wrist at the same time, try do it in sequence of 1.... 2.... 3..... In other words, first move the shoulder, then move the elbow, then move the wrist. Do this with sung and 'negative' movement, recall my coffee cup example earlier. With sufficient practice the negative movement will become second nature and can be done with speed.

I will let the reader decide for themselves which manner of pushing will create the effect as shown in the video.

Next post i will talk about 'chi' or 'qi'.

Actually, no, at 0:24 that is by no means disconnected structure...sorry...if that is what you see...you don't understand what is going on...again...sorry...we are not going to agree. You wish to share your point of view and your training that is fine....since I see nothing but disagreement with you... I do not wish to argue and I will keep my thoughts on this to myself from this point on....I do however regret posting the video of Tung Hu ling and CZL here since the point seems to have been entirely missed...... I shall bow out and leave you to your thread

 

[Zeny]

Xue, i don't wish to antagonise or argue with anyone by sharing my ideas. I have already said those ideas are mine and mine only and do not represent the ideas of all huang stylists. Some huang stylists in my area do my exact opposite even.

If you disagree with me, please share your views and i would love to hear and learn from them. I have extended an invitation to readers of this thread to share their personal experiences with 'peng jin' but none did so. Linking articles and videos is not the same as sharing personal experiences.

I am spending time and effort to share my ideas and experience with no expectation of any benefit or payment. Please don't repay me by showing negativity. I shall stop then since my posts appear to be causing resentment.

 

[Xue Sheng]

Don't let me stop you from posting, post what you like, as you like, I will just no longer participate from this point on

 

[ChenAn]

here is Yang Chengfu

What is considered up right now is washed out traditional taiji. In fact traditional Yangshi and Chenshi share the same attributes because they work

 

[Zeny]

Adam Mizner uses a lot of lianjin in his push hands. A good example is at 1:06. Another one at 4:31.

0:58 is a good example of the fajin exercise i described at post #29.

 

[ChenAn]

Adam has a good sensitivity without doubt. And he does in very friendly way. However, this is demo format, put Adam under stress and thing may look little bit different


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[Zeny]

Here's what it looks like in non-demo conditions. Less smooth and flashy. This video shows a lot of lianjin in action.

 

[ChenAn]

Thanks Zeny for posting video. There is big level gap between you and Adam. Also it seems like you don't have much push hand experience in this video (at the time). So that contrast really emphasizes Adam skillset.

What I meant by "under stress" is presented in two video examples.
First example native Chen village master Chen Ziqiang free pushing with compliant student:

The second example when Chen Ziqiang free pushing with non compliant taiji player

You can easily spot the difference in levels/compliance in the videos above

 

[Zeny]

That's not me. I've never met Adam, just a random video I pulled from youtube.

 

[Xue Sheng]

Video 2: not bad for a guy that is about 1/2 size of the other guy.

Also note with the video there is this

Tuishou,/Push hands workout with Chen Ziqiang. This is a short piece of Day 2 training with Chen Ziqiang. He worked my cardio good and was quite a little beast to work with. Not sure how much he weighs, under 150 I believe, but of course some say as little as 125 pounds( just keeps getting smaller), which he certainly doesn't feel like. Some look at this as a type of wrestling and not "proper tuishou" all the Taiji critics of course are welcome to take a poke. Either way Taiji principles were in play, some can see what others can't. That being said their are also areas that were below standard needing improvement and that's the point of training this way. This isn't fighting , sparring or Taiji boxing but a way of testing certain skills. Please share what you see as good, bad or otherwise and feel free to critique both myself and Chen Ziqiang.

 

[ChenAn]

Chen Ziqiang is eldest son of Chen Xiaoxing (Chen Xiaowang younger brother). Full time martial instructor who is doing it for a leaving all his life. William ( a guy clip #2) 44 years old part time practitioner (like most of us)

Now, given Chen Ziqiang credentials and "master" attribute wouldn't we expect that weight difference play any roll like in video #1 with Mike?

Just to be fair and square - real life situation prepares for us none-compliant, unrehearsed, hostile environment. In addition, it could happens it worst possible time of our life's. So "stressed" environment is really what traditional sober approach originally designed to handle. Nobody is perfect, so some degree of failure is expected. Traditional training prepares for that . When it washed out by some delusional view taiji only works in imaginary world or may look as bad as this in reality:

I haven't seen many contemporary taiji masters who realistically approach taiji fighting beyond limits of push hands demos. As we can see in older photos of Yang shi. There is a good reason why taiji fighters in the past hide their center behind. As I mentioned before I used to practice Chen village method, and so get to push and wrestle with Chen family members. One of them was Chen Bing. After one of wrestling session with Chen Bing I asked him how would approach attacker who is about to lunch real attack with kick and punches. Chen Bing very quickly assumed a common sense boxer like stance protecting his ribs and head. Even though I'm no longer do wrestling matches or practice the village method I do still like Chen Bing sober mind. Oh yes his 2016 promo looks neat

 

[Xue Sheng]

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