Combining Taiji and Yiquan Principles. Sam Tam

[23rdwave]

If Sam was doing yiquan he would move his feet and would not let his training partner enter the gates but here he is using yiquan to power his taiji.

 

[Kung Fu Wang]

Every time when I see a "push" clip like this (I'm allergy to push), I always want to ask the following questions:

- Have you ever seen skill like this ever been used in the boxing ring, or on the wrestling mat?
- The push is neither punch nor throw. What is it?
- Why do you want to push your opponent away? You should keep your friends close but your enemies closer.
- If you grab on your opponent's wrist so your body and his body are connected, can he still push you away?
- In all this kind of demo clip, the student always has very poor balance, why?
- When your opponent's force comes through your arm, if you collapse your arm at your elbow joint, can his force still be able to reach to your upper arm and reach to your body?
- ...

Those are general questions. It's not direct to the person in that clip.

 

[23rdwave]

Every time when I see a clip like this, I always want to ask the following questions:

- Have you ever seen skill like this ever been used in the boxing ring, or on the wrestling mat?
- The push is neither punch nor throw. What is it?
- Why do you want to push your opponent away? You should keep your friends close but your enemies closer.
- If you grab on your opponent's wrist so your body and his body are connected, can he still push you away?
- In all this kind of demo clip, the student always look like has very poor balance, why?
- When your opponent's force comes through your arm, if you collapse your arm at your elbow joint, can his force still be able to reach to your upper arm and reach to your body?
- ...

Those are general questions. It's not direct to the person in that clip.

- Boxers and wrestlers don't do this kind of training. Most people young enough to fight don't have the patience to learn this type of skill. And those that are mature enough to grasp it are too old to fight. For example: Lei Tai has an age limit. No one over forty.

- Sam says, "I hit him three times. The first time is when I hit him. The second time is when he hits the wall. The third time is when he hits the ground." You Shuai Jiao guys hit twice.

- When someone grabs me they become part of me. When I move they move. When his feet leave the floor he may have other things to think about than how strong his wrist grab is.

- Double weighting.

- When someone pushes on me I let the energy/force fill my back like a sail full of wind. I keep my structure and don't resist. I hit him with my spine not my arms. Or rather I use the spine like rear wheel drive. The arms are my bumper.

 

[Xue Sheng]

Every time when I see a "push" clip like this (I'm allergy to push), I always want to ask the following questions:

- Have you ever seen skill like this ever been used in the boxing ring, or on the wrestling mat?
- The push is neither punch nor throw. What is it?
- Why do you want to push your opponent away? You should keep your friends close but your enemies closer.
- If you grab on your opponent's wrist so your body and his body are connected, can he still push you away?
- In all this kind of demo clip, the student always has very poor balance, why?
- When your opponent's force comes through your arm, if you collapse your arm at your elbow joint, can his force still be able to reach to your upper arm and reach to your body?
- ...

Those are general questions. It's not direct to the person in that clip.

And every time you post a response like this I ask the same question, do you have any idea what push hands, at the level shown, is actually used for?

 

[Kung Fu Wang]

And every time you post a response like this I ask the same question, do you have any idea what push hands, at the level shown, is actually used for?

I don't believe in "push" because when your opponent hold on your wrist, you just can't push him away. What's the usage to train pushing skill if your opponent's "monster grip" can make your pushing skill to be useless.

 

[Xue Sheng]

If Sam was doing yiquan he would move his feet and would not let his training partner enter the gates but here he is using yiquan to power his taiji.

Some of it is straight up Yang style taijiquan applicatoins in push hands. As for the rest, t

I don't believe in "push" because when your opponent hold on your wrist, you just can't push him away. What's the usage to train pushing skill if your opponent's "monster grip" can make your pushing skill to be useless.

Which tells me you have no idea what push hands it for. That or you never trained it to a higher level.

Do we really need to go down this taiji road again, You don't like taiji, you make that evidently clear in virtually every post you make on the subject. And then you start commenting on things, that to be honest, I do not think you understand,

 

[Kung Fu Wang]

Which tells me you have no idea what push hands it for. That or you never trained it to a higher level.

Do we really need to go down this taiji road again, You don't like taiji, you make that evidently clear in virtually every post you make on the subject. And then you start commenting on things, that to be honest, I do not think you understand,

I only train something that's useful.

When I grab on your wrist, you can

- punch my head and knock me down.
- pull my leg and take me down.

You just can't push me away when I grab on your wrist.

You still have not answered my question. What's the usage of your pushing skill if your opponent's "monster grip" can make your "pushing skill" to be useless?

 

[Xue Sheng]

I only train something that's useful.

You still have not answered my question. What's the usage of your pushing skill if your opponent's "monster grip" can make your "pushing skill" to be useless?

Then, if you actually trained taijiquan, you would already know, you do something else. You seem, you seem to think that all taijiquan has is push hands, which also tells me you do not understand push hands. You seem to think push hands and pushing is all taijiquan has when it comes to fighting. This again says you do not understand it. Taijiquan also has striking, kicking, shuaijiao and qinna, just like any other Chinese martial art.

You don't think taijiquan is useful because you do not understand it, and/or have not trained it enough, only trained the competition stuff, or you have not trained with the right shifu. And yet, here .

 

[Kung Fu Wang]

You don't think taijiquan is useful because you do not understand it, and/or have not trained it enough, only trained the competition stuff, or you have not trained with the right shifu.

Can you stop personal attack again? It's OK to attack me. It's not OK to attack my Taiji teacher.

Your logic is very funny.

I don't agree with you -> I don't understand Taiji -> My Taiji is bad -> My Taiji teacher is also bad

 

[Xue Sheng]

Your logic is very funny.

I don't agree with you -> I don't understand Taiji -> My Taiji is bad -> My Taiji teacher is also bad

Interesting, I answered your question, told you more about taijiquan and you go here....ok

I am glad you found is funny, but you misunderstand, I said any one of those was possibly the reason you don't understand what taijiquan really is, not all of them, or it could be all of them, I have no idea. All I do know is, based on virtually every post you make about taiji you show a prejudice against it and a lack of understanding of it. And I don't agree with you about just about everything you post about taijiquan.

As I have said many times before, when we end up here, I do think you are a skilled martial artist in just about every non-taiji post you make, find some of them rather informative and interesting. Which only confuses me more as to why you start commenting on taijiquan when seem to not truly understand what it is, what it has in its arsenal and just plain do not like it

And since I answer your question, why not answer the one I asked you

"do you have any idea what push hands, at the level shown, is actually used for?"


what about the question you asked that I answered, why no comment there.

 

[Xue Sheng]

Can you stop personal attack again?

How many times must you retreat to this. This is not a personal attack, I don't know who your teacher was. I am commenting based on my experience with taijiquan and your posts on the subject. You do not seem to have a grasp on what taijiquan is and there must be a reason, I am only suggesting possible reasons.

 

[Kung Fu Wang]

"do you have any idea what push hands, at the level shown, is actually used for?".

In my Chang Taiji system, we have 4 different kind of PH training. We don't use it for competition. We only use it to develop "sensitivity".

In Chang Taiji, we don't push our opponent's away. We throw our opponents down.

 

[Xue Sheng]

In my Chang Taiji system, we have 4 different kind of PH training. We don't use it for competition. We only use it to develop "sensitivity".

Yang Push hands as it comes from Tung Ying Chieh
>Stationary 1 hand
>Stationary 2 hand
>stick and follow (moving) generally 1 hand, similar to what you were showing but there is no fixed stepping pattern
>3 step (moving)
>4 corner (moving) there is a lock practices in this as well
>There is also a 1 step, but this is quick and attack and response and have done it rarely
>free style with 13 postures applications work and as you advance even qinna, this is where I would end up on the floor when working with my Shifu.

I have some minor Chen push hands training, but I never got past stationary 2 hands in Chen. But there is a lot of qinna and Shuaijiao in Chen too.

Is push hands for fighting? Yes and no.

There are fighting applications in it, The best Qinna I have ever come across is my Yang Shifu. I have trained qinna with a lot of folks, one of those Yang Jwing Ming. I can always feel it coming, sometimes I can stop it, sometimes I can't (see Yang Jwing Ming). But with my taiji shifu I never feel it coming. I am all of a sudden locked. His explanation for this is "You lock yourself". It comes from his sensitivity and patients. I am in the right position and he applies very little pressure and I am locked. But If you are going to get in a fight, and all you have is push hands, you will likely lose, push hands for the most part is a tool. However there is a saying in Taijiquan, if you understand the 13 postures, you can fight. And I do agree with that. But that is not push hands, it can be, and is combined with push hands. I am in a a push hands group and there is a lot of joint locking and throwing going on, we do not get into striking. But this is a freestyle push hands group, there are no set patterns here. But we all know it is a tool and there is more to learn. Taijiquan has a lot more than just pushing. But that pushing, if done right, at the right time, will take someones root and knock them off balance (which you could then take the advantage) or it can knock them on the floor.

Is it for sensitivity and learning to find someone else's center? Yes. But trained properly, it has real world, fighting applications. Even if that applications it in support of something else like kicking, punching, shuaijiao or qinna.

As for the OP video, some of it I know because it is straight up Yang style. Some of it I would have to experience for myself for me to believe it

This is a demo, from my lineage, most of which I have experinced over the years. This was Tung Hu Ling, oldest son of Tung Ying Chieh, and classmate and friend of my Shifu. The other guy is (a young) Tung Kia Ling oldest son Tung Hu Ying

 

[Deleted member 39746]

- Why do you want to push your opponent away? You should keep your friends close but your enemies closer.

Maybe mis understood, but its pretty valid to push or pull someone to off balance them so they attack (at least in theory) in a disadvantaged way. (in this way can be off balanced)

thats at least the validity in pushing someone away. Just in case it wasnt covered, or you didnt know, never hurts to reply to that.

I aint touching the validity of push hands though. Lest i get dim maked.

 

[Kung Fu Wang]

to push or pull someone to off balance.

When I grab on your wrist,

1. You can not push me away.
2. You can pull me into a wrestling game.
3. You can start a striking game.

In all cases, the push game is over. Either the wrestling game will start, or the striking game will start.

 

[jobo]

And every time you post a response like this I ask the same question, do you have any idea what push hands, at the level shown, is actually used for?

well in the vid it appears to be being used to push someone with dyspraxia about

 

[23rdwave]

When I grab on your wrist,

1. You can not push me away.
2. You can pull me into a wrestling game.
3. You can start a striking game.

In all cases, the push game is over. Either the wrestling game will start, or the striking game will start.

Yiquan (Mind Boxing) is a striking art. It is the art of awareness (mind). We train to have a relaxed/soft/light body that can respond to any attack. We try to be like a buoy in the water. The waves and tides push us down and around but we always pop back up.

It's not the arms "pushing" it's the whole body advancing forward with the "springy" arms acting like bumpers but allowing the opponent's energy to travel through the relaxed/soft/light arms (bones and tendons doing the lion's share of the structure part because we'd like to have the muscles to be relaxed/soft/light) and filling the spine like a bow. Then I hit their center with my spine and the rest of my mass comes along for the ride so the tip of one finger carries my 200lbs with it (I was 190lbs for 3-4 years but have slipped back to 200lbs). One explanation of sinking the chi is to empty the upper body of tension making it responsive. Without a cima-trained body (not done with forms, applications, etc. but zhan zhuang) it's just a push and if there isn't a significant weight advantage not very effective. Certainly not against a strong ("monster") wrist grab.

We don't look to push the way you understand it. If I was holding a swiss ball and someone ran into me they would presumably bounce off. The body becomes similar to the ball but it has arms to strike, adhere, redirect and legs to step and step on feet and ankles, and kick ankles, shins and knees, and use the knee to attack knees and thighs. And so on.

The body is "pushy". We're not pushing anyone. They're pushing themselves away. Is the swiss ball pushing them?

If someone grabs my wrist with a monster grip and pulls me towards them I will go along for the ride and with a relaxed/soft/light body that has structure (bones and tendons) and filled with cima energy (which is what the mind is focused on and not the wrist grab) I will crash into them and "express" the "energy" through my fingertips.

If someone grabs my wrist with a monster grip and advances towards me I will go along with that, too, but I will point where I want them to go and allow the "energy" to express itself in that direction. When someone grabs me they become part of me. When I move they move.

 

[Gweilo]

But with my taiji shifu I never feel it coming. I am all of a sudden locked. His explanation for this is "You lock yourself". It comes from his sensitivity and patients. I am in the right position and he applies very little pressure and I am locked

I don't know a lot about Chinese arts, but the above quote interested me, in the process in the video, are you looking for the tension in your opponent? , the teacher seemed to react by pushing his opponent at a point of tension, and at a 45 degree angle, I can see the benefit of reaction training and the freedom of movement, also the benefit of staying in contact, but was just wondering about seeking tension in your opponent.

 

[Kung Fu Wang]

If someone grabs my wrist with a monster grip and pulls me towards them I will go along for the ride and with a relaxed/soft/light body that has structure (bones and tendons) and filled with cima energy (which is what the mind is focused on and not the wrist grab) I will crash into them and "express" the "energy" through my fingertips.

What if when you try to "crash" into your opponent, suddenly, he is not there any more?

Here is an example:

- A drags B.
- B yields into A, and tries to crash into A.
- A spins his body, moves himself out of B's moving path, and lead B into the emptiness.

Since B doesn't know when A will spins his body, A has advantage over B.

 

[23rdwave]

What if when you try to "crash" into your opponent, suddenly, he is not there any more?

Here is an example:

- A drags B.
- B yields into A, and tries to crash into A.
- A spins his body, moves himself out of B's moving path, and lead B into the emptiness.

Since B doesn't know when A will spins his body, A has advantage over B.

I wouldn't try to crash into him unless that's where he pulls me. I want my body to respond to my opponent's pressure rather than my mind trying to do anything other than focus on my body state. I don't mind the emptiness. It reminds of me of my first marriage.