Let's debate lightness

[Tez3]

I think the OP means "when you can feel by touch that he is off-balance, take a step toward him with your hands on him and maintaining peng, and he will fall over."

Taking a long time but I think we are getting there! thank you, 'falling over' is better than 'falling down' which sounds like they just fainted away. If there's actual 'hands on' technique to making your opponent fall over then that's believable, now whether it's a workable or efficient technique I'll leave the CMA people to argue over.

 

[Zeny]

The point is, the skill i mentioned is only a means to an end. The skill itself is not the most important thing. What is important is the time and attention spent to acquire that skill. Along the way you will have gained so much understanding of the human body and its reactions and tendencies, that if one day you join a competition or something like that, you will be very scary if you go all out.

In other words, if i can unbalance you and cause you to fall over with very minimal effort, let's see what happens if i decide to go all out.

P/S i did try to go all out for shits and giggles and slammed a 13 year fellow taijiquan student to the wall within a split second. I didn't know what moves i did when i tried to reflect on what happened.

 

[mograph]

If there's actual 'hands on' technique to making your opponent fall over then that's believable, now whether it's a workable or efficient technique I'll leave the CMA people to argue over.

Taijiquan is pretty sneaky: basically, we try to feel where the opponent is going (and how stiff he/she is) by touch, then sometimes feint by touch and try to make the opponent commit him/herself to an action based on our feint. Once they commit, we just help them on their way. We might give them a slight tug, and when they pull back by resisting, we push them away. Or ... we may make ourselves a target for a push from the opponent, then move out of the way and gently steer them a few degrees off as we watch them go by.

Of course, it's much more subtle than that, and good practitioners will never commit so much that they cannot retreat back to center. Also, we try to hide our intentions as much as we can to those who are good with touch. The better the practitioner, the more subtle the game.

That's one reason why we train push hands: to develop the ability to sense intention by touch. It's not mind-reading: we all have physical "tells," and the good practitioner tries to minimize his/her own tells, camouflage them, or create fake tells.

 

[mograph]

Also having a very short moment of being tense can, if applied correctly, up root and throw your opponent off balance

Yes. Would you say that it's not enough to be soft all the time, but we need to control our ability to shift between soft and hard when it is necessary?
Of course, all the time, being sensitive?

 

[Xue Sheng]

Yes. Would you say that it's not enough to be soft all the time, but we need to control our ability to shift between soft and hard when it is necessary?
Of course, all the time, being sensitive?

You need to know, and be aware of, both sides of the coin.... Yin and Yang

Anyone who disagrees does not understand

 

[oaktree]

Oaktree, thanks for the nice pic. No offence, if i were that kid, my posture would be very different and there is no way you can maintain your stance or resist me. You cannot take for granted that your root will work against all manner of pushes.

It is actually the most basic natural posture that most people do to push, the point was to show force being applied and rooting. And if you tried to push me you are correct I would not maintain the stance or resist you I would change blend and be behind you.
Baguazhang root is all about rooting on the move so breaking my root only creates a flow into another root posture lIke a spinning top

 

[Tez3]

Do you ever pull? In Judo for example and to a certain extent in the style of karate I do when someone is pushing you, what you do is pull rather than push back. It puts them off balance and makes it easier to do whatever technique you deem necessary.

 

[mograph]

Zeny, if you disagree with my post about soft and hard, maybe we disagree on the definition of "soft" and "hard." This is not uncommon.

To me:
"Soft" relates to the receiving of an action.
"Hard" relates to the transmitting of an action.

When we apply Fa Jing we are being "hard," if only for an instant. This hardness needs to be distributed throughout the body in order to be most effective. (I am not referring to localized muscular tension.) The hardness must not be more than is necessary in order to achieve the desired effect (e.g. to bounce the opponent). If the hardness is distributed, it will feel much less (and lighter) than if it were concentrated in one or two muscles. A small force, multiplied throughout the body, can achieve the same effect as a large force, concentrated on one part, such as the triceps. However, the concentrated force requires tension and tightness, which decreases sensitivity and may delay reaction time. However, the lighter, distributed force, is less distracting and allows for a maintaining of sensitivity and higher reaction time.

This distribution is another way to look at "unified whole-body force."

Are we soft when transmitting? I'd say that we are unified: in order to even lightly direct an opponent, we need to be unified enough to not yield. Our sensitivity tells us when we have used the right about of force.

That's what I have ... in my opinion.

 

[oaktree]

Tez actually spoke about the concept of Ju in Judo the pulling and pushing and I want to elaborate on it a little and the breaking of balance. Breaking someone else's balance can be good but in some cases pushing someone down as they fall back this can happen and I have used this many times. Most people in the internal arts don't know how to handle something like this:

 

[mograph]

Most people in the internal arts don't know how to handle something like this:

Does judo have a technique that prevents someone's getting such a good grip on one's clothing?

 

[oaktree]

Does judo have a technique that prevents someone's getting such a good grip on one's clothing?

I'm not a judoka but I imagine in their self defense they do. But I think judoka don't mind having their clothes grabbed because they are use to it and it sets up for a counter throw.

 

[Tony Dismukes]

Does judo have a technique that prevents someone's getting such a good grip on one's clothing?

Grip fighting is a huge part of judo. High level judoka are very good at getting superior grips while not allowing ther opponents to get an effective grip.

 

[Zeny]

Mograph, thanks for that. Your explanation is very clear.

However my fajin is different. I'm not saying that my method is better, it may well be that your fajin method is better, just that i do it in a different manner.

When i fajin my upper body is empty of any force and soft like a pillow. The 'jin' is generated in my legs, and as there is no hardness or tension throughout my body, i can channel the jin in my legs to my palm, and then into the opponent's body. The opponent then feels a springy bouncing effect, rather than a push.

My taijiquan also has ying and yang, but i cannot simply call them softness and hardness, it is more complicated than that. My yang is produced from my ying. What i mean is, my only goal is to soften my body to the extreme. There is not a single occasion where i would want to tense or harden my body, not even for an instant. Over time, when i feel my arms, my skin and the meat underneath it feels like a baby's, until i could feel and trace the surface of my bone. When i use my fingers to feel my bones, the bones feel surpisingly large, at least larger than i remember them to be.

if i extend my arm in a soft manner, without moving my body or generating jin, and say my partner tries to stop the movement of my arm with his fingers, he will feel that my energy is very strong and he will not be able to do it, while i would feel as if i'm moving through next to no resistance (effortless). While my arm has this yang, it also has ying, for it is still soft like a pillow and relaxed.

In other words, my ying and yang exist at the same time. My ying produces yang, and my yang contains ying.

Hope the above is clear and understandable.

 

[Xue Sheng]

Yin (not ying) becomes Yang and Yang becomes Yin and there is always a little Yin in Yang and a little Yang in Yin. That is what this symbol is telling you

 

[Tez3]

if i extend my arm in a soft manner, without moving my body or generating jin, and say my partner tries to stop the movement of my arm with his fingers, he will feel that my energy is very strong and he will not be able to do it, while i would feel as if i'm moving through next to no resistance (effortless). While my arm has this yang, it also has ying, for it is still soft like a pillow and relaxed.

I'm not disbelieving you as such, just curious to know if you have tested this against resisting opponents from different styles? As well as against people who are really out to make their attack hurt you?

 

[oaktree]

"When i fajin my upper body is empty of any force and soft like a pillow"

Hmm when I fajin I hit hard like a truck.

 

[Zeny]

Tested against fully resisting opponents from different styles, yes.

Tested against people who are out to hurt me, no.

As a matter of background i'm from this taijiquan school:

Sing Ong Tai Chi - learn taijiquan in New Zealand and around the world

There is a branch in Canada:

https://m.facebook.com/LavalTaiChi/

This is the info on the canadian instructor:

Sing Ong Tai Chi - Laval, Québec, Canada

 

[Xue Sheng]

Zeny

When you do this "Pillow soft" push hands to easily knock your opponent over, are you both in the middle of an open room, or is the opponent in from of a couch like a video you showed in another thread?

 

[Zeny]

When practising the unbalancing act, the opponent is standing with his back against a couch. This allows the unbalancing act to be properly trained, as it is probably impossible to even commence training if the opponent is free to take backward steps every time you try to unbalance him. Unbalancing an opponent and causing him to fall over and for his buttocks to hit the floor is more difficult in an open area, but not impossible. Personally for me i just resort to bouncing my partner after i unbalance him during training in an open area (when the two couches in the classroom are occupied by other students).

Fajin is trained in an open area, but there is a mattress placed vertically against the wall. This is so that the partner is not injured when his back slams against the wall. However, as most seasoned students are usually quite sung and soft, it is quite difficult to slam them as well, so most fajin probably just causes them to take 1-2 steps back.

 

[Tez3]

You could always train to breakfall, it's a useful technique to have, though you may not have the same problems with ice and snow covered roads and pavements!

I don't see though why it would be impossible to train against a partner who is moving, it's done in other martial arts and is seen as vital. Training again a non resisting, non moving, non attacking partner negates the point of training. Once, yes to learn then you have to use it against attackers.