Small Milestone

[Xue Sheng]

After years of Yang Taijiquan, stopping Yang Taijiquan, starting Yang style and then stopping again. Then going back to other styled (Chen, Wu, Sun, even a bit of Wu/Hao), I finally came to the realization that my biggest issue is not that I am board with Yang style, it is I am tired of being stagnant. I'm on a plateau and have been on it for years, due to knee issues, arthritis issues and lack of training partners who are interested in Taijiquan, as it was originally, with the martial art intact. I was trained that way, but virtually no one, in my area, wants that any longer. Talks with my shifu only compounded my frustration. He is in his late 80s, possibly 90 now and is content training just those who want form only. He really does not want to train the martial side any longer nor does he want to help me with a refresher. And I understand, he is much older than he was when he was training me and my group of old martial arts dinosaurs,

I also realized that pursuing virtually any other style would require a 2 to 3 hour trip in any direction to get to a teacher. And that would be pretty much starting from scratch. Not that I am against that, if it is close, but it was not making any sense. (although I am still going to dabble in Sun style, it intrigues me from my Xingyi background POV)

Small Milestone: I have decided to get off the plateau.

There is one person locally who I can meet with and do some push hands, but that will likely be only once or twice a month. There is also another group, I may have mentioned them on MT before, that has a push hands class. They are Yang style, from a different lineage and their form is different, but the teacher has consented to allow me to go and work with their push hands group based on my background. I have trained a bit of this lineages push hands before, about 30 years ago, and he was ok with that. And he said when they do their form at the beginning of class, I can do mine in the back. (the local push hands class I was going to was forcing me to do their CMC form before class and I had a hard time with that). Also set up a reading curriculum to help me get off that plateau, many of the books are from YMAA, but I did train with Dr Yang a few times over the years and I have read some of his books before and they did help me at the time.

I am going on vacation the first part of next month and when I return I think I will give this push hands group a call and make sure it is still ok for me to go. Of course it is 2 hours away, but hopefully I can get there 1 to 2 times a month or more, and I am not starting from scratch.

Did the Yang long form again last night for the first time in a few months, felt good, and I think I many be headed in the right direction again.

 

[Teapot]

Out of curiosity, is there a martial art you consider to be your primary focus or specialty? Would that be Taijiquan or something else?

I've been open about meeting others for Push Hands, and I can sympathize with how hard it is to find them. I have pushed hands with outsiders (not my classmates) before, but unfortunately, I am faced with two problems:

1. Other people are too low-level at push hands for me to gain anything out of it. That includes some teachers; they're just not at the level where they should be teaching.
2. I'm afraid of developing an ego. Going against Level 1 players does not help me improve, and it might give me a false sense of "Wait... am I good at this?" when the opponents are too low-level. And in the Taijiquan world, there's an ocean of Level 1 players out there - not just students but teachers as well.

Thankfully, I have classmates who are good enough that I can improve as well. In the future, I'm open to seeking opportunities to play with Judo practitioners for instance. I would love to do "my thing" while someone else does "their thing" in their own style, but when attending another class, there's the social pressure that I feel that I ought to do "their thing" because it feels respectful.

 

[Xue Sheng]

Out of curiosity, is there a martial art you consider to be your primary focus or specialty? Would that be Taijiquan or something else?

Was between Taijiquan and Xingyiquan for years, now it will be just taijiquan

I've been open about meeting others for Push Hands, and I can sympathize with how hard it is to find them. I have pushed hands with outsiders (not my classmates) before, but unfortunately, I am faced with two problems:

1. Other people are too low-level at push hands for me to gain anything out of it. That includes some teachers; they're just not at the level where they should be teaching.
2. I'm afraid of developing an ego. Going against Level 1 players does not help me improve, and it might give me a false sense of "Wait... am I good at this?" when the opponents are too low-level. And in the Taijiquan world, there's an ocean of Level 1 players out there - not just students but teachers as well.

Thankfully, I have classmates who are good enough that I can improve as well. In the future, I'm open to seeking opportunities to play with Judo practitioners for instance. I would love to do "my thing" while someone else does "their thing" in their own style, but when attending another class, there's the social pressure that I feel that I ought to do "their thing" because it feels respectful.

You can learn a lot from beginners, if nothing else you can reinforce your basics. I use to teach push hands for my shifu when I trained with him. But thst was many years ago.

 

[Xue Sheng]

Spent a few hours yesterday working on the Yang Long form making corrections and remembering bits I had forgotten.

 

[Xue Sheng]

Spent an hour doing the Yang Long form yesterday, did the form twice. Felt horrible before I did the form (Thank you gastritis + Flu shot), actually felt a little better afterwards

 

[Wing Woo Gar]

Spent an hour doing the Yang Long form yesterday, did the form twice. Felt horrible before I did the form (Thank you gastritis + Flu shot), actually felt a little better afterwards

When you do the form, do you do it on both sides? I like to go to the right and then the left after because I feel like I get more from it doing the form twice.

 

[Xue Sheng]

When you do the form, do you do it on both sides? I like to go to the right and then the left after because I feel like I get more from it doing the form twice.

Not these days, use to, but to many other things to get back right now, Also there is a 13 postures form I came up with that works right and left in all postures, to me, that is more important to get back to at this point. Basically starting at the root and growing out from there