Taiji Vid Clips

[Braden]

Taiji pushing hands:

http://www2.sinowushu.com/taiji_04.rm

A bit of Sun style taiji form:

http://www2.sinowushu.com/taiji_03.rm

Really just posting cause I need a working link to these to save them to my HD. ;p But for those actually interested, here's the page they're from; there's some other kungfu, wushu, and sanshou clips. Just navigate the video pages via the six black links under where it says 'realplayer,' you don't need to install chinese fonts.

http://www.sinowushu.com/xinshang/xinshang.php?page=0&whichone=video&lanmu=ÎäÊõ&leibie=ÆäËû

[GunnedDownAtrocity]

i'm not as good of a judge on internal as you seem to be braden, but the dude sucked imo.

every time . .. every single time ... the man moved into someone his back foot came up putting all his weight on his front foot. it maybe differant at other schools, but this is a big no no where i come from. i thought that your weight should always remain as even as possible and that you settle into people more than you lean. that the power wasn't coming so much from the movement of your mass, but from the mass being rooted ,and sinking or coiling from, and into, perfect structure. when you do it like this your back leg should remain fairly rooted. which means to me that it should rarely, if ever, lift up like that.

wanna cover my bases in case i'm talking out of my ass, but this is the way i see it done when sifu shows us. it's hard to catch what he does when he teaches the advanced students, so maybe it's differant at advanced levels (that'd be a big suprise . .. yeah you know that way i showed you to strike and made you perfect it for all that time . . . forget it . . do it this way now). do you other internal guys try to keep rooted fairly evenly as well, or am i just a noob who should keep my mouth shut?

after watching it a couple times some of the pushes and the throw look ok (mediocore), but he looks like he's bouncing up and into most of his strikes the way newbies do when the first start hitting the pads. the girl didn't impress me either. she seems to be a great contributor to the stereo type i've grown to hate. she might be good, but i hate that people only think of the stuff that's in these two vids when the think of taichi.

[Nexus]

The push hands video is ok.

The sun style video although I am no expert on sun style shows a complete lacking of power in the way she is generating her movements. Her waist is following her hands as she turns left, and on her push her top half appears to be leading her bottom half. It gave the appearance of a form that had never been practiced slow enough to focus on those details.

None the less I respect anyone who is willing to put up a video for others to see, and put themself in the spotlight to be judged and criticized by those who won't do the same themselves.

- Nexus

[Sam Wiley]

The man in the Push Hands video is Feng Ziqiang, a Chen style teacher, and the "girl" is Sun Jianyun, the daughter of Sun Lu-tang.

Feng's footwork is fine. He is lifting his back foot to close the gap and maintain a stable stance.

[GunnedDownAtrocity]

what am i missing with the power generation then? his closing the gap looked like over extending to me . .. . im not trying to bash him but judge him with a better set of ideals.

[GunnedDownAtrocity]

it just looks like even our advanced students look more stable and generate more power than what i can see. who knows though . .. dude could be three times what my sifu is. it always looks differant face to face or even better yet hand to hand.

[Sam Wiley]

Well, he steps in with the front foot, and has to move the back foot to keep his stance stable. It's as simple as that, man. As for power generation, I didn't see any. All I saw was momentum and root breaking. But then again, the video wasn't a demonstration of power generation.

I don't want to base an opinion of him on a video clip. Like you said, things are different face to face and hand to hand.

The PH clip was of very basi pushing hands though, so it was all probably meant to give people a glance at the art and not anything deep.

[Sho]

Thanks for the link, Braden. Those are very good quality videoclips regarding their farely small size. Besides, there happens to be clips on Li Lian Jie. :)

[Braden]

GDA - "thought that your weight should always remain as even as possible"

Thoughts on this vary from school to school, and people tend to be very dogmatic about it, as some believe it is mentioned in the classics - which say you should never be 'double-weighted.' (Although many argue this has nothing to do at all with where your weight is in regards to your legs!) My teacher says you've got to be careful judging people on details, because he says just when you're sure you've found one thing which seems universal, you'll bump into some old master who does the exact opposite, and somehow it works.

All that said, I don't see anything wrong with regards to where that fellow's weight is. I've been taught (and seen taught widely elsewhere) that your weight should NEVER be evenly spread; in my practice I try to always keep the weight entirely on one foot (except when it's shifting, which of course it often is when you're moving, but don't make life hard! ;) ) With regards to rooting off the front versus back leg, people certainly do both, although again you'll find some people claiming one is the right way. We do both, although we emphasize the rear a bit more.

Maybe if you look at the very first uprooting the guy does, where he bumps his partner from the inside. It's much more 'power generation'y (you see the guy stagger backwards off camera), and seems to me he looks more solid in his stance, the way you might be looking for. With regards to the later ones (especially the 4 in slowmo sequence) I actually really liked his footwork. It seems to me he is using it as much as anything else to disrupt his attackers; check out the very subtle angles; check out the last one where his knee jams the attackers incoming leg from being able to 'resolve'; check out the second last one where he steps back just a bit so he can open up and sweep. Perhaps the bounciness you are seeing comes from this, rather than a pure power generation demo.

Like Sam noted though, this is a younger Feng Zhiqiang, who is a VERY well respected Chen stylist. Although I don't like to appeal to 'method of authority' very much, I'm pretty comfortable believing any inadequacies we see come from us rather than him. ;)

[Braden]

In case anyone couldn't struggle through the chinese site, here's the other kungfu vids. There also 30 or so wushu and sanshou vids over there.

Yang taiji:

http://www2.sinowushu.com/taiji_02.rm

Baji:

http://www2.sinowushu.com/baji_01.rm

Sun taiji:

http://www2.sinowushu.com/taiji_01.rm

Crazy wushuified bagua, but has a cool footwork sequence:

http://www2.sinowushu.com/baguazhang_01.rm

[RAF]

Regarding pushing hands, in the Chen style that I was taught, we have a set where you move back and forth with all of the weight rooted in the front and the back foot is in a closed cat. Similar to about the 6th posture in the lao jia form. However, the actual application is the same as in hu pu, baji and is played out in a 60/40 stance with applied to the dragon, tiger points.


Here are some clipping of Yang and Wu style:

http://www.geocities.com/yongnian/anima.html


Chen's style:

http://www.americanchentaichi.com/Pages/ZTCMovie.html

http://www.americanchentaichi.com/Pages/VideoClips.html

[Sam Wiley]

Great clips, RAF. Several of those looked like parts of the Old Yang style, as well as some of the Wudang forms I learned. Really shows the interrelatedness of the Taiji styles.

[RAF]

Sam:

Glad you like them. The American Chen group has a branch in Georgia. Might be worth it just to take a look and see what they are up to.

Chen Quan Zhong lao jia form is pretty close to what I learned.

Ted is great guy and knows Chinese thoroughly.

Later.