Push hands in Chen village tourneys

[illusionfist]

Has anybody ever seen (or maybe played in) the way push hands is played in Chen village tourneys? I just saw the Chen Village Push Hands tournament that Ren Guang Yi put out a few years back and i must say that i was quite disturbed after watching it.

To me it seems like very few Tai Chi principles are implemented in this way of push hands. It seems more like its a combination of sumo and shuai chiao. Outside of rooting and ting jing, i dont think any other tai chi principles are present.

Anybody else seen this style of push hands? What do you think about it?

Peace :D

[count]

he's been there. I'd have to see the video. All the push hands I have seen and/or played with Chen stylists has been good. Maybe the competitions are the same as many here. Just shove fests. Hey illsionfist, how do you still rate the administrator tag? :D

Count

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[illusionfist]

Actually, i have no clue why its says administrator, hehe. I just noticed that. I guess its a glitch that carried over from the upgrade.

As for the style of push hands, its VERY MUCH like a shove fest. When i was watching the video, the one i guy i thought wouldn't be much of a good player actually exhibited some TRUE tai chi skill, not just mundane pushing.

Peace :D

[Sam Wiley]

I read an article a while back, written by a guy who went to the Chen village to learn there. He said that one of his teachers' sons was the Push Hands champion, and got to watch him train for competition. He said that they didn't quite use Push Hands, it was more like free fighting, with this one guy throwing people left and right. He said that all these other students would take turns attacking him, and he would have to defend himself with Taiji techniques.

I can't find the magazine, though. I think I threw it out.

Reminder to self: If you're going to throw out old magazines, at least save the cool articles.

*********

[RAF]

Unfortunately I did not go to the Chen Village itself. We went to the Xulu Village, in the area of the Chen Village, of Chen Qing Zhou and there were no competitions at that time.

One of my respected Wu Tan Senior Chen teachers pointed out that push hands was far too overrated. It was simply a training technique. It is not one of my strongest areas and because of my baji training principles, I spend a lot more time training to punch and employ the kao techniques.

I saw the tape of Ren Guang Yi and can see how one could reach those conclusions. I have never seen good push hands competition because I am not sure what the competitive or ideal standard is supposed to be.

For all the talk about rooting, I have seen the Zheng Man Qing tape in Taiwan where he is doing a pretty good job except on his push, he drives his weight to the front foot and lifts up the back. This surprised me since I know a moving form of Chen's push hands where by the front foot is closed and rooted and the back foot forms a closed cat stance.

When I attended the Taste of China tournament many years ago, the static push hands turned into a match of two cows pushing each other. It was and continues to be boring to watch.

What I have been taught is are pushing hands that reflect the applications of both Yang and Chen's taiji. For example, my Chen's high pat on horse is done a little different than the standard form and I am able move to a 45 degree angle with the lower hand blocking and the upper hand delivering a palm strike to the side of the opponents head. I have also been exposed to the use of eagle claw techniques within the pushing hands applications and that is probably poison to a taiji purist. Also found some of the most basic chan si jin exercises in my bagua practice have helped immensely in my rooting and turning. But again, to the purist this spells trouble so I won't pursue this any further. (although Ben Lo's translation of Chen Weiming's Questions and Answers on Taijiquan cites I believe, Yang Shao Hou doing this type of exercise. I can't remember and don't have the text at hand. Saw it cited in a post somewhere and then I looked it up and there it was.)

I have found Ma Hong's, Chen Qing Zhou, Feng Zhi Qiangs (push hands on his abstracted form) pushing hand tapes to very helpful. Also found Erle's tape useful (I believe he differentiates Yang and Chen's pushing hands on the tape. I've heard that Wang Pei Sheng has a tape on pushing hands and his ideas are supposed to be very good (I find a great affinity with Wang Pei Sheng's Wu style taiji and GM Liu's of Yang shi taiji).

I know that Master Ma Long from the Wu Tan is New York has some very excellent insights on taiji and I am not trying to plug the Count or Jason Tsou, but his two tapes were perhaps the most useful in understanding the applications. They are really well done in terms of filming and instruction. Jason Tsou really has some good insights into pushing hand's applications and its basically the way I have learned them and would want to learn them.

Personally, I don't think push hands should have ever been made into a competition. Its part of the training just like stance work, single moving postures, weapon training etc.. But I am open to what others theorizie.

[count]

I recommend the second in the series of the random circle. Jason really shows his sticking, diverting, listening and deflecting skills. Actually, you can clearly see all the energies of the random circle in these tapes. I don't care for the way they came out as a whole, but for a few parts they are really worth looking at. You can order them through Chi Kung International (http://privacyplease.net/). :)

Count

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[bamboo_ leaf]

IMHO Push hands is about developing a skill set.
A bridge between the internal skill and external application.

You need both, I think most don’t really have the internal skill.

Once the skill is attained it doesn’t matter how or what kind of push. It's all the same.
not having the skil leads to confuseion.

If you didn’t hear it you didn’t hear it.
If you are not sung (relaxed) then you are not relaxed, among the many other points having the skill includes.

This is why I think it’s very important to always cut away what you think you know and look for the real where ever you may find it. As CMC is said to have said "invest in loss"
:)


Luck in training.

bamboo leaf

[brassmonkey]

"Personally, I don't think push hands should have ever been made into a competition. Its part of the training just like stance work, single moving postures, weapon training etc.. But I am open to what others theorizie"

I agree and disagree. At the beginning of training push hands I had a classmate who was counter to my practice as he would use muscle and I'd become frustrated and revert to muscle myself. But now I have no other classmates that use muscle so I love the oppurtunity to push with this student. For TCC students who want to practice yielding then these shove contests as people call them would be a great oppurtunity to get a feel for what othre people are doing outside your circle.

[RAF]

Too bad the Tai Chi Farm isn't around for you. That was the minute by minute challenge everyday there.

It always felt like the Wild West. People challenging people to a friendly dual of push hands. It became too **** obsessive.

But like I said, my ideas on push hands are subject to change. However, while I have seen a lot of push hands, I seldom see the push hands reflecting the clearcut applications from the form. Contrary to the Count, I think Jason Tsou's tapes (all of them are very much worth purchasing) are one of the few to show the direct linkage of form application to pushing hand application.

In my training, we also use some kao applications (from lao jia) directly from the form which are trained like push hands too.

Maybe Yang stylsts have a dfferent approach to push hands. Wonder what their thoughts are?

Oh if you haven't seen the movie Pushing Hands, its well worth looking at for a host of other reasons than martial arts.

Later ;)

[PingAnTu]

Yea, they might be shove fests but can you deal with it?

Most people I have met in the US absolutely cannot. Training push hands softly is a drill to teach you something. If someone pushes you with broken timing or even overt physical strength you will not be able to deal with it unless you get exposure to shove fests... Mr. I'm gonna kick your a** will not come at you softly. :mad:

"When I fought the foreign boxer in Kyoto, I jumped up and punched him in the face. This is effective against people who are taller than you." -- Motobu Choki

[brassmonkey]

"Yea, they might be shove fests but can you deal with it?
Most people I have met in the US absolutely cannot."

Where may I ask can they if not Indiana?

"Training push hands softly is a drill to teach you something. If someone pushes you with broken timing or even overt physical strength you will not be able to deal with it unless you get exposure to shove fests"

I agree that for training purposes but at some point you have to make the jump to changes in speed and not just go at the even soft tempo...

"Mr. I'm gonna kick your a** will not come at you softly."

Agreed more reason to do the Push hands competion or even better Sanshou or NHB.

[brassmonkey]

Hey forgot to ask how does Ren Guang Yi look on the video? Observations, comments?