Yes.
1. See next answers
2.Both. After having done tui shou for a little while, we learn some basic san shou drills for striking, kicking, and stepping, and then some misc. stuff like one person stands still with their arms at their sides while the other person step all around them hitting various striking points (the striker hits "through" them, but with almost no power cause the points all really hurt [throat for example is done VERy carefully] amongst other drills too. This gets the person used to being hit, and gets the striking points ingrained into the other persons memory. Then after basic san shou training we move to one-step san shou. We start out slow and with not much power and then gradually get faster and with more intent. Then we work up to free san shou. (edit: the basic san shou drill we seem to do the most is half-stepping forward in a line while coordinating the steps with strikes against a phone book your partner holds.)
3. It depends on what we're doing--sometimes yes, sometimes no. It also depends on who you're going with. I have no problem with putting more jin into it if I'm with a senior student (they can destroy me no matter what I do anyway), but if someone is new I wouldn't (unless you feel like giving them a baptism of fire ).
4. San Shou class is once a week, though we often do it before and after form and tui shou classes as well (actually I haven't done that in a while, and I don't know why, but I digress).
5. I spar at whatever level I'm at, which isn't very advanced at all(I've been practicing for 2 1/2 yrs, now it's pretty close to three). My teacher spars at the level he's at (well actually he tone's it down even in full-contact for pretty much all of us), which can be scary as hell. Same thing with the more senior students.
6. It depends what we're doing. As I said earlier in the beginning stages it's gradual, and even when you've been doing it a while you still do it slower and with less power every once in a while. November is what we call "Hell Month" which is when we put on head-gear and open hand gloves (normally we don't use protective gear) and do free san shou, full-contact for an hour and a half, with 5 min. rounds with each partner evry sat. morning in November. Sometimes we take a five-minute break in the middle cause it's so **** tiring. During Hell Month my teacher always says use half-power, but everyone uses 3/4 to full it seems (or rather feels like ). We do full-contact san shou outside of Hell month too (I mean, that's just one month out of 12), but, and it's hard to explain in words, but there's a difference in intent when we really go at it full contact.
Well there it is in all its long-winded glory. Hope I've answered well enough. I'm really interested to hear how other taiji people (and other neijia people) train.
Last edited by taijiquan_student; 09-06-2002 at 06:22 PM.
"Duifang jing zhi meng ji, wo fang tui zhi ce fang xi zhi."