Extreme Push Hands Championship

[TaiChiBob]

Greetings..

Hi TGY: Thanks for the input.. yep, i considered your explanations, i considered Knifefighter's placebo explanation, and.. i just don't know.. and, i'm okay with that.. i don't hold much stock in 'magic', i figure it's all just natural occurances we might not understand, yet.. to be clear, though, the 'placebo effect', when it is verified, is amazing.. regardless of the modality, healing is healing, the healed cancer patient doesn't complain.. actually, the placebo effect is a fairly good indicator of potential..

Be well..

[woliveri]

taai gihk yahn, have a look at this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d7Fqsl7VWqI

[taai gihk yahn]

Greetings..

Hi TGY: Thanks for the input.. yep, i considered your explanations, i considered Knifefighter's placebo explanation, and.. i just don't know.. and, i'm okay with that.. i don't hold much stock in 'magic', i figure it's all just natural occurances we might not understand, yet.. to be clear, though, the 'placebo effect', when it is verified, is amazing.. regardless of the modality, healing is healing, the healed cancer patient doesn't complain.. actually, the placebo effect is a fairly good indicator of potential..

Be well..

"placebo" is one sort of effect that the organism utilizes to drive itself towards homeostatsis, and works more so on things like decreasing systemic inflammation / pain and other autonomic-based issues, although there is certainly a good deal of anecdotal "evidence" for it having some effect on other types of "organic" dysfunction (e.g - cancer); obviously it's not going to be so good at managing acute issues like heart attack, stroke or severed femoral artery!; the way I see it, is that it's a combination of intrinsic physiology and the individuals internal set of beliefs and expectations that the organism takes advantage of to generate a gradient from adrenergic to cholenergic output; for example, if you can't lift your arm past 90˚ at the shoulder, and I manipulate your T4/5 vertebra is "stuck" and immediately afterwards you can move your arm full range, placebo effect is not so much of an issue; OTOH, if u r the sort of person who doesn't like getting adjusted, but instead has to go through a 3-hour long fascial unwinding to get the arm up there and during the course of this event you have an emotional "release" where you relive some past trauma and wind up beliving that because your heart was "stuck" in that old trauma, it caused your shoulder to get stuck and only by going this way do you get ful range, well, placebo is probably part of the equation because u needed to have the control of dictating the terms of the "release" as opposed to having someone just manipulate you; so in other words, it can get tricky to pin down - I remember years ago one patient came and insisted that I do cranial treatment because "only cranial will fix me"; now, I was of the opinion that cranial was the LAST thing she needed, but hey, it wasn't my practice, so I sat at her head for an hour and moved my hands around every 5 to 10 minutes; at the end of the hour she sat up and thanked me for the wonderful treatment that she felt working exactly how she needed it the whole time ; that experience "proved" to me the subjective contumuum on which we all slide...and as such we need to be very careful about what we pretend we are doing and what we pretend is really going on...

[TaiChiBob]

Greetings..

and as such we need to be very careful about what we pretend we are doing and what we pretend is really going on...

Generally, we see the world, not as it is, but as we prefer it to be.. and, sometimes, there is insufficient data to make a verifiable determination one way or the other.. i have titanium plates between C5,6, and C6,7, i am fairly clear on the differences between placebo effficacy, medical efficacy, 'as we currently understand it'.. i try diligently to see the world 'as it is', clearly aware of the difficulties associated with that goal.. conditioning is a powerful lens that distorts our perceptions and influences our understandings.. my practice is centered around 'stillness', stilling the mind's inclinations and suspending its beliefs such that i might find a bit of Clarity in this distorted perception of Identity..

Be well..

[KC Elbows]

Hi VD: Yes, it is awesome.. some well-trained skills, and understanding.. it is my belief and hope that Taijiquan can and will achieve and surpass that level of play.. i hope Master Scrima can keep this format going and evolving.. there is no reason that players can't evolve to the point of Chin Na executed 'to display the skill', without expressing the Fa and concluding damage.. of course, this relies on the oponent's respect of the technique.. but, the Extreme Push-hands event is the 'first step' of that 'thousand mile journey'..

There was lots of very open discussion about the direction of this sort of event and the liabilities and technicalities.. Master Scrima couldn't bring in mats, that would qualify the event as 'fighting' to be sanctioned by the state, and the venue rejected that.. to the credit of the competitors, they agreed to continue, and.. if you watch some of hard landings, there is little or no padding under that carpet.. there were some tough takedowns, and great sportsmanship..

I'm gonna talk out of school, here, and.. i hope no one is offended.. The Extreme Push-hands event put on by Master Scrima, was largely at his personal expense, he opened everything up to everybody, basicly free of charge.. Nick very graciously covered expenses for judges, referees, and visiting dignitaries.. we tried different rule combinations, time limits, legal/illeagal manuevers, etc.. and, it was an impressive group of people: competitors, judges, refs, timekeepers, scorekeepers, and all the help that goes into one of these events, that dedicated themselves and this event to advancing Taijiquan toward its formerly respected place in CMA..

Be well..





most of the people that showed-up were there because they believe in something more than the 'Silk Pajama Guys and Gals' pretending to 'fight'..

Thanks for sharing that. I'm of the opinion that too much push hands as we see it is some teacher owning his low level students, and not enough seeing the talented folks whose teachers allow their growth. We have a group here that does an open push hands get-together twice weekly along the lines of what you're doing there(maybe some difference, some of us do taixuquan, which allows under elbow pull through type grips), if you or any of your people are ever in KC, please feel free to visit, you're doing a good thing that, imo, does not preclude you in any way from being traditional or doing traditional practices: merely, when opponents are more equal, there will be more contention in the motions, and the skill will grow faster, but it may not look like what some people have popularized as the practice. To each their own.

Forgive me if I missed it, do you have a website/org?

[TaiChiBob]

Greetings..

Forgive me if I missed it, do you have a website/org?

Hi KCE: Thanks for the clarity.. here are some of our local websites, and Master Scrima's Tournament site..

www.kungfuchampionship.com

www.meetup.com/taichi-21/

www.wix.com/taichij64/cotton-fist-boxing

It is my practice to train, refine, and use what works, and set other stuff aside pending more info.. i've been surprised more than once by thinking i had the answers, now.. i take a wait and see attitude.. i met a guy that has good history in both Taiji and Aikido, i was skeptical but the result is beautiful.. i try not to limit myself with preconceptions.. of course, i try to win the lotto, too..

Be well..

[woliveri]

Forgive me if I missed it, do you have a website/org?

I think Bob got mad and left to seek more well reasoned discussions I guess. Anyway, AFAIK he has no website but you can search on Meetup.com for Orlando and Tai Chi. or... here you go:

http://www.meetup.com/taichi-21/

http://www.meetup.com/taichi-21/members/1744620/

Whoops... I stand corrected.

[KC Elbows]

Thanks, Bob, I appreciate that, and my view on training is the same.

[Scott R. Brown]

Women swoon (fall down) whenever I enter a room and I don't even have to point at them.........



.......with my finger, that is!!!!!!!!

[KC Elbows]

Women swoon (fall down) whenever I enter a room and I don't even have to point at them.........



.......with my finger, that is!!!!!!!!

Below the waist techniques are strictly prohibited!

[MartialDev]

Speaking of not being narrow minded, here's a site you might want to check out.
http://www.randi.org/site/

Explains a lot about "magical thinking".

There is also a $1,000,000 to anyone who can demonstrated paranormal abilities:
http://www.randi.org/site/index.php/1m-challenge.html


BTW, my brother is a professional magician and my gf's mom was a psychic, and a hypnotist. I've seen most of the tricks and the rip-offs.

The True Costs of Winning a Million Dollar Skeptic Challenge

[BlackHorseTC]

This is my first post. Hello!

I read this entire thread a couple days ago, but it takes a couple days for the registration to go through... I might not hit all of the points I wanted to. :P That said, I highly enjoyed the conversation in this thread and wanted to add some stuff.

I found this thread because I was curious about the "SEO Juice" on my website, so I searched "john meehan push hands" to see if a recent blog entry I made would show up (it didn't then, it does now. )

There are three things I wanted to touch on. Extreme push hands, the "goal" of tai chi (particularly as a "martial art") and "no touch."

First, I want to go back to a post by TaiChiBob:

Hi VD: Yes, it is awesome.. some well-trained skills, and understanding.. it is my belief and hope that Taijiquan can and will achieve and surpass that level of play.. i hope Master Scrima can keep this format going and evolving.. there is no reason that players can't evolve to the point of Chin Na executed 'to display the skill', without expressing the Fa and concluding damage.. of course, this relies on the oponent's respect of the technique.. but, the Extreme Push-hands event is the 'first step' of that 'thousand mile journey'..

There was lots of very open discussion about the direction of this sort of event and the liabilities and technicalities.. Master Scrima couldn't bring in mats, that would qualify the event as 'fighting' to be sanctioned by the state, and the venue rejected that.. to the credit of the competitors, they agreed to continue, and.. if you watch some of hard landings, there is little or no padding under that carpet.. there were some tough takedowns, and great sportsmanship..

I'm gonna talk out of school, here, and.. i hope no one is offended.. The Extreme Push-hands event put on by Master Scrima, was largely at his personal expense, he opened everything up to everybody, basicly free of charge.. Nick very graciously covered expenses for judges, referees, and visiting dignitaries.. we tried different rule combinations, time limits, legal/illeagal manuevers, etc.. and, it was an impressive group of people: competitors, judges, refs, timekeepers, scorekeepers, and all the help that goes into one of these events, that dedicated themselves and this event to advancing Taijiquan toward its formerly respected place in CMA..

Be well..

most of the people that showed-up were there because they believe in something more than the 'Silk Pajama Guys and Gals' pretending to 'fight'..

I just want to say YES to all of that! I consider myself a "real" martial artist (whatever that means in this day and age) and the current state of tai chi in the US disappoints me. I think the health and spiritual aspects of the art are AWESOME, but they should go hand-in-hand with the martial side.

To make my point quickly, I look forward to the day that a Mixed Martial Artist legitimately appends tai chi to his list of arts (ie BJJ, Muay Thai, Tai Chi). Which brings me to my second topic... the "goal" of tai chi.

When training tai chi, you're (all of this is IMHO of course ) training some VERY specific things and trying to refine them to levels that are... "beyond belief." Judokas, BJJers, MMAers, kickboxers, wrestlers, etc. will all learn how to neutralize and issue force. A lot of them also learn how to be soft and relaxed while doing so. Tai Chi is SPECIFICALLY training those skills (yielding, balance, neutralizing, issuing, rooting, centering, etc.) and, if trained diligently and properly, should (I believe) produce results not (normally) accessible from other martial arts (this is even without getting into things like "chi" and the like which I believe is above my pay grade to discuss ).

This brings me to the "no touch" stuff which was mentioned as well. I think before I go into that too much, I'd like to touch on the "chi" stuff. I recently uploaded a video clip of me and Master Henry Wang. There's videos of him on the YouTubes doing his no touch thing, but I don't want to talk about that just yet. Here's the video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zt49FJCGcxw

If you don't have time to watch it, it's basically some clips of the first time I met him. The clips I put there were special (to me) because they were my "converting" clips. I was there, I experienced it, I can watch the clips over and over and... I don't quite understand what happened to me. What I do understand is that whatever it was, it was something that is (to my knowledge) unattainable with "regular training" (ie getting really fit, lifting weights, wrestling, etc.) I suppose people could go into the "oh, you were expecting something," or "you wanted something to happen," but I assure you, I was there to test him and see if this was the art for me. I like to use this clip of me doing a crazy armbar as "proof" that I take martial arts seriously. Anyhow, my guess is that (what people describe as) "chi/qi" is what's behind his ability to do the stuff in that video. I was already sold on what he was able to do touching me, the "no touch" stuff I didn't even care about (and still don't ), but I've had some experience with it...

I have a bunch of video footage of him doing "no touch" to me and I even have the first time he did it to me (successfully) on video. What's this? Successfully?

So the first time he attempted no touch he was sitting on a bench and asked me to walk towards him (it was actually RIGHT after this). I walked towards him, he did all this stuff with his arms and... nothing. Second and third time was the exact same thing. He just says to himself "Interesting."

Then (and I can put the video up of this) in the middle of a practice session involving me walking towards him, pushing him and getting thrown back he, out of know where, does the action he would normally do to throw me but... I wasn't touching him yet. I wasn't expecting this, he didn't tell me it was coming, but BAM there it was and... I moved without touching him.

I wish I could tell you how and why it worked but... It's above my pay grade. I don't know. My best explanation is a combination of me getting "conditioned" to being thrown and "seeing" the throw come before I get there, plus suggestion, plus "chi"? I don't know.

I wish I had my "serious" experience on camera (maybe it wasn't recording on purpose). One time, when I was walking towards him to push him while he was sitting he DROPPED me (without touching). This one time it wasn't a "Hey look at which way my hands are telling you to go," situation. I TOTALLY wasn't expecting anything and... BAM dropped. Maybe there's an explanation for that too (above my pay grade).

What I like about Master Wang is that he doesn't make any claims about being able to fight using no touch. He just says it's "interesting." He doesn't even do push hands anymore. He takes long walks, eats good and practices tai chi. A lifestyle I'm determined to "master."

[YouKnowWho]

when a singer "electrifies" the room with her performance, something happens that you and everyone else can "feel" physically, that changes how your physiology functions in the moment;

Many years ago, there was a Qi master who came to Austin, Texas. If you paid him $450, he would send his Qi into your body and you would walk like a zombie. I had seen by my own eyes that a room full of people (about 30) walked just like a group of walking dead.

What could cause that to happen in your opinion?

[Scott R. Brown]

Many years ago, there was a Qi master who came to Austin, Texas. If you paid him $450, he would send his Qi into your body and you would walk like a zombie. I had seen by my own eyes that a room full of people (about 30) walked just like a group of walking dead.

What could cause that to happen in your opinion?

Group expectation! Sometimes it is actually easier to hypnotize a group than a single individual! In cases like this, if a person does not believe in the power of the leader, but does have an emotional need for group acceptance, that is enough to influence conforming behavior, regardless of their initial level of incredulity.

There are psychological group dynamics that play into it. When individuals have an emotional investment in anything they are more likely to be susceptible to the expectations of others, especially when an authoritative person is the leader.

Not many people have the strength of will of be the odd man out in a group participation event, even if they do not accept the premise of the event activity. In essence you have the option of not participating and being ostracized by the group, or conforming to the group dynamics and being accepted.

This is a phenomena that occurs, often, just below ones conscious awareness. Upon reflection, they may be able to see what happened, but during the event they are caught up in the group dynamics and tend to conform.

Good hypnotists are able to perceive who is not "playing along" and eliminate them from the group so their attitude does not "wake up" the other participants, or they will apply subtle psychological pressure in an effort to pressure conformity.

[Peaceful Orchid]

This is my first post. Hello!

I read this entire thread a couple days ago, but it takes a couple days for the registration to go through... I might not hit all of the points I wanted to. :P That said, I highly enjoyed the conversation in this thread and wanted to add some stuff.

I found this thread because I was curious about the "SEO Juice" on my website, so I searched "john meehan push hands" to see if a recent blog entry I made would show up (it didn't then, it does now. )

There are three things I wanted to touch on. Extreme push hands, the "goal" of tai chi (particularly as a "martial art") and "no touch."

First, I want to go back to a post by TaiChiBob:

I just want to say YES to all of that! I consider myself a "real" martial artist (whatever that means in this day and age) and the current state of tai chi in the US disappoints me. I think the health and spiritual aspects of the art are AWESOME, but they should go hand-in-hand with the martial side.

To make my point quickly, I look forward to the day that a Mixed Martial Artist legitimately appends tai chi to his list of arts (ie BJJ, Muay Thai, Tai Chi). Which brings me to my second topic... the "goal" of tai chi.

When training tai chi, you're (all of this is IMHO of course ) training some VERY specific things and trying to refine them to levels that are... "beyond belief." Judokas, BJJers, MMAers, kickboxers, wrestlers, etc. will all learn how to neutralize and issue force. A lot of them also learn how to be soft and relaxed while doing so. Tai Chi is SPECIFICALLY training those skills (yielding, balance, neutralizing, issuing, rooting, centering, etc.) and, if trained diligently and properly, should (I believe) produce results not (normally) accessible from other martial arts (this is even without getting into things like "chi" and the like which I believe is above my pay grade to discuss ).

This brings me to the "no touch" stuff which was mentioned as well. I think before I go into that too much, I'd like to touch on the "chi" stuff. I recently uploaded a video clip of me and Master Henry Wang. There's videos of him on the YouTubes doing his no touch thing, but I don't want to talk about that just yet. Here's the video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zt49FJCGcxw

If you don't have time to watch it, it's basically some clips of the first time I met him. The clips I put there were special (to me) because they were my "converting" clips. I was there, I experienced it, I can watch the clips over and over and... I don't quite understand what happened to me. What I do understand is that whatever it was, it was something that is (to my knowledge) unattainable with "regular training" (ie getting really fit, lifting weights, wrestling, etc.) I suppose people could go into the "oh, you were expecting something," or "you wanted something to happen," but I assure you, I was there to test him and see if this was the art for me. I like to use this clip of me doing a crazy armbar as "proof" that I take martial arts seriously. Anyhow, my guess is that (what people describe as) "chi/qi" is what's behind his ability to do the stuff in that video. I was already sold on what he was able to do touching me, the "no touch" stuff I didn't even care about (and still don't ), but I've had some experience with it...

I have a bunch of video footage of him doing "no touch" to me and I even have the first time he did it to me (successfully) on video. What's this? Successfully?

So the first time he attempted no touch he was sitting on a bench and asked me to walk towards him (it was actually RIGHT after this). I walked towards him, he did all this stuff with his arms and... nothing. Second and third time was the exact same thing. He just says to himself "Interesting."

Then (and I can put the video up of this) in the middle of a practice session involving me walking towards him, pushing him and getting thrown back he, out of know where, does the action he would normally do to throw me but... I wasn't touching him yet. I wasn't expecting this, he didn't tell me it was coming, but BAM there it was and... I moved without touching him.

I wish I could tell you how and why it worked but... It's above my pay grade. I don't know. My best explanation is a combination of me getting "conditioned" to being thrown and "seeing" the throw come before I get there, plus suggestion, plus "chi"? I don't know.

I wish I had my "serious" experience on camera (maybe it wasn't recording on purpose). One time, when I was walking towards him to push him while he was sitting he DROPPED me (without touching). This one time it wasn't a "Hey look at which way my hands are telling you to go," situation. I TOTALLY wasn't expecting anything and... BAM dropped. Maybe there's an explanation for that too (above my pay grade).

What I like about Master Wang is that he doesn't make any claims about being able to fight using no touch. He just says it's "interesting." He doesn't even do push hands anymore. He takes long walks, eats good and practices tai chi. A lifestyle I'm determined to "master."

Why do you think you are unable to apply that principle/technique when you are in your grappling competitions?