hard and soft explained

[mickey]

Again,

Both methods described by bawang are hard.


mickey

[David Jamieson]

Wrapping mystical BS around something as simple as punching someone in the face is for people who like to talk about martial arts.

Hard and soft are topics for rumination etc.
They have no value when you are in the soup.

Concepts? no. hard is hard, soft is soft.

all fighters should be relaxed and mobile. period. If you aren't relaxed and maintaining mobility, you're gonna lose your fight probably.

such esoterica is losing it's place rapidly. there are much clearer explanations and there is no need to visit a table that holds no nourishment.

[SPJ]

Hard and soft hand are just a convenient way to group methods binominally.

The fun part is that when you mix and mesh them.

There are hard hands in your soft hands.

There are also soft hands in your hard hands.

gang zhong you ruo.

ruo zhong you gang.

In mantis

You may deliver a straight punch when there is an opening. zhi tong er ru shou. straight stab to enter your hand.

Facing that you may rotate your forearm to deflect it. or gun shou.

The first hand method is hard hand.

The second hand method is soft hand.

etc etc

In Tai Chi

----

[YouKnowWho]

To me, hard is used in offense and soft is used in defense. There is no such thing as soft offense that you can "soft" your opponent to death.

[David Jamieson]

To me, hard is used in offense and soft is used in defense. There is no such thing as soft offense that you can "soft" your opponent to death.

smothering someone to death with a pillow while they sleep could be considered a soft attack.

But it's not Kung Fu.

[Scott R. Brown]

smothering someone to death with a pillow while they sleep could be considered a soft attack.

But it's not Kung Fu.

It might be if you did it with style, a pre and post smother flourish, and a Bruce Lee cat call!

[David Jamieson]

ok, one leg up and over the head whilst murdering your sleeping victim. But no cat call, because you don't want to wake them up...

softly now...

[bawang]

this is not a discussion. i told you guys what hard and soft means. i command you to accept it.

[Scott R. Brown]

this is not a discussion. i told you guys what hard and soft means. i command you to accept it.

"So let it me written, so let it be done!"

Maybe!

[rett]

To me, hard is used in offense and soft is used in defense. There is no such thing as soft offense that you can "soft" your opponent to death.

Oh yeah?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I6Ffr1U7KMY

[Lucas]

smothering someone to death with a pillow while they sleep could be considered a soft attack.

But it's not Kung Fu.

what if im really really good at it though? like if i smother people sleeping with pillow so much that ive cut my time in half and gotten the awaken rate down by 80% in the last 25 times? i think i have good 'smothering sleeping people with pillows' kungfu

[bawang]

i think choy lee fut has a pillow form

[ShaolinDan]

To me: Hard = collision, soft = redirection.

Strikes are virtually always hard...blocks, throws, locks can all be hard, soft, or often some combination of the two.

By extrapolation, strategy can also be hard or soft...direct vs. indirect.

[YouKnowWho]

soft = redirection.

Unless you can "redirect" your opponent off the cliff or into heavy traffic, otherwise I don't see any way that you can finish a fight with it. May be you can drag your opponent down to the ground and choke him to death, but I don't think that's TCMA true definition of "soft".

[ShaolinDan]

Unless you can "redirect" your opponent off the cliff or into heavy traffic, otherwise I don't see any way that you can finish a fight with it. May be you can drag your opponent down to the ground and choke him to death, but I don't think that's TCMA true definition of "soft".

You can crash your hips to take someone's balance, you can also move with someone to take his balance. Either way they can hit the ground hard...but the contact between you and them is different.

You can strike someone's limb with a hard block, or stick to it to grapple using a soft block.

So this is not the true definition of TCMA 'soft?' Hmm...what about other MA's, they also use these terms?

This is like internal/external to me. Maybe these terms mean something more esoteric in some styles/schools than others. I've always been taught that these are descriptive terms on a spectrum, not digital opposites. There's no mystery, it's something you can just feel.

I don't really feel it's much different than speaking of whether one's footwork is 'heavy' or 'light.'