I have not read the whole post and I do not know how you got from Skill VS Strength onto Taiji Push Hands BUT:
You guys are looking at this the wrong way. Taiji Push Hands is nothing more than sensitivity training. Most modern people play that worthless push hands that you see at the tournaments.
Look at it this way;
Wrestlers learn sensitivity thru grappling drills and wrestling with partners. The more you practice, the more sensitive you are to your opponent.
Shuai Chiao fighters learn sensitivity thru SC drills and grappling with partners. The more you practice, the more sensitive you are to your opponeent.
Taiji fighters learn sensitivity thru push hands drills and GRAPPLING / WRESLTING with partners. The more you practice, the more sensitive you are to your opponent.
The only way you will ever get good at push hands is to pressure test it thru grappling and wrestling with the drills.
I don't know you guys keep on this topic.... If you practice Taiji push hands and you wish to learn how to really fight with it.... go practice with a wrestler or Shuai Chiao fighter, Judo, BJJ etc etc. Take the drills you have learn and try to apply them.
ginosifu
Of course, there was this one time in college, when I was taking a Tai Chi class for a P.E. credit. I got really really drunk and tried to fight someone really slowly. I'm glad I don't get drunk and wake up in the hospital anymore.
Sith Legal Kung Fu is unstoppable.
The reason that I don't do push hands because I had bad experience before. Oneday I was training in the park by myself, a Taiji teacher just finished his class on the otherside of the park. He and one of his students walked toward me and want to "touch hand" with me. Since I didn't understand what "touch hands" mean,
- I grabbed on his arm, he said, "No grabbing".
- I scooped his leg, he said, "No leg".
- I moved in and tried to run him down, he said, "Be careful, I'm an old man (later on I found out that he was younger than me)".
- He pushed me, I stepped back, he said, "You lose". [/QUOTE]
cool story. i got a little tired of push hand too, since i have been doing shuai jiao. it is just so much more easier to find partners to train with in grappling,and their just isn't a whole lot of good reason to stick to the push hands rules. and even if you have a person who never trained before, it is easier to just say put on the jacket and try to trow me then to teach him a million rules about pushhands.
Last edited by wiz cool c; 04-02-2011 at 11:59 PM.
So why don't Taiji do "full-contact wrestling."
Wrestling with strikes.
Not just push-hands which is just like glorified chi-sao...
It is bias to think that the art of war is just for killing people. It is not to kill people, it is to kill evil. It is a strategem to give life to many people by killing the evil of one person.
- Yagyū Munenori
Seems like people have a really skewed view of what push hands is. It was never meant to be a "competition", just a set of training drills.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pushing_hands
EO
Here in the USA people have taken Taiji and turned it into some kinda health art. There is very little martial importance for Taiji peeps here. Push Hands for these folks is a fun game of sorts.
Taiji Push Hands original purpose was just sensivity drills just like any other Martial Art style.
ginosifu
I think it also to work on body mechanics but to make it into competition really misses the point.
Miluo, you can think of it as making da sam sing or five star blocking into a competition...which BTW I have seen recently advertised at some Hung Gar sponsored tournaments...WTF????
That being said, you don't see a lot of free sparring at Taijj schools. I don't know why? Did they used to free spar? Are they worried about hurting each other? (Legend has it push hands was created as a way to practice skills without hurting your training partner. )
Not sure, but even if you are skilled at push hands (ie manipulating people in the clinch) you're missing a way to learn to apply the striking part of Taiji (which at least is a part of Chen Taiji --see the Canon fist set from my teacher's teacher http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J4w_62WX9Rk)
That's why I think Taiji people would do poorly in San Da for example because they don't ever practice the striking which you really need to glove up for.
EO
To be fair, I do taixuquan, which Chen stylists in China seem to consider taiji, and everyone else says "tai what?" It is very similar in ways to chen style. Our push hands seems to allow grips, though it's much more common to see the upper arm gripped than the wrist. Anyway, hopefully someday you'll be able to travel, I'll be able to buy steak, and we can shoot the sh1t over the topic.
As for yeilding, I approach things from a philosophically taoist perspective, and my style seems to do the same. To always yeild is placing a virtue on yeilding, instead of letting it simply be yeilding. I'd rather be flexible in accepting all scenarios, and thus capable of dealing with all scenarios, rather than pigeonhole everything into somehow being vulnerable to yeilding.
As an example, if someone pulls me, pushing forward is yeilding, this is common thinking in judo. Where some people fail is in failing to recognize that sometimes, you can decide what the other guy is going to deal with. If you can't deal with that, fighting is going to be a problem.
Last edited by KC Elbows; 04-04-2011 at 03:55 PM.
I would use a blue eyed, blond haired Chechnyan to ruin you- Drake on weapons
When two boxers wanna see who is better they box.
When two wrestlers want to see who is better they wrestle.
When two bJJ guys wanna see who is better they "roll".
When two TKD guys want to see who is better, they spar.
Etc, ec, etc
When two Taiji guys wanna test themselves ( see who is better) they do push hand.
When two WC guys wanna see who has the better WC, they do chi sao.
Enough said.
Psalms 144:1
Praise be my Lord my Rock,
He trains my hands for war, my fingers for battle !
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0W1ym3yggR4When two Taiji guys wanna test themselves ( see who is better) they do push hand.
When two WC guys wanna see who has the better WC, they do chi sao.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A2fNP...eature=related
"The hero and the coward both feel the same thing, but the hero projects his fear onto his opponent while the coward runs. 'Fear'. It's the same thing, but it's what you do with it that matters". -Cus D'Amato