Chen PH Demo by CXW, Chen Bing, and Chen Ziqiang

The secret is what kind of hard work that we truly need. We may

- bench press
- long distance running
- jump rope
- ...

all our life but it may not develop the kind of ability that we need. This Gon rotation clip can help us to develop some rotation power that no modern equipment in today's gym can do (I haven't found yet). If you train this, your grippling ability will be improved big time. To me, this is the CMA "secret".

http://johnswang.com/sc20.wmv

 

Exactly.

The problem for westerners is getting instruction from those willing to give the context (the "secrets") of Taiji principles and what is mentioned in the Classics in the form of real exercises and drills.

 

I'm willing to give it a try... Where do you want to start?

 

Have you ever heard the saying 'arguing about how many angels can dance on a pin head'?

Well, if push hands has nothing to do with fight training, what's it there for? To tickle wanna be martial artists in to thinking that they're actually fight training?

Dude, I know - I wasn't asking your permission. It's my job, my entire point, to be a self serving ******* who deliberately doesn't agree with you.

Gee, well, I dunno - I have a lot of respect for some of the people on this board. But you know what, I think you do like boasting here, because you'd be laughed out of the forum in the MMA or Thai sections.

You know, you do. It's actually me that has nothing to lose. Gee - where did ya think my attitude comes from?

'Chinese masters hold stuff back from Westerners' means that they keep secrets. Gee - way to lie. Don't they call that 'compound sin' or something?

Yeah - you've succesfully argued it out so much that no one even cares what the truth is any more. Well done. The Earth just got less truth in it. Really - well done for doing that.

Actually, they both looked dire.

Well, something's being blown. You know what, if CXW can't handle a cheap shot, geesh - why bother learning Chen taiji?

Yeah we do - they'd slap each other then roll around on the floor like beached whales making love one last time for old time's sake, as the air rapidly drained from their lungs. Bet you.

Sorry - did I say you were making a claim? I'm long past that Yankmychain - I'm more in to pointing out the complete pointlessness of it all. You know, here's an idea - focus on what you DID see, and learn from that - NOT on your fantasy of what WOULD happen, if it only it was all like in your dreams...

Yeah? I suppose I do have a pretty straight forwards approach - but I don't ever recall saying I was a bad ass. But you know, it's not about me, a computer could say 'I don't believe you... input proof....' What would you do then, Yankmychain - yank its chain?

Actually I got a lot of really helpful advice from well wishers all over the world. They liked the idea of someone who does CMA who makes a bit of effort. Which was nice.

Hopefully separate you from him.

Well - message to the kids of the world there, eh? Nice one.

Yeah - but at least I could catch up with it without blowing a heart gasket.

Is the answer because fat frauds who feed off Quan like parasites claim to be experts, thus deceiving would-be taiji experts in to training in ridiculous ways? Is that it? Is there multiple choice?

Well, in that case, what is it that Chinese masters hide from us? Ever really, really considered that one?

Anyway - take the focus off me, and back on to the truth - where it belongs, if we're ever going to find out any real secrets.

Ta ta.

 

Before doing just that, I will repeat- YES- some Chinese teachers withhold. It's more about the personal prejudices of the teacher and the relationship with students. Chen Yu is openly known to be generous to some, and a closed book to others, for example.

So back to Earth.


BTW, you're not fat...

 

I sent you my email address. Check your private messages.
From nothing to something and then back to nothing again,that's where.
piece

 

Yeah? Does it depend on how much food they buy him?


[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7SSiRbTAn3A"]YouTube - Chen Style[/ame]

I recognise that you're calling me a parasite, in my turn, who feeds off the reputation of Quan. Thing is, everyone here, pretty much, even those who hate me, know that I have no class, or title, discipleship - no students, no belt, and not a red cent of income do I make from Quan. I have no teacher to leech reputation from, or lineage, or style or school. I literally take nothing from Quan, except its companionship. In turn, I offer everything I have in service to others. I even teach for free, to anyone who wants to come and learn with me.

As parasites go, yeah, I'm a pretty skinny one.

Glorious Quan,
Noble art of heroes,
Virtuous and proud,
Known throughout the land.

 

I've been looking at these videos, and I just don't get them. What exactly are they demonstrating? I just don't see anything in it. Not to be rude or anything, I want to understand it, but I don't see what they are trying to show. Can someone explain?

 

Which one, the first clip ?

That a push hands pattern. It's a training exercise. The sequuance is pre arranged like kata. What CXW is doing by throwing the partner is operating outside of a set pattern.

It wouldn't matter how hard the partner tried to push him out as long as they stay within the pattern it is easy for him because he knows what is coming and has the experience to handle it very comfortably.

It is the same when you see those 'one step sparring' demo's. the person (experienced martial artist) recieving the attack is never put under any genuine pressure is he ? in any genuine danger of being smacked ?



listen up folks, don't let the QJCs' of this world sow the seed of doubt that the partner was somehow being non co operative in some way. that would mean him breaking the pattern in this instance, and that is not what's happening. that doesn't mean the person isn't putting effort in or being robust. It is just the nature of the exercise. faster and harder doesn't make a great deal of difference, as long as it is pre arranged. going faster or harder doesn't make it any less a co operative drill. Aliveness 101 ..

Just like if we agreed i was to throw you a straight right to defend and I suddenly decided on a left hook instead, that is not something pre arranged, the pattern they were following is - untill CXW throws him down a certain way - i'm assuming that part isn't pre arranged (doesn't need to be).

because there is constant contact and feedback from push hands it is even easier to read changes of speed or power. As well there is stepping in that pattern which makes neutralising easier against someone remaining within the parameters of the pattern. not once did the partner (Chen Bing) do anything outside of the pattern. So maybe he did try changing speed and/ or power - but anyone with a bit of experience should full well know that is neither here nor there with this nature of exercise.

Now don't let any of this put you off. Taichi push hands is a great training method that can pass on many attributes and skills. as well the drills can progress to free style pushing, which is basically grappling, then further striking can be brought in. You are in Essex I think, if you want someone to give you an introduction into tai chi push hands and san shou I'll be happy to.

I'm in Barnet, you're in Essex or not far right. You won't get what you're looking for over the net. You need to check out some instructors and practitioners.

Practical Tai Chi Chuan has teachers in Essex. Theyre a good bet for a rounded and martial approach to tai chi in your area. you might not be getting the "top dog", but you should take things as you find them. i don't need to go train with Rickson Gracie to get me some worthwhile bjj experience.

http://www.taichichuan.co.uk/database/database.html

 

Tell you what, if you had a Mars bar in your hand while you did push hands I bet that Chen Yu'd tear your head off to get to it - and then he'd probably eat that as well. Heh...

 

I watched a bit of that form and I have to say i bloody like it a lot! He moves great for a big boy. .. if I had to race him for a KFC bucket it might end in the mother of all tear ups, and I wouldn't bet against him getting to the bucket first either.. lolz

 

Fire-quan,

You said
"my professional mood is always to robustly denounce and challenge what I believe to be false, such as the idea that Chinese masters hold back the 'real stuff' from Westerners. Not only is it silly, it makes all Chinese out to be racists who con their students.

I'm sure there are some teachers who hold back some information - although, in my experience, it's more a matter of it not even being possible to teach certain things to certain people, simply because they aren't dilligent or capable enough to learn them. Many times I want to show people more advanced stuff, but I'm not happy with their basics, so there's no point.

But on the other evil hand, it's like an excuse - like, let's all pretend that people who don't look very convincing secretly are, because secretly, they know secret skills. You know, that's a dangerous, false and corrupting way of looking at the world. And everyone should recognise it as a tactic deliberately used to mislead and misdirect us, and to deliberately make it both impossible to ever have our assesments accepted as legitimate, and in fact, even to ever be in a position to assess others.

I say we can assess them - not only that, but ALL the secrets of Quan are natural, and hidden in full view. But that doesn't mean that other lie, of saying 'look, it's there in front of you, his amazing root and qi power - you're just too low level to see it...' yadda yadda. That's the evil twin of the true meaning of hidden in full view. Hidden in full view means that the secrets are all straightforwards, obvious even, and require no ideological massage to be made real."

I don't often agree with you, but your right on the nail with this post!! Well stated and absolutely correct.

Very best wishes

 

He's actually really good - his dad was a legend. I think, though, he provides a good example of over-dressing the facts - and I don't mean his size. Like, if you look at youtube videos of him, people find ways to excuse his weight, by saying things like internal martial arts develops this kind of physique, or that he has different kinds of conditioning.

I think, in a twenty second encounter against a scrub, he'd do all right. But even highly conditioned MMA fighters at amatuer level are gassing sometimes after five, four, three or even one minute of real fighting. The smallness of the numbers is astounding - and for him, extrapolated, that means maybe he could last 10, 20 seconds full on.

However, I had a tournament fight against a huge bouncer once, and my mate said no worries he's a big fatty - and he was - just like Chen Yu. Then half an hour later we saw him warming up - bouncing about the place, doing jumping spinnng kicks and all sorts! My mate looked at me with an 'oh crap!' face and I nearly crapped meself! Ha!

However, me and another mate saw a fat bouncer chase a young German student through Manchester town centre - and he had to stop every ten yards, every time which, much to the locals' absoloute delight, this young German stopped as well, shouting things like 'come on you big fatty!' and 'hey you sex offender, no time to rest!' at which the bouncer flew up in a rage again and chased him for another ten yards - all across town. Hillarious!

 

Yeah, I like what I've seen from him and he looks extremely formidable, particularly you wouldn't want to be very close with him standing up.

Nice stories! those of us carrying some extra baggage can be relatively fit too. Some very fit. So you never know, joking aside you can never really take anything for granted and looks can be deceiving.

yep. more and more i tire of how easily over impressed people in the IMA's get at what they are seeing/ watching. I seldom have problem with the genuine training clips I see and the people in them - the obvious put ons aside and what i see as "over kill" against limited attacks, they wind me up sometimes. but there always seems something that's just a little overboard in a lot of folks attitude etc. - you know what i mean..

 

I'll try. It's not easy to explain.
You have to go deep into philosophies to truly understand it. Most schools I have seen try to teach you the form an push hands. But without the root of the art, which is the motivating factors the art may look the same but is in fact quite a bit different.
There's a big difference from the guy who invented the television and the guy who can only turn it on! All of these types of arts are guided by deep thought and philosophies.
As I said before this set was guided mostly by the energy of River. O.K. so what does that mean? Easy!
The mind and body are one. So ultimately the deeper the mind the better the performance. Knowing the meaning of the philosophies that created this art is the key to understanding why you did what you did at any point in time.
A deep understanding of universal laws,unified with energies from earth and heaven combined. Now before someone says I'm twisting words and making things difficult, I'll break it down.
People want to be powerful which is based on ego. They have their own energy supply from eating food. Humans can Indeed have a great deal of power. But in comparison to the power of the earth, nearly none. This is why you can not push a car no matter how much power you personally have without pushing against something that is connected to the earth. So forget about ego and use the earth. The video clip of the form: This form was created to unblock qi channels and recruit more nerve fibres. The more nerve fibre's that you can access the more sensitivity you will have. The more sensitivity you have the greater ability you will have to tune into things. Like drawing energy off the earth.
River: The water pressure is sent down stream! So that's sort of what's happening in push hand. Someone will issue force and the person will be like a river bank (solid line) The other person is also a (solid line). The solid line is able to except the forces and either ground it out or send it (down stream).
So instead of meeting forces directly (which creates a dam) they just divert it and it becomes harmless. In nature a dam creates harm to the Environment.
Stagnates water, fish die, Tree's die. In the long run people and animals die.
Qi blockages in the body create the same thing (illnesses). So instead of creating a dam, they keep the energy moving.
Boxing is represented by a dotted line--------------Intermitting strikes. Push hands, mostly by a solid line______________continuous pressure. A single strike done in push hands would look like this ________-
This is enough for now.
piece!
One more thing. In the illustration above you will see more then one representation of solid,and broken line. This multitude of meanings also was the reason for the need to create characters in language, calligraphy

 

I don't know about that, and I'm well pretty well versed in the philospohy.


The theory behind it (or philosophy) is nice.. it supports the approach. But the thing is it all works without it too. the skills come from practicing physically - everyone has to use their mind in training.. and to develop listening, sensitivity, body feeling etc.

far be it for an old cynic like me to **** on some honest to goodness enthusiasm, shame on me. I was very enthusiastic about it myself once.. but looking through your post, none of the philosophical/ esoteric bits really added or took away from rest - the more plain speaking explanation you gave..

just my opinion.

 

Well I tried.
The point is that you and I both know that push hands can't be done (as it appears in the demo's) above with someone who doesn't do push hands. So understanding the universal laws is very important.
Once you understand what the universal laws are then you can create any combination of effects on the situation. What that means is form and pre set patters are no longer necessary for application's. Like a language. (they have a set form) that always says the same thing. But you can use the same laws outside of that,where form is obsolete.
Just my opinion. You are of coarse allowed to disagree. Even that,You see if I was upset at the fact that you disagree with me. that also creates a problem. Maybe I'm angry and maybe my blood pressure goes up. (it's a dam)
and unhealthy.
Anyways I tried to explain the exact way I was taught.
piece

 

yea.. don't get me wrong in martial arts mind set matters and counts. keeping calm, emotions in check. control of aggression, that sort of thing.

I was speaking more of the esoteric langauge of the theories and philospphy, classics etc that are to be found in tc theory.

Today we have modern language of physiology, physics, biology, psychology and what have you. They didn't back then. So they described things using a different paradigm. We have more (modern) options for our understanding today.

That's all I was meaning to get at

cheers.

 

So how can you tell if someone is any good by looking at videos such as these? How can you tell whatt they do with their nerve fibres and such?

Also, if you can't do push hands against someone that doesn't do push hands, well, why do it? I'm not being awkward, I've just never understood Tai chi.

 

The more chi you have, the more connected you are via the cosmos to the practitioner in the vid... and from there you can just feel it... you know... its like you just know!