'Holding the Ball' - redirecting and counter-acting

The name of the move is not important. There is no standard way to do any move.

There are so many errors that has been passed down in the Yang Taiji system. Errors such as:

- "Move arm like fan" should be "shoulder extend to arm".
- "Carry tiger back to mountain" should be "well fed tiger returns back to mountain".
- "Double pulling" should have one palm down and one palm up.
- ...

In praying mantis system some Cantonese even call 18 "Hands (Shou)" as 18 "old men (Sau)" because in Cantonese, they think "Shou" is "Sau".

 

Awesome post, El Medico!

I think what I was getting towards that, as the transitions never get photographed, they don't suffer from the 'freeze-framing' that the 'major' postures do - so practitioners are able to look at them a little more easily as 'movements', rather than 'positions'...

That is, of course, providing that they don't neglect the transitions in favour of the overly photographed postures! Missing the forest in the trees, so to speak...

 

If you want to train Taiji "diagonal fly", will you spend more time to train your "static posture", or will you spend more time to train your "dynamic footwork"? I like to spend most of my training time to train my "footwork".

You can step in your

1. front leg without moving your back leg (as shown in DB's clip).
2. front leg and then slide in your back leg.
3. back leg to touch your front leg, and then step in your front leg.
4. back leg to pass your front leg and then step in your front leg.

You will find out that the 4th method will give you the most momentum. After you have developed that momentum and have courage to commit your advance like that, whether your posture is 100% perfect or not won't matter that much. Your forward momentum by itself can already knock your opponent backward and down.

 

Well, Yang Chengfu was in Guangzhou for two years or so, and I do not think he got any Cantonese student that claims to be his disciple or teaching Yang Style Taijiquan.

Some people translated shi san shi (十三势）as 13 postures instead of 13 potentials, as the meaning of a posture or a pose is a static position in English. So, all the techniques in Taijiquan can be said to be transitional. I think Sun Luting tried to justify posture or static form by saying that strength can be broken but not intention, but that is not Taijiquan.

 

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d98Stj11IzI"]Taking a walk/Demolishing the house - YouTube[/ame]

Today we were looking at the importance of using continuous footwork to get into correct position and angle to disrupt the opponent's structure.

 

Just one comment on your clip. You may give your opponent too much freedom on his legs. If you can use your

- leading leg to hook his back leg,
- leading hand to pick up his leading leg,

we will fall and not be able to get away.

 

I think the walking and stepping could do with more sinking. From the back leg, sink/ close the hip - transfer weight to front leg (imagine force passing through the ground and into your front foot to help you) - from this position you can open the front hip/ rise as you issue.

This will allow you to be underneath their centre and uproot (sever ground connection) more efficiently. Otherwise it can easily end up as centre on centre, force on force with no mechanical advantage.

This may not be the point of your exercise but I think these are mechanics that will in general help the people in the video.

When you don't sink you can be more vulnerable than you otherwise could be when you step into people like that, and it shows in your guy if I'm being honest.