A bit of a demonstration here, I thought this was nicely done. [ame="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pqwRsGTQqj4"]How to sweep in free Pushing Hands - YouTube[/ame]
Nice vid, though would have been good seeing more detail on set ups etc. Looks like he manages to pull of a few of the moves live too: [ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WNsKU0rdvVk"]Tai Chi Pushing Hands Torben Rif - TCFE EC 2008 - YouTube[/ame]
His fixed step stuff looks well structured as well,a good example for those who have moaned elsewhere about 'wrestling and too much force 'etc. His pedigree is good as a long time student of Dan Docherty ,whose practical taichichuan organisation is holding this sundays 26th festival of chinese martial arts and tai chi british open in Oxford.(I'll be there if any other Mappers are attending )
Is this what push hands looks like at a typical tai-chi school? I would enjoy that a lot. 2 on 1 arm control, snap-downs and other cool stuff. I like grappling, currently coach kid's wrestling and am just getting too old for sub-grappling or wrestling. Don't really feel like being thrown in Judo either. This looks competitive without the trauma.
I was reminded of this yesterday by one of the guys I train with who will be doing fixed and moving step. I'm toying with the idea of coming along to offer my moral support and all that, but... I'm lazy so I'll probably sleep in and pig out instead It depends on the school really Mike, as far as I've seen its not too common, but you may be able to find something decent. Don't really know of any in your neck of the woods, maybe best to just have a look around and ask about their push hands, watch a session if possible.
Could well be Ned, the last comp we did he was in the weight group below mine and despite being 77 kg at the time, I was in the 70-75 kg group if I'm not mistaken. I'm training with him again on Thur, so will double check. You didn't want to do moving step Ned? I much prefer it over fixed, though mostly cause I suck at it
I don't know about the 'typical Tai Chi school' bit, because I get the impression that there a lot of Tai Chi teachers out there who wouldn't know enough to teach push hands beyond a bit of gentle moving back and forth. (Equally useless would be those who miss out the gently moving back forth and just teach you stand-up wrestling.) But if you can find a genuine Tai Chi teacher who knows what he/she is doing, then you'll probably start with single-hand fixed step, and progress through the various two-hand fixed step variants and eventually progress to moving steps. And then onwards from there.
Usually I go along just to watch my daughter compete,this year I thought I'd dip my toes in the water myself.Unfortunately my age precludes me from the full contact however I enjoy and am confident with fixed but feel I need a bit more experience before I do moving step competitively-that'll be the next step in my progression(perhaps at the London competition for traditional TCC in june.)
It's nice that your daughter is doing this stuff as well, always good to have a training partner in your house. I'm still trying to convince the Mrs. to start myself I actually find moving step easier to do, but I do think fixed should come first, particularly in a competitive setting as there is more force involved and I think its better to get used to this gradually, less risk of injury and such. The London competition is good, but to be honest I think you will have more of, and more difficult opponents at this weekends event. From what I have seen it attracts a larger number of competitive people from a wider area. Its all good experience though! Either way, best of luck to you and your daughter!
Why isn't the student pummeling for inside control of the Instructors biceps? Is this a demonstration of the kinds of sweeps you can get with inside control? Good video anyway
It looks like a semi cooperative demo to me, I don't think the student is trying too stay up too much. It doesn't look like this in a live setting, there's a comp vid from the same guy above.
One other question. Can you learn push hands without learning the form? I have no interest in learning the form but the push hands looks real interesting. Thanks
Yes, you can learn PH without being overly concerned with Forms - but Forms do help - to develop posture, weight change, joint alignment structure, relative position, contact quality and change, timing, invitation, invasion etc. Otherwise PH tends to become wrestling - which is still a skilled activity - but without the subtlety that Torbin is exhibiting. There are countering moves to the sweeps e.g. stepping over the sweeps (which Torbin expertly makes very small), pivoting - to suck the sweeper in too deep - and turn him onto his behind on the ground. Most folks sweeps are not as small and effective as Torbin's - and thus invite reversal. If you look closely at these vids when he makes his sweeps, his body weight and position adapt all the time to reform the context - to his advantage. PH helps to develop change adaptations in applications e.g parry and punch to high pat the horse - which is for me the most interesting aspect of TCC - against 1 or more opponent. PH, Forms, and martial context help to enrich and develop applications. I have recently heard of monster MMA folk entering PH tournaments and doing very well - largely through strength, fitness and conditioning.
Mike, since you have experience in wrestling anyway maybe a good place to start would be to just get a training partner, watch some push hands competition vids to get a feel for it and play around with the pushing hands rule set. It will likely be a hell of a lot easier then finding a good tai chi school. Can pick up some DVD's to get a better idea of techniques and such. You would probably find Tim Cartmell's stuff interesting: [ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DSsLxtI-PUw"]Standing Grappling DVD preview - YouTube[/ame] You can also find some good free content like this: [ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h7nuUW5SK7M"]Seattle Seminar 2008 Highlights Pt 1 - YouTube[/ame] However, as Embra said, the more subtle detail is hard to pick up without a teacher, but not impossible particularly if you have a good critical mind for these things which is something I assume you would have with your background. If you go the school route though, I don't think you can really get away from forms completely. There are schools will only teach it after all the bio-mechanics and basic ideas have been developed, using it as a compendium of movement and potential applications as well as providing a method to refine flow from move to move. Useful when no training partners are about and its generally quicker than going through all the individual aspects separately. If you study like this, you probably would appreciate form more as it would not appear to you to be a dance of sorts and would serve a tangible training purpose. Most schools however work in reverse to this i.e. the choreography of the form first, then the details. On top of this, a lot of schools only know the forms and the detail is either wrong or missing large chunks. Sometimes no details exist at all and others randomly filled in or made up by the individual themselves. So its really down to the quality of the school and teacher with the good ones often being few and far between.
