The pushing hands that I know of are single hand, then all the double-handed ones, then the ones with moving steps. Then there are other things which one progresses to after that, but I have to admit that I'm not familiar with them in any detail at all, so not sure if they fall under the umbrella of 'pushing hands'. By 'relaxed' I mean 'not tense'. I don't mean 'floppy'. There has to be 'aliveness' in all parts of the body at all times. Personally, I would make that distinction between 'free pushing' and 'pushing hands', which to me would mean the set patterns (both with 'fixed' feet and moving feet.) But like I said before, I'm not familiar with 'free pushing', so I just use the term 'pushing hands' to mean the set patterns. Thanks for that. I'll have a read.
Yep for me they do come under the umbrella term "push hands" (tui shou), there are also what I would term push hands drills rather than patterns. So for example I use a drill where I practice just issuing against an incoming force. Or there are drills where you get a partner to push at you and you can practice some yielding and rotating; lots of partner exercises like this out there that aren't based on a pattern where the arms are joined. I call them drills instead of patterns but I would still place them under that umbrella term of push hands. So there are lots of various exercises emphasizing different things. Every style for instance tends to have a double hand pattern where peng, lu, ji, and an are cycled through, and most styles have a "da lu" where the pattern cycles through tsai, kao, zhou and lie. The bigger picture focus of pushing hands though is "Dong Jin" which is "understanding energy". Then a bit more specifically the following skills are important to train in the traditional patterns (single, double, moving): Zhan, Lian, Sui, Nian Good link explaining those here: http://www.ycgf.org/Articles/Z-N-L-S/arti_znls.htm When I was taught fixed feet free pushing as a training exercise my teacher at the time told me to try and use it to explore the following aspects. Listening Nuetralizing Issuing (timing and opportunity) There are certainly other pattern and drills that you can train these, but what this format provides is a set structure into which "aliveness" is introduced where you can use focus on the above when you are put under pressure and have to deal with unpredictability. Basically the freedom for both partners to attack and therefore defend at will and with freedom within a certain framework. Free pushing can be played as training games where you don't necessarily want to win at any cost, (like technical sparring) however in competition people will pretty much do whatever they can to win within the ruleset. Sometimes this can and does cause issues for tai chi people who can see 'errors' come up when measured against the arts principles. I'm aware of these issues and faced them myself, but my personal view is that the restrictions, rule-set and competitive mind-set that give rise to these issues really help us to understand certain things. As we work to over come them with our styles principles, it can only improve ones abilities under pressure and when more freedoms are allowed the benefits transfer. cheers
In Chang Taiji, there are 4 different push hands drills: - single hand static. - double hands static. - single hand moving. - double hands moving. None of those drills are used for "competition". IMO, if you want to compete, go do boxing, wrestling, kickboxing, Sanda or MMA.. [ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dRN6taKRJzs"]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dRN6taKRJzs[/ame]
Agreed!!!!! Although I would say sometimes- not always in competition. My school (all locations) come together for an annual tournament. I find what I highlighted above in your post to happen often at it. The issue at our tournament is often that a lot of CLF students learn the barest minimum to compete in the push hands. The full on TCC students are a minority in my schools. Frankly, some of those CLF students in particular are more concerned with winning a medal at all costs over winning with good principles to develop TCC skills. (Our GM's tournament has a lot more TCC students from the various schools in his federation. I have found the principles in the tournament there to be utilized more consistently. And what I am describing in thies post isn't always the case in our tournaments.) However, it is no excuse when I lose. If one is supposed to be able to have "soft overcome hard" than I should be able to handle people coming in with poor principles. If not, it is exposing a weakness in my TCC. A few years ago, I went against someone like this. She was super aggresive, with poor principles. She attacked me say a little over a dozen times in the match - maybe more. I successfully defended all but one of them. I lost 1 point to zero. My classmate who was in the division (and won gold) kept telling me my principles were better because she resorted to force and other non TCC based stuff to win. She was basically trying to make me feel better by dismissing my opponent. But I didn't accept this. I figured, as more advanced TCC student, I should have been able to do better. What it exposed was that I needed to not just be defensive, but be able to turn a defensive move into an offensive one and not be happy with just defending alone. I needed to develop ways of seeking better offensive opportunities. I was too complacent. Being exposed to those "poor principles" exposed my weakness. It is something I have been working on bettering ever since. What I am getting at is that if you yourself stick to TCC principles, even playing a comptetitor that doesn't will make you better. It is up to you to open yourself up to learning from it. Instead of getting all worked up over a "it's not fair -they aren't playing by the principles" mindset. After all, someone attacking in a real scenario can't be told to attack you in a TCC method.
The sticky principle may be easy to apply in a wrestling environment. [ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2XQrk6BwxDI"]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2XQrk6BwxDI[/ame] It's hard to apply in a striking environment. A simple 45 degree downward "haymaker" can break your sticky connection very easy. [ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dboG2hr7UPE"]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dboG2hr7UPE[/ame]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equivocation If you don't like the rules of the game, don't play the game.
Someone (I had never met) with his girlfriend one day knocked on my front door and wanted to challenge push hands in my living room (I didn't know how he got my address). I told him that I don't play push hands, but if he want to play sparring/wrestling, I would love to do so. He told me that he was a Judo champion in Israel but since he had an injury knee, he could not wrestle. So we just had a friendly MA talk in my living room that evening. Later on I found out that he had challenged all the local MA school instructors for push hands. I was the only one who turned down his challenge. My teacher told me that one time he play push hands with someone. His opponent pushed, my teacher borrowed his opponent's force and used the "stealing step" to pull back his leading leg and spin, his opponent stopped pushing and said, "You have moved your foot, you lose". If you knock/take me down, you win and I lose. If you push, I step back, I just can't accept that you are the winner. The Taiji push hands rules are so unclear. It's very hard to make it into "competition" IMO.
The Annual All China Taijiquan Championship scrapped Wushu Taijiquan pushing hand competition years ago. My friend who was coaching the Beijing Team some years ago said that most of the competitions ended between the Shuai Jiao people from Shandong and the Xingyi people from Beijing. So, the Taiji people now developed the Taiji two person pushing hand competition performing set.
Every competition I have been to had fixed step and moving step. If you want to move your feet you can, just pick the right competition for you. I guess if you do actually go and compete the rules, as they are, become clearer. I have formally competed in both Boxing and Sanda over the years as well as fixed and moving step, anyone who thinks they can't learn and improve something from various other formats, even specialist ones, is wrong. It just depends how much value they place on something, and that value can be placed on personal criteria too.
Hi cloudz, just of interest when is the last fixed step and moving step competition in the UK and has the Taiwanese rules been changed since the 1990's?
Hi Runcai, The UK comps that I am familiar with are the British Tai Chi Open which is held every year around April in Oxford, and the London Competition which is held in June. Can't help you with the Taiwanese rules I'm afraid.
I regularly attend both these events and will be doing fixed ph at Oxford in april. My daughter has had success in forms/weapons events at both competitions.There is also kuoshou/sanda(alas not for over 40's ! ),last year I met Sifu ben there who had a student fighting.(clip on kf forum)
Good to know that the Tai Chi Union is still doing it, while the BCCMA sort of changed the rules in 2011.
Push hands is more of an exercise. While there is a competitive aspect to it, you are really learning how to absorb/neutralize/control/redirect force as it is coming into you. In the beginning phases, you know what to expect from your partner. But in advanced stages, your partner becomes more unpredictable with their movements. They still remain controlled, but unpredictable. With many of the push hands videos on YouTube, I think this is the best demonstration I've seen so far: [ame]http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=XALpOmuQR88[/ame] They are keeping technique, no resistance to one another. This isn't "rasslin".
Nefariusmdk, if that is all you have done, you have only done what my school calls pattern push hands- a cooperatvie/ compliant drill. It is a cool clip though. Not what my school simply calls push hands, the non cooperative/ competitive/ non-compliant one. We do both. I believe both are important to have more complete TCC training. Non Pattern push hands teaches you to apply push hands principles in a non-cooperative/ complaint environment, albeit with a specific rule set. This isn't dancing either. It is a martial art.
I think I know what you are talking about aaradia. My teacher has been trying to introduce us to more "competitive" push hands, but it's hard to find a competent person to work with. Most of the advanced Tai Chi students have become consecutive no-shows
It's also an area where you practice issuing.A lot. If all an individual practices in their ph is what you list then their ph practice is lacking. I think they're demoing without attempting to go for it.So it's an ok demo showing how they can practice but in the demo they're not taking anything to a logical end.(Dumping,locking,t'i fanging,etc). Once past a beginner stage (unless one is doing specific drilling to allow oneself or the opponent to work on a specific thing or two) ALL ph practice should be non-cooperative and competitive. The point is to execute everything as perfectly as one can within the perimeters of the training. Which is to say for instance if I brace my rear leg and shove you out with my arm it may look like I "win" to an onlooker,but I know I've actually lost as I violated the TC method of execution. In the context of a training method what I just did was garbage.Who cares if I pushed the person out? It's about cultivating proper method to get the result. If you go back and read articles from the 1980s one thing which was occurring in the ph tourneys was people entering who didn't actually do ph,they just trained to be explosive and powerful. So most of those people weren't even using TC body methods. So was it ph they were doing? I guess,if the definition of ph is just pushing someone out. But big deal. Just a shoving match.
