Sam Tam demonstrating the form

I have trained guang ping yang taiji with Henry Look, student of Kuo Lien Ying and Han Xing Yuan, and yiquan with Han Jing Chen, son of Han Xing Qiao and nephew of Han Xing Yuen, and his students Andrew Plack, Steve Chan, Martin Wong, Sam Mok, Nhi Long and Wes Yee.

Kuo Lien Ying
[ame="https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Ot443AsJfew"]https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Ot443AsJfew[/ame]

Han Xing Yuen
[ame="https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=R7gRBB5RWY0"]https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=R7gRBB5RWY0[/ame]

Henry Look
[ame="https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=bRgFCN13Igw"]https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=bRgFCN13Igw[/ame]

Han Xing Qiao
I mentioned a gold standard in the original post. Here is another.
[ame="https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=NyYkrHf66iI"]https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=NyYkrHf66iI[/ame]

Han Jing Chen
[ame="https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=6V6c4xwwBVI"]https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=6V6c4xwwBVI[/ame]

Andrew Plack
[ame="https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=WWIaty7um8g"]https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=WWIaty7um8g[/ame]

 

I must live on another planet. I truly don't see any "combat" value for all those "push". For all those clips that demonstrate "push", I just don't understand why anybody wants to spend so much of his training time to develop "push". Can you "push" your opponent to death? Why not just develop a "punch to the head" instead?

The day when you die in your old age, will you be proud of yourself because you can "push someone away", or because you can "knock/throw someone down"?

 

None of these videos is of the same caliber as what I posted from Guo Shu. You posted a lot of videos that show relatively nothing,

If you're truly chained to these legacy videos, god bless but you're on the wrong track. People doing Tai Chi in their apartments, really? Go push hands in Guo Shu if you really think you're worth a damn.

 

You can push a lot of things to death, when you're human

 

Of course you can push your opponent

- into sharp object,
- off the cliff, or
- into heavy traffic.

But if you can "push" your opponent's shoulder down and hook his leg up at the same time, that will be a throw and not push any more.

Instead of learning a "push", why not learn a "throw" instead?

[ame="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=umDXdXXP8lE&feature=youtu.be"]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=umDXdXXP8lE&feature=youtu.be[/ame]

 

Is that a rhetorical question? Of course throws can't be used it 'restricted step' Tai Chi competition, they could be used in another arena, but again, the whole point of this thread is internal skill in combat right?. I'd rather we stick to live competition examples as opposed to all this 'home demo' riff raff, and my master knows the 'internal', compared to nei jia schools willing to put their skills on display at guo shu. I get really defensive when people start to poo-poo and I have video of schools that would knock them around silly.

 

I am not chained to anything. Like the rest of the people on this thread you have little knowledge of what internal is but like to troll when it comes up in discussion. Stay in the Hung Gar section where you belong.

 

Ouch that hurts! I'll challenge you back I think I know more about nei gong than you and your own words gave away your complete inexperience! I'll stay right here, thanks! To challenge a disciple of Hung gar doesn't know what internal means, shame on you sir. Great shame on your house.

 

This is a thread I started about a video that no longer exists. It never had anything to do with your childish insistence that those of us who know better than you need to prove if our art can used in competition. Try to convince anyone that the video you posted shows a martial art being practiced. Where is the martial? Where is the art?

 

We don't push. We punch, kick and throw. Push hands is just an exercise to train the body to deal with incoming and outgoing force in a nonviolent way. Add throws, punches and kicks as you like.

 

That would be me, and the rest of us who actually train to be able to use force on people against their will; throw, punch, kick, knee, clinch, lock, choke, etc.

Being able to use force on people while they actually, actively resist.

The refinement of the above skill.

 

Wing Chun master Eddie Chong sparred with Sam Tam, was easily tossed around, and the look on his face afterwards said he'd wasted all those decades training in an art that was no match for Sam's skill. You are a young guy and you'll learn the same lesson one day.

 

Got video? I'd love to see him actually using his skill against someone trying to hurt him and actively resist what he's trying to do.

And one does not compare art with skill. Eddie's skill failed him, not the art. Your thinly veiled attempt to attack my ego by attacking an an art I teach, is easily seen and unfortunately for you, worthless. One day I hope you'll be freed of both types of ignorant nonsense.

Also this has no relation to what I posted about actual efficacy and making skills work against resistant opponents, but you clearly have no idea what that entails.

Good day.

 

Most of my yiquan brothers are former wing chun guys. And Sam Tam students.

You can read about Sam in Jan Diepersloot's books. People can read about you on your website.

 

So that's a no to the video then.

And still the pathetic veiled personal attacks? It's gone past hilarious and entertaining to just sad. Someone is in a book. Very special. Here's a cookie. :jester:

 

Why are so many people who don't practice cima so invested in disproving its efficacy in a fight? If I was on a jkd thread saying Bruce Lee was just a movie actor, "Where's the real fight footage?", I would be labeled a troll, and rightly so.

 

Firstly, you're assuming we don't. I've trained with taiji guys who put the skills of the wrestlers I've trained with to shame and could box quite well. Second, no one is invested in that line of reasoning at all. People like Iron Fist have actually posted up videos of taiji practitioners using their skills against resisting opponents so when you naysay that, post diddly squat, and then say stuff like this we tend to take you as less than credible when assessing martial validity and question your ability to actually read.

 

Well he was mainly in movies and there is only limited footage of him training so you wouldn't be way off the mark

The biggest problem you have is that you seem to think you have the monopoly of what is and is not internal and cannot fathom that many of usnhave experienced exactly what "real" internal is and it ant anything much more than "mere external" at the higher levels

Equally there is a snobbery about the IMA aspects that is backed up with neither words, description or video - in fact in many cases even those with EXTENSIVE experience in IMA are dismissed as "not having done real stuff" (YKW being one)

I train regularly against "Internal"....in fact all my JKD association do, and we do Chi Going mist mornings. Our Sifu is a disciple of Sifu Tayam

I am not internal by the standard (read erroneous) definition and do not practice a codified version....yet it has great impact and value in my martial training

Sometimes the gods have clay feet after all....even if they are still gods

 

This is the problem. You talk like you have no experience with the combat applications of Tai Chi Chuan, so that may explain why you fail to realize what Tai Chi Chuan as an art actually looks like in application. I think you're talking like a Tai Chi know-it-all and lecturing anyone that doesn't see it your way, and your way is so far limited to these videos and attempting to differentiate. This is something I associate only with those who only practice the superficial elements of the Wudang quan, or other arts like even Hung gar, but have never, EVER gotten down and dirty with it.

Hint: real confrontation in any form, especially a push hands competition between Tai Chi schools, never looks 'artful', it's dirty, sweaty, it hurts, and yes this is Tai Chi Chuan's 'internal' as well as Hung gar's 'internal', which are effectively the same exact thing. If you dismiss this, fine, I'm just going to give you a solid education in real Chinese Nei Gong and we'll let the audience decide who's blowing smoke, and I won't have to make up my own terms like 'internal engine', because terms like that are so fabricated. At the very least, you can try to stick to traditional names for things, and the actual arts. Nobody here needs such 'extrapolation', it muddies the waters and makes it harder for outsiders to accept the basic fundamentals. Tai Chi uses a mystical 'internal engine'? No, it uses movement and pressure and force like any other physical practice. There is no real 'external' or 'internal' engine, that's a load of bollocks in the pants of your argumentum.

In any of the Tai Chi Chuan FORMS, the art is clear to the uninitiated. But to see the APPLICATION of Tai Chi Chuan or Hung gar art, you actually need to have applied or fought with it in an alive manner. Maybe that's your gap, I don't know, but your knee jerk response in blowing us 'meatheads' off is actually quite common. It's your ego in defensive mode, because we are challenging the dogma of your Tai Chi Chuan worldview, where in order for it to be internal martial art, you'd need to see something in particular. Whereas the rest of us see someone's whole upper body being redirected and moved in a direction it didn't want to go, and we realize this was the application of an 'internal' art form, like any of the Wudang quan.

Twas I, brother, who went ahead and provided a video of 'your' art in competition, it was a martial arts competition, and it has quite a legacy, so we've got your opinion, versus the thousands of people that train for, compete in, and attend Guoshu as a place where martial arts are practiced and more importantly, tested.

I posted a Guoshu video because, quite frankly, there's little better in the world of Tai Chi Chuan or Hung gar where amateurs and masters alike can show up and 'cross hands', something a lot of people online talk about doing, but don't actually do with respect to unscripted demos and non-compliance feats of martial prowess, whether their art is considered Nei Jia or Wai Jia.

You know what Guoshu is right? It's the kind of place that Tai Chi Chuan martial artists have been meeting for almost 100 years. It's without a doubt one of the best places to see 'internal' whatever you call it up close in both single form demonstrations, high intensity push hands, and even San Shou/Lei Tai combat.

Finally, anyone in this thread who makes ABSURD suggestions like Hung gar has no true internal training is going to incur some harsh, detailed scrutiny. Of course it does, it's considered the most advanced part of Hung gar, and so there's a lot of material to discuss).

Weasel words and non-combat videos of old masters are not going to cut it with me, you're going to have to prove you know what you're talking about, and so far, all you're proving is extreme orthodoxy and limited training perspective.

In short, the Internal training section IS the Hung gar section. The Hung gar section IS the Internal martial arts section. If you don't know this is 100% true, you don't know any Hung gar, and if you have any training in Nei Gong and believe what you have isn't totally baked into Hung gar, then go to the Guoshu and throw down, or find a new topic you can actually speak to without appealing to your own authority, which is what you and Avenger keep doing.

Luckily for you, some of us here have significant Nei Gong training, and we know that when we see Guoshu restricted push hands competition, it's a great example of skill, unlike the videos you're posting, which aren't mean to show skill at all (how could they, if they are only a demonstration? It's like you think people are stupid, and can't tell the difference, and they need your unique insight...come on.) It's internal as well as external, because at that level, the two have become one. So anybody like Avenger pointing to this and saying "THANKS FOR THE EXTERNAL, DUMMY" or you doing something similar and telling me to go sit my external butt in the corner, do everyone who ever advocated for Nei Gong a disservice. ESPECIALLY those fine Tai Chi students competing at Guoshu with their internal skills. How dare you sir, suggest they are not???? You seem like the guy who would not even be able to enter such an event, and if you did, would promptly have whatever you thought was your 'internal engine' smeared across the Lei Tai platform.

Now with that out of me, where would you like to go, because from now on I'm going to talk about how Hung gar's Nei Gong is superior to every single thing you've posted so far. I mean why not, you want to play? Let's play!

I'll start with your original comment in the original post

You've got to be kidding!!! It's SO far from the 'gold standard' for anything related to Tai Chi Chuan. You can see much better, alive Qi sinking and weight shifting in MY videos of live Tai Chi Chuan push hands competition.

Here's another one. WORLD CHAMPIONS OF INTERNAL SKILL. No offense to Sam Tam of course, but whatever video you post....not even in the same strata, brother.

Have at ye!

[ame="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=awrSlh1n8_o"]Daniel Caulfield - Push Hands World Champion - 2004 Chung Hwa Tai Chi World Cup Taipei, Taiwan - YouTube[/ame]

(please Avenger...call this 'external fighting' again...I dare you!).