Right,Geo.That's what I meant,you have to "regain yourself" (I've gotta copyright that) before you can redirect the force.And stay clear of the dark side.
Back on the vid guys, I would say this video shows a really great push and a very bad way to take it. CMC's body appears to expand pushing with the whole body while the other guy has obvious tension in the legs and shoulders. From watching multiple times, I don't beleive that the pushee meant to be thrown or even pushed over, he just made mistakes. Warining rant/story: Remindes me of the time I started push hands against an older student, we went to push each other and I really meant to push as soon as my pecs flexed I was going up up and away, it took me about 6 steps to recover my balance. I learned a very important lesson that day, meet opposition with SUNG.
Here is another vid of CMC pushing. At around the 2 min mark he does a series of pushes that look almost the same as the one from the first vid, but without the crazy over reaction. This clip I like and really is the first time that I have ever seen anything by CMC that I could appreciate. Saying that, some of the things on the vid are compliant, but there is nothing wrong with that as the over reaction is not there. Instead you can see a good cross section of skill. HERE
Well,of course the vid screwed up on me while trying to play,and that was just his form.But if the pushing clip is with the guy in the blue shirt shown in the still shot that's the late Tam Gibbs,one of his most senior American students.It is milder play.If you can,check out the black and white film of him pushing in the school in NY.He rockets the guys a bit more in that one. Liokault.we've been in enough of the same threads that you should have an idea how I feel about function,practicality,skills,training,etc.So if you're wondering about how real Cheng was I'll say that Cheng had serious power simply because if he hadn't,I don't see how his direct students and their students would.And some of them do, I've experienced it on many occasions. I can be impressed with someone but I don't get awed,it is an inhibition to good training.CMC isn't my only TC,and I don't personally prefer the "taste" of Cheng's solo form,but I wouldn't have spent time on it if it didn't develop pragmatic skills like finding the line and issuing.If Cheng didn't have the power to send non-compliant people 20 feet or more then he wasn't as good as his followers became.Like I said before,this isn't a big mysterious deal,and doesn't require conscious usage of the belt meridians or something.As to compliancy,I've been accused of that.But what can happen is that when your first error is found by the opponent you can wind up stacking error upon error(as you continue to be "caught") 'til your body looks like you're deliberately helping your demise along when you've actually been trying to escape/correct.This happens at both fast and slow speeds.The other thing is that you can get caught and it may not even look like anything's going on to a bystander 'til the opponent executes,which may not look like he did anything much either.But you just crashed into a wall. Anyway,this was just an informative ramble for you,,not an "I must promote my TC subsystem " rant.
With a good push, you can return whatever force was 'given' to you by the pusher(and more), hence the extreme reaction in the first clip - it would probably show that the antagonist rushed up and gave a lot of impetus to the attack. And then, you see in the last clip, pushing at close range whilst 'playing', there was not as much ingoing force so the push, although strong, wasn't as spectacular. If you watch that clip further, you will also see someone running up to CMC, and being flung all over the place. PS I want a suit like that!! Not that our school has a particular dress code, we turn up in any old thing. Taiji Tshirt slogan, courtesy of a colleague of mine 'Come and have a go if you think you're soft enough'!!
re: crazy overreaction. I was reminded of a saying by an aikido teacher, you should not throw someone who isn't already falling. The chappy in the b/w vid is already off balance, so his push was much more 'impressive'. The american students were not so imbalanced. Added to that the respect that Eastern students have for their teacher is much greater than Western students. This has a natural effect on their reaction to their teachers push. Cast: Guy in the Blue outfit: Tam Gibbs Guy being pushed at 2 min mark: Ken van Sickle Guy in black: Ed Young
I would offer that the American students in general were much more in awe and worshipful than Chen.Sparrows comments on "giving back" someone's push is very true,but a high level practitioner like Cheng doesn't need to be given much at all.In fact,you can stand in a good position and not even consciously give them anything,but they can still blast you in a "dramatic" fashion if they feel like it. They'll just feel your weak line and either find a bit of resistance or feed you a little bit of something to make you react,even tho' it may be difficult to an onlooker to see the feed or the body reaction.But as we know, most of the time when playing with students teachers don't make every push a big long range shot anyway,they'll spend a lot more time just catching and doing minor imbalancing and shorter uproots even when they could do more.
My undrestanding was there it was a societal type of thing. The respect that students have in the East is automatic,whereas in the West it needed to be earned. "...teachers don't make every push a big long range shot anyway,they'll spend a lot more time just catching and doing minor imbalancing and shorter uproots even when they could do more." true. My teacher (and I) know that he can push me across the room, so we can forget that and just find the point where the push would happen. It means we can really develope the 'threshhold' of the push. The push itself is no big deal.
I understand what you mean with the East/West respect thing,but I've just noticed a more "worshipful" attitude in the western students(generalization,of course).I don't know if that always effects the reaction,tho'.A lot of what can happen is your body trying to get away(bounce off the force)on its own. -----------Yeah,no real point in always blasting an inferior(technically speaking,of course),they won't get as much actual training in if they're constantly having to come back to their partner from across the hall.The point where it would happen,that's what I mean by "catching"(their center).
I like these video clips of Shifu Li Zhang-ren (from this page http://kongfu.org/Chinese/Main_ch.htm) for demos of the famous "uproot-and-send-you-flying" Taiji skills. The opponent is clearly cooperating but also not over-exagerating his reactions. If you see reactions much bigger than these then I think the demonstratee is exagerating either consciously or unconsciously. http://kongfu.org/ActiveMoive/fa_jin/FAGIN-1.WMV http://kongfu.org/ActiveMoive/fa_jin/FAGIN-2.WMV http://kongfu.org/ActiveMoive/fa_jin/FAGIN-3.WMV As to the Zhang Man-qing video, the problem is that this kind of thing is usually done in a very relaxed atmosphere with an attitude of "lets make sifu look good." The person may not be consciously running backwards, but this atmosphere makes it so that the person doesn't react like someone seriously fighting with the intent to fight back would. If you told the guy "land a punch on Zhang and I'll give you a million dollars" before the demo then you can bet he would be back up and in Zhang's face a heck of a lot quicker. As to Zhang's "intent" being key to making the person go back so far... this just makes Taiji sound like some kind of hypnosis game that you play with your friends to see who can psyche the other out.
Quite liked them aye. The guys movement was awesome, whole body moved as one cohesive unit, something certainly to strive to. I always feel sorry for the poor buggers these guys seem to pick, they are always much smaller and lighter. Some of those wouldn't quite work so well on me, if at all. There are plenty out there (techniques) that can send me on my ****, and some of the ones that don't work with a small modification do work. I am sure a guy like him in that scenario would have no problem planting me down, so it would be nice to see it done. It would be good to see demonstrations against different body types. Especially in "selling" the art to us westerners, who are of a usually more stocky variety than the Asians.
