In our taichi, we concentrate and value yielding and softening. Yesterday, while practicing double push hands, i suddenly realised, that i am not yielding when my partner pushes/shoves me. over the past few years, i have become much more soft, and i thought i was yielding reletively well, i didnt think i was yielding perfectly, but, the sudden realisation that i just was not yielding to the pushes (when applied with intent and purpus)......A sudden eye opener! At least now i have another thing to really work on. I just thought i would share this with others. feel free to comment, or not as you wish.
Glad you're making progress. Once you can totally neutralise the push you then need to start figuring out how to make that neutralisation into a return push of your own.
Confront and you get nowhere apart from the strongest push wins and that believe it or not is not Tai-Chi. Try losing for a long time (don't try to push try to root and maintain stability as long as you can), let everyone push you, until it doesn't bother you anymore. Then you start to *feel* what is happening inside the other person. When they commit to the push how soon do you feel it, light touch and keep the mind focused on the point of contact. Soon you will start to detect the intent before the physical process starts. At this point you stop reacting and can start leading their energy. Also once you get this you then can read when they are unstable and reinforce it. First with yin, never try to use yang until you conquer yin. Draw the push into nothingness, make them over reach. Then you can think about small yang, firstly by applying light redirection. Use principle, use waist not arms. Once you discover how to attach and deflect (square skill), you then learn how to rotate this deflection in order to turn it into a circle, at that point you start to return their energy back into them. Now you can use the opponents force to push them, they push themselves. You have circular skills, you have found the circle. Eventually you develope spherical skill where the energy emerges as a ball and your opponent just comes off at a tangent when ever he tries to penetrate it. This is the ball or energetic skills. All pushing hands training is reflected in form, visualise letting go of strength but maintaining Yi which maintains structure in your form. Have fun!
This is pretty much what I've been told at my school also. I am speaking mainly of the Dynamic Pushing Hands practice, which I believe is one of the best ways to achieve the above mentioned goals. The first year or so, I was told my primary concern is to hold my posture, sink my weight, hold my bridge (don't let it collapse), and try to feel for the connection between my backfoot (flat on the ground) thru my waist, arms, and finally to the point of contact at the hands (this part takes a while longer). Remarkably the longer I didn't try to muscle-push my partner out while holding my posture and bridge, the easier it became for me to bounce/push people out later. I'm still working at it, but I can see the direction that this is taking me.
As it has been mentioned here already, just keep reminding yourself that Tai Chi is about the rejection of brute force. If someone pushes you, don't push back, the stronger will win in this situation. If someone pushes, lead then on and deflect them away. Make them overextend, make them unbalance themselves. When someone is unbalanced they are at your mercy because they are unable to change, they cannot counter whatever you throw at them. They are double weighted. Same with if they move away, follow on. When someone is trying to move back, then that is the time to give them a helping shove. With their momentum and your push coupled, they are helpless against it, Don't worry, it is much harder to do than it sounds Principle is simple, the practise is not. Especially deflecting a push while remaining rooted yourself.
Not quite! they are not weighted at all in that situation. Double weighting is the clumsey point between the two feet, you float you have no root.
Yes, this is partly true, but the more advanced people don't have to "deflect" or yield so that you are overextended. The advanced folks just borrow your power and return it back to you. Sort of like a spring. Deflecting is more of a technique imo.
tcccs is correct.But we might say that the yield is so small,just enough to get "under" the other's center,that it is imperceptible to an onlooker,or mayhap the recipient,also. A yield may take up little space or time.But you as recipient may find the other owns you at what is initial contact.Overextension is sometimes relative to the skill level of the other.The same thing you may execute on a junior,while keeping yourself together(centered.etc) may be an overextension energetically on a senior.Meaning,relative to what the senior feels in you,you ain't centered no mo'!(One could say the senior can exploit your error,while the junior didn't even know it was there). Once the center is found,and an advantageous angle is felt,the person can be downed,uprooted,etc regardless what direction their body was going,including forward.Of course,adding to their own momentum (forward or back) without having to redirect it first is the simplest and easiest,and oftimes most preferable if it presents itself. tcccs' training method develops whole body p'eng (for starters) .you can't yield in the TC sense w/out it,or one is just collapsing no matter how relaxed one may be.
They still have to deflect your force, they are just good and do it in a semi circle if you will, they can sink down and roll it back to you. They don't just drain it like a leech while you stand there and fire it back at you.
You guys may be right. I can only go by what I feel when I try to push my teachers. When they push/bounce me out, it is usually straight back towards me. We usually seek to make the connection, find the center (line of discharge) and PUSH. If they are making circles, I certainly can't feel them, or I'm not experienced enough to. Our purposes are whole body peng jin (as El Medico said), so eventually you should be able to just step up to someone and destroy them. POWER, POWER, POWER. That's what's it's all about for me, at least at this time in my development. They do throw us around in various directions, but I think they do that when they are getting bored of the straight lines, or when they want to have a little fun.
If I quote Tian everthing is a circle or a ball until you use the body weapons, be that kick punch or push or whatever. If the initial contact is the circle then the body weapon emerges at a tangent to that circle. The principle being like rotating millstone anything making contact is *kicked* away, and the trajectory will be a straight line. If a ball then the ball compresses on contact until it fires back the stored energy. This is the principle behind the Dynamic Pushing Hands that you practice. The ball is Peng. Both are Tai-Chi. Tai-Chi is not stopping and then applying force no matter how soft the initial contact.
