This is my first post. Hello!
I read this entire thread a couple days ago, but it takes a couple days for the registration to go through... I might not hit all of the points I wanted to. :P That said, I highly enjoyed the conversation in this thread and wanted to add some stuff.
I found this thread because I was curious about the "SEO Juice" on my website, so I searched "john meehan push hands" to see if a recent blog entry I made would show up (it didn't then, it does now.
)
There are three things I wanted to touch on. Extreme push hands, the "goal" of tai chi (particularly as a "martial art") and "no touch."
First, I want to go back to a post by TaiChiBob:
I just want to say
YES to all of that!
I consider myself a "real" martial artist (whatever that means in this day and age) and the current state of tai chi in the US disappoints me. I think the health and spiritual aspects of the art are AWESOME, but they should go hand-in-hand with the martial side.
To make my point quickly, I look forward to the day that a Mixed Martial Artist legitimately appends tai chi to his list of arts (ie BJJ, Muay Thai, Tai Chi). Which brings me to my second topic... the "goal" of tai chi.
When training tai chi, you're (all of this is IMHO of course
) training some VERY specific things and trying to refine them to levels that are... "beyond belief." Judokas, BJJers, MMAers, kickboxers, wrestlers, etc. will all learn how to neutralize and issue force. A lot of them also learn how to be soft and relaxed while doing so. Tai Chi is SPECIFICALLY training those skills (yielding, balance, neutralizing, issuing, rooting, centering, etc.) and, if trained diligently and properly, should (I believe) produce results not (normally) accessible from other martial arts (this is even without getting into things like "chi" and the like which I believe is above my pay grade to discuss
).
This brings me to the "no touch" stuff which was mentioned as well. I think before I go into that too much, I'd like to touch on the "chi" stuff. I recently uploaded a video clip of me and
Master Henry Wang. There's videos of him on the YouTubes doing his no touch thing, but I don't want to talk about that just yet. Here's the video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zt49FJCGcxw
If you don't have time to watch it, it's basically some clips of the first time I met him. The clips I put there were special (to me) because they were my "converting" clips. I was there, I experienced it, I can watch the clips over and over and... I don't quite understand what happened to me. What I do understand is that whatever it was, it was something that is (to my knowledge) unattainable with "regular training" (ie getting really fit, lifting weights, wrestling, etc.) I suppose people could go into the "oh, you were expecting something," or "you wanted something to happen," but I assure you, I was there to test him and see if this was the art for me. I like to use
this clip of me doing a crazy armbar as "proof" that I take martial arts seriously. Anyhow, my guess is that (what people describe as) "chi/qi" is what's behind his ability to do the stuff in that video. I was already sold on what he was able to do touching me, the "no touch" stuff I didn't even care about (and still don't
), but I've had some experience with it...
I have a bunch of video footage of him doing "no touch" to me and I even have the first time he did it to me (successfully) on video. What's this? Successfully?
So the first time he attempted no touch he was sitting on a bench and asked me to walk towards him (it was actually RIGHT after
this). I walked towards him, he did all this stuff with his arms and... nothing. Second and third time was the exact same thing. He just says to himself "Interesting."
Then (and I can put the video up of this) in the middle of a practice session involving me walking towards him, pushing him and getting thrown back he, out of know where, does the action he would normally do to throw me but... I wasn't touching him yet. I wasn't expecting this, he didn't tell me it was coming, but BAM there it was and... I moved without touching him.
I wish I could tell you how and why it worked but... It's above my pay grade.
I don't know. My best explanation is a combination of me getting "conditioned" to being thrown and "seeing" the throw come before I get there, plus suggestion, plus "chi"? I don't know.
I wish I had my "serious" experience on camera (maybe it wasn't recording on purpose). One time, when I was walking towards him to push him while he was sitting he DROPPED me (without touching). This one time it wasn't a "Hey look at which way my hands are telling you to go," situation. I TOTALLY wasn't expecting anything and... BAM dropped. Maybe there's an explanation for that too (above my pay grade).
What I like about Master Wang is that he doesn't make any claims about being able to fight using no touch. He just says it's "interesting." He doesn't even do push hands anymore. He takes long walks, eats good and practices tai chi. A lifestyle I'm determined to "master."