Realistic tai chi...

[Black Jack II]

Flow drills do have a place, its just another tool to work on action and reaction attributes. The best one's are not set, so the players can break out of one drill and enter right into another, so it becomes freeform like shadow boxing, it lets you work your creative side.

The only problem is when people get flow drill crazy or they stary thinking its actually fighting.

Personally I like push hands and would like to explore some more in the future.

[RD'S Alias - 1A]

Personally I like push hands and would like to explore some more in the future.

Reply]
I should hook you up with Troy, he's ridiculously good at that stuff.

[PangQuan]

I like to think of push hand type exersizes near the same process as learning to walk.

at first you crawl and are not very coordinated. eventually, you learn to pull yourself into a standing position, yet still you have no coordination or balance. your muscles are not developed for the action. the 'feeling' of standing is still alien. eventually you will take your first step, then you will fall. you will have a guide many times to help you take more steps than you can actually do by yourself.

you may take 10 steps when, alone, you could have only taken 1 or 2. guidance by one who is very familiar with walking helps you learn that feeling in advance to what you can do alone. this will help you to understand what your faults are, what your weaknesses and strengths are. its a process done in almost any type of training endeavor.

with a good partner and teacher you can have a great guide to lead you and help you feel things you would othewise be unable to experience.

push hand is NOT fighting. push hands is an exersize that has VERY specific ELEMENTS of fighting. but hardly all elements of fighting are involved.

it is not going to look like fighting, its not suppose to look like fighting. when a taiji practitioner fights, then it will look like fighting. Not when he is doing push hands.

its like when you step on a tack or a nail, or touch a hot stove. that moment of explosive action without thought, the reaction of the body at maximum capacity for survival. we try to recreate this feeling. when you are doing push hands to be able to recreate the element the very moment your opening presents itself...this is one element of the training we are trying to achieve.

to have someone there to guide you and to help you feel this is part of the reason we do push hands.

although I am lower than a novice, take every thing i say with the knowledge that i am a beginner in the world of taiji, though many concepts i do understand, the actual physical side of the coin i have yet to fully experience.

[SevenStar]

Taijiquan is a diverse art, with a lot of variation between styles. Most schools nowadays are all pretty wushu, no sparring or hitting the ground. Some styles still focus on wrestling and throws as an adjunct to sparring, though finding them is looking for a needle in a haystack.

This was a 2002 demo in Hong Kong, the guys are from a Singapore Wu style school;

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=McWezZzEODw

just watched the vid... I see what knife is talking about. Good throws - sukui nage, harai goshi, o soto gari... But you aren't gonna set up those throws that way. Look at this clip:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-XA3P...elated&search=

this is what throw set ups - even split second throws - tend to look like when you have a resisting opponent.

[SevenStar]

yes, I agree. But let's remember, it's only a drill. It's kinda like watching Tyson skip rope and thinking,"Yeah, what's he gonna do, skip at me?"

I agree it's just a drill - but if you are drilling everything from the setup to the throw, why not actually do the proper setup? just IMO, I would keep push hands seperate from free wrestling. That clip looks like it is combining the two. sticking with your tyson example, he doesn't skip rope while he's sparring...

[PangQuan]

I would keep push hands seperate from free wrestling.

I think this is a very good point.

[Black Jack II]

I should hook you up with Troy

Is that the guy who teaches tai chi in the Aurora Park district?

[RD'S Alias - 1A]

One of, there are two. The other guy is just a health guru.

Troy was the primary owner on the school we had on RT 59...which now has some Bejing affiliated Wusu guys in our old spot.

[Knifefighter]

push hands, chi-sao,hubud, etc are designed to teach touch sensitivity and reaction. All the time spent developing the skill is for ONE SPLIT SECOND IN TIME.
If I want to land a strike, and it meets opposition, I can either re-group, or flow with or around it. If I want to throw,I need to feel your balance point, and find the timing and positioning to exploit it.
These are simply drills to help achieve this end. A means to an end.Not the end itself.
You honestly need to have a basic understanding of this before you can give an opinion. That's like me looking at the space shuttle and criticizing its design. WTF do I know about aerospace engineering?

"Sensitivity drills" is the buzz phrase for practicing techniques out of context. The problem is, when you practice things out of context, they have much less applicability than when you practice them in context. Sensitivity is developed by doing the actual activity, in the same context and with the same movements done when going live. Wrestlers develop sensitity from wrestling; judokas develop sensitivity from doing throws and fighting for grips; BJJ practitioners develop sensitivity from rolling.

Push hands, chi sao, and, to a lesser extent, hubud are all artificial constructs. The movements done during these exercises are not the same ones that are done in a live setting. Watch judokas, wrestlers, BJJ guys, boxers, and MT fighters. All of their drills mimick the same movements done when going live against resisting opponents.

[Water Dragon]

just IMO, I would keep push hands seperate from free wrestling.

I agree with this 100 %. I was always taught that in push hands, you need to cooperate and 'go with it', in order to develop the correct responce. Once things like winning, ego, trying to do a technique come into play, it's not push hands anymore. That doesn't make randori or sparring any less essential, it just makes them something different than push hands.

[TenTigers]

do you not understand that these are simply tools? They are not the sole method of training, but only one slice of the pie, used to develop one attribute that is used in their overall fighting skills.
I think because modern day granola tai-chi schools place such an emphasis, and that they take up the limelight, that you believe that this is the method that people who do real Tai-Chi use.

[TenTigers]

"I agree it's just a drill - but if you are drilling everything from the setup to the throw, why not actually do the proper setup? just IMO, I would keep push hands seperate from free wrestling"



keeping push hands separate from free wrestling is sensible to western wrestlers. The set ups are different. Chinese wrestlers don't slap hands away and go for the grab, they try to join the person's arms in order to control them and lead them into the throw, or lock. Different strategies call for different traiining methodologies.

[Knifefighter]

I agree with this 100 %. I was always taught that in push hands, you need to cooperate and 'go with it', in order to develop the correct responce. Once things like winning, ego, trying to do a technique come into play, it's not push hands anymore. That doesn't make randori or sparring any less essential, it just makes them something different than push hands.

It's not the cooperation that makes it bad... it's the unrealistic positioning and energy. It's hard to learn to develop the correct response when the partner gives you the wrong positioning and energy.

[Water Dragon]

I really wish I could find a way to say what I'm trying to. I think I give up for a while. All I can really say is I have found it valuable. Maybe it's because it's the first and longest art I've trained, but no matter what else I do, my defense is based on what I learned in Tui Shou, and it's alwyas worked for me.

[cjurakpt]

my friend Sifu Mike Pekor competing and winning the 2007 USCKF 200 lbs + freestyle push hands championship match:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ardLHzFqtRA