Building Tai Chi combat skills from pressure and testing

Tags

Combat, Push hands, Tai Chi, Tai Chi Combat, Tai Chi Push Hands

Some teachers don’t like their students to compete. But others, like Li Yaxuan, Yang Chengfu’s most famous and competent student, said that you must practice your Tai Chi in free push hands and free sparring. Li also encouraged Tai Chi people to compete in Push Hands and Sanda/San shou tournaments. But if you do, he meant that this is to test your Tai Chi skills. You must really use your Tai Chi. You must be confident in your art, know how to always breath, stay relaxed and not use excessive or unnecessary strength.

But I can never see real Tai Chi skills when I look at Tai Chi Push Hands competitions. They all use brute force, tricks and speed. How come? Why is that so? I read about a quite famous teacher who commented Push Hands tournaments and why you hardly see anyone who use Tai Chi skills in competitions. That teacher said that even if students do everything right in class and use their Tai Chi when they practice free push hands in class, they tend to not trust their skills and practice when they meet the pressure in a competition. So they use brute force and speed instead.

This is somewhat a strange phenomena. One of the reasons of course could be that many of these competitors practice to compete in competitions and not too build genuine Tai Chi skills. Another reason could be that many of them are young and have not enough practice to keep their skill when they are pressured. I couldn’t not always do so for the first five or seven first years. Even when I met Tai Chi people for free push hands practice, I sometimes tensed up, and especially so if the other person was tense or used strength.

But the question is, if you want to develop genuine Tai Chi skills, what way, how and how often should you meet pressure and have your skills tested? Maybe competitions is not the best way. If you lose too much confidence in yourself and in your skill, will you have enough courage later to really use your Tai Chi? Will you ever be able to use it?

In my own humble opinion, the best way to test your Tai Chi skills is to test them against a Tai Chi practitioner who is much better than you. If you meet someone who really know how to relax, can keep relaxed all of the time, and can still play around with you just like you were merely a leaf caught in the wind, you will learn far more than if you put yourself into pressure when you yourself yet don’t know how to keep relaxed all of the time. If you meet up with skilled teachers and practitioners, you will feel how they feel, you will experience their timing and eventually come to understand their Tai Chi spirit.

This is the right way to approach Tai Chi and build genuine skills that can be used for real. First, learn to relax properly in a Tai Chi environment. When you can keep yourself relaxed and not tense up, then test yourself against non-Tai Chi practitioners. When you can demonstrate and keep your Tai Chi body all of the time, without interruption, you might want to expose yourself to people from various styles who are skilled in wrestling, competition push hands and free fighting. If you want to make your Tai Chi work for real, my advice is that you make your progress to develop in clear levels, taking one step at a time and learn how to keep your Tai Chi skills when dealing with different levels of pressure. Make one achievement at a time and let your progress in Tai Chi develop over the time it takes to jump up one level at a time. By doing so, you will always progress further without compromising your Tai Chi or your confidence in your art.

Following, adapting, mirroring – Do you really know how to practice this?

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adapting, following, Li Yaxuan, Mirroring, Push hands

When you have read this post about mirroring and adapting in Tai Chi, I can recommend to also read the posts: how to practice Tai Chi applications and Five important points of Push Hands practice.

In Tai Chi, we try to learn how to adapt to the opponents movements, following him like the reflection in a mirror. But there are two things I see in how people commonly practice Tai Chi that I don’t agree with. Both of them have to do with focusing on techniques before principle. Both may lead to bad habits and a false sense of timing.

First, people practice from stationary postures. Your opponent need to move. You can’t start from your opponent standing with a stretched arm. There must be a movement to follow. Almost all applications you see in vids on the tubes start from either a push hands setting or stationary postures. How can you learn how to mirroring your opponent if you don’t have anything to follow? In this sense, much push hands practice serve better to build tai chi skills than most applications practice you can see that people show up on the youtube etc.

Second, people are too concerned with the limbs. They practice how to defend themselves from hands, arms, legs and feet. But what you should learn to follow and adapt to is the opponent’s center, his balance and to his “yi”, or intent. The traditional Chinese philosophy is to get rid of problems while they are small. If you know that you don’t want a tree to grow, get rid of it as soon you see it comes out from the earth. Don’t wait until it has grown strong. The same can be said for Tai Chi philosophy of self defence. Don’t wait for a punch or any attack to become strong and connected. Then it’s too late. So if you can, get rid of it by it’s root, before there is any power in the attack. To do this you must follow and adapt to the movements of the center. Use timing, get in as soon as you can get in to the right distance and get rid of the problem.

But you need to practice on this. You won’t get any practice you can use in real life self defence or combat if you start practicing techniques with your opponent holding out a stretched arm and fist. This will only build bad habits and won’t help you to develop your timing.

Li Yaxuan (Disciple of Yang Chengfu) on this issue of timing and adapting to the opponent’s movements:

Even before physical contact, with a single glance you join contact with the opponent or partner, establishing a firm connection with him. Adherence can begin even at this stage, prior to physical contact. This is important because when you are working in a more intensive competitive or combative mode, if you depend on physical contact to start your adherence, that’s too late and you’re going to be too slow to exploit any advantage of timing or positioning.

(Translated by Scott Meredith: Link to the complete text, PDF)

• Practice to watch your oppponent, to feel what’s the appropriate distance to enter or attack.
• Practice to follow his every slight movement done by his centre, feet, hips or shoulder tips.
• Try to lock the distance from your center to his center.
• Watch his eyes: When does he look and can you see his gaze changing just before he goes to an attack?

Follow, follow and follow. Try to act as his mirror, adjusting to every slight movement, even if he moves some part of his body even one tenth of an inch. And then when you have contact with your opponent, let your tingjin (sensitivity skill) decide when, where and how to respond and attack.’

Recommended posts: how to practice Tai Chi applications and Five important points of Push Hands practice.

What is push hands?

Tags

Body method, Push hands, Relaxation, Tai Chi, Taiji, tui shou

What is push hands? There are a few different answers depending on who you ask.

Push hands can be:

• A two man exercise in Tai Chi
• Movement patterns/drills
• Either drills or free play
• Static or moving exercises
• A way to prepare the practitioner for free fighting
• A way to prepare the practitioner for self defense practice
• Competition

Push hands is the exercise where two person stands in front of each other. One person pushes or apply pressure on the other person’s arm or body. The receiver must evade and neutralize the movement from the “attacker” completely relaxed without tensing up, at the exact same speed as the partner and without using force or going against the other’s strength.

The name “push hands” in Chinese is “Tuishou”. An earlier name was “Dashou” or “striking hands”, which implies that once there was more than just pushing. But Push hands is an exercise for interpretation. In higher stages of free play, the boundaries between the exercise and free fighting becomes blurred.

Personally, I enjoy free push hands play at a level of cooperation or collaboration where you help each other solve the different problems that can arise and together discuss or suggest solutions for those tricky situations that may rise. This way, both learn and become better together as the partners play and practice. The fine thing about push hands is that you can take away aggression and competitiveness out of the plan and focus on building a solid foundation based on the qualities of things like stance, balance and timing, while keeping away other things from interfering. The real benefit from a self defense perspective is that you will teach your bosy that it becomes faster and more responsive to action if you are calm in mind and have a balanced body. “Getting into balance” when encountering a fight or threatening situation might very well become the natural response of your own body, instead of the common way that people tense up, lose their control and even panic. From push hands you will truly learn things about yourself, as well as teach yourself, that more common or ordinary martial arts practice can not teach.

Suggested reading on free push hands: https://taichithoughts.wordpress.com/2015/07/25/how-to-master-tai-chi-free-push-hands-five-important-points-on-strategy/

How To Master Tai chi Free Push Hands: Five Important Points on Strategy

Tags

Push hands, Tai Chi, tui shou

These five points on how to master tai chi free push hands is nothing I have seen written down in any book or any article. The real Masters should know them very well, but sometimes it’s not something they will describe or teach. Often, you need to discover the tactics and strategy by yourself, by understanding what you teacher does when he practice with you. Some people will get it, some people won’t. But if you really understand these five points, you will have a great advantage against any opponent, not only in push hands. Here are also valuable things to learn for sparring and combat.

But first, remember the basics and fundament in any tai chi, what always should be remembered at all the time: Be relaxed and relax more. Never tense your breath and focus all your strength and movements from the dantian. Rely on tingjin, let your touch decide what to do. Always keep the integrity of your tai chi shenfa: i.e. never at any costs compromise your balance and structure. All of these points, here and the five important points below, are meant to be turned into practice. Thinking will be of no use. You need to practically do it.

1. Always do two things at the same time.

Whenever you do something in free push hands, whatever it might be, don’t think one dimensional, or that two comes after one. Blend your movements together, always do two or three things at the same time. When you defence, attack at the same time. If one part of your opponent’s body moves forward, another part will go backwards. This means that at the same time you defence, as evading from an incoming push, you follow and fill in the gaps. When you fill in the gaps, never let your opponent escape. Keep on following and fill in. In stationary push hands, if he continue to move, he will fall by himself. In moving push hands, you can make something third by slipping your foot behind his, or trap his body to fall.

2. Connect your center with his.

Always adjust your center to every slightly movement he does. You can work from the middle line, the dantian/stomach or hips. This means controlling distance and angle. If you find a good distance, never leave it, never let him get a chance to slip away. Continue to follow. You can take charge and change the angle and distance, or move in. But then after a change, you lock the distance and follow his every movement.

3. Follow the vertical movements of his body.

When you lock in your target, or radar, and follow every slightly move, be sure to follow him in every direction. Have mobility in every direction. People tend to forget to follow the opponent’s vertical movements. If he moves downward, you follow and go low as well. When he moves downward, go slightly lower than him so he can not take advantage of your balance and center.

4. Keep below his center all of the time.

Being lower than his center all of the time doesn’t mean that your head need to be lower than his. Neither does your own center. This is hard to describe, but it’s more of a feeling, a feeling that you can always topple his balance, uproot him whenever you want. Use your tingjing to feel the balance of his feet in your hands. Never lose this feeling. Few practitioners are good in this, so if you can keep your awareness to always be ready to catch his root and unbalance him, you will have a great advantage.

5. Dominate his space.

At every opportunity, get closer to your opponent and never go back. Even in free push hands, people tend to rock back and forth, back and forth, just like it was a drill. What happens if one person don’t go back, but only go forward? The person backing will have no space left to move. So move in your body and turn and twist to evade. Never go back or widthdraw if you have another choice. If you need to widthdraw, follow his forward movement and don’t create more space. If you need to create space, don’t give him a chance to follow and fill in. Instead, try to move only your body and stay still with your arms or mask your movement in other ways so he doesn’t follow you.

Tai chi and how to practice the lightest touch

Tags

Push hands, Tai Chi, tui shou, two person exercise

[b]A simple two person exercise.[/b]
One person study tai chi and the tai chi touch as a defender,
the other one attacks.

Light as a feather,
the contact point is on the outside of the skin.
Harder pressure that goes past the skin
numbs it.
The best sensativity is on the top of the skin.
Practice to feel the difference.

Start from contact, but keep it light.
Just skin touching skin
as lightly as possible.
Relax, soften the hands.
Be calm and breath naturally.
But remain in a firm, comfortable stance
toes grasping the ground.

Then, let the other person go to attack.
Try keeping the contact
as light as a feather.

Follow, stick, evade,
fill in the gaps like water,
enter.

How do you keep the lightest touch
light enough,
as you defend and
try to evade the incoming attack?
You will be surprised.

Just take the leap of faith,
keep the touch as light as possible.
Trust your body –
it knows.
You will be surprised.
Surprise!

Yet, timing is of outmost importance
as well as a sense of distance.
Remember to move as soon as the opponent moves.
Just as in tuishou,
move together with the opponent
at exactly the same speed.
As soon as your opponent moves,
turn your body slightly.
If you let your hand
it will stick to your opponent
without any conscious thought or effort,
keeping the lightest touch.

Never compromise posture,
balance, calmness, softness,
or the lightness of the touch.
They all must be kept together.
Then you can achieve
the state of Emptiness
where everything happen by itself.

Your body knows –
you don’t need to think about what to do.
Just let it happen.
Trust my words,
you will be surprised.