International Yang Family Tai Chi Chuan Association

Last weekend I have a chance to push hands with many veteran taiji & Yiquan masters and players alike at a park. Last Saturday was a public holiday so there is a rare opportunity where everyone can meet-up to exchange experience and practise push hands. I am truly greatful to many masters I met who are very willing to share their invalueable experience to stranger like me. I pushed with a nice guy who is a master of Yiquan, Wu Taiji and Yang Taiji. His push hands has very strong peng jin and very good footwork. I got trapped twice by him tackling my feet. I learned some valuable lessons here. One of it is, never assume opponent will push hands according to our expectation of courtesy. However, there is no hard feeling and I enjoyed it very much because of the lesson learned with him.

The second guy I pushed with is a 4 Dan Judo master and taiji master. He is also national push hand champion for 4 consequence years. Very good and smooth hand and body movements. He shared with me one very good advise which I cherished. He said " don't bother to counter what opponent throws at you, instead be focus on what you can do to him". His point is this, one must always maintain ones stability and good posture and don't be bother if opponent's hands have breached into one's defence and is trying to push. As long as your balance is intact you are safe so why bother, instead take this opportunity to close-in to the opponent and apply your tech on him. Of course he is refering to how to win in competition push hands.

I also pushed with a Chen stylist and another Cheng stylist (Cheng Man Ching Taiji)too. Both are very soft but the Cheng stylist has a more refined body movements. Another experience I have with these kind masters are most of them concentrate too much on pushing to win in competition, hence neglected combative nature of taichi chuan or yiquan...I cannot blame them becoz most of them are competition seasoned veteran. They are very good at forcing their entire body weight on opponent but not so much of fajin.

These encouters gave me a very good opportunity to test my concept of not allowing opponent to land more than 4 ounces on me (4 ounces to deflect thousand pounds theory)against many different styles range from Yang, Wu, Chan, Cheng , yiquan,Judo to mixed tech of competition push hands. My conclusion (purely my personal view) is it works if it is a combat situation. They are unable to assert their peng jin on me (neither do I able to get them overextended becoz most of them knew the dilemma of it as most of them are experienced taiji masters) and I am free to move whereever and however I want and can fajin (strike)at them anytime. However, in competition I will loss because if I kept on being soft and refused to collide and use considerable amount of strength to overpower their constant juggernaughting-in, I will have little change to push them out of the competition ring. Most of them engaged in forward stance (weight distribution of 70% front 30% back) to give them strength advantage over the opponent and they will be difficult to push away. I guess competition push hands and combative push hands do have many differences.

Ah, I see what you mean about the straight being the line from the bubbling well to the opponent's center. In this case, both scenarios work so long as any point that is "out of alignment" is abandonned.

this is because you have no idea of return, and they are not skilled enough to exploit your emptiness. FWIW I also noticed the same thing about the chen taiji people I have met. Regardless of teacher they all feel the same. Not refined a good way of saying it.

4oz refers to the mindfulness not an absolute pressure. It could be ten lbs or anything else as long as the mindfulness is there. With it out no matter how light the idea and ability to change is lost.

Think of big, medium and small. This refers to change big meaning the whole body is involved and small meaning that only that area has to change. A master or someone quite good can make such small changes that it seems as if one is using force when in actuality it is the others force being reflected back.

forget this advice its very wrong, the idea is to give up thoughts of oneself and follow the other. From this comes correct positioning and timing.

your thoughts have lots of good examples my replies are not directed at you.

The idea of pushing them out, try leading or allowing them to fall out. By changing this you will understand what empty and full mean. I have pushed with people who compete, the competition aspects seem to teach a very bad set of skills, not really taiji skills. Their practice completely misses the point of push hands it will not enhance their taiji nor will it allow them to understand how it is to be used as a martial art.

FWIW I do not engage in such competitions (nothing of value for me) but have pushed with others who have won them. On one level they can feel and understand what is happning to them as they get tossed out by their own actions, but they seem to be locked into the what works in competiton with this mindset ist rally not possible to change much. to each his own

[This message has been edited by bamboo leaf (edited 06-07-2005).]

[The idea of pushing them out, try leading or allowing them to fall out. By changing this you will understand what empty and full mean.]
You are right, this was exactly what I did. During my push hands with them, I insisted upon myself to follow strictly to taiji principles instead of get pulled into the tournament way of pushing to win at all cost. Many times they overextended and off-balance themselves. I also noticed after after a few minutes of push hands, they are breathing very heavily signifying that a lot of physical strengths were used.

[the competition aspects seem to teach a very bad set of skills, not really taiji skills. Their practice completely misses the point of push hands it will not enhance their taiji nor will it allow them to understand how it is to be used as a martial art].
This is true too. I cannot stop to wonder if this is the way taiji push hand shld be (tournament way), what chance we will have if faced with sumo wrestlers or pro-wrestlers.

[On one level they can feel and understand what is happning to them as they get tossed out by their own actions, but they seem to be locked into the what works in competiton with this mindset ist rally not possible to change much]
I noticed this too. When I was pushing with one of them who used Chen style and yiquan, he was thrown many times many feet away and while we chat after that. He still insisted that traditional taiji push hand is of little practicle use especially in tournament. Nevertheless, these people are all friendly people true to taiji spirit. They have different interest in taiji aka winning competitions as compared to us who want to stick to original taiji.

BL,
your thoughts and experience of inner aspects of taiji combat are very interesting, but I've heard different opinions with wide range of examples of subtle inner applications and a few of them are in somewhat contradiction with yours (Or maybe it's just my limited understanding). May I ask you a question, have you ever pushed with a person who can use short jin, i.e. he slowly touches you, and then immediately either your bone or whole body feels the impact. What do you think, is it possible to reflect such an attack back in the manner as you described above?

Very interesting point. I use short jin a lot in my push hands and this far, I have not met a person who can smoothly return the jin as in `chieh jin' described in taiji classic. I read the book `Steal My Art' by C.C.Liang one of Cheng Man Ching inner disciple and he admitted that neither he nor CMC has mastered this skill. My sifu who is inner student of Tung, Huling couldn't do it too though he taught me how technically and mentally. Personally, I am still practising hard to get it. I heard talks amongst Huang Hsin Hsian (CMC inner student) students that Huang has it but the late Huang has passed away and my sifu has had pushed with Huang's direct students and he said none can do it. So, I don't know. It would be a blessing if I can meet someone who possess this skill.

as with many things it¡¯s a matter of level. My own teacher can touch another¡¯s hand laid on someone¡¯s body and push them back with his small finger pressed against the hand. The person whose hand is touched feels nothing. The person who is pushed feels like the small finger is poking through the hand.

At his level its not possible to do what I mentioned, but he can.

The basic point is to feel the intent and either empty it or return it (he starts late but arrives first) for most they are still at the point feeling a pressure on the body before reaction or acting. This is really to slow but is a necessary starting point to come from.
If you can feel the mind then your actions can be in time with the other and still be before it.

(Shortjin executed with physical power is easy to neutralize but shortjin from internal strength is hard to avoid.)

you don¡¯t need to avoid it, just be able to channel and lead it.

FWIW these are just expressions of an understanding, based on my own experiences not written as an absolute or correct way. Its how I understand things at this time in my own practice. Others may find differences or have a better way of writing it.

david

quote:

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Originally posted by cheefatt taichi:
I heard talks amongst Huang Hsin Hsian (CMC inner student) students that Huang has it but the late Huang has passed away and my sifu has had pushed with Huang's direct students and he said none can do it.

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I've met students of Huang's who could do it. Who did he push with?

Sorry to intrude, but can someone tell me what `chieh jin' is? I looked through my copies of the classics but didn't see those words (mine are all translated into English). How does it work? (Not that I could do it yet--just curious.)

quote:

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Originally posted by Anderzander:
I've met students of Huang's who could do it. Who did he push with?

Stephen

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Hi Anderzander,

quote:

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Originally posted by Kalamondin:
Hi CFTC and others,

Sorry to intrude, but can someone tell me what `chieh jin' is?

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Your spelling is absolutely ok, I am (and I suppose Kalamondin too) just used to pinyin system a bit more. Thank you for sharing your thoughts about jiejin, which is higher than my level even in its simplest form. Therefore personally I can say nothing about the possibility to use this kind of jin against short jin. However, as many, I am interested in it because I know a couple of very good taiji enthusiasts from another style who have been training short jin as one of the basic/fundamental jins. You may imagine what opponents they are in tuishou!

Reading the excellent book The Taijiquan Classics translated by Barbara Davis I found some lines of CWM's commentaries consonant to what we are discussing here, so I've decided to share them with all of you:

<<If one wishes to avoid the problem of double-weightedness, one must know yin and yang. Yin and yang are namely empty and full. If one feels the slightest bit double-weighted, one must at ones sink to one side. The empty place is yin, the full place is yang. Although one /actually "it" may stand here/ divides into yin and yang, one still does not abandon sticking and connecting; therefore one is able to stick and to yield. As for "yin does not separate from yang, yang does not seoarate from yin", if the opponent is full, I am empty. He empties, and I change to become full. Therefore yin changes to yang, yang changes to yin. "Yin and yang complete each other." The foundation for this is to "not be fixed (ding) in one's shape (xing)." / or 'not fixed shape' / This is done by means of observing the direction of the opponent's intention, and then changing. If one can follow the opponent's intention, and respond to empty and full, one will not miss by the slightest bit.>>

Here is the original text in GB:

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Take care,
Yuri

FYI, I believe the Jie Jin/Chieh Chin under discuss here is usually translated as “Intercepting Energy” and was discussed previously to a small degree on this thread.