Tui Shou - Pushing Hands

Tuisceanch

Is anybody interested in establishing a free regular Tui Shou (Pushing Hands) event in the Dublin area?

Niall Keane

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T429PMh1Hug

smacl

Tuisceanch wrote: »

Is anybody interested in establishing a free regular Tui Shou (Pushing Hands) event in the Dublin area?

I'd definitely be up for this if it is in reasonable range of me, I'm based in the southside near Marlay park direction. Tried setting something like this up in the past and the response made Niall's video above look positively diverse

If you can come back with a time and location, I'll let you know if I can make it. Not around this weekend, and away from the 5th to 13th July, but should be around apart from that.

Tuisceanch

smacl wrote: »

I'd definitely be up for this if it is in reasonable range of me, I'm based in the southside near Marlay park direction. Tried setting something like this up in the past and the response made Niall's video above look positively diverse

If you can come back with a time and location, I'll let you know if I can make it. Not around this weekend, and away from the 5th to 13th July, but should be around apart from that.

Well your interest suggests an oasis in the desert. Will get back to you after 13th.

artengo

What do you get out of doing this?
I looked at two youtube clips. One was very gentle and seemed to follow choreography.
The other was more like a contest to knock the other guy over by only using some pushing and pulling moves.

I am guessing some use it for meditation when done slow and combat/self defence when done in competition. I cant imagine it would be good for either.

Tuisceanch

artengo wrote: »

What do you get out of doing this?
I looked at two youtube clips. One was very gentle and seemed to follow choreography.
The other was more like a contest to knock the other guy over by only using some pushing and pulling moves.

I am guessing some use it for meditation when done slow and combat/self defence when done in competition. I cant imagine it would be good for either.

Guess and imagine to your heart's content but I'm looking for practitioners interested in developing their skills.

artengo

If you were going to reply why didn't you just answer my question?
What skill will you be developing? Rolling your hands around to a mellow rythum or pushing someone over who's not allowed hit you?
Do you think it will make you better at fighting?

Tuisceanch

artengo wrote: »

If you were going to reply why didn't you just answer my question?
What skill will you be developing? Rolling your hands around to a mellow rythum or pushing someone over who's not allowed hit you?
Do you think it will make you better at fighting?

Find a good instructor if you are interested but don't expect to be enlightened by just asking questions, and as I thought I explained to you I'm looking for people who are interested and understand the art to practice with and not to educate the disinterested. There is plenty of information on the web and books you can buy if you were genuinely interested.

Tuisceanch

RR: The title of this discussion is “Why Push Hands?” and what I’d like to do to begin with going round each panel member asking them to tell us what they were told push hands was. You may now have different ideas now from what your teacher said you were doing but I’d like to know what your initial exposure to push hands was.

Dan Docherty (DD): – Well, it’s not one thing. If you look at taiji classics they do not talk about pushing hands, they don’t mention the term pushing hands at all. However, they do mention various concepts which we train in pushing hands, various concepts we train to develop skills which we can apply in a real situation, in self-defense. Then we have drills to train these concepts. We then have, to a greater or lesser degree, free pushing. The free pushing we did was fixed step, we did do moving step but that was with sweeps and throws, but we didn’t refer to that as pushing hands, we referred to it as taiji wrestling.

Mario Napoli (MN): - I wasn’t told what it was or what it wasn’t, I didn’t know anything. My teacher just threw me on the wall and said we’re going to do a lot of this. So I didn’t know that it wasn’t something that you weren’t supposed to do, or if there was something to sort of debate between doing it or not. During my first lesson, if that’s what you call it, I got slammed into the wall. Five years later I was still being slammed into the wall, thrown down, sweeps, blocks, I just thought I was doing tai chi. I didn’t know I was doing maybe a just a part of tai chi.

But then of course I was also shown other stuff. I think if taijiquan is the whole of the art, I think of it like a painter, or an artist who does this kind of paint – he just doesn’t do one kind of painting, one kind of way, they tend to do oil, water, they do it on canvas, on silk, many of them go to sculpture, they do things on brass, so that to me maybe considered a whole artist. So I think in taijiquan push hands, or this part of what I call a two-man work-out, is part of a whole. To take it away, it may not damage the thing but it diminishes what it can give you. I also thought this push hands, or not push hands, it’s almost like what came first – the chicken or the egg. I don’t know, but in the old days when this fighting thing was real, (since we’re in Scotland we’ll use the word Clans), I think they fought first, and then when they realised there’d be a lot of fighting they started to practice more because they realised that people would always come to attack, so they increased their practice in order to be prepared.

So perhaps the question could be changed to, “Why do form?” Form can take a second-hand place because two-man, two-people is two minds, there’s learning, there’s exchanging and of course there are many different levels like Dan just said: He also does sweeps and throws which I did not know was not part of push hands because we did sweeps and throws. Maybe I was taught a little differently from the average player. So form is something I always assumed you did when you were alone.

Nils Klug (NL): – I learned it more traditionally - first the hand form, then pushing hands, and on occasions free-fighting. Before finishing the form I wasn’t allowed to go to the pushing hands class. For me push hands was taught as the best training to get some kind of flexibility and rooting, that’s what it’s for. There is no hitting any more in our push hands, no sweeps, no punching no nothing like that - we just try to have flexibility, be rooted and also to get an idea of issuing energy. So it’s more or less a game so you can’t really get injured in this game like we play it in our school.

Luigi Zanini (LZ): – Three points: In all the systems that I’ve been taught to, or have come into contact with, I have been taught that when you want to know someone, you just put the hands on them - without doing anything, you already know them. In martial arts, in my experience it is very important that you pay attention to partnerwork – it is fundamental. Partnerwork means tuishou, applications and sanshou. Basically the skills you acquire are connected to your senses – sight and touch.

The first way when I went to different places was – oh you are coming, come, come – just feeling the hands, the way you move, the way you are, then you know, and people immediately understand the level – that’s what I think is still fundamental today. Second point, from encyclopedias, according to your experience, your techniques, to your teaching, you can get out what you need and work on it. It is like to have a big encyclopedia – wonderful. Wonderful, but if you don’t pull it out and read it then it will make no sense. The third point is what is tui shou to me today?

Wang Haijun (WH): – (translated by DD) – You train the taijiquan, relaxation and so on first of all. After training in the solo form you then look at training with other people like in pushing hands. Everyone’s got their own different situation, their own methods of training. The first step to train the body to be soft and relaxed, you get the qi going to the Dantian and circulation working properly and so on. To do tui shou effectively you need to be relaxed so the second thing is listening, this is called, ‘ting jing’, listening for the jin of the other person, listening for their force, the taiji force of the other person. It’s a sensitivity of the contact between yourself and the other person, the feeling, to follow. After being able to listen effectively then you have to be able to discharge strength.

Elaine Gibbs (EG): - Before this week, I thought it was just a quiet gentle waving your arms about in contact with someone else, just feeling where they are going and that seems very different to what people are doing here, so now I don’t know what it is.

RR:– (General question to floor) - So where to do you fit in to this? How many people like Mario were slammed against a wall and just told to get on with it, and then we have somebody who is told that it is being sensitive and being in touch with other people. So where are you in this? How many people here now are in this end, and how many are closer to this end?

Belinda: – The reason I started tai chi was I heard that if you are doing this push hands it enables you to use very little energy and you can move a taller person. Then I was told before you could learn pushing hands, (which I wanted to) first you had to learn the form, like Nils, so I had to learn the form of tai chi even though I wanted to learn the push hands.

RR: – How long have you been doing tai chi now?

Belinda: - About 20 years since I started.

RR: And are you able to move the big force with very little energy?

Belinda: - I understand, yes but I don’t know if I am able to do it. I am able to sometimes move it, yes. I am closer to what I wanted.

RR: – It’s interesting because already here we have a whole range of differences. We seem to have distanced ourselves somewhat from what it is, so may be there’s a western interpretation of it or something, so we are doing something else entirely now and I think this is where a lot of the difficulties come from. Ken (Van Sickle), you worked with Cheng man Ching, what was your remit when you started?

Ken.jpgKen: – Well I got basically translations from two or three different people, but what I was told was that you do the tai chi form, which is the repository or encyclopedia of martial art movements and health exercises, and to do that you need to be able to relax and align and root and find your centre and maybe manage energy levels. But then that’s subjective; you’re not sure you’re really doing that so push hands is a test and a task to see if you can do that – to stay aligned and rooted and relaxed when someone is trying to push you. That was the case at first. And then there was an interim between doing the form and free-fighting.

RR: – Just a curiosity – those that were more to this end (Working on relaxation, sensing etc.- (Approach A) ) – how do you feel when you are standing opposite somebody that’s more to this end. (Working to over-power the opponent (Approach ). “Frightened” “Intimidated”.

Stuart “ I often feel a little resigned when I do that”.

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RR: So back to this end (Approach and do you guys have an awareness of this, and if so how do you deal with it?

DD: – I’ve seen Wang Lao Shi in action for example and it’s very evident that he’s got a lot of power okay, though I’ve also seen some other people in action (I’m talking about teachers now) and what they are working on is two different things. I think a number of the people at the so-called “this-end” as you put it, are interested in martial efficacy, but I think a lot of other people that are going into taijiquan at a certain age, and I think age and fitness is a factor in this – so you go into taijiquan at the age of 40 plus, and you haven’t done martial arts before. All the teachers at this table have a lot of knowledge, a lot of years of experience but they are not necessarily the most appropriate teachers for every individual in this room. It depends what you are want to get out of tai chi chuan, and all of us, I don’t know what everyone’s specialty is exactly, but all of us have different specialties, different things that we can work on more than other things. Equally there are many other teachers, and you know a lot of them, you’ve had them at Tai Chi Caledonia, you’ve met them in other places, who are more concerned with softness, with feeling, instead of trying to do something, they are trying to feel something. So I think one of the things is to choose a teacher who is appropriate for you. Now, it’s something that at Tai Chi Caledonia, you can meet other teachers who have got other things and it can broaden your experience but you might not necessarily want to work with that teacher on a regular basis as your main teacher.

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RR: – So would you, adapt your teaching when working with a mixed group in this kind of environment?

DD: – You have to look at what you can do – you can’t teach people who are 50, 60+ and beginners the same way as you can teach young fit strong people.

RR: – So you are tailoring what you are doing in this?

DD: – You have to. If you look at Chen style for example, it’s the most demanding style of tai chi chuan in terms of athleticism and it’s not necessarily appropriate for everyone in this room, particularly the way Master Wang demonstrated – which was very nice for a demonstration.

MP: – I think Dan said it clearly, eloquently, correctly from my point of view. He said that this taiji thing seems to let a lot of people in, where unlike boxing, judo, or muay-thai; mixed martial arts only lets a certain select group of young, strong, tall, etc, people in. So I concur with what he said. As far as what I did, I didn’t know that this world existed, because for about 10 years I was with my teacher, Stan Israel and I didn’t see anybody else.

During this time I vomited, I injured myself and I thought that was it. Even the so-called neutralization that seems to be a Cheng Man Ching thing that we did, I did it until I cried, he left you on a leg and he wouldn’t let you go, you can’t move unless he moves, so even that was to excess. When I came out and I saw all of this I was in shock – I’d go wow what are they doing? And then I started talking because I was a greenhorn, I didn’t know. I was mixed with people who said you’re not doing taijiquan, so wow I was in another world; then again I started to understand the approaches that Dan just referred to.

Obviously I was younger in those days and you can’t work with older people without giving some ideas, they want to feel, they want to be calm. I came up with the idea that they do as much taijiquan as they can; they can do a little bit, or they can go deep, but the deeper they go the more the pressure’s going to be on them and the longer. Not every body becomes a deep sea diver, it’s difficult, it’s hard, so do what you can, and like you said – “What is it that you want?” I was young, I enjoyed the idea of being slammed, I don’t know why, I thought it was fun!

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NK: –I know for sure that a lot of people and a lot of ways to do push hands. I call it push hands, but to me it’s not really pushing hands, it’s what some people do. I respect all these things but it’s not push hands. When I was taught, my idea was similar to Belinda’s – I wanted to move someone with effortless power and so on.

I want to ask a little question to the group, “Who of you practices push hands? Who is practicing once a week? Who’s practicing more than once a week? So it’s like three people doing it more than once a week, and I think if you really want to learn push hands you have to put a couple of years with daily training to get something like effortless power. So that’s my experience. People talk about push hands and they want to do this and that, but you really have to do it, that’s the deal. I can do these things, and I like these things too sometimes, but I prefer the real game.

LZ: – The thing I have been taught in tui shou is basically that there is a lot of work to do. There a lot to do and a lot of things to understand, and the growth is continuous, it can never stop. What I saw is as Dan pointed out there are many different levels and many different needs today in many respects and since the times have changed also the needs changed and we have different perspectives of the same thing.

So in my opinion it is very important to know, to have a little bit of the complete picture of what is really taijiquan in many respects, not to dissipate, this devalues the work and the art which is in it. I understand it as a martial art. And then be able to get the levels of the different degrees that everybody needs. Then there is a more social component in what we do, sometimes tui shou, it is more a way to understand each other and to understand ourselves and this is far away from what has been said on this panel.

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MP: – As far as I’m aware nobody is really concerned about real fighting because real fighting has no limits. If you are in a real fight it can be to the death. I don’t think here there is anyone who is interested in fighting to the death. In my experience I think that schools need a more academic approach – to train fixed step, moving steps, one hand, two hands and all techniques to improve sensitivity, ability to feel the partner, to hear the partner, and to improve looseness and work on qi.

EG: – I think that if you don’t know somebody that you can’t know where they are can you? If I wanted to explore it I’d have to get involved to get a taste of what different people mean in their approach to push hands.

RR: – Do you get what you feel you need from your teacher?

EG: – I think if you are good teacher then you know where your students are at and you can give them what they need. Some people say you must do form first, but how do you know when you are at the right level in the form to move on to pushing hands? May be you shouldn’t do it too soon.

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RR: – (to the group) Do you feel that when you introduced to push hands by your teacher, you were clear in what you thought it was you had to do? Did you have clear instruction for your development? How many people feel that everything was fine and that they had a clear path and how many people didn’t? Of those that didn’t, what do you think might have helped you?

Jeanne Kellet - I think if they’d focused more on the quality of listening and sticking rather than just throwing you around and saying do something, I think if they’d introduced the concept of listening and connecting to the chi and the softness in yourself, as a development on from the form, it might have helped – taking the form and then exploring another person.

Chris Little – When I learned, I was doing tai chi for health, I was taught form and push hands and chi kung all at the same time right from the beginning and we were just told it was a form of testing and increasing the sensitivity and that’s how the class was run, but then as I became more interested and I wanted to go deeper. My first teacher in a sense opened a door to this other world that wasn’t actually there in the original classes. Once I’d started on the road I soon realized that I could go out and meet others who were also interested. There’s a lot out there and my teacher was very supportive in his encouragement, but he did in a sense, leave some doors for you to push open yourself and I found that very helpful. I think if I knew everything was there at the beginning I probably wouldn’t have done it, because I’d already rejected Kung Fu.

Joyce Hurd – The first year I came to Tai Chi Caledonia there was a pushing hands session outside by the chalets and I can remember being totally put off by people saying – oh no you don’t do this and it really made me so irritated that I never wanted anything more to do with it, and then I came back and saw Jan Silberstorff doing an advanced pushing hands class and I thought to myself when I came up here that I must try and overcome this anger I have about pushing hands. I asked him if I was suitable to join the class, and we worked on listening which was immensely helpful to me. I’ve since been to a few of his workshops and it’s that quiet listening and then going into it that really helped me.

RR: – (to Panel) This leads us to how do you actually teach pushing hands? What is your emphasis? Some people are thinking about listening and some people are thinking about pushing over, and somewhere in between there are a lot of different things going on, so just give us a sense of your emphasis and how you teach it and what you do.

DD: – It depends – I was teaching an old chap in his 70s and all I wanted him to be able to do was to react to an external stimulus and to relax and go with what was being done to him – I didn’t want to actually teach him to push anybody. Whereas I’ve got some other people that I train for competitions, and they are in the minority, most people are learning pushing hands to develop skills which are useful in self-defense.

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MN: – Maybe it’s the wrong question for me because I’m not really a teacher, I’ve putsed around you know in New York where I have friends, 3 or 4 us, because we can’t get people to do what we do because… . I’ve been living, for personal reasons in Italy for the last few years or so, so I found 5/6 people and now I’m down to 2, so I just have 2 friends who I practice with, so my interest is very limited. I believe Marianne was talking about fighting or killing, I don’t do any of that, if I can call what I do sports fighting, we have certain rules, try not to tear each others eyes out, don’t bite the neck, don’t hit the groin, and just slam each other and eventually we can concentrate what it means to be soft, relaxed, pliable, centered, rooted, all this stuff may actually have a meaning, but I’ve learned them not through with trying to understanding them first, thinking I know what it is or it isn’t, my body has done the learning, I’ve tried to get my mind out of the way and I’ve listened to my body – and what I’ve found out what worked, I kept; what didn’t work, I didn’t keep, and then I kept concentrating and concentrating where that I thought when I heard these words – sung, relaxed, suspended, rooting, it meant something physical to me. So I don’t teach, no-one would come to me, it doesn’t work that way. I enjoy seminars – not that I’ve done many of them – but when I’ve done them, I’ve toned down,

I enjoy what I do so much and I do want people to understand that even if I do what I call sports fighting I try to make them understand that it’s also about health. If your legs are strong, pliable, you are able to let go, your muscles will help your heart, the blood is moving – they say there is something called chi, which they say is in your blood, it circulates, it invigorates your organs, your breathing becomes longer and deeper and calmer. This thing changes you, so even if there is something that’s maybe a sport, that gives you a hobby, an enthusiasm of taijiquan that you really want. So that’s why I show a little bit so that they may appreciate that there is something there. I’m not like a Neanderthal. I do like tai chi and it does give, but you know, you get what you put in, and you want more health, more calmness, you want to feel centered you have to do a little work.

NK: – I try to first teach a little neutralizing – yielding – how to react if someone is pushing you - so if energy comes in, how to react, what to do. How not to be stiff, force against force, we want to yield it, so be flexible in the mind and in the body, to me it’s the same, and it helps me to deal with daily life. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t.

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The next step is to give directions, true directions in the terms of being a good partner, because I find out in these push hands meetings, and in a lot of talks with you and other people, because taijiquan is slow and most people also play at push hands slow. They do things that no one would really do in real fights and it might be good to do these things for, listening and this and that, I’m not sure, but I find out that a lot of people who have done pushing hands for years are stuck because they don’t really have true direction and they do not even know that there is room for experiments.

I see my school like a laboratory, like doing research, so you have to have a couple of rules and I call them true directions, That is what I am mainly concentrating on. It’s not like hitting each other, I do that with a couple of my students but that’s not what I really teach.

LZ:– As Nils was pointing out the sequence is neutralizing, managing, after a while being able to really find a way out, but this depends on the basic request and agreement between the people and the teacher. I’ve a few students and a few teachers, friends, in Italy – we meet together and we work, deciding where to go and what to do, and that’s the best way I think it can be done, we agree, and we go on, then it can be everything.

Fighting is at the end of the day real fighting, just find a way not to damage yourself too much but to grow up, exchange experiences, work on things, but it cannot be done always. With students it is always a question of negotiating needs, teaching what the person asks for, if more, then we go on.

MP: –I’m not teaching tui shou very much because my level is not very high at all. But I have a question to ask Wang because, lets say that you know we have academy approach, so one and two hands, fixed step, moving step, all that and we have what we call here free tui shou, but before we have da lui and san shou and then maybe free tuishou.

My question is, “When do you think students should go to free tui shou – at what moment can you tell your students – okay you can do free tui shou – when do you think it is possible to do it and how?”

Wang (translated by Faye Yip) – In Chen style, pushing hands has different stages, fixed step and moving step and they are all designed to show different parts of the skill. The first skill is called wrist power – sticking hands, and you are just trying to do circular movements and you stick to the other person’s movements. In this exercise you don’t have fa-jing, you just listen and follow and try to develop good contact.

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The second stage is fixed step using peng, lui, ji and an and this trains these four techniques making sure you do them correctly, following the same directions, not doing it off-side, leaning back or forward or sidewards, but always following the guideline for the technique. The body shouldn’t lean to the side but is there is a quite precise way you should do them.

The third stage is moving step. This stage you both do the same posture and try to make sure that no force is used against each other, just going through the routines and going through the postures. You are trying to find out whether your partner is doing the right technique at the right time. If the technique of your partner is out of line, poor body alignment or whatever, then you can use that force of your opponent to move him.

At this stage you are trying to find the other person’s faults and mistakes; you don’t create confrontational strength against each other but through the following, listening and moving steps you are trying to identify opportunities. To avoid any confrontation against each other in force you learn to neutralize if there is any potential or intention of incoming force. The next stage is called da lui - a very long stance, training for your roots and stamina and co-ordination between the roots and waist so you can go up and down also practice the exertion of power from the hip and waist.

The next stage – trains you to a place where you can use any steps you want to co-ordinate your moves – it is not pre-arranged or choreographed, just moving freely using the techniques and practicing with random steps. These are the different ways of training.

RR: – This idea of coming back to where you were Joyce, of meeting someone who is doing something that is contrary to what you want to do. You said the first time you came here you wanted to try some pushing hands and you felt something was a bit hard or irritating. How do we overcome this, what would you say to people who are in a free arena, who want to try something, but they come up against something that they find irritating?

DD: – As I said earlier, not every teacher is going to please every student because their approach is going to be different. Different students want different approaches so you have to find someone who has an approach that suits you and if somebody doesn’t have that approach then you are not going to have much fun training with them, it’s as simple as that.

MN: – I guess maybe I agree with everything he’s saying. Obviously when I work out with my friends we do something completely different, but when I come here I try to stick to the basics, or what I call the foundation, and see if I can make them work, or let the body work a little harder so they can feel parts of their bodies they never felt before.

I just do the basics and try and make them go a little lower, or a little longer, or let go in such a way that they are not used to, just using the upper parts of their body. They get to use every part of the body so I’m finding that they are finding that it’s difficult and tiring, so their legs shake a little bit, so I’m hoping that all of this will make them think about it a little harder. They’ll get the results, and obviously since taijiquan is for health for most people, they’ll also get the health benefits as well, just that with the moves, it’s a lot.

NK: – With my students I have lessons for form and hours for pushing hands, so if someone is interested in push hands they can do it. But I don’t teach just that but try to give a different point of view. If they really want it then I will do it in my private time. You have to talk before you start the game. It’s what usually doesn’t happen!

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Once I had a big guy and he looked straight at me to push. He was a total beginner though I thought he was stronger. He didn’t tell me that he hadn’t done any push hands before. So the first thing is talk, then tell your partner if you want to play soft, I don’t want to do this or that, if you want you can teach me, but don’t talk all the time, I just want to have a little experience. That’s what it is. So in these meetings this is what it is all about.

LZ: – The experience in Recontres Jasnieres was quite enlightening to me. I think that negotiating is the right word in many respects. We should talk about what we want to do, and understand really what the meaning is and adjust during the work because sometimes things change. What I really do with my students is to create the good premise – to let them be hungry – to want more, to keep them not frustrated with a good approach, but stimulate them into wanting more.

MP: – I share Dan’s opening, - not everyone can be taught the same way – age, motivation etc of the teacher, of the school, all is different.

Elaine – I didn’t know what to expect. I’ve seen people being thrown around and know that I don’t want to do that. I would have liked someone to ask if I’ve ever done this before, do you know what you are doing, and to start really slowly.

RR: - And does that not always happen?

Elaine – No.

Bill Webster – Why should any of the teachers compromise in order to make push hands into something that it’s not?

RR: I’m not suggesting any one compromises and I don’t think anyone does that. I’m trying to find out what they do.

Fiona – It’s an opposite experience for me. As a relative beginner for pushing hands the first time with some people with a lot more, 10 years or more, –experience than me and I came to a point where one person in particular realized that I was a complete beginner so he just got bored, put no effort in, lost the connection, looking around. It happened a few times. He was being soft, giving me a chance, but he was giving me no connection, no challenge. The same day I pushed with some one a lot more experienced than me, but they pushed, and that gave me permission to push back and I made mistakes, but it gave me permission. Whereas with the other person felt I couldn’t do anything, I didn’t have the confidence.

WH: – When you do partnerwork, usually things happen because one party is too strong and wants to dominate. You must do a role, separate with one lead, one follow, one listen, one move. You must co-ordinate and be considerate of your partner and to avoid any strength against strength – you must agree between partners the role definition.

NK: – I forgot – usually it’s communication, non-verbal, but it’s the most important thing to talk before. In taijiquan I didn’t really see any one get hurt. It looks from the outside that there is more force going on than is really the case.

LZ: – I saw a lot more bad injuries in football then in gongfu when we started in Shaolin!

RR – I don’t know if it is possible to put in a few words, but as teachers, do you have a sense of common problems that need to be overcome. There are a lot of different things in push hands, but I’m trying to establish if there is something general that sticks people that can perhaps be helped.

DD – No.

Mario – When I do these seminars, I just stick to the basic, the foundation and try to give them a little more pressure, not mental but physical pressure, so that they get a little excited about doing more. I don’t know how to teach different types of people without a foundation. I see people who may not be ready to wrestle, but who want to because they’ve seen it, now maybe it’s in style - but they have no body to do it.

Contrary to what Luigi said, I’ve never seen so many injuries than in taijiquan – very few injuries in Judo but in taijiquan everyone gets injured and they do light work! They don’t have the body, they get excited, their knees go all over the place, the tension goes up here, they’re lopsided, and they fall without knowing how to fall, the bodies don’t know how to take it and they get hurt.

I’ve seen so many injuries in tai chi it was shocking. Women injure their knees unbelievably. I’ve seen so many tournaments and such I was shocked. In Judo people knock themselves and nothing happens, I mean there is an occasional accident – that’s normal but I’ve seen 10:1 in taijiquan. So that is why I don’t talk about push hands I just get their bodies strong!

NK: – For me the truth is that if you really want to learn push hands, you have to do it 3 or 4 times a week for an hour each minimum. This is a common problem – they don’t really train, they say I do push hands but who is really doing it. 3 do it more than once a week. If you don’t have a partner, you do the form. The other thing is as I said before – to be a good partner you give directions and you do it slow motions and you can do different things to play like it is real.

LZ: – I think that one main problem is the main tension about people working together is when intention is applied in the wrong way. It is very important to understand clearly what is the goal of working together. To enhance skills, or maybe not, but always to check what is the intention. I agree with Mario – intention is important – to grow up, stimulate, dominate, to work – but just establish it, then you can work.

MP: – there is no special problem, everyone is free to work or not, to practice or not. This is maybe why we do not learn tuishou at the beginning, but after the form. They have to work enough to enter it.

WH: – the biggest problem is that people come to tui shou for health purposes so they come once a week. They get stronger 1 day out of 7 and they go back after 7 days and they’ve lost the work out and have to start again. This is the main problem. If you want to do tui shou to increase the strength in your limbs etc you need to do 2-3 times at least.

RR – It looks like the work of push hands has in some ways ended up in two different camps with a bit of merging in between – people that are doing it for health and people that are doing it for martial. I’m not saying that either is exclusive or devisive, there is a cross over in between. Do the panel feel that there is anything beyond the physical in pushing hands?

DD – Spontaneity, which is a zen thing. If you don’t practice something that has a degree of unpredictability about it then you can’t be zen as the French say. The French used to say that the thing to be was cool, now they say it is to be zen. To be zen you have to have the unpredictability element and so pushing hands to be effective as a training method should have that unpredictability element in it.

If you practice something that has an unpredictable element to it you are training all the senses. If you listen for the opponents force and you analyze the Chinese character for listening it has the following components – it has a disciple, and we are all disciples in different ways, the figure 10, eyes, ears and mind. So it’s a disciple 10 times using the eyes, the ears and the heart mind. Listening and hearing are not the same, just like you can look at someone and not see them or eat something and not taste it. So pushing hands needs to have an unpredictability element and the top skill in it is this listening.

MN: – Where does the physical start and where does it end? I think taijiquan talks about the three stages and each stage is sub-divided three times. So the first stage talks about waking up the body, loosening up the joints – it gets very physical in the first stage with the joints of your arms, legs, spinal column. Then it talks about paying attention to the dantian and qi and breathing – I think it’s talking about the central nervous system – so if you learn to strengthen the body and the nervous system then you learn to strengthen the mind which basically means quietening down whether you are quieting the body, the central nervous system and maybe the mind, whether it’s from all these crazy thoughts and not paying attention or being scatter-brained, being confused. So where does the body start and end? I don’t think you can go – okay I’ve trained the body so now I’ll forget about the body and I’ll do something else. You can’t do it, it’s all inter-connected, you can’t leave one component behind and still be balanced and whole. You can do different things, but I think it’s difficult if the end result is to quiet the mind and achieve something then the mind is extremely difficult to quiet – we can’t even touch it, we can’t see it, we don’t know where it is – so we start off with the body which we can feel, touch, strengthen, we can quieten it, we can make it still, we can let go. From there, even the taijiquan people, or other arts, talk about quietening down the breathing. The breathing is the central nervous system, the place between the body and the mind. If we can quieten the central nervous system and regulate it then you can tackle the brain. So maybe taijiquan and other arts similar to taijiquan do it slowly, one step at a time. I’m sure there are some arts where you just meditate, and you meditate, which hard because you can’t stand still, you fall asleep. And if you have don’t have a regular, long, steady breathing, how are you going to meditate? It becomes more difficult to use different parts. So I think the question may not be valid for taijiquan – okay now we’ve done the body, the physical stuff, now when are we going to go on to the real good stuff, let’s move on and leave it behind – you can’t do that. If the body is weak, chances are your central nervous system is weak, and if your central nervous system is weak and you’re going to talk about meditation I just don’t know how you can talk about it. People talk about meditation as if you buy it in a store – oh I meditated today for 10 minutes, or half an hour, 3 hours a day – may be they do – I don’t know how they do meditation or quieting, having no thoughts, not having scattered thoughts - it is a strong human being, balanced and strong in every way. You can’t let go of the body, it goes with you. You let go of the body you are slowly stopping working out, even if you are concentrating on things. As you get older the body will slow down but you have already done the work, so you come down in a slower mode – I don’t think you can leave the body.

NK: – it helps me to deal with daily life – so if someone yells at me in the morning then this is really now what I want or like at all so taijiquan has helped me to yield from this for time to time. I try to put these things in my daily life and it helps me to deal with people.

LZ: – I have been taught that everything flows through the arms, through the connection of two persons working. The choice has to be careful for who we have to work with – physical work, mind work, emotional, special work, everything flows through – it is not one piece – it is everything through the connection, the hands, everything – the quality of the person.

RR: – Any thoughts on this more than physical

Luigi: – from a Chinese medical point of view – qi is more than physical. It is a non-physical part that moves the physical part.

Wang: (via Faye) – is there something beyond the physical? The aspect beyond the physical would be when you have completely worked well with your partner, then you have a total focus, total concentration, the body moves in a way that gives you a lot of pleasure and enjoyment – that’s is beyond physical. When you do the postures, peng lui jui an with two people doing it well together, you can read each others minds and you basically work well together and this increases the enjoyment beyond the physical.

RR: – We started from the point of why do push hands, very simple, perhaps after the discussion you now have some reasons why, we also looked at reasons perhaps why not to do push hands or perhaps why we were not getting what is possible, and we got some ideas I think as to how to get even more from of it and a look at some of the ideas that are possible.

John Turner: - Is tai chi a practical martial art without training in tui shou?

DD: – well it’s not practical without it. You have two distances, pushing hands is a short distance and is essential. So if you don’t train in pushing hands then you don’t know what to do in short distances.

NK: – push hands is real fun to play – try it.

Peetrik

Ok seriously Tuisceanch, TLDR.

Artengo is clearly asking if you favor a relaxed 'just for fun' approach or are you looking to get better at fighting as the youtube examples he has found vary greatly.

Tuisceanch wrote: »

MP: – I think Dan said it clearly, eloquently, correctly from my point of view. He said that this taiji thing seems to let a lot of people in, where unlike boxing, judo, or muay-thai; mixed martial arts only lets a certain select group of young, strong, tall, etc, people in. So I concur with what he said.

Judging by this it looks as though you are geared towards people who are too old/out of shape for a more fighting orientated system are are just looking for a traditional type recreation deal.

Tuisceanch

Peetrik wrote: »

Ok seriously Tuisceanch, TLDR.

Artengo is clearly asking if you favor a relaxed 'just for fun' approach or are you looking to get better at fighting as the youtube examples he has found vary greatly.



Judging by this it looks as though you are geared towards people who are too old/out of shape for a more fighting orientated system are are just looking for a traditional type recreation deal.

The article I posted is a discussion hosted by Ronnie Robinson which I thought might help Artengo understand the concept of 'Pushing Hands' better rather than making up his own mind based on a few youtube videos. But as I made quite clear the purpose of this thread was to reach out to practitioners of 'Pushing Hands' who were interested in organising a free meetup and not to engage in a discussion of the merits or otherwise of Pushing Hands. I am not interested in your selective reasoning and presumptuousness. Given that in a spirit of tolerance and openness I provided information on the subject to the poster I would have expected that the gesture would have being appreciated. I don't know anything about you except the post you made here but the crudeness and complete lack of comprehension, not to omit the derogatory tone of your very selective reasoning does not create a good impression. Finally, clearly Artengo was not asking the question you assume he was and this is the art of really listening which is a skill 'Pushing Hands' teaches just as your feigned indignation and insulting comments reveal something about you which can be readily exploited. You're Welcome!!!

Peetrik

If you'd answered the question I wouldn't have to guess.

By posting a topic here you are inviting discussion, you don't really get to decide you're only accepting questions from people who are already practitioners.

I'd ask again but I think I was right the first time.

Tuisceanch

My intent when starting this thread was abundantly clear and all I would ask of others is that if they do not have the same intent or wish to impose their own agenda then please find somewhere else to express your prejudices and ignorance.

For instance a boxer when he steps into the ring in regulated competitive fights is obliged to wear gloves and abide by the stipulated rules of that practice. A referee is appointed to ensure that there is no foul play and to intervene and stop the fight when he deems that one of the fighters is unfit to continue. He does not allow,for instance, a fighter to grapple his opponent to the canvas and kick him in the balls and nor does he allow the friends of one of the fighters to approach his opponent from behind and hit him over the head with a bottle. A boxer does not go into the ring unprepared but rather trains his technique,footwork,stamina and mental equilibrium to a point where there they are drawn on automatically without resorting to the mental stress which conscious processing of his actions would entail in the heat of battle.

None of this is unfamiliar to anybody who engages in any form of competition be it football,chess or netball. You can extrapolate your own experiences and readily apply them to other situations and realize that each discipline has it's own methods for achieving similar goals without having to return to ground zero on each occasion. That approach stifles conversation and arouses suspicion as the real intent of the questioner. It's not such a subtle concept but willfully ignored by too many.

Tuisceanch

Peetrik wrote: »

If you'd answered the question I wouldn't have to guess.

By posting a topic here you are inviting discussion, you don't really get to decide you're only accepting questions from people who are already practitioners.

I'd ask again but I think I was right the first time.

1. I didn't raise any topic for discussion but rather extended an invitation to interested parties to participate in a free meetup.

2. You didn't ask any questions but selected a passage from the lengthy discussion I posted to promote your own prejudice.

3. I don't know why you are posting in this thread because as a minimum I expect people to have an interest and more pertinently to be able to absorb what the other person has said.

4. Here's another quote from Dan Docherty from that same discussion you chose to quote from.."DD – Spontaneity, which is a zen thing. If you don’t practice something that has a degree of unpredictability about it then you can’t be zen as the French say. The French used to say that the thing to be was cool, now they say it is to be zen. To be zen you have to have the unpredictability element and so pushing hands to be effective as a training method should have that unpredictability element in it.

If you practice something that has an unpredictable element to it you are training all the senses. If you listen for the opponents force and you analyze the Chinese character for listening it has the following components – it has a disciple, and we are all disciples in different ways, the figure 10, eyes, ears and mind. So it’s a disciple 10 times using the eyes, the ears and the heart mind. Listening and hearing are not the same, just like you can look at someone and not see them or eat something and not taste it. So pushing hands needs to have an unpredictability element and the top skill in it is this listening."

I think that is abit more interesting than what you chose to quote. So do you see now how your intent was abundantly clear from the onset and that really you just wanted to be disruptive and rude.

Tuisceanch

Tuisceanch wrote: »

Is anybody interested in establishing a free regular Tui Shou (Pushing Hands) event in the Dublin area?

It is the intention that this free event should be open to all styles of Tai Chi Chaun and all levels of experience. I,myself,am a relative novice and am looking to gain more experience. Some people may be more interested in moving step and other's fixed step whilst others both. Some people will be looking to gain different things from the experience and will choose their partners appropriately. However all this is an ideal at the moment as it depends on the level of interest generated. Please,however,do not be put off by this constant refrain from others about the merits or otherwise of the practice. I recently participated in some pushing hands sessions whilst at Tai Chi Caledonia and I found that my approach initially,although successful,was a little too robust and subsequently when tuning more in to my opponent and treating the practice as a learning experience in terms of rooting and flexibility and most importantly 'listening' I found I enjoyed the experience immensely. The reason I am limiting this event to Tai Chi practioners at the moment is that i need first to build a solid group who are coming from the same perspective and also I need experienced practitioners to be able to manage the exuberance of other practices. Ideally an event like this would be promoted by a seasoned practitioner but out of acorns are oak trees grown.Those interested can send a private message.

As a final note can I please ask those not interested in participating to refrain from the need to comment or to ask disingenuous questions as I've heard it all before and I'm not interested. You may be convinced of your own sincerity or the cleverness of your ego but I believe it is just delusion.

artengo

I just asked you a simple question. You took it upon yourself to get aggressively defensive.
I wasn't making fun or giving any opinion of pushing hands.

Tuisceanch

artengo wrote: »

I just asked you a simple question. You took it upon yourself to get aggressively defensive.
I wasn't making fun or giving any opinion of pushing hands.

That's fine and I didn't mean to be aggressive which is why I provided you with the discussion so as to give you some insight into the thinking behind the practice. But it's not easy thing to understand unless you try it out for yourself and it's not so easy to find people able to train you nor people to practice.Sorry for causing you any offense.

Tuisceanch

Based on my own experience and without reference to notes I'm going to try and explain my idea of what constitutes 'Tui Shou'.

First of all there are 2 formats of competition,namely:

1. Fixed Step;
2. Moving Step;

Competition formats are necessarily free format within the format of the rules where as training can involve practicing drills such as:

1. Seven star stepping;
2. 4 Directions;
3. 9 Palaces;
4. Choreographed formats invoking the 8 powers such as Da Lu.

1. Fixed step (free format)
Both feet must remain in position for the duration but it is permissible to raise the front foot as long as the heel remains in contact with the floor. Hands should remain in contact.It is possible that the initial urge would be to violently push your opponent so as to force him to move his feet so as to avoid falling over but a skilled practitioner would merely deflect this incoming force and take advantage of your exposed position. Some styles allow the use of arm locks but I don't know if this is acceptable in competition.Elbow strikes are necessarily forbidden but the use of the elbow to deflect the opponents force is allowed. Shoulder strikes are I think also permissible. It becomes apparent once the realization that brute physical force won't overcome an opponent that you need to 'listen to your opponent more intently and try to read his intentions..read his mind if you like. This ability is what differentiates a good footballer from a great footballer. Another analogy is that of chess,which I play proficiently,in that you are also looking to exploit the plans of your opponent in order to take advantage of a gap in their comprehension of the position. When pushing hands for instance you might lightly push your opponent on to his strong back foot where he has stability,not in order to win immediately but rather to provoke a reaction so as you use his force to redirect him/her into the area where there is no support for the body or the 'void' in terminology.Since your opponent may be wise to this simple plan then the process can come more drawn out and the contest begins to flow naturally until suddenly one of you is outmanoeuvred. Although no boxing or kicking is involved in this contest it does require that you have good flexibility and recovering skills as well as the mind of a strategist and calmness of mind and stamina will also come into play.

I won't attempt to describe moving step at the moment but I hope these reflections of mind,erroneous as they might be,might elicit a response from more experienced practitioners but perhaps given the paltry response to these matters on these forums,this is not the right place. I hope that there is another site which might attract people interested in Tai Chi Chaun but i haven't found one yet and I'm left to suppose that there is little interest in these matters as far as Ireland is concerned.

As a corollary to the above I would point out that Tui Shou is not the fighting art of Tai Chi Chaun but rather a training mechanism for certain skills essential to the understanding of Tai Chi Chaun as a martial art. To train Tai CHi Chuan as an effective fighting art you need to strengthen and condition your body to enable you to take knocks and stamina to endure a fight of sustained duration. You obviously need to train your punching and kicking so that they are effective if you manage to deliver a hit.Foot work obviously needs to be trained and in this 'Tui Shou' is a useful training device.You need to spar to train the application of the techniques which are contained within the form. The form itself is an encyclopedia of the numerous techniques available based on the 8 powers and 5 Elements which form the 13 tactics of Tai Chi Chaun (the core of the practice). The techniques are not applied as they demonstrated in forms and in many cases the forms can be quite obscure in terms of revealing the true technique. Chin Na and Dim nak are also elements which form part of the fighting art.It is true that it is probably rare to find anybody in Ireland who teaches the true martial application of Tai Chi Chaun and I myself only know of one such person who is well known on this site. Also not everybody has the inclination,talent or is the right age to consider full contact fighting but everybody can gain benefits and confidence from at least understanding a little of the martial side as the art will appear a little more richer by gaining awareness of a very fundamental piece of it. Having said that many people gain great pleasure from only engaging in the health aspects and anything that brings positivity into your life should be applauded.

smacl

artengo wrote: »

What skill will you be developing?

My 2c, from a fighting point of view, getting comfortable at close quarters without having to rely on grips to control your opponent. The idea is by keeping continuous contact with your opponent without constantly holding onto them, you can influence their balance and ability to strike while still leaving yourself with plenty of striking and take down opportunities.

As a competitive format in its own right, pushing hands is good craic and tends to have lower risk of injury than jacket wrestling. Rules vary, with the Irish and UK competitions basically coming down to stand up wrestling, where you're trying to get your opponent off their feet or out of the area. Check out this post to get an idea of what local moving step pushing hands looks like.

The drills get you used to keeping contact with your opponent, learning where their centre of balance is from that contact, and learning how to disrupt that balance. They're practised in a relaxed manner, emphasising taking advantage of position and leverage rather than use of force.

Tuisceanch

Please be aware the post of the moving format of Tui Shou as posted by SMACL is what Dan Docherty refers to in his discussion as being more aptly termed Tai Chi wrestling. Also this clip shows well trained martial competitors of the art. Naturally this level won't be of interest to all and clearly if you decide to engage in this format you need to have the requisite conditioning and understanding of the rules to ensure that you can learn from the experience and not injure yourself. As it stands SMACL is the only person with the experience to advise you. Students of schools which are not so martially inclined should not be shy or reluctant to propose what they would like to gain from such an event and at what format,level and intensity they wish to practice. As I've said I would made no claim to any great experience or any great martial ability but I do feel that an environment where all approaches are welcomed and the practice is conducted in a respectful and educational manner with a mind to the needs of each individual is more likely to prove of interest.

Niall Keane

It would be great to see this take off, the format already works in London as far as I know – TCC and others turning up in park etc. to practice tuishou, dashou, roushou etc.

Tuishou the term itself means push hands, as sanshou means scattering or unbound hand, thus we can infer that tuishou limits itself to wrestling and sanshou is anything goes.

Confusion however arises in the west as there exists two main areas to which tuishou and sanshou can refer.

On the one hand either term can refer to a method of training, application training for example, (usually repeating the same technique or select set of techniques - usually counter and recovery options - over and over with resistance increasing) is referred to as sanshou training in most styles of chinese martial arts, after all the orthodox applications are meant to train the student in principle, so that he can eventually “abandon” the techniques (i.e. use principles such as leverage naturally and so have infinite options in application). As such this forms part of the sanshou training method of styles, sanshou of course having the goal of “unbound” or freedom of application so free fighting.

Likewise tuishou in drills is a method of isolating and training reflexive movement or application. Different styles have different names for this “Roushou” in BaGua Zhang for example.

Why do this? Well if one just “spars” all the time without restriction the tendency for beginners is to quickly discover what suits them and this is naturally a very limited set of applications and movement. When we watch novices “muscle through” awkward movements “forcing” techniques this is what's happening. This is not to say that a fighter shouldn't have perfected a handful of techniques and associated tactics , what the Chinese call “door guarding techniques”, but that the nature of combat is dynamic and self-defence is normally required by the older and smaller more so than the gym monster who can for a few years in his peak muscle through anything and anyone. As such it makes sense to be able to adapt, to be able to counter and recover. We can recover from spent or unstable positions in two ways – with or without power. The average “one two uniflu” dope will recover by rewinding along their entrance path, this allows the opponent a second chance as he knows what he is about to do, it doesn't take luck then just half a brain to counter. Striking range is more forgiving here due to its speed if the “dope” had at least a good guard. Not so with wrestling, once engaged and tangled up, reversing the truck back out the driveway is disastrous, but typically this is exactly what journeymen do.
Tuishou drills specialise above any other training method I've seen in training this ability to counter or recover with power, and to recognise our own internal limits and potential. This is high level skill, and often appears magical to those without it. Really its just good timing and connection in application, but the guy who has practiced 9 different tuishou drills for years has way more flexibility and options in what he is doing than the lad who has doggedly stuck at the “one trick pony” approach.

For an example here is (a demo) of “nine palace” tuishou:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qm2uYtTlz1E

Now the point of this is a often occurring situation where we cross over our own centreline, ie the right foot steps to the left. Now there are many reasons this can happen, but for example it sets up perfectly - sweeps, whether you are simply sweeping a landing foot of a striker, or have caught a kick and are about to sweep the other leg or whether in a clinch / wrestling range and you have stepped back or forward, right or left – it trains an automatic response to sweep and what's more how to remain stable and powerful, how to control his centre with your own, and so remaining advantageous even if the sweep fails, and how to follow up without telegraphing or rewinding or committing many of the errors common in fighting. Like I said its high level stuff, it transcends the written word, its something that must be practised a lot before it reveals its importance, but isn't that what Gung Fu (time and effort) is about?
Also one will notice that high and low are coordinated and the limits and potential of the body are thus explored so one “internalises” their ability and so is less prone to error.

On the other hand there is also competition Sanshou (Sanda) and Tuishou, people should be well versed in what Sanda is, so I will confine myself to tuishou.

Tuishou competition formats usually involve 3 types –

fixed step tuishou where one generally tries to puch over, lock up, uproot an opponent without stepping, so it helps train and test the ability to use the core to sink, twist, absorb and deflect oncoming force and the offensive ability to quickly destabilise and unbalance the opponent, ie it trains trigger responses that recover from and set up throws or knockout strikes in close quarters etc. It also trains the practitioner in using the joints and structure of the arms to control the opponent, it is extremely useful in dealing unarmed against cold weapons. Then again TCC was once called ShiSanShi (13 tactics) which was famous for its empty hand ability against weapons. Of course there are specialised Nei Jia Quan weapons such as the more commonly known Deerhorn Knives of BaGua Zhang that incorporate such training methods, their design with multi-directional blades displaying the far more advanced tactics and awareness of such practices compared to the limitation of imagination associated with single points and double edge cold weapons. Contentious statement I guess, some may take offence, I suggest practising tuishou with such weapons (obviously blunted), enlightenment will be forthcoming.

Restricted step tuishou is a competition format where only one leg may step the other must remain in a small circle (is can fit a foot of each opponent). Here traditional Nei Jia skills like biting the opponents shins, using the knee to kneel on and control the opponents leg, even collapsing his structure and of course the use of pivoting in throws is trained and tested. Again a highly useful set of skills and an excellent method to isolate and test such.

Moving step tuishou, is basically no jacket stand up chinese wrestling. It was originally a training method but has become a widespread competition format. Some restrict this to above the waist techniques, but generally it is free to sweep, throw in any way etc. including over the shoulders etc. Sometimes it is played in a lei tai platform. The ruleset adopted by the ICBA here in Ireland follows the TCFE's of which I am Irish Rep. Basically 1 point for a push out, 2 for a half throw (not fully down) 4 for a full throw, 8 for throwing someone aerially out of the area / platform. No points are awarded if any part of the body save the feet touched the ground – so balance is extrememly important, muscling through wont work.

Bear in mind that a lot of Youtube examples are like a lot of TCC demos really demos of what is called TuFu Chuan (beancurd boxing) i.e. ineffective health practices like boxercise here in the west. Some of these guys are totally deluded and use restrictions in competition formats not to focus training a set of skills but to limit highlighting their ineptitude. To use a line from the classics - “the student must carefully discriminate” ;-)


As for the O.P.'s proposal, this has worked well in other countries, where the idea of coming together to share and improve has been the focus. It is not a proposal for a competition, no scores are kept, so it should allow and encourage those seeking friendly exchange. The absence of formal structure allows one to pick and chose who one wants to train with, so there should be no fear of getting thrown around by the current national champions if that's not of interest.

I think it is a good thing that a student (albeit my own) is the one organising this, as it therefore prevents any hierarchy imposing itself on proceedings. Egos should be left at the park gates. Practitioners should be happy with their own teachers and teachers should not be interfering with others students.