Pushing hands information ?

Nei Jia: the Qigong and Taijiquan Forum Taijiquan and the Internal Martial Arts
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Hey, I know I know it’s normal that I can’t push the others over quite yet, BUT I have this strange problem. If I do the pushing hands to someone who relaxes and goes with the flow, I still lose but I’m at least able to go down like a man =) But there is this fellow I pushed hands with today, who kept his arms stiff, so he moves along, but he was definatelly not relaxed, the thing is that I was not able to push him decently, cause I would have to press hard against his non-relaxed arms, which made it easy for him to pull me over. Same thing when I try to pull him over. I mean any reading on the internet about pushing hands is welcome, I know it takes practice, but I enjoy reading about this kind off stuff anyway. And if you might have a clue of what you would do about this thing, it’s more then welcome :slight_smile:

Thanks

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http://www.taichichuan.co.uk

read the classics mate!

And a personal tip. People who use strength are the easiest to beat (unless they are HUGE obviously). Try riding with his attacks and pushing towards the source direction of that attack once he starts gathering himself for the next one. Stay low and relaxed. That’s just about al there is to it :wink:

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no he doesn’t really use force, so it’s not like he’s pushing me, so I could pull him, no, he is just really ‘stiff’, so all his muscles cramped togheter, as if I’m pushing hands with a tree .. really strange, as when I’m pushing hands with my teacher it’s like pushing a snake =/

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If his arms are really stiff, then maybe try split or a sharp pull-down to jolt him, then follow up with a push.

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Even though soft overcoming hard is what you aim for in pushhand, reality is that your prospect of winning pushhand sparing is determined by your strenght and your skill. If someone is bigger or stronger (or possibly more rooted), your taijiquan skill often collapse and you get pushed over.

Firstly, my advice is to avoid pushing with this guy so often. When lowgrade partner up with these type, it also cause them to tense up which is bad for longterm progress.

Secondly, if you do, acept being pushed (or invest in loss as CMC say). Instead of trying to push him which you say get countered easily, wait him to push you and see whether you can counter him. You probably can’t if his push is powerful but when you learn to do it, you are really getting there, and it is going to be him asking what he is doing wrong. Think every pushhand sparing as learning process rather than a contest which you must win.

Thirdly, if someone is tense in pushing hand as you say he is, he is also dense as well. :slight_smile: O.K. I’m guessing here but a reason he wait for you to push is because he know you can’t push him over so he let you push and counter it for easy win. Often, if someone is aggresive, his push is also very predictable. I had one aggresive sparing partner in judo who used to throw me around a lot. I knew his judo wasn’t good but because of that I was frustrated. I suddenly realised that he always use the same technique on me. (O.K., taking a while to figure that out means I’m dense as well.) He has quite powerful arm so when we are holding each other in judo’s standing position, he suddenly violently push me one way then after I tense up to that direction, he sweep my leg from other direction. What I didn’t realise was that when I tense my upper body, my body raise up a bit and I loose my root. After I realised his trick, I tried to maintain my posture when he push because I knew the sweep was coming. He couldn’t throw me anymore. :slight_smile:

Not that I figure the way to do taijiquan way of follow and couter for his sweep as his sweep is very fast. For that I actually have to let him sweep me while at the same time trying to maitain my posture as much as possible. Invest in Loss as CMC says.

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Hey size doesn’t matter in pushing hands, my teacher recently won a major tourney, and another dude in the top three was like 20 cm taller (at least on the fotos). So that’s not the problem in pushing hands if you’re good at it (which Im not). I’m guessing I just miss alot of experience, and since my arms are shorter, I have to use other strategies then him. It’s up to me to find them out apparently :frowning:

I did find out that I can beat him when I grab his arm (at a given moment) and pu**** to his opposide side, so grab left arm, and push it to the right, and then push to the back, and they fall over =) Once you get the arm to the right they’re lost I think. But I can’t do that same thing over and over

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By the way, is there any way to practice your sensitivity on your own without a partner ? (at home)

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Originally posted by TzuChan
By the way, is there any way to practice your sensitivity on your own without a partner ? (at home)

Practice your form. Duh. :slight_smile:

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How does that help exactly ?

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Sorry for butting in.

Form helps your pushing hands because it improves your balance, posture, timing, rooting etc. It also encourages total body co-ordination. If you dont have these things then your tai-chi will never be effective.
It might help to stop seeing pushing hands as seperate from form and both seperate from applications etc. They are really one and the same thing. They all use the same principles. Wudang Tai Chi Chuan is often said to have five ‘seperate’ training methods. Nei Kung, pushing hands, form, applications and weapons. However they are not really seperate at all. They train the same things, but in different ways.

Try to spot similarities between the body movements your teacher makes when pushing hands and the body movements that he (and you!) make when doing form.

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Ok, I’ll do my form over and over and over then =)
Ether, how long did it take you before you started doing those pushing hands tourneys ? Just wondering, I know it’s different from person to person ..

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I did my first pushing hands competition at the british open within a year of starting to learn tai-chi. I got beaten in the second round IIRC. Why? You wanting to start in competition already? Id say go for it. I enjoy competitions for the atmosphere and meeting like-minded people. Doesnt really matter if you win or not, although of course its nice to win :wink: And its generally inspiring to see some people who really know what they are doing.

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This is repeating ether’s point but firstly, in pushing pand, each player are constantly trying to find the opponent’s weekness, that is the part of body which is not aligned and being relaxed properly. Now if you, yourself, are not relaxed and aligned, how do you expect to find your opponent weakness.

But in regard to sensitivity, in taijiquan, sensitivity is not about you having the hypersensitivity of Daredevil, rather it is to do with you being song (relaxed).

In taijiquan, being sensitive means you can follow your opponent. The ability to follow your opponent is directly related to your ability to be song. Moreover, if your arm is not relaxed, you tend to constantly push part of your arm into opponent’s arm or body as if it is a blade, which send signal to your opponent what your intent are. So in taijiquan sence, you are less sensitive than your opponent.

I had a chat with a judoka who spar with very high grade judo players. He said that when he got into holding position with these highgrader, he hardly felt their arm flexing their muscle. But whenever he tries to do any throw or push, it was quickly blocked. Then suddenly the highgrader snap their wrists and bang, he was on the mat.

I also read somewhere about ancient Greek’s Spartan quote. It was about this wresling instructor. He had one particular student who kept his wrist very rigid so instructor gave very nasty wrist lock. The kid couldn’t use his wrist for few weeks but the lesson was well learned.

So when you practice sensitivity, concentrate on song (relaxation). You also mentioned that when you push the guy, you get easily pulled in. This is to do with you being overextended, that is when you push, your back leg is not relaxed so you tip your self over rather than sinking into your front leg.

What is great about pushing hand is that when you make particiular mistake repeatedly in pushing hand, that mistake can also be seen in your form performance.

I would imagine that when you perform your form, your back leg is not realxed and possibly shoulder is tensed up, arm held too high and elbow are not sunk. So you need to pay particular attention to that part of your body being song.

So practcing form let you fix your fault in your pushing hand and doing pushing hand improve your form performance. Hope this help.

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Hi ether, are you in Dan Doherty’s school?

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TzuChan,

Ask your teacher about Ting, Hua and Fa Jin. Also, ask him about the concept of Change (soft <-> hard). If you’ve done the Baishi, ask him about the Gyrating Arms exercise.

Also, if you have done the Baishi, get the Neikung going - IMHO the Neikung exercises is much more important than the form when it comes to developing rooting, softness, relaxation, stamina and power.

And yeah, you know this one already… practise, practise, practise - patience, patience, patience. :wink:

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Heh thanks guys :wink:
And yeah Ether I’d like to start competing in it as soon as I can win from at least two people in my class :smiley: I don’t want to win the tourneys, I just wanne do as much pushing hands as I can, I simply love it. But it’s kinda hard to find tourneys from pushing hands in belgium I think.

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Originally posted by Vapour
Hi ether, are you in Dan Doherty’s school?

Hi.

My teacher is Godfrey Dornelly, a long term student of Dan’s. I did go to Dan for lessons for nearly a year but was also going to Godfrey at the same time (and previously).

Gofreys school is named ‘Three Treasures Tai Chi Chuan’

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Originally posted by Ether
[B]

Hi.

My teacher is Godfrey Dornelly, a long term student of Dan’s. I did go to Dan for lessons for nearly a year but was also going to Godfrey at the same time (and previously).

Gofreys school is named ‘Three Treasures Tai Chi Chuan’ [/B]

Great. My school is Zhong Ding. I think Wudan and Zhong Ding is the only schools in Manchester which has proper lineage.

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Tzu Chan.

btw, there was a advice by someone to watch your instructor’s form. This depends on your style. For example, Sun style tend to have a very rigid outlook in the performance of the form. Once you have the position of arm and leg correctly, then you relax internally.

In other style of taijichuan like CMC, external outlook of the form look very different between student and instructor. For example, in single whip, the right hand make a hook shape. The idea in our style is to completly relax it. So the hand of advance student with better flexibility would look much more bent than the beginner. If beginner would try to copy the external shape, it would be considered as incorrect performance of the form even though external outlook is exactly the same. For similar reason, advance student in our style tend to have much higher hand position due to their ability to relax their shoulder.

So you should check with your instrucot whether how much you should copy your instructor’s external look of the form.

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All the Best!

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