I have to disagree in some respect LC.
I might agree that being good at pushing hand does not necessarily mean you are good at fight. But if your pushing hand suck, that surely mean that your taichichuan suck. Plus, if you are pretty good at tuishou, it is likely that you can handle yourself if the opponent is untrained.
I have started a thread in other forum for the exact topic. Here is a very insigtful reply.
[Quote]
I can understand the view of pushing hands as sumo. I saw some of this at a competition a little while back. However, I would make another observation from this same event. These people did not get very far.
Within each weight category, there might be 16 people. Of those some were relative novices and were thrown around easily by the strength guys. However, none of the people just relying on muscle made it past the last 8. Sometimes someone using muscle plus a little technique did well - maybe even winning in some categories.
But let us be honest and say that, if the taiji principles of sung and zhan, nian, lian, sui (stik, adhere, continue, follow) are indeed superior to other approaches, then what is at fault in the above is a lack of skill amongst the rest of the competitors.
We all know the theory that the highest level of skill is borrowing the opponents force so that whatever movement they try, is turned against them and takes them further off balance.
We therefore need to practice against different people, different styles, different abilities, and different degrees of muscle in the technique.
If we lose, just turn around, thank the opponent, and practice harder. If I may quote my teacher:
“I learnt that the Taiji Classics are not mystical tracts but a strictly practical guide to survival under attack. “Pushing hands” is not merely “sensitivity training” (though it encompasses this) but a step by step initiation, through “feeding power”, into the realisation of the techniques encompassed by the set-form. It is not a quaint and outdated co-operative exercise, but the key to “understanding power” (ting jing), both from within and without. “Sticking” allows this power to be controlled and redirected. “Pushing” is controlled striking so that injuries may be avoided.”
===
so, competitive pushing hands gives us an environment in which we can test our understanding and ability, see where we are lacking, and take this away, work on it, and integrate it into our form work.
This later is key - pushing hands is but one part, competition but one part of that. It should reflect one’s overal position and level, not trained seperately and considered seperately. If things are seperate, this is the way the form stays full of fluff and lacking the martial, while pushing hands degenerates into wrestling, judo, sumo - and nothing else. (Not to denigrate these arts - see above on honesty if defeated)
Some people at the competition I witnessed, had spent the whole of the preceeding 6 months training specificaly for this event. Personaly, I do not consider this to be increasing the standard of their Taiji - their pushing hands will improve for sure. But if the pushing hands does not come from the form, and the results and experience not fed back into the form, we have not the unity that the philosophical symbol of Taiji embodies.
===
Yes, the rules suck at times. Yes the format could be better organised with public publication of poole tables, everyone pushing in a poole of number of pooles, ranking from this into a knock out etc.
What particularly interested me was a recent change in the moving step rules (was not like this last year) that banned reaching behind the back and leg sweeps. Essentialy this must have been introduced to keep the judo players from stomping all over the taiji guys.
This misses the point about honest competition.
Ah - but it’s not taiji!
Ah - but neither is what you are doing if you lose so easily!
RT
[Quote]
The title of the tread was “Better at PushHand, Better at Taijiquan?”