Yi Quan
As the Three Stooges once said..“If I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes, I would never have believed it.” And I still don’t, it looks very contrived. I have seen such “demos” before and when I ask the
“sifu” if I may “experience” his power, they always avoid it. It may be real, but I’m still
very skeptical. :eek: :eek:
“Do whatever it takes to be the last man standing!”
probably about to make a few less friends - so be it.
but what the hell sort of pushing hands was that?
leaning, shuffling and unrooted
elbows and shoulders rising, double weighted
not stepping when needed - opting to lean and stretch arms instead. When there is stepping it isn’t lively - it’s flat footed and plodding
they’re so far apart it’s crazy
the partner that gets shoved around is awful, the other guy can muster some energy but it isn’t there all the time and it requires a change in stance - he has to load his rear leg before it can be used.
On the other hand I’m extremely grateful to see footage of other people pushing - I only know what my club and school do.
Before you ask, I’m intending to start putting footage up in the next months as and when I can (finally got a decent DV card for my pc).
Bamboo Leaf - you talk eloquently about taiji and seem to know and understand a lot of the concepts and principles. Yet you say that’s the same pushing as you do? Do you mean the same format or that it’s the same in execution as well?
addendum - the other guy may be a novice, but at least he allows himself to be pushed/thrown away - he has eradicated that ‘grab on and pull’ tendency that many people have. Think I’ll show that to a few students at my club…
“If ignorance is bliss, why aren’t more people happy?”
Please look at the clips again. What I was referring to was the ability of the YI chaun guy to lead the other into empty ness. In some of the clips where the guy is stepping back he just follows. These things are only possible because the difference in listening skills, although it may not look very smooth
It’s a bit ruff and the other did grab in the first clip, Yes all the things that you pointed out are happing; the bottom line is the TC is too heavy giving the other a place to push. He doesn’t hear what’s going on.
If he really followed the TC principles he would neither have to step back nor could he be thrown out. I push with some people here that I don’t think what the YI chaun guy did would work
It’s a matter of level, and understanding. Not about being better.
We push with no stepping. We really concentrate on using the YI, and being real Sung. Along with many other principles, my point was that if you do not follow the principles; and there is some defect in your idea or understanding you tend to get thrown out by your own power and what the YI chaun guy did becomes possible.
I play in the park, there is no real teacher, the people I play with are very open to letting others taste their art as am I. It’s the only way to really know. it’s not about being better then someone it’s just about really trying to develop real skills.
Push hands is a way to develop, and check your understanding of TC skills. The power that is used is up to the ability of the players. Play with someone high level that you don’t know you can be hurt very easily.
For those that wonder if it is good for fighting, I would say that with out these skills TC becomes like any other CMA. With these skills it becomes an art that is worthy of being called TC.
still much to work on,
luck in your training 
bamboo leaf
thanks - I feel relieved now. I’d just started making the effort to read your posts
“If ignorance is bliss, why aren’t more people happy?”
About the pushing hands videoclips
Oh, I think I should make some comment.
First I didn’t present the links to those videoclips with aim to show how good tui shou practice should look. Not at all. I used them to make point that such demonstrations as on Cheuk Fungs videoclips are not anything mysterious and impossible. When there is big difference in skill, it’s nothing special. Because it obviously was ‘a demonstration’, so I offered those 3 videoclips, where it is not an arranged demonstration, but a sparring. And you could see what can happen when there is difference in skill level.
Of course on the clips only the assistant of master Yao has good skill, not his opponents, which are my students, but actually very beginners. They just started coming to me a few months earlier. And actually it’s very difficult to teach them because they tried to learn some taijiquan for many years before, but without guidance of a good teacher, and without knowing what it’s actually about. So now it’s difficult to correct them. As it is said “it’s easy to learn, but difficult to correct what was learned wrong”
Now about the Yao’s assistant. It may look very strange to some of you taijiquan guys what he is doing, but he is good at yiquan. You should know that yiquan is not taijiquan. While there are some close points, the main principles are coming from somewhere else. Presently yiquan is still not much known. Quite often there are some taijiquan people who also learn some basic yiquan, and they sell their idea of yiquan. But it’s quite different. Have you noticed that from the early period of history of yiquan (1920s) there were young people coming to learn from Wang Xiangzhai and after two years or so, they participated in free fighting tournaments or tournaments of western boxing? You think that the training was all about the internal principles? If they did pushing hands the way as in taijiquan, after some years they could show those skills which are typical for what you do in taijiquan, but could they participate in boxing tournaments after just two years of learning? Would those of you who think have some achievement in taijiquan pushing hands skills come out and fight in boxing tournament? Well, what they did and what we are doing now in real yiquan, is getting fighting skills very fast, using methods sometimes close, and actually inspired by western boxing, and then gradually making the skills more subtle. Yes, Wang Xiangzhai defeated some european boxers, but at the same time he was picking up some training methods of the boxers. Then Yao Zongxun was very interested in boxing even before he started learning from Wang Xiangzhai. So when he started learning from Wang Xiangzhai, he incorporated boxing bags, more sparring in boxing gloves etc. Wang Xiangzhai approved those changes, making Yao Zongxun his assistant and letting him teach in his name, and presenting him a honorary name with a meaning of being his successor. I write this, because it’s real history of yiquan development and how yiquan looks like, and not what some people imagine, not knowing more of yiquan than some basic zhan zhuang. Well, as some people said, that it’s only Yao Zongxun’s changes to yiquan, and not what Wang Xiangzhai was teaching, I can say: do you know of Zhao Daoxin, who was one of the earliest Wang Xiangzhai’s students and winner of tournaments, and read his “Daoxin’s theory of martial art” (Daoxin quanlun). It would shock some people who have funny ideas about yiquan. Or Han Xingqiao, who started learning from Wang in Shanghai period (together with brother Han Xingyuan, but learned from Wang for much longer than brother), and how he used boxing-like training? Or Bu Enfu? And many, many more (at least those who really learned form Wang Xiangzhai, not only some zhan zhuang for health). You see, it comes from real fighting practice, and not just playing pushing hands. It’s to make you better understand, that yiquan pushing hands is not based on taijiquan principles, and it’s closely related to boxing-like sparring. You may play with the principles, and get subtle skills, but in yiquan it was about fighting, about boxing-like sparring, and making pushing hands part of this. This is why it is said that pushing hands is not for pushing hands, but it should serve free sparring. So we think about place of pushing hands in boxing-like (or more thai boxing -like,as there is usage of elbows and knees and other parts of body) combat. So our tui shou is actually a part of this kind of san shou. Tui shou and san shou supplement each other. We use tui shou in san shou, and in tui shou we practice as it was part of san shou. For example leaning - this is typical for yiquan mechanics of generating power, and it comes from boxing-like sparring practice. Because Wang Xiangzhai’s principle was: “It doesn’t matter if it’s internal or external”. As Yao Zongxun said: “Yiquan is neither internal nor external”. We don’t insist so much on ‘internal principles’, although you can find them in yiquan practice. But yiquan concentrates much more on combat practice, and the training methods are closely related to this practice, and we use what is useful from this point of view.
Just to let you know a bit about yiquan
Andrzej Kalisz
yiquan@yiquan.com.pl
http://www.yiquan.com.pl
Thanks for the info. I really did enjoy the clips and agree in principle with what was happing.
I only offer opinions, not judgment here to learn and share.
house moving day for me so I won’t be around about a week.
I really enjoy reading and sharing with voices from afar.
Happy turkey day for those that celebrate, happy day in your life for those that don’t.
may luck find your with the sun on your back and wind in your sails.
Luck in training.
bamboo leaf