What's up with "push hands"?

[sean]

Can someone explain this video to me? I'm not trying to be cynical but it's hard for me to understand why that guy is flying around. I just can't imagine walking into that class, day one, doing push hands with that guy and letting him push me across the room like that. I've just never had an experience like this but I see similar things in all these push hands videos.

 

Sean

[Yoda]

I gave Cam a Sam Tam push hands DVD-- it's either a miracle or a hokey scam. Bill Moyers "Power of the Mind" series showed a taichi master 'electrocuting' 20 assailants.

 

There clearly are fake vids out there, but I believe there are real ones too. I think the Sam Tam and the Bill Moyers ones are real. Plato said that he got electrocuted recently but a healer in NYC, so that's a data point.

 

Sam Tam said that push hands, is very healing to both parties and makes you smile and laugh. If it isn't fun, then it isn't being done correctly, no matter how powerful the chi.

 

Sam Tam was very gifted in using his chi to attack people, but an old Chinese man in Vancouver tottered up to him after seeing his push hands and told him that his chi was good, but his shen sucked. After that moment, Sam Tam set out to make his opponents smile and laugh. Very similar to the inspiration of Aikido story. The Bill Moyers assailants were all smiling and laughing too.

 

Difficult footage to get the mind around. Best if experienced first hand, obviously.

 

I had a small, female Aikidoist throw me around like a rag doll in Phoenix after college. That was pretty cool, but I kept thinking that she was great in these very formal attack runs I was doing, but I wasn't convinced that it would work 'in real life'. Still, it was fun and I smiled and laughed per formula.

[thaddeus]

Can someone explain this video to me? I'm not trying to be cynical but it's hard for me to understand why that guy is flying around. I just can't imagine walking into that class, day one, doing push hands with that guy and letting him push me across the room like that. I've just never had an experience like this but I see similar things in all these push hands videos.

 

Sean

If you imagine your body structure released and expanded (Peng Jing)..it is not unlike a basketball full of air. So if you 'hit' it, it will bounce away. That's really all it is. It won't work on an unwilling participant. In fact, students there are encourage to 'go with it'. It's certainly cool, but to make a big deal of it kind of says something about the school.

T

[Lozen]

Watch these two Sean

.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g-x4iJM2aU4&search=dillman

[Cameron]

It's like an explosion of energy from the tan tien via the tendons/joints. The muscles are totally relaxed. Once a high level aikido guy projected at me it was like a 'whiplash' of ki that resulted in me flying backwards like I was being blown over by a tremendous wind and landed effortlessly on my back.

 

At the same time I had a funny, tingling feeling inside.

 

I am nowhere near that level but know that one of the teachers of that guy that threw me is moving to town maybe I can start to develop it more

Edited May 22, 2006 by Cameron

[Lozen]

That guy wasn't even being thrown. He was jumping.

[sean]

I split this from poor Cam's journal.

 

So is this throwing then mostly just hypnosis? I think I get the purpose of push hands as a form of softwork (as Sonnon calls it) but I'm not sure I understand the purpose of participating in this fake looking flying across the room aspect. Or do you really feel like you have no control of yourself during an exercise like this?

 

Sean

[Smile]

Can someone explain this video to me? I'm not trying to be cynical but it's hard for me to understand why that guy is flying around. I just can't imagine walking into that class, day one, doing push hands with that guy and letting him push me across the room like that. I've just never had an experience like this but I see similar things in all these push hands videos.

 

Sean

Sean, i'm studying with this teacher now. He teaches Old Yang Style tai Chi and the video was taken 5-6 years ago. The teacher is the real thing. Has a lot of internal power - fajin. But it's hard to believe it till you experience it yourself. The jumping or other reactions from the guy are the result of the technique used. Read this for more explanantion:

http://www.nytaichi.com/pushing.htm

[Trunk]

Its interesting to watch different parts of their bodies. Look at one guy from belly button to feet for a while, then the other.

[Lozen]

Looks fake to me.

[sean]

Sean, i'm studying with this teacher now. He teaches Old Yang Style tai Chi and the video was taken 5-6 years ago. The teacher is the real thing. Has a lot of internal power - fajin. But it's hard to believe it till you experience it yourself. The jumping or other reactions from the guy are the result of the technique used. Read this for more explanantion:

http://www.nytaichi.com/pushing.htm

Thanks for the link Max. Yeah, the school seems really sincere and knowledgable for sure. I am just trying to wrap my head around what the flying-backward aspect of push hands is trying to cultivate. Max, do you think if, let's say, just your average tough-guy skeptical boxer type walked into this school and did this exercise with the teacher he would also be thrown wildly back, or do you agree with thaddeus that this is an exercise in willing participants?

 

Sean

[Trunk]

I am just trying to wrap my head around what the flying-backward aspect of push hands is trying to cultivate.

I'm not saying this is the way this guy is doing it, just one way it might be done:

 

A lot of push hands is not force; its being profoundly integrated, its subtle. Most people hold their body together with various non-integral tensions.. that have little (if anything) to do with heaven~earth. Much of development is to let go of that, and promote heaven~human~earth integration. Like most of cultivation, a lot of is has to do with doing less.

 

In push hands, you learn to feel the other person, you feel where they are non-integral (where they have no true power) and just give a little shove there. Its deeper than the person is familiar with feeling, certainly deeper than their habitual tension holding patterns, and the tension holding patterns give way. They sort of relax in a way that they're unfamiliar with. The result is that their body loses strength (even if the person is a weight lifter etc), falls back a little ways and needs a few steps to recover structure. ie, It could be more subtle than if you gave someone a physically hard enough shove to send them back some dozen feet or so.

 

As I said, this is just one way that it might be done, and certainly I can't speak for what that teacher is doing.

 

Again, I encourage you to look at the teacher's body in sections. Watch from his belly to the ground for a while. Then look at the shape of his back for a while. Then look at how his back connects to his neck & head, for a while. What do you see? Then look at those sections of the student.

 

The kind of repeated, detailed corrections that you might receive from a teacher like this - studying in person over a long period of time, are just so valuable. The things that we do by habit, under the level of our awareness that are warped into our structure, are difficult to see and correct on our own. Personal study with an accomplished teacher, consistently, over a long period of time!

Edited May 23, 2006 by Trunk

[Smile]

Max, do you think if, let's say, just your average tough-guy skeptical boxer type walked into this school and did this exercise with the teacher he would also be thrown wildly back, or do you agree with thaddeus that this is an exercise in willing participants?

This particular teacher is famous for demonstrating this exercise with big football players and throwing them like little babies. My friend has also witnessed first guy pushing the teacher and the second guy pushing the first guy, and the teacher made a slight movement and the second guy flew back while the first guy remained standing next to the teacher. Those 2 guys were just visitors trying to test him.

[Lozen]

This particular teacher is famous for demonstrating this exercise with big football players and throwing them like little babies. My friend has also witnessed first guy pushing the teacher and the second guy pushing the first guy, and the teacher made a slight movement and the second guy flew back while the first guy remained standing next to the teacher. Those 2 guys were just visitors trying to test him.

 

It's just that the one person I know who actually has seen and experienced fajin said you wouldn't jump up or turn in a cute circle, you would be pushed back like a stone on your heels.

[Cameron]

 

The kind of repeated, detailed corrections that you might receive from a teacher like this - studying in person over a long period of time, are just so valuable. The things that we do by habit, under the level of our awareness that are warped into our structure, are difficult to see and correct on our own. Personal study with an accomplished teacher, consistently, over a long period of time!

 

 

Agreed. If I had the time I would maybe do Shing Yi on top of Aikido but don't right now. But if your interested in anything you really got to get this feedback from someone else. Maybe doing Sonnon's stuff gives you lots of cool tools to work on yourself but I am of the mind that there is indeed something to all this internal stuff and you need feedback from someone who can do it.

 

Connectedness is HUGE. It's really this manifestation of whole body power along with being deeply rooted to the Earth through the tendons and joints. Probably each internal martial artist has there own unique take of this but I think that's the foundation. Rootendess, connection through the tendons/joints, high level if qi and development of Fajin and Pen Jing.

 

Cam

[Smile]

It's just that the one person I know who actually has seen and experienced fajin said you wouldn't jump up or turn in a cute circle, you would be pushed back like a stone on your heels.

 

From the link http://www.nytaichi.com/pushing.htm , read #6

[sean]

Wow, thanks for all the responses. I feel like I am grasping this better. This is something I'm naturally skeptical about of course, but I am interested in someday going to an academy with an open mind and seeing if I can experience this phenomenon to some extent.

 

BTW - anyone ever see that Ang Lee movie "Pushing Hands"? I really dug that movie.

 

Sean

[Cameron]

Sean have you checked out emptyflower.com? He's a computer animator like you I think and they have all sorts of info on internal MA stuff.

 

Cam

[sean]

Sean have you checked out emptyflower.com? He's a computer animator like you I think and they have all sorts of info on internal MA stuff.

Damn, that guy is a freakin' talented artist. Beautiful site, thanks for the link.

 

Sean

[thaddeus]

This particular teacher is famous for demonstrating this exercise with big football players and throwing them like little babies. My friend has also witnessed first guy pushing the teacher and the second guy pushing the first guy, and the teacher made a slight movement and the second guy flew back while the first guy remained standing next to the teacher. Those 2 guys were just visitors trying to test him.

 

It's all cooperation because it's an exercise--meaning you need to make your body 'stiff' if you don't know anything or produce peng if you know something. I've seen him pushing hands with an experienced taiji practioner--nothing. Another time my friend went to see him and Gim tried to push him, he yielded and Gim told him not to do that so he could push him. But I don't think this is a bad thing. Gim will not say he can do this to anyone or an unwilling participant--don't connect your body and he can't push you--in fact he'll say the better your peng the more 'fantastic' will be the show. This is just a training exercise, it's not fighting.

I think you can learn something from him. Unfortunately, he's a victim of the propaganda of his lineage. They teach some excellent solo drills, if you pay attention, you'll learn something. The dynamic push hands exercise is also a decent training device if you're careful.

 

Have fun!

T

Edited May 23, 2006 by thaddeus

[Yoda]

a good master can not only make you relax your muscles, he/she can make you contract them in various ways. That's why all the effecst are so different. One group gets 'electrocuted' and starts dancing, some people just bunny hop off the attack, and others just go slack, some really get shot to the other side of the room, etc.

[Fireblood]

Push hands is used to develop different skills.

 

Mainly listening skill: To read your opponent, feel where his/her movement is going so you can be there first.

 

It also develops other skills including issuing energy or fa-jing as some call it.

 

The thing with TCC, is that many people teach the form, some from amongst them teach it correctly, fewer than that know why they do the form and least of all, a few know how to fight using the principles of TCC.

 

Pushing the opponent is over-rated these days. It's all ok when someone is acting in accordance to the push hands drill techniques but pushing is rarely used in a real fight situation. But you do/can use the different energies/skills learnt in push hands drills in a combat situation.

 

I used to fight full contact kali/eskrima (stick & knife) with minimum padding. We also used to fight full contact and empty handed. Our instructor kind of was of the philosophy of the Dog Brothers and Paul Vunak etc...(I practiced TCC at that time too).

 

http://www.dogbrothers.com/

 

http://www.fighting.net/

 

Try a little experiment. See if you can find any full contact fights between a Tai Chi Teacher and a boxer or Thai boxer etc on the web (google video etc), then see if you can find a fight between, a karateka, Thai boxer, Judo, JKD, BJJ etc etc...

 

You won't find any Tai Chi fighters. You will find videos of mostly bogus TCC defense techniques.

 

I'm not saying that there are none. I know of two schools in the UK who fight:

 

http://www.taichichuan.co.uk/

 

Wudang Tai Chi Chuan - Kind of an ofshoot from Wu style.

 

http://www.zhong-ding.com/articles.htm

 

Zhong Ding Tai Chi Chuan - Cheng Man Ching Style.

 

Both these schools had masters that had fights all the time. They still do. Zhong Ding mainly in Malaysia and Singapore. Wudang's current UK head is Dan Docherty, this guy has proven himself in full contact fights using TCC principles.

 

Why is fighting important? TCC is a martial art, first and foremost. If you cannot fight using it, you have not learnt TCC. Like a boxer who cannot box etc...

 

Old Yang style?

 

Nearly every Yang stylist claims that their style is 'Old Yang' Style because it was regarded as lethal and a very combat orientated style. Yet most of them cannot fight! Many Yang Chengfu stylists claim that there is no 'Old Yang' style otherwise Yang Chengfu would have imparted the traditions to his students.

 

 

If you want to see some real push hands, take a look at this from a real lineage master of the Chen style:

 

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-2...29&q=push+hands

 

This one's more martial: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=znVWJ4PmURw...ch=push%20hands

 

Or a student of Yang Cheng Fu:

 

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-2...cheng+man+ching

 

See the difference in the level of relaxation between the Cheng Man Ching, Wang Xian and the video of the guy that Sean posted.

 

Anyhow thats my two cents.

 

I'll have my TCC research page up soon, watch http://www.tfbb.org for details.

[Lozen]

You trained with Vu and the Dog Brothers? Nice!! Badasses, all of 'em.

 

I don't agree with you on Tai Chi. I know a BADASS yang style taiji dude who is an amazing fighter. It's just harder to find the "real" teachers.

Edited May 23, 2006 by Lozen

[thaddeus]

Mainly listening skill: To read your opponent, feel where his/her movement is going so you can be there first.

 

It also develops other skills including issuing energy or fa-jing as some call it.

 

The thing with TCC, is that many people teach the form, some from amongst them teach it correctly, fewer than that know why they do the form and least of all, a few know how to fight using the principles of TCC.

 

Pushing the opponent is over-rated these days. It's all ok when someone is acting in accordance to the push hands drill techniques but pushing is rarely used in a real fight situation. But you do/can use the different energies/skills learnt in push hands drills in a combat situation.

 

I used to fight full contact kali/eskrima (stick & knife) with minimum padding. We also used to fight full contact and empty handed. Our instructor kind of was of the philosophy of the Dog Brothers and Paul Vunak etc...(I practiced TCC at that time too).

Old Yang style?

 

Nearly every Yang stylist claims that their style is 'Old Yang' Style because it was regarded as lethal and a very combat orientated style. Yet most of them cannot fight! Many Yang Chengfu stylists claim that there is no 'Old Yang' style otherwise Yang Chengfu would have imparted the traditions to his students.

If you want to see some real push hands, take a look at this from a real lineage master of the Chen style:

 

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-2...29&q=push+hands

 

This one's more martial: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=znVWJ4PmURw...ch=push%20hands

 

I gotta be careful with this thread..i rarely see anything nastier than a 'my taichi is better than yours' and I hate to get into that..but anyway..the Wang Xian video is very cool. I just want to point out that it's not a good example of push hands because he's just teaching the pattern in an informal setting. The other clip is just the staged demo stuff. But Trunk mentioned that alot of learning takes place just be being around the teachers and getting that constant feedback. I liked watching Wang Xian like this, you can really get a sense for what is going on in his body and how relaxed and sensitive his arms are. Thanks for posting this!

T

[Smile]

I'm training TCC because I feel like i need to do it at the moment. Martial aspect is the last thing on my mind.

 

If you want to watch something that is hard to belive, try these links:

http://www.pathgate.org/pi_video_01.html

http://www.pathgate.org/pi_video_02.html

http://www.pathgate.org/pi_video_03.html