Really interesting Video comparing Push Hands judging in America and China

IMHO, ask what are the bad habits that a rule set promotes.

I could take the Chinese push hands in the video and ask, where are the strikes? Strikes from push hands can be like a compression of the internal organs. Rather than uprooting, this causes the body to collapse and shut down.

Rather than causing the enemy to collapse, the contest becomes one of uprooting and throwing. A bad habit that could be developed is to focus on rooting so much that you leave yourself open to a fight ending strike.

In the American example of push hands in the video, I could ask, where is the force? It seems that the contest is one of trying to be softer than the other. A bad habit that could be developed is to focus on softness so much that you end giving up the initiative to a superior force. I think you are right that this could be like the "hippy" concept of TCC.

So IMHO, every rule set can build bad habits, so training should address these gaps. I think the Chinese push hand example is perfectly good as a way to test balance and flexibility. I think the American example might be perfectly good as a way to test softness and sensitivity (although the jury is still out on this one since the contests were constantly stopped for rules violations).

What I can say is that both are okay as long as it is clear what the value and purpose of the training is for. This is to help avoid building of bad habits by not understanding the context.

 

I'll ask "Where are the throws and locks?" What kind of skill do you intend to develop in an environment that

- strikes (include both kicks and punches),
- locks, and
- throws,

are not allowed?

It doesn't matter what MA style that you may train, you want to develop skills for kick, punch, lock, throw, and ground game. IMO, "push" is not among any of those skill catagories.

 

Well, push, as you put it, would at best be a set up to either strike or throw, i'd imagine.

 

The "pull" can be used to set up strike and throw not "push". You should keep your friend close but your enemy closer.

 

Should always stun or unbalance before lock or take down. To me, the skills from push hands should both take into account unbalancing and stunning. In this way, while unbalancing the opponent, practicianers do not leave themselves open to striking.

However, we all have to start somewhere. Starting under an agreement of no striking seems okay to me to help learn and test things out under more controlled situations.

I see now that you mentioned it, another area that is limited. After unbalancing, it seems that pushing is used rather than locking or throwing. As long as they unbalance before pushing, I can see value in the exercise. But I see your point, having a throw or lock after the unbalance would be better. The value I see is that you make it very hard to be unbalanced since you spend so much time training that aspect.

 

This is a peculiar argument. You might as well critisise Judo for not allowing strikes, or boxing for not allowing throws.

These were vdieo clips of pushing hands competitions. Pushing hands can take many forms, but will always have a ruleset - it isn't all-in wrestling!

There are plenty of things that can be critisised about the stuff in the videos, but critisising pushing hands for not allowing 'a bit of everything' is silly. It completely misses the point.

 

The Chinese version was clearly pretty relaxed about what was allowed. It was a very 'open' ruleset and the competitors seemed to understand it perfectly well.

The American version had a very restrictive ruleset, which the competitors seemed to have some difficulty in following, and which seemed to be rather difficult for the judges to follow at times!

I'm not sure what you mean about the 'hippy concept' though. I think the American ruleset is trying to get the competitors to use skill to defeat the opponent rather than relying on brute force. And of course it is disallowing techniques such as throws, which while a perfectly valid part of TCC (just as strikes and joint locks are) they don't necessarily form part of pushing-hands practise.

The idea of using relaxation to overcome force isn't 'hippy', it's the fundamental principle behind Taiji. (cf. the Taiji classics.) However, trying to impose such a narrow ruleset in a pushing hands competition probably isn't the best way to teach Taiji principles. They should be learning that in class, then trying to apply it in competiton. If they can't do that then they are wasting their time doing Taiji, they might as well learn something else.

 

Hard to find fault with the commentary provided in the video. American comp appears neutered by comparison to its Chinese counterpart. Seems like the product of placing a romantic/flawed ideal over pragmatism but I'd be interested in hearing the history on how competition rules and Reffing developed in USA.

 

I agree with this. Seems like a better class exercise (if properly contextualised by teacher) rather than full fledged comp format.

 

Likely not a popular view, but competition push hands is ruining push hands. Push hands is not for fighting or any of the things they are doing with it. It is a tool to help you learn how to "properly" use taijiquan in application. Competition push hands is stand up wrestling, that is all and not taijiquan

 

We do. We criticize pretty much everything for lack of something. Lack of striking, lack of weapons, lack of multiple attackers, lack of fundamentals, lack of realism, lack of resisting opponent, etc.

However, I think when we do this, it is mostly in regards to what bad habits or bad behaviors we see. Not that what we see is necessarily correct, but just our opinions.

 

Need to stiffen up that jab more, bro.

 

Should being good at taijiquan make you better at stand up wrestling?

 

Shouldn't it be the aim, to ''use skill to defeat brute force'', if there's no brute force allowed, how to you develop the skill to defeat brute force.

You cant shortcut your way to deep skills.

 

[ame="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F75huga-Zz4"]Marcelo Garcia and Tuishou Chen Do Karate-do - YouTube[/ame]

If you do it properly, hopefully!

 

Push hands can be trained with compliant 'soft' drills" but the benefit of competitive or live training is the element of resistance that those compliant exercises lack ; taiji is about an interplay of hard and soft
Of course the best approach (and most fun !) is to use both methods to develop a practical understanding of the art.

 

so what your saying is, For the soft to overcome the hard, then you need to practice against the hard sometimes.

seems legit!

 

Agree! If you develop bad habit from certain training, you will need another training to remove it.

Even if striking is not involved in the training, you should still assume that your opponent's fists can land on your head. If "sport" is not your only interest, your training should cover all areas.

This is why there are Sanda/Sanshou (kick + punch + throw) and MMA (kick + punch + throw + lock + ground game).

If Taiji push hands format is used to develop skills such as listen, sticky, yield, follow, ... then what format is used to develop kick, punch, lock, throw, ground game?

It seems to me that the training after Taiji push hands is missing.

Taiji form -> Taiji push hands -> ???

 

It might make you better in some situations, but the real benefit probably only comes if you have a foundation in stand up wrestling.

For example, I learned much more about my Aikido training after cross-training in other arts, including BJJ.

Based on this, if you want to learn more about TCC, after building a foundation, then cross-train in stand up wrestling.