Personally, for me, I think it’s best to cater to the individual instead of trying to please the group. In a more learning and informal environment, I’d probably wait until at least half of the 24 step is done and show the basic push hands pattern to get a feel for how the class likes it. Then just take it by ear. Maybe do forms with 5 mins of push hands at the end ‘for fun’ That’s probably how I would do it.

Welcome back to taiji

For beginners, I have been thinking that push hands should wait until they atleast have 24-step in reasonable shape. Do you agree?

Thanks from Tampa

While correcting static posture is good, I’ve only received corrections on transitions a handful of times and of these times, they’ve come out of a different chen line than I currently focus on.

anyway, the way i see it is that fixed posture is the end of the application. the transition are the movements that gets you to the fixed posture. so in that sense the transition is more important than the fixed pose. in that sense i never believe is training zhanzhuang because zhanzhuang can give you strength but its a static type of strength. what you really want is a dynamic strength - one that is there during applications - so form is a good way to learn how to move the strength throughout - storing, releasing, storing, releasing. borrowing, giving back, borrowing, giving back.

drills is to bring the lessons of the form to a dynamic but controlled situation. can you translate the lessons of the transitions to a dynamic exchange? what are the obvious lessons, the implied lessons, the hidden lessons?

like i pointed out in my post its ironic that even CMC does not pose the shoulder stroke. i’ll have to check out his video to see if he actually does it.

and of course kao has certain important strategic lessons in applying techniques and overcoming a stronger force. i’ll leave this to when i get continue writing the other parts on this topic.

@ZMS:
What you bring up is what I really like about looking at these kind of things. Where’s the application in the transition? I’ve often been told the *real* applications happen within the transitions between postures. This is why practicing transitions between movements is so crucial instead of primarily training fixed posture holding.

I agree that learning applications within the context of push hands would be a better way to train than just training the fixed ‘one-step-punch’ apps. This is how we did it back in my wushu days. We’d learn the fixed app and then the teacher would have us try to incorporate that app within a ‘wushu push hands drill’ that we did. This was very difficult, but at the same time very eye-opening.

This type of training teaches one how to link techniques. Being nimble, flexible and able to adapt to constantly changing situations.

I admit that I also fall victim to performing the transition between lift hands and crane spreads wings with the shoulder stroke application. This was brought out when I trained in Yang under the TT Liang camp as they emphasize this in their form execution. Ever since then, it has stuck with me.

But you’re right, I can think of this transition to include a possible block and throw (with the right hand) or even block transitioning to an armbar, or even a sweeping leg technique. This is by breaking the transition down into it’s components. We can begin the transition with a downward energy that changes to a sweeping or overhead energy. Many applications can be brought out if we consider it from an energetic perspective.

Wow.. thanks for sparking the thought! I don’t know if I’m right but it’s caused the wheels to turn

the problem i see in learning single applications is you get a snapshot of a particular section of the picture. the beauty in learning applications within push hands is you get a panoramic view. maybe the single whip application is not what you think after all. but then maybe it is. but then within the dynamics of a live exchange you start to gain an insight into what the transition between single whip and lift hands is used for.

so maybe things don’t look so straight forward after all. it just appears to be. that’s why depending on how one performs the form different applications can come out. my student does the transition from lift hands to white crane spreads wings with an obvious shoulder stroke and i always say wrong! he would say but should not there be an obvious “shoulder” stroke? and i would say since when does the term “kao” means “shoulder”? so he has an application in mind based on his understanding of what he thought “kao” means. i brought up an entire range of possible applications based on the fact that “kao” does not necessarily mean “shoulder stroke” and the funny thing is his grasp of Chinese is better than mine could it be a case of us being mislead by the bad English translations that have been floating around that we failed to see the meaning of the original Chinese term as it is?

anyway some food for thought…………..

Still it’s good to know about lots of applications so that as the hands (especially) go here and there, one has a notion of what they could do application-wise.

I’m always glad when applications info/discussion appears on the Web - ’cause it seems to be one of the secret-er sides of TJQ sometimes…

I don’t know much about Yang apps, mostly thru Doc Fai-Wong and I consider that a bit questionable. But what with the increased emphasis on the mental/energetic side of things, Yang fighting seems pretty fascinating. Thanks for more good writings on your broad experience in Taiji!