http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rVRLIF3FRCM
I know I’m starting to look like a cheerleader here for Sam Masich, but I just can’t help myself. It seems that almost every one of his videos has something that I’m either working on, need to work on, or have found to be extremely important.
This video above is one of the best clips of authentic, non-rehearsed moving push hands that I’ve seen on the Net. The skills of these two guys is quite high IMO.
One thing that really caught me about this clip is something my teacher is trying to hammer into my thick skull: don’t play the “you got me game.” So many times when I get pushed, I disengage, and then reset and engage. I don’t yet have the unbroken intent that you should display even after you’ve been pushed, joint locked, or taken down. Sam is the guy in black, and notice how he and his opponent react when the opponent “gets” them. Sam takes the other guy down to the ground, but the guy doesn’t miss a beat — he goes with the flow and is back on his feet. In fact, he appears to not even break contact — an excellent example of zhan, nian, lian, sui or otherwise known as sticking and adhering.
The opponent even gets Sam once, but Sam just flows upward with it and doesn’t break his stride. Excellent!
I would highly suggest following the example set in this clip and continue to stick and follow even after you’ve been pushed or joint locked.
15 responses so far ↓
1 tomasz // Jun 22, 2007 at 2:47 pm
i think it is really weak … the best… ????
2 chessman71 // Jun 22, 2007 at 5:07 pm
Again, one of the best I’ve seen on the web — especially showing what I outlined in the post. Did you get the point of the post?
3 tomasz // Jun 22, 2007 at 9:53 pm
man this clip could be name: “if you practice this way you doing it wrong, its not a martial arts - wake up”
4 Dojo Rat // Jun 22, 2007 at 10:57 pm
I would say this is indeed a fine example of freestyle push hands. I don’t know what Tomasz expects; an MMA brawl?
The fluidity and continuity of movement are excellent. This is what I strive for in my push hands, and I definately get your comment about the “You got me” break of motion.
Any comment for “The Wall” article yet?
5 chessman71 // Jun 23, 2007 at 12:55 am
Tomasz,
I don’t know what you’re talking about here. Care to elaborate?
DR,
My apologies for not getting back to you. please check your email.
6 Patrick Parker // Jun 23, 2007 at 1:14 am
A while back I posted a video of some push hands that I thought was the closest thing i’d seen on the web to the aikido toshu randori that we do. This is a much better video. Very similar, though faster, than the hand randori we do. I’m impressed with the fluidity and continuity.
As for ‘you got me’ I can definately see both sides of that one. sometimes in randori situations you can waste a lot of time trying to fight your way through a no-win thing, when you could say ‘you got me’ and get back to practicing. on the other hand, it is a very good thing, as you say, to learn to flow through the disadvantageous positions and keep going. I’ve seen randori done both ways and still be very productive.
This is also perhaps the most mobile push hands session i’ve seen on the net (except maybe dojo rat’s recent post). usually you see the two players mostly rooted working on a fairly static routine until one flys back or hits the ground.
7 Jack Rusher // Jun 23, 2007 at 1:19 am
I suspect that Tomasz would rather see something with a little fa and more obvious san shou applications, like this clip of tui shou in Chen village.
Your point about his fluidity and stickiness is well made, but it’s not clear to me from that video that Mr Masich’s skills would translate with an opponent who is not simultaneously trying to stick to him and move with softness (that is, an essentially friendly partner who is playing the same game).
8 chessman71 // Jun 23, 2007 at 9:25 am
Jack,
In the Chen village clip, they are doing fixed step. It’s much easier to use fa in that format. I would hope that Tomasz would see the obvious application of taiji principle sin the clip above. Fajing and obvious san shou applications ARE NOT everything.
Doing the movement style above has some advantages over doing san shou with an uncooperative opponent. Remember, this is training. One huge advantage is that in san shou, people become extremely conservative in their body movement because they don’t want to get hurt. This WILL prevent them from trying things that could be developed in their game, if the heat was ratcheted down a bit. Hence, the utility of what we see above.
9 Formosa Neijia - Exploring Taiwan’s Martial Arts » The value of play // Jun 23, 2007 at 10:20 am
[...] Don’t do “you got me” [...]
10 tomasz // Jun 23, 2007 at 1:25 pm
its not about the fluidity and continuity of movement for me here, its about that those movements are …. i don’t know soooooooo gay…. they are stupid, unreal, you can do the fluidity and continuity of movement without fajing and stuff but what you see on this clip is bad version of tango, not a version of fighting…. they run, without any sense, to reach their the fluidity and continuity of movement they broke every rules of potential fight. this kinda training is not going anywhere because bad habbits develop here influence you practice much more than its worth
11 chessman71 // Jun 23, 2007 at 2:53 pm
Tomasz,
Yes, this SHOULD look like dancing — at least, to a large extent. Breaking every rule of a potential fight is an excellent way to explore movement that can then be developed and put back into a fighting context.
12 taijiquestion // Jun 23, 2007 at 7:23 pm
All I know about Sam Masich is that when I was looking far and wide for good, high-level information about taiji principles and the movements/actions they produce, a few years ago Sam seemed to be one of the few key sources with his well-written, in-depth, and revealing articles. I would expect a Masich clip to show taiji principles being correctly demonstrated, whether or not it made for a good viewing experience in any other way.
If it showed aspects of “invest in loss” I would hope to recognize what I was being shown about taijiquan in that instance.
What are the “rules of potential fight”? I thought the only one worth mentioning was “get them before they get you”. (Hey Dave, that ties into your post in a funny way. But your post was about training, not “fighting”. MA and self-defense are two different things, right?
I’m not really disagreeing with Tomasz. I’m not a trained fighter in any sense. But I’ve tried to learn something about taiji quan.
13 tomasz // Jun 23, 2007 at 9:00 pm
“rules of potential fight”? for instance don’t do stupid things like going side to your opponent with both legs close etc simply stuff which get you “killed” in normal sparring -Sam is doing what all Yang taiji guys do - he is just sticking and doesn’t care about the part that tuishou is just small aprt of fighting, bad habbits which you develop doing as he doing are not worth stuff what you can develop in this kinda training. even doing tuishou you have to be aware of things like: someone can kick me or punch or throw me hard here or here. most people do funny looking tuishou and they think is ok because they won in tuishou, in reality those winning moves would get them “killed” but they don’t care becaue they won in close tuishou model.
14 taijiquestion // Jun 24, 2007 at 5:00 am
Thanks Tomasz - you got my attention with mentioning Yang taiji typical bad habits. I’m a beginning student of Yang style though I spent a number of years playing around with Chen taiji movements and principles.
I haven’t had typical push-hands sessions yet and a part of me doesn’t care if I ever do. Given the choice I’d rather partner with any MA person who’s into friendly sparring, and try to learn some realistic skills.
Any type of body movement training could be useful if you know what you’re training and why. But for Martial, why learn postures and patterns that any good street-fighter could use against you easily and leave you smashed up on the ground? Any of us will “fight dirty” if we have to. Controlling the opponent means shutting him down one way or the other. That’s what interests me, because I don’t enjoy getting injured.
Reading about the super-tough training that the old taji fighters had to go through always impresses me. Those people lived close to life-and-death and didn’t have time to fool around.
15 Formosa Neijia - Exploring Taiwan’s Martial Arts » Contact Improv for play // Jun 24, 2007 at 9:25 am
[...] Don’t do “you got me” [...]
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