The quote below seems like a good follow up to yesterday’s post on the push hands tourney between the taiji grandmasters. Marnix Wells is well known for his translations and martial skill. Below he gives us his experience and it’s a bit against the common grain, so to speak. Here’s the original (I suggest reading the whole thing) and here’s what is relevant to the recent discussion:
Marnix returned to Taipei, where Gan Xiàozhou took Marnix to the general push-hands Saturday morning meet in the government Legislative Yuàn. There leading luminaries, mostly followers of Zhèng Mànqing, Wáng Yánnián and others engaged in informal push-hands. A young man named Liào Wèishan, a student at the Political University in Mùzhá, drew Marnix aside and told him to resist, rather than just to yield when pushed, as he had been taught to do. Armed with this new insight, the scales fell from his eyes and much of the magic of the push-hands masters vanished into thin air. Liào told him that Zhèng Mànqing had an in-door teaching which was ‘hard’, unlike the ‘soft’ tàijí he used to con the uninitiated (piàn wàiháng) and foreigners in America.
I find it interesting that his experience then matches some of mine today. Except where he resisted, I often move my feet as I primarily do moving step push hands.
This quote gives lots of food for thought.
20 responses so far ↓
1 meow // Apr 29, 2008 at 3:52 pm
good job to the over reliant
2 Morgan Buchanan // Apr 29, 2008 at 4:24 pm
if other tai chi methods resist or use force on force or peng jin on peng jin then i think that’s up to them, but i’ve met with professor’s eastern and western students and none of them ever talks of resisting as a technique taught or used by professor. there is a new 4 dvd set of professor out, one disc of which has about 45 mins of him doing push hands with students. no resisting or going against that i can see and he seems quite functional with his neutralizations - not locked in form - able to improvise naturally (although dave, there is a bit of foot moving, mostly a half step forwards to facilitate the return).
far as i know waysun liao was not an inner door student of professor cheng so perhaps he came up with this idea himself or got it from somewhere else.
cheers
morgan
3 Edward // Apr 29, 2008 at 4:34 pm
Well, I practice a “harder” version of push hands as well, but I don’t know if the fully soft version is invalid; perhaps BL and others have managed to make that way succeed as well.
4 Dave Chesser // Apr 29, 2008 at 4:43 pm
I’m not sure what the “harder” method mentioned in the article refers to. I was hoping that someone could tell me.
I agree that this comment doesn’t necessarily invalidate anything, but it sure is interesting especially in this context, isn’t it?
BTW, I would love to read a review of the 4 disc master set of ZMQ’s materials.
5 PP // Apr 29, 2008 at 4:49 pm
Could it be thatthey are not talking about a hard method but something like soft technique coupled with hard bones through Yi Chin Ching?
6 Morgan Buchanan // Apr 29, 2008 at 6:30 pm
re : BTW, I would love to read a review of the 4 disc master set of ZMQ’s materials.
it was good. there is a lot of footage and i haven’t looked at it all in detail, just a quick look through. if you are interested in professor’s ideas then it’s worth every penny and will suppliment the written work and instruction from your teacher nicely, what i have looked at was very valuable for my own practice. there are 4 dics - one for form work, one for pushing hands, one for sword and sword sparring and one title “chi” that contains discussions on internal work, professor’s philosophy, his past teachers, etc..
if you like cmc then you will like these, if you’re just curious then it might be a large amount of money to pay to find out if it is for you or not - perhaps better to get the cheaper introductory video (or catch the footage on you tube)
cheers
morgan
7 Morgan Buchanan // Apr 29, 2008 at 6:52 pm
I would also add that it’s all archival footage from the 60’s and 70’s in NYC. there is lots of good footage but sometimes the sound is not so good and they put in subtitles, there is a fair bit of NYC traffic noise from outside and the obligatory honking of horns (no surprise there)sometimes it can be hard to hear professor’s chinese (if you want it direct and not through translator you will have to turn up the volume and work the remote with patience).
in spite of that it is very good, there is no other footage that shows professor teaching in a class environment, playing sword and push hands, giving correction on form and push hands, etc.. and that, for me, is worth the price of admission. cheers
morgan
8 M. Reynolds // Apr 29, 2008 at 11:31 pm
I don’t know…how many of these things have we all read and how many of them are the same: either the author or a character observed by the author claims to be real student of one famous master, denounces another famous master and renders lesser/un-known masters incompetent for proof, goes on to champion their own personal style, takes American disciples who are merely promoting their lineage and not their own rep/interests, etc.
As far as harder push hands, yang family style starts you with “Four Square Push Hands” which in the first stage really is two guys directing Peng Jin at each other and just shifting weight backward and foreword between bow and mountain climbing stances, no rolling back or redirecting.
9 SteveG // Apr 30, 2008 at 2:09 am
It is perfectly valid to use “hard” strength if you already have mastery of rooting and inner strength. If you used no “hard” strength at all you would fall over in a limp pile of bones!! The heavy focus on softness is to help master the principles because everyone is way too hard and reacts emotionally most of the time- this needs to be re-trained. If after gaining some understanding you are too soft all the time you will not be returning enough force while pushing.
This article may be an example of a student who took the instructions to heart and applied them. He came to understand how to be soft and then the teacher told him “use hard force now” because that it was he needed to balance Yin and Yang.
I think in short I am trying to say that the total focus on softness is a necessary training tool, it is not trying to teach us to be a ragdoll- there is a proper balance of soft and hard but you have to learn the soft before you can introduce the hard and keep it subservient to proper principles.
10 Chris | Martial Development // Apr 30, 2008 at 3:30 am
This isn’t the first time someone claimed to be the sole inheritor of the old master’s secret–which just so happens to be the opposite of everything he taught in public, and to his other disciples.
11 Brennan Cleveland // Apr 30, 2008 at 4:16 am
I think what is mean by “resist” in this case is what my teacher calls “meeting force with structure”. If you are being pushed, you can yield (evade, roll-back, etc..), or you can set up proper body structure and root. This does not imply pusing back or using “force against force”, but merely letting the other persons energy root into the ground through your structure. The key of course is knowing when to yield and when to root, I guess.
I guess the Tai Chi way would be:
a) yield
b) if you can’t yield, root
c) if can’t root, use force
Better to succeed on step c) than to fail altogether.
12 Morgan Buchanan // Apr 30, 2008 at 5:41 am
hi brennan,
cmc tai chi has receiving energy as do other styles - where the force is sent into the ground through the structure and then back out into the opponents body in a very short space of time but for us it is the neutralise/yield, absorb, return all bundled into one small, instant package. professor cheng describes it in one of his thirteen chapters.
it is easily confused with simply absorbing through the structure into the root which mostly violates the active four ounces principle (because there is way more than four ounces being generated between the two participants-regardless of whether one is using force or one is grounding the force into a root or peng jin posture-there is still more than 4 ounces-a metaphor for the lightest functional contact). increasing pressure on the root in a held posture for instance can be useful for extending the root into the whole posture (or the active structure of the posture), and can be useful for push hands competition but from my pov probably not my preference for functional use.
cheers
morgan
13 wayne hansen // Apr 30, 2008 at 6:15 am
harder may simply mean more structure and more reliance on the application.
the cheng in malaysia is much more martial than say ny.
the cheng stylists in penang were known for closing down other schools and their iron body work as well as taking on all and any other styles.
just read nigel sutton to get a glimpse of the realism and diversity there.
my own teacher went to malaysia as a fighter and a hung gar stylist but was soon converted.
if you look at the ny tapes point out which person in the room is a fighter.
cheng always the pragmatist taught people what they wanted and could absorb.
as for resistance in pushing imagine the old philipino saying[ every hand holds a knife].
chen xaio wang in the confrontation in taiwan
leaves his body there to absorb the push/strikes whilst using independent arm action to neutralise the attacks when this fails he presents a hard chest as cannon fodder,would this have worked with a knife.
i have the greatest respect for cxw having attended a seminar of his in 1988 when he first moved to aus.
he was a good teacher and a gentleman.
if you have to use hard strength you are a hard stylist no matter what form you practice.
i played in the front row[linebacker for you yanks] in both rugby league and union many years ago.
the two afro/am guys that were offered up as examples on good pushing,both in a locked forward stance ,would not last 5 min.with a first grade rugby player doing the same thing[they are all super fit and employ the best wrestling coaches like john donahue,and are full time professionals].
so lets get back to pushing as it was intended,a bridge from form to combat,but each move should be treated as if the hand is holding a knife,because some day it may and you will find out too late that competative pushing with bad partners has dulled your blade.
tai chi saying.
treat a boy like a man and aman like a boy.
14 transit // Apr 30, 2008 at 7:32 am
perhaps resistance is meant to fake or entice the attacker to commit wholly to his action. because he thinks you are stiff and unyielding, he commits force to a path. we can then present a “void” by immediately yielding and gain the advantage.
15 wayne hansen // Apr 30, 2008 at 8:48 am
but he didnt yeild.
16 transit // Apr 30, 2008 at 11:53 am
the quote doesn’t say what he did after resisting…
“drew Marnix aside and told him to resist, rather than just to yield when pushed”
he could’ve yielded immediately after resisting. but you could be right… it’s not spelled out what he did after.
17 wayne hansen // Apr 30, 2008 at 12:27 pm
my bad i was talking about chen xaio wang.
18 Rob Turtle // May 1, 2008 at 3:32 am
Marnix will point out that taijichuan is precisely that… not yin chuan. He also sometimes cites the taiji adage “you can’t use force: you can’t not use force”.
Here are some quotes from an article I hosted for him on an old website…
Wáng Shùjin, my xíngyì and bagùa master in Taiwan, used to cite the concept of hard and soft interpenetrated as in hexagram 63 (Jìjì) of the Book of Change…
Each yang (postive) line lies beneath a yin (negative) line, each in its correct place: the perfect insulation. Another way of putting it is the image of steel wrapped in silk…
On the other-hand my Tàijí pushing-hands teacher, Gan Xìaozhou, a leading disciple of Zhèng Mànqing, used repeatedly to stress: “Even an iota (siháo) of force cannot be used.” Relaxation (fàngsong) must be total…
These two approaches produced differences in practice and form. Wáng stressed the principle of extended power, a firm expansion from the centre of the lower abdomen right through to the tips of the fingers. Gan showed nothing in the limbs and extremities, which were limp and half-collapsed, until the moment for releasing energy (fa jìng)…
The third type of “softness” I encountered in Taiwan, was the explosive energy of Lìao Way-sun (Lìao Wèishan), from the famous martial town of Xilûo, in southern Taiwan. He had grown up with the local Springing Crane (Zonghè) style of kungfu which seems to have helped him assimilate the energies of Yáng-style Tàijí as interpreted by disciples of Zhèng Mànqing in Taibei. Zhèng himself was then in New York, but I was able subsequently to meet him on a visit and push with his disciple Tam Gibbs. His procedure was to position me in front of a wall, and attempt to uproot me onto it - unsuccesfully!
From my perspective, pushing hands with Marnix you definitely get a sense of “springiness”… he will certainly advocate yielding, but only if you need to or otherwise want to. He feels that if you only ever train softness and “giving up” then you are in danger of not being able to handle hardness in a real encounter. This was perhaps first brought home to him on the occasion cited here on the blog, and following occasions when visiting other masters in Taiwan and pushing hands behind closed doors (one memorable quote describing a particular situation which involved moving the feet to “yield” to a push in order to apply a “judo” throw “face rather than posterior suffered more that day”). It is also the reason why he supports competitive pushing hands… if the soft beats the hard then the usual complaint of “using too much force” should surely make it easier to handle and so can hardly be used as an excuse as to why you lost or even why you’re not competing in the first place!
As such we push hands in a number of ways, one of which is very much to keep strong “peng” in the frame at all times and try to absorb and uproot without “yielding” (actually, yielding is of course present, but very small… as the uproot is typically “straight back at ya” it can be misinterpreted as force against force. It isn’t)
Last thought is to relate the above back to another familiar term - that of fajìng which I define as release or expression of power, and discuss as:
Typified by short, sudden, expansion or shocking power, like “releasing the bowstring to shoot an arrow”. The bow stores energy as elastic potential (spring energy): the instant the bowstring is released, potential energy is transfered to the arrow as kinetic energy, sending it out on a given trajectory. Storage and concentrated discharge.
The most efficient manner of storing up energy through the body’s movement and posture is winding/ coiling in and the circle. This implies continuity and re-cycling both your energy and your opponent´s. Having accumulated in the circle, “shoot out” in the straight line (tangential). Power can be produced as a quick rotation around a central axis, yet the intention on release is on the tangent. Thus the physical movement itself will not be precisely linear: the muscles wrap around the bones and joints, binding in, they do not produce pure straight movment without working against one another (tension). “Seek the circular in the bent (, and the straight in the circular)” [qu-zhong qiú-zhí]
19 wayne hansen // May 1, 2008 at 4:24 am
if pushing hands tournaments had no rules i can see your point that soft should overcome hard.
but the rules are set up to favour the hard and unrealistic.
no grabbing or striking the head,this favours the double weighted bend forward from the waist style.
no striking,this favours those who do not yeild to a hand placed on the body.you watch in a real situation someone only has to point at someone in a dangerous situation and they respond.
if i didnt yeild to my teacher when he put a hand in place it was followed by the pain of a short sharp strike.
he would then quote hung i hsiang ‘a student should be stung often and hurt occasionally’
as for the difference between wang and gan,it would be interesting to know gan,s build,because it interests me that wang a big man advocates force,was he just playing to his strength.
chu in london would tell his students if they felt him push to push back harder,needless to say they would be propelled across the room,yet when he got his hands on their body he could not move them far at all.
many of the ways huang hsei hsien taught his art in later years in both exercise and pushing made his students vunerable to the push.
no smart chinese breaks the rice bowl.
20 Marnix Wells and taiji push hands // May 1, 2008 at 9:20 am
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