I like games. I think they can teach us things that patterns and freeplay sometimes can’t. Patterns are fixed examples of principles that should be worked into the body. Freeplay exists at the other end of the spectrum, bringing all of our stuff together. In the middle is a bit of a no-man’s land that can be difficult for us to bridge. I think this is where games come in.
Two games that I played this morning are designed to build listening skills (ting jin) by isolating some parts of the zhan/nian/lian/sui process (those are roughly translated as listening, adhering, following, etc.).
The first game I would suggest is “stick at all costs.” Two people face each other in normal push hands postures and join hands. One guy then tries to move in various ways while the second guy does his best to stick no matter what to other person. No attacks are allowed and I suggest planting the feet. Just one person sticking no matter where the other person is.
I did this with someone taller than me and I had him deliberately try to prevent me from sticking to him by extending his hand far behind his body or above his head. I was not able to stick to his arm any longer so I let me hand rub down his arm as he moved it beyond my range until my hand rested on his shoulder or even torso. As his hand and arm came back within range as he moved, I rubbed my hand back down the arm. This way I was able to stick to his body even when he disengaged my arm.
This ability to stick to the body is pretty important. We often tend to stop with the arms but that’s a bad idea.
Try this game out and let me know what you think. It should greatly increase your sticking ability.
6 responses so far ↓
1 Joseph Crandall // May 8, 2008 at 9:33 pm
Ralston’s group has been doing exercises like this for years. They are very helpful.
2 Dave Chesser // May 8, 2008 at 10:00 pm
Joe,
I know he listed some at the back of the tuishou book but I haven’t even read that far yet. I always get stuck working the chewy stuff before that. I’ll take a look at those. Thanks for the tip.
3 ppscat // May 9, 2008 at 12:19 am
We practice that too. Try as a next step to see in which situations the inside and outside (yin/yang) of your hands/arms is in contact with the opponents’ inside/outside, and so isolate games where only yang-yang contact is possible, then yin-yang, etc.
4 wayne hansen // May 9, 2008 at 4:52 am
i will give you two sticking drills.
1. when your partner is retreating just stop to see if he is listening.if he creates a gap he is not listening.
2.when you are retreating as he starts to come towards you just slip under to his ribs.if he does not follow he is not listening.
these two simple exercises would be a perfect way to test listening in ph comps.
before any attack is allowed you must circle continuiosly without loosing contact.
if you loose contact 3 times you go no further.
this would weed out those who rely on brute force.
the one provisor is that you dont markedly change speed to loose your partner.
after a certain amount of circling the ref. would blow a whistle to signle game on.
5 Hermann // May 9, 2008 at 11:02 am
Yes, really nice exercises, you have to train, if really interested in developing listening.
6 meow // May 9, 2008 at 8:11 pm
very kool idea, i rekn at some stage though, you would have to retrain your skills back into a combative mindset / context in order for them to be useful
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