There’s some interesting discussion going on at the large vs. small frame post I put up a long time ago. The comment was made that Zheng Man-qing’s people are better at push hands than some of the Yang family. That doesn’t surprise me in the least. The answer as to why: they spend a whole lot less time learning forms than others.
Think about it for a minute: the 37 takes just a few months to learn and minutes to do. It’s short and compact. That leaves an awful lot of training time for push hands. I look at people with these huge taiji systems and I rarely see people in those styles that are good at push hands. There’s simply too much “baggage” in the way. You have to go through multiple forms, weapons, etc. and then push hands usually gets pushed ever further back into “some day” territory.
Push hands, grappling, sanshou, etc. are nothing to sneeze at. All those pursuits take a whole lot of time. You won’t master any of them without significant time invested. If they aren’t cornerstones of your training, you’ll likely never get anywhere with them.
People make fun of short forms but they are usually pretty good IMO. You get the meat of the system in a condensed package. If you want more, then do the form slower or multiple times.
20 responses so far ↓
1 Hermann // Jun 2, 2008 at 6:37 pm
Yes, Dave, you are right on.
But my point was, that most ZMQ guys stop with phs, maybe do a little moving step and maybe some sanshou, but they hardly ever get into real sparring. If they got the time out of short form work, why don’t they progress further? Is the typical ZMQ/Yang curriculum or even Taijiquan in general limited to these areas? Or is it just too painful to get hit and thrown as to avoid these sparring injuries?
2 neijia // Jun 2, 2008 at 9:39 pm
> People make fun of short forms
No one seems to make fun of xyq five elements.
> hardly ever get into real sparring
isn’t that true in 99% of tjq schools and students?
3 Chad // Jun 2, 2008 at 9:41 pm
I agree with hermann 100%.
Taiji people in general have an allergy to actually getting down to fighting. Always the cries of “TOO HARD!” or “IT USES MUSCULAR FORCE!”. Pushing hands are games that are suppoed to get you ready for fighting. Most Taji schools never go beyond that point so one wonders-what purpose does tuishou serve to those schools? Most of the taiji people that visit our group are dismayed when the sparring gear comes out.
4 Dave Chesser // Jun 2, 2008 at 11:14 pm
Herman,
I honestly don’t understand the question. Sanshou is free-fighting. How can sparring be beyond that?
If you’re talking about simple sparring with gloves and head gear, etc., then I would say that’s a low-level skill, certainly not a high one. You need to be doing that in your first years of martial training, not at the higher levels of taiji training. You simply can’t wait for years to develop those skills.
5 kenneth fish // Jun 3, 2008 at 5:20 am
1n the 190’s and 1970’s ZMQ and his system were not very popular in Taiwan - in fact they were openly disparaged. There were quite a number of teachers and students with good push hands, most notably Xiong Yanghe and Wang Zehe. In Taipei there was a group that practiced in front of the old Guoji Xueshe that could and did fight at full speed (as opposed to Taiji Sanshou, which was generally a predetermined choreographed set, performed at less than fighting speed, with movements that would be contraindicated in real fighting - for example failing to pull a punch back as fast as it was thrown)
These groups practiced long, open, extended forms in deep postures, did resistance exercise, and generally behaved as if what they were learning was a martial art.
Other groups were “for health”. These were groups who were learning taiji as a calesthenic (including sword etc) and had no real interest in learning how to fight.
ZMQ taiji was generally thought of as “old mans taiji”, and fell into the latter category.
So- my (long winded) point is - at one time the best skills were to be found among teachers who espoused the deep, extended postures and long forms. In Hong Kong even the Wu stylists practiced this way at some point in their training.
To me this makes sense - you train to the furthest extent of your physical ability, then train to use the same skills in a smaller space or movement.
Why is this not the case in Taiwan now (and I am accepting that it is as you say)? Maybe it is the quality of instruction - or a difference in the student body?
6 kenneth fish // Jun 3, 2008 at 5:23 am
that should read “1960’s and 1970’s”
7 wayne hansen // Jun 3, 2008 at 7:21 am
with movements that would be contraindicated in real fighting - for example failing to pull a punch back as fast as it was thrown)
in san shou the blows are not pulled back because they fold according to the opponents force,borrowing his energy to gain an advantage.
the only people who pull back i have seen are karate practicioners,even chinese hard stylists rebound at an advantageous angle.
i have met people from every school of tai chi who have pushing skill.
8 kenneth fish // Jun 3, 2008 at 7:34 am
What I meant was that leaving the striking fist and arm out leaves you vulnerable - and I would disagree with you on the retraction - even when one strikes, “rebounds” and strikes again with the hand closest to the opponent (or traps or guards) one is still retracting and not leaving the arm hanging in space. Ever watch Muhammed Ali throw a punch or a combination?
And again, Taiji San Shou, as I am familiar with it, is a choreographed set.
9 Hermann // Jun 3, 2008 at 7:56 am
Dave, I concure with Kenneth, learned sanshou as the choreographed set “with movements that would be contraindicated in real fighting” (Kenneth), which is still fun to practice, but is by far not the whole thing of free sparring, which I would call sanda. This, of course, also can have different degrees of intensity, but in some stages, I wouldn’ t have missed my mouthpiece, a head gear (my jar was dislocated in Xingyi sparring without it) and some thinner gloves.
Nowadays, I’m more training for myself (age), but I still don’t want to listen from the self proclamed seriuos taiji fighters, who couldn’t defend themselfs in any sd sitaution, for sure, even beeing good at ph.
10 Dave Chesser // Jun 3, 2008 at 10:02 am
Then that just reinforces my point about forms. If the taiji sanshou is only learned as a form, it’s largely useless. I learned the sanshou as an escalation of push hands. That’s the proper way IMO but it’s not like sparring that I did in other arts.
11 wayne hansen // Jun 3, 2008 at 4:05 pm
my teacher was deliberatly taught san shou as an encyclopeida of vaious applications with real fighting value.
he taught me that way and it was only later i learnt to put it together.
12 meow // Jun 3, 2008 at 5:41 pm
i dont see why people dont get it, train technique, train timing, spar
13 José de Freitas // Jun 3, 2008 at 9:48 pm
It is possible to be bad at PH and good at self defense. It is also possible to be good at PH and bad at self defense (by bad you may read “having no knowledge”). The world’s parks and gardens are filled with pretty good Taiji people who are good at PH and wouldn’t be able to defend themselves.
My teacher usually says that we shouldn’t focus or obsess too much on PH. It is just one skill, and good self defense (Taiji-wise) only happens when you put all the skills (not just PH) together in applications. He really dislikes to see us playing too much of the free PH, for example. He’ll say: It’s just shuaijiao, and not very good, at that. For him PH is just one piece of the equation, and for those of us who are interested, he takes us through PH then the moving step patterns, Da Lu and two person form. He falls somewhere in the middle: San Shou form is a repertoire of techniques, examples of what you can do, but it has parts that should be approached like PH.
I’ve never been enthusiastic about PH as a self defense training tool. But I think it does build certain attributes of flowing, non-resisting, sensitivity, leading etc… which can come in handy in self defense. IMHO, being good at PH has nothing to do with practicing Taiji as a martial art - although the later requires PH at some stage. I know many groups who practice reasonably good Taiji (forms-wise) and have good PH, with whom it’s fun to play sometimes, but who do not practice the fighting in any way. PH builds many good things in the body even if you don’t want to learn how to fight, plus it’s fun to do. It has strong psychological impact on the practitioners and is also probably good for your health too.
As for the whole long vs. short forms, I personally prefer to do short forms. This way I always have the option of doing one rep (if I don’t have time for more, or if I’ve just decided to take a break from work or whatever and spend 5 minutes “exercising”) or to do many reps, if I have time. Better yet (IMHO of course) is to learn a bunch of short forms. Our training sessions here with my teacher generally have us doing forms non-stop for about 35-40 minutes, in short blocs of about 5 minutes (except for one of the forms which is 10 mn since we do both sides in mirror). We generally start with Yang Short form, and then do a bunch of four bare-hand forms. One has Xingyi stepping patterns, very alive and nimble, one is totally symettrical, you can do it in a square about 2 meters per side, it has lots of Bagua in it and is very twisty and coiling, one is physically more demanding with lots of squatting and jumping and direction reversals, the last one if more dynamic and mixes Xingyi, Bagua Shaolin, all of the forms use a sort of universal Yang Taiji template - ie. slow moving, continuous, deep stances, and they “look like Yang” in some ways. Doing these forms plus the sword and fan (or broadsword) form is a pretty intense workout for many of the people who do not train for fighting, especially because we do about 15 minutes (of slow) Qigong before. You get a lot of variety in the movements and techniques you are practicing, it’s more fun, and it’s more scalable - you can always jump out of one of the forms to take a rest.
I don’t think there is a difference between doing 4 different Taiji forms of 5 minutes in a row and doing one of the long sets that takes 20 minutes. I know Erle Montaigue usually tells people they’ll harm their health with short forms, but I’ve personally yet to see someone keeling over from doing short forms! There’s a lot of propaganda out there!
14 Chad // Jun 5, 2008 at 7:21 am
Forms just train technique, body awarness, timing, and mechanics. To fight you MUST spar.
15 wayne hansen // Jun 5, 2008 at 1:49 pm
to fight you must fight.
to spar you just spar.
any form of fighting that stops short of death or total debilatation is just a degree of agreed practice,the only question here is what degree is comfortable for each individual.
16 meow // Jun 5, 2008 at 7:28 pm
um, the one that produces the best result and least negative consequences?
17 wayne hansen // Jun 6, 2008 at 5:17 am
i concur
18 C.J.W. // Jun 7, 2008 at 1:26 pm
There are several schools carrying on ZMQ’s teaching in Taiwan that specifically focus on PH. They spend lots of time on free PH practice, repetitive drills, and conditioning. It’s easy to see why they are good at it.
19 David // Jun 10, 2008 at 4:08 am
If this actually is the case (I have not had the pleasure of working with one of the Professors direct students), I would leave it as a testament to Professor Cheng’s amazing Taiji skills and ability to teach. It is not what you do, but how you do it. We should pay more attention to our own practice and study rather than others. There will always be better and lesser than yourself, be happy with your abilities, but always strive for a deeper understanding.
20 Morgan Buchanan // Jun 21, 2008 at 12:00 pm
in terms of the 37 form being quicker to learn, my experience is that it takes about a year to learn the basic frame and a year to correct it in detail. i think the idea is that with a shorter form you have more time to dig deep to get the body/mind connection established. i learnt the 108 from my yang style teacher in about 3 months, i’m still getting valuable form corrections from my cheng man ching style teacher after 7 years. in cmc style less often means more.
cheers
morgan
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