Personally, I don't believe in tai chi push hands competitions. I've been to many push hands competitions as an observer and all the times what I see is often the contest of brute force and wrestling. Real tai chi skills are totally non existence in these push hands competitions. In the last competition I went to, I witnessed 3 tai chi chuan veterans embarrassed by youngsters who have only practised tai chi chuan push hands for less than 1 or 2 years. These veterans have been doing tai chi for more than decades.
Most competitors are too eager to win in competition and right from the start they push and struggle with each other hoping to score points and win the competition. Many competitors rely on external techniques to win over their opponents. Hardly do I see any real tai chi skills of adhere, stick, follow, neutralize and fajin.
At one time I have the "privilege" to push hands with one 3 times national push hand champion. He admitted to win in push hand competition, tai chi skills are not enough. The aggressor usually has advantage. We started a friendly match and for a moment it was like pushing hand with a sumo wrestler. He put all his body weights in front and aggressively attempting to push me. I refused to let him land his weight and strength on me, maintaining light contact I can easily neutralized his aggression. many times he almost lunge himself to the ground because of putting too much weight in front.
In that short 5 minutes push hands, I managed to push him away neatly more than 10 times to zero. And he was grasping for air. I am not against push hands competition, but we need to be careful not to neglect tai chi principle of not opposing and let loose. It is better to loss correctly than to win incorrectly. Invest in loss and it will pay you handsomely later.
2 comments:
I appreciate your writings on t'ai chi, and wish you posted more regularly...
As another observer of push hands competitions, although not so skilled, I have some of the same thoughts about them. Formal competition of that kind inevitably distorts the learning process, it seems to me (although I enjoy informal competition!)
While I appreciate that Competition Push Hands is most often not representative of the best of Tai Chi Chuan, my recent explorations of the format have led to interesting results. Heightened responsiveness and increased Ting Jin as well as a deepening moving root and Pung have come from my recent additions of ‘competition style’ interactions and drills.
My current opinion (which is constantly expanding and refining) is that there is significant martial value in non cooperative play with others. Going into contact with someone who will do all they can to move you is a chance to deepen one's understanding of self and of the principles of Tai Chi and how one applies them.
Is Competitive Push Hands a good demonstration of the principles of Tai Chi? I think it most often is not, but can be. In your description above you indicated that you were able to utilize principle based responses to aggressive strength, weight, and momentum based attacks. Isn't this the promise Tai Chi makes? If one does not 'throw oneself into the fire' how can one test if the application of the principles are correct? I fear there is much self delusion and groupthink that easily invades all human endeavors and Tai Chi classes are no exception. Playing Tui Shou with others who have aggressive intent is a wonderful way to remove the self delusions of mastery that can creep in, and tournaments are a surefire place to find those folks.
I'm preparing for my first competition this month. In my preparations I've heard from many a previous competitor that one of the big challenges is the judging, most who have competed do not wish to do so again because of the inconsistencies and conflicting focuses, so I'll see if that dampens my interest. But so far it's been an enjoyable journey, and I’d recommend folks give it a try.
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