Partner work mistakes
"In the beginning," said Chin
Shih, "I thought
He was the greatest of men.
No longer! When I came to mourn
I found old men lamenting him as their son,
Young men sobbing as though for their mother.
How did he bind them so tight, if not
By words he should never have said
And tears he should never wept.
(Chuang Tzu)
Comprehension
The soft martial art of tai chi is unlike any other martial art.
Students frequently apply opinions and values to tai chi in the hope of
understanding the art in terms of something else.
All this serves to do is delay your progress through the syllabus and deny you
any real understanding at all.
Remember that a beginner is only exposed to a portion
of the overall syllabus.
(i) Defender
You must never force a rooted person to move. This is just strength against
strength and is not tai chi.
If your partner does not move you must change your relationship relative to them
by stepping or turning.
Make it difficult for the person to balance.
Stay slightly out of range, so that your attacker must step to reach you.
Stepping involves commitment.
Timing is essential.
If your partner is awkward and resistant, strike them, but do not push into
them.
Make the strike percussive.
Feel the physics: when you exert force, much of it comes back into you. What is
the sense in that?
(ii) Attacker
If you are playing the attacker, do not be too awkward. Ask yourself: are you
being realistic?
An awkward attacker is still vulnerable to striking, no matter how strong they
think they are.
The human body has areas of fundamental weakness. When you are struck, your body
will weaken.
Being awkward may prove difficult if you are in pain or otherwise compromised.
Exuberant play is the key. Have fun. Do not turn a training exercise into a
contest.
(iii) Peng development drills
Certain exercises require you to test a person's peng by pushing against a
connected student:
4 directions (with a partner) - bow & rear bow
Palm at 3 distances
Posture testing
Solo qigong exercises that need to be tested for structural stability i.e. plate exercise
The connected student must not tense-up
or push back. They should maintain the posture without collapsing.
Ideally, you should feel soft and springy, with a notable 'give'. You
yield, but maintain connection.
Do not mistake these exercises for application.
In all other exercises, drills and partnered sets, you must yield when force is
exerted upon you.
The connection should be internally maintained but you follow the line of force
in order to borrow its energy.
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Many beginners like
to 'try it on' during a training exercise.
They apply throat holds and techniques, and refuse to let go when their partner
has performed a restrained counter.
Drills are not fighting.
They serve a simple purpose: to teach a principle, skill or sensibility.
If you make every game into 'life or death', then what are you learning? What
are others learning when they train with you?
When training a drill, do not ask about the self defence component or what you
would do next in a 'real life' situation.
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Committing two hands
to holding one limb is pretty dumb.
What is your partner doing with their other arm, or their legs?
There are a number of tai chi movements that are applied with two hands on one,
but they are not holds, they are strikes.
We never attempt to restrain the attacker.
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The attacker
frequently tries to grab or hold the defender in class, because these are common
forms of attack.
The defender should never reciprocate.
Your aim is to yield and flow like water. Can you hold water?
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The striking methods
of tai chi are not suitable for full power training.
We are learning self defence, which means that restraint is your primary
concern.
If you cannot regulate how much power you are using, then you are clumsy and
will not advance very far through the syllabus.
People who are desperate to practice full contact work are naive about
consequence.
There is no honour in injuring somebody or beating them down with your bare
hands.
Students learn to always make contact and never pull their punches short of the
target.
Every blow must touch the opponent and have power. The degree of power is
carefully controlled.
It is important to respect your practice partner and avoid harming them.
Full contact work tends to be upon target pads, not other people. Although
learning to hit and take a hit is important.
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There is no use of muscular tension in
tai chi.
Until you understand this, you will never make real progress in the HSD
syllabus.
Bow tension, inherent peng and groundpath involve no tensing whatsoever.
Only the least experienced student continues to use muscular tension as they
progress through the syllabus. But you cannot go very far until you have shed
this misconception.
Tai chi uses jing, not li. Do not perform it like an external art. Your touch
must be feather-light.
Imperceptible.
The art is predicated by yielding. Yielding is everything. Without it, you are
not even doing tai chi.
If you are found to be using tension at any point in the syllabus you will be
placed in a revision group in order to get rid of this bad habit.
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Tai chi speed is not accomplished by
being fast.
It is about relaxing the nervous system and being smooth. Seeing opportunities
and doing only what you need to do. This requires sensitivity and awareness.
Subtle.
Try never to alert you attackers nervous system by using jerky movement.
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The beginners syllabus lays the
foundation for self defence.
Your first real test of self defence skill will be the self defence challenges
that occur in your grading.
Completing the challenges means that you have enough confidence in the material
to use it in an unpredictable situation.
A beginner should not be 'sparring' with people outside of class
(friends/family) or otherwise fighting.
You are simply not ready for this.
You are only studying a limited percentage of the overall syllabus.
There is plenty of vigorous self defence work ahead of you. So be patient and
learn the basics.
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Remember that a
beginner is only exposed to a fraction of the overall syllabus.
What assumptions can you make based on a fragment of the whole?
Can you earnestly claim to have mastered any of the drills you are learning?
Mastery means that you can perform it effortlessly; without thought, without
trying.
It does not mean that you have finished learning. There is always more to learn.
Some beginners make the mistake of thinking that they have 'got it'.
All knowledge is provisional and subject to change.
One is taught in accordance with ones fitness to learn.
(The Silent Flute)
As you change, your insights change.
What you know now will seem naive in 5 years time.
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There are no techniques in our tai chi.
External techniques and applications have no place in our school.
Please leave your past at the door and open your mind to the new.
We are teaching options, variables, possibilities, openings, opportunities and
physics.
A technique is a fixed response. It involves deliberate planning and conscious
thought.
Can you commit to a technique when the attacker has friends?
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(i) Teaching
Do not ask other students to show you material unless they are a recognised
helper. If somebody asks you to do this, decline.
Leave the teaching to sifu.
If he wants you to show something to your partner, he will ask you to do it
directly.
Only the most naive person asks another novice to teach them. The blind
leading the blind?
(ii) Advice
You are quite welcome to give the following advice to your practice partner:
You are tense
You are using force against me
You are banging against me
You are just using your arms
You are being clumsy/rough/brutal/holding my throat
You are trying it on
You have lost your composure
You are leaning
You are off-balance
You are not making contact when you strike
These are easily observable faults and
you do not need to be a teacher to see them.
If you choose to ignore somebody who wants to help you, then that is your choice
and also your shortcoming.
(iii) Assistant instructors
If an assistant instructor or a class senior offers to show you something, that
is alright.
Sifu Waller endorses their assistance.
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A tai chi student cannot get very far
without studying tao.
There is simply no way that you could really understand what you are learning
unless you are reading a verse of Tao Te Ching each day.
Persevere. It will not be easy. Krishnamurti is a great help, as are the other
books.
There is a reading list on the main site that you might consider printing off
and purchasing.
Taoism is not a religion. It is ancient Chinese physics and insight.
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If your first instinct is to use your
hands, you are already failing.
Move the body first.
Place your hands by all means, but do not use them. Use the body and let the
hands connect as part of the whole.
Advanced material looks more hands-oriented, but this is an illusion. The
internal is simply less apparent.
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Be patient with yourself. Ploughing
through the syllabus will not work. Take your time. Understand the aim of the
drill. Learn the skill being taught by the drill. What’s the rush?
Without the basics, your progress will be slow.
You will only pass your belts if you can demonstrate the basic skills.
The ongoing syllabus will elude the impatient student.
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It is quite easy to
fall into bad habits during partner work. The training needs to remain crisp and
purposeful.
Each exercise is designed to train particular skills. Sloppy practice reduces
the effect of the exercise.
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Consider the purpose of the exercise:
what skill are you training?
If in doubt, ask - there is no point fumbling with the drill.
With the purpose clear in mind, it is possible to consider the way in which you
are addressing the partnered exercise.
Are you practicing the fundamentals?
Is your positioning good?
Do your muscles contract at any point? Have you come to rely upon speed and
strength?
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During pushing legs practice you should
be practicing yielding and neutralising.
Often, people simply neutralise.
It is important to let your partner yield to your leg and in turn, yield to
theirs.
Build-up from the initial skill and then make it more complicated.
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People usually rush this exercise and
the redundancy is very high.
Most of the opportunities are lost by not taking the time to work around your
partners limb and experience their tension and balance.
Yield.
With practice, this drill will enable you to see without your eyes once contact
is established.
Do not waste the exercise by being careless.
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Do not push against a stationary
opponent and do not allow them to exert force upon you.
4 ounces of pressure must be maintained at all times during every partner drill
hands and tai chi application.
If the exercise feels difficult or your partner is stiff, then yield.
Be very careful to connect through your body and aim at your partners centre.
Do not get caught in a 'circling hands' game.
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Page created 5 August 1999