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| Sensitivity (2) | ||
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In
partner work, there is no winning or losing, no end
conclusion.
Partnered exercise is a process, a way of exploring your tai chi, feeling
how your body responds.
The role of the other person is not to compete with you, but to assist you.
They are not cooperating, or making life easy for you. They are making you work
hard, and this can be very helpful indeed.
Drills
Sensitivity exercises are not the same as
combat drills.
Rather than simply train habit patterns, the aim is to work
in response to the
ongoing actions of your partner.
You must be fluid, mobile
and adaptive.
Pushing hands
This exercise teaches the body to relax and
yield when it encounters force.
Instead of using strength, students learn to apply pressure and
yield like ice melting.
Accomplishing this skill fulfils one of the main
precepts of tai chi which states that no more than 4 ounces of pressure must be applied or
received at any
time. We offer single and double pushing hands.
Pushing legs
This is akin to pushing hands but uses the legs
at close range.
It offers a creative
means of really feeling your own leg and how it responds to your partner.
Balance, central equilibrium and timing are practiced.
Yielding basic skills
This is the umbrella name for a series of
exercises designed to encourage a more comprehensive sense of your partner and
where they are positioned relative to you.
Everything from basic balance training, to escapes and chin na are explored
within these exercises.
Posture testing
When the
loose structure is
pressure-tested, the body
may tense in resistance and contract.
By tensing, the body
amplifies the effect of any impact upon it.
In tai chi, this is not favourable, we learn to 'roll with the punch'
instead.
The muscles and joints
must be loose and mobile at all times.
4 ounces exercise
This simple exercise is based on the Wang
Tsung-yueh premise: A feather cannot be placed, and
a fly cannot alight on any part of the body.
Instead of offering resistance, the student learns just how much pressure is
required, and yields accordingly.
Melee
The ultimate sensitivity drill takes away your ability to think.
You are forced to rely entirely upon touch and apply the syllabus creatively
against the unknown.
There are a number of different
melee scenarios in our
curriculum.
Competitive?
If two students trained the 2 person form - and
at the end of the set one student claimed victory - it would be absurd.
Such an attitude entirely defeats the purpose of the exercise.
Tai chi partnered exercises (such as pushing hands) were not designed as a
means of competition. They serve to improve practice by enabling both
parties to work on their own skills at the same time.
This is not a competitive venture.
Know thyself
Working with someone else provides valuable feedback about your own practice. It
is not about them (the other person). It is about you.
You can determine whether there are any gaps & deficiencies in your training,
and improve accordingly.
Sensitive to yourself
You can also explore your attitude, emotions and ego. And this may prove to be
exceptionally insightful, if you care to pay attention to what is occurring.
Are you angry? Emotional? Afraid? Do you want to one-up your partner? Are you
physically tense? Are you anticipating or going with the flow? Is there
something you are seeking to prove?
Can you yield? Do you have peng? Are you sticky? Are you using force or jing?
Are you soft and pliable or hard and brittle?
Releasing tension
How often do you truly relax? Do you
consciously, deliberately let go of held tension in the muscles and joints, in
the spine?
Shoulders, hips, elbows and knees are normally very tense in most people. The
habit of tension is so ingrained that you are completely unaware of it;
believing yourself relaxed despite being far from it.
To be sensitive to other people, you must start by being sensitive to your own
body.
Constructive rest
If you want to feel your own tension and release it, constructive rest is a good
place to start.
Then, during form and qigong ask yourself how you are making the movements, and
feel for extraneous tension.
There will be a lot.
Your inability to feel the tension does not mean that you are free of tension.
It means that you are insensitive to the tension.
The ability to sense and control
the 'soft' spot is also the basis of the idea stated in The Tai Chi Classics of
'deflecting a thousand pounds with four ounces'.
(Wolfe Lowenthal)
Page
created 9 January 1996
Last updated
16 June 2023
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