Competition Pushing Hands: all Bull and no Matador?

From amongst the Monkey Army,two or three young and not-so-young bucks are revving up their tai chi thing to prepare for the annual slogfest which is the Oxford Chinese Martial Arts Tournament in Blackbird Leys, Oxford. I think this year I'll sit this one out: I've never been much good at competitions...
The first time I competed in Fixed Step, my opponent outfoxed me with a bizarre tactic not seen before nor since: he would simply grab my hand and touch it on the floor. Completely unlikely I know. In the Moving Step I was unaware of the number of rounds and lost by a single point, thinking I had more time. For my second visit, I fared better in the Fixed Step, ultimately losing to a fellow who used the same technique on me sixteen times. In the second round, I got him back with one sole technique, but only fifteen times. In the Moving, the referee kept penalising me for grabbing the shirt, which, when someone's wearing a long-sleeved baggy jersey, is pretty hard not to do. The opponent even apologised to me when he won on penalties, having been thrown about like a small sack of potatoes for most of the round. Ah well.

It's good to put oneself under pressure in an event such as this. Quite frankly one learns that 90% of technique and skill goes out of the window, and that luck plays a leading role. I think to concentrate exclusively on competition-style tai chi can limit one's scope and deftness, and that the way the bouts themselves are structured doesn't help, but on the other hand  if you are looking for a good-old fashioned ire-fuelled ruckus, then weigh up and sign up. Good luck, morituri te salutant and all that.

The Gloom is coming for me...

Friends have said that I've put on years, that I have about me the air of a lifer, like Red in the Shawshank Redemption only without the folksy charm (and the murder record...). Yes, I've joined the doomed ranks: on Monday I taught my first tai chi lesson, swiftly followed by another the next day. I am now (technically) a tai chi teacher. My merciful students as yet have spared me the Big Question: "What is chi?", but I know it's out there, further along the road, waiting for me. Amongst the Monkey Army we often like to talk about The Gloom, but always keeping it from the vulnerable ears of any brand-new neophytes that might be present. The Gloom takes a year or two to kick in, and is exemplified in the line from the Classics: "Do a bitter practice". The Gloom can be triggered by a number of things. The aforementioned question will do it. Attendance at any large tai chi gathering will also suffice. More often it comes when the full enormity of the tai chi task is realised, that no matter how many hours you put in, it'll never be enough...
The goalposts are not only moving; they are set in quicksand and made of jelly.
Make no mistake: there is considerable Gloom surrounding the practice of tai chi, despite the cheerfully Californian leanings of some of its practitioners. But I claim the right, along with footsoldiers of all ages past, to some quality grousing and moaning time. Secretly, I love the Gloom. Being British, if I do not spend at least two hours a day beefing about something, my head will implode.
Oh, and thanks to the poor, innocent students who showed up.

Pushing Hands...like,cosmic dude. Really.

The captain of our fine Monkey Army is really coming up with the good stuff at the moment, and this new approach to pushing hands is no exception. The problem is, it's difficult enough to explain in the lesson, let alone in print. I expect you think that now I'm going to quote that Lao-Tzu thing about "he who knows doesn't speak" and all, but I'm not if only because it's becoming like a kind of disclaimer for wannabe -Taoist types trying to be mysterious. The idea is this (and it's not a new one,only to us....) you line up for Pushing Hands as per normal, except that this time you apply the bit from the Classics "Do not move befeore you oponent moves; when he moves, move quicker." And so you wait, and I mean really wait...
You have to keep your own intent and movements slight enough to catch the slightest whisper of effort from the opponent but you're not concentrating on what he/she is doing you are merely maintainng your own structure. You have the intent to push but you aren't pushing, you are letting the opportunity to push arise from , well, wherever it arises and then suddenly it happens, the push comes...
Bah, I knew it wuld be useless to try and explain. Give it a go. And don't come round here bothering me anymore, pesky kids...Try reading "Zen in the Art of Archery" by Eugen Herrigel overlooking his worrying later tendencies in life.

Procrastination rules...

Sorry for the lack of posts: I have been moving house and getting deeply involved with flatpack furniture. Normal service will resume soon...

Will the real tai chi chuan please stand up...?

Tai chi is known primarily for the handforms, for the particular way they look and the slow speed at which they are often performed. As I practise more, becoming ever more cantankerous and opinionated, I feel that this is one-hundred percent wrong. These aforementioned qualities are indeed part of the syllabus; but they are not the most salient characteristics of tai chi chuan: rather, it is the way we apply ourselves martially as guided by the tai chi ethos which stands out in comparison to other martial arts.
I have discussed before (see the post underneath) the notion of styles or trends of violence and of fighting, and part of the problem with tai chi chuan justifying itself martially is that few seem to be able to work out just what it should look like when someone "uses" their tai chi. This is how we end up with tai chi being tacked on to kung-fu syllabuses, or why tai chi-trained full contact fighters sometimes resemble bad kickboxers, or appalling wrestlers (there are of course many exceptions to this...)
The fact is that the competitions designed to showcase the art, by their very design, encourage training that is not particularly relevant to a tai chi syllabus. Pressure testing, conditioning and fitness aside, sparring on a large matted area with gloves and headguards on goes against the great majority of the skills we acquire in our training. The same goes for fixed and moving step competitions, if not even more so. The very movement approach of tai chi is unique: looking to close down the opponent, looking to make contact at the earliest possible moment, then using our sensitivity to spot holes, strike and go for the throw or sweep, all the while maintaining superlative evasion skills. I think I would go as far as to get rid of fixed step as an event altogether. Moving step would be amalgamated with the full-contact, with much smaller matted areas, the removal of gloves and starting from a non-contact position. This approach would allow grappling and evasion skills to come to the fore. Controversial or not? Give me your thoughts tai chi fans...
Here's a video of the late Chen Tin Hung showing us what his tai chi looks like...

Barbarians at the gate of the Big Apple

Today I read that New Yorkers apparently are against hosting and promoting UFC fights in their city, an idea put forward in order to inject some cash in to the city economy. Critics of the "Ultimate Fighting Championships" argue that the sport is barbaric and brutish. I couldn't agree more; at the same time, as a martial arts practitioner, I find it to be compelling viewing.
Violence, like any cultural phenomenon, goes through fashions. Here in Britain, knife-crime is in the spotlight: youths that have confused notions about respect and esteem are bolstering their weak characters with easy-to-obtain, easily concealed and horribly deadly blades. Initiatives to fight knife crime in fact seem to have had the opposite effect in certain areas: the more exposure knives get, the more popular they seem to become. As far as the popularisation of violent trends goes, there is no such thing as bad publicity.
Many people when it comes to street violence,  try to model their physical efforts upon boxing.In British pubs, or rather outside them, people don't square off for a wrestle or a capoeira match. They try to hit each other.  There is a notion that fighting should look a certain way, and the spread of UFC may result in copycat "ground and pound"-type attacks. The preference for discerning thugs at the moment is to apply the boot to the head, after accompanying flunkeys have knocked a lone opponent to the floor. I'm not sure where this delicate technique derives from: football hooliganism maybe?  At least ground and pound is one-on-one...
For the story: http://www.usatoday.com/sports/mma/2009-05-07-ny-regulation_N.htm

George Leonard dies at 86

I have just learnt that George Leonard, aikido pioneer and human potential movement writer, died on the 6th of January aged 86: an obituary was printed in The New York Times.