Back from Hiatus; Push Hands with a vengence!

At the lesson just before I left, I decided to try out Sinking energy(沉劲), or whatever of it that I have. The results turned out to be quite positive! When you want to sink, just project the sinking into your hand and it makes a difference! The guy I was like tired out after just a few rounds! Hehe! Asking me how I managed to keep all his movements in check. Seriously, I did nothing much!

Just mentally have my Intention focused on the sinking part.

However, when doing so, a common mistake is that the hand will tense up so look out for that. Remember the secret is to be relaxed!

Although here I say to have the Intention focused on the sinking part, I think with much practice, the sinking part will sink into your taiji without much focused Intention.

During that lesson, my teacher was also explaining about the circles in push hands. He was saying that just in a small circular motion of the hand, the opponent's move is neutralised....I started to get something, but..........I need to try it out....until next time!

Why do I have Shaking hands?

I am really liking the Sun Style more and more, especially the movements, which are close and fluid. The opening and closing hands which brings your mind back to what you are doing and concentrates your intentions. I don't know if anyone else has this experience, but it almost seems like some kind of qigong to me!

However, when practising Sun Style very slowly, my hands tend to shake uncontrollably and my movements tend to be a little jerky. It sort of resemble machines which have parts that are not sufficiently oiled. I wonder where the problem lies......Does anyone know of this or experienced this before?

the-empty-leg-the-full-leg-puzzle from Zenmindsword

I refer to the full leg and empty leg puzzle on ritualcat/zenmindsword's blog: http://ritualcat.wordpress.com/2006/06/06/emans-the-empty-leg-the-full-leg-puzzle

I had to post my comments here because somehow I have to 'log in' before I can post any comments.

I can't really see the pics clearly, when i click to save them they are always too small for me to figure out anything.

But the empty leg part, I take it that the guy is tripping the back leg(weighted leg)? Well, I think as a taiji player, we have trained to and should know the opponent's movements quite well and should not let him have a chance to do so. The weighted, unweighted leg technique is used to increase our mobility so the transition time should be short. However, in the case he does so and the other leg is still not down, jump?

The full leg part. In taiji, my teacher always tells us to attack till 70%, and save 30% for yourself. And when retreating, do the opposite, do not sit back all the way, so the thing is to neutralise before you reach the 100% mark. But in the case if we do reach, then it is good luck man!

And thanks for the kind compliments form zenmindsword. But from the short meeting I had with him, I realised that my depth of technique and skill are still very far from his. Especially when he was demonstrating his techniques, his eyes looked very different from that of normal players. You can really see the concentration from the eyes, sort of reminded me of the descriptions of the eyes of Yang Cheng Fu and Wu Jian Quan when they did their forms or pushed hands.

Correct, Correct, Nothing wrong with it!

Sometimes, as you practise the routine by yourself, you tend to add in new elements and your own style. However, sometimes, these things that we add in are not correct and would lead to inefficient movement or imbalance etc.

So, yesterday, as I was thinking about my routine, I realised that I had forgotten the way he taught us to do High Pat Horse(高探马) and decided to ask him about it.

As I demonstrated, he corrected a part of it. After that, I demostrated Left Split Leg(左分脚) and High Pat Horse With Piercing Palm(高探马带穿掌) from High Pat Horse and asked him how were they. To my surprise, he said, "Correct, correct, nothing wrong with it!( 对，对，没错！)"

I was estatic! It was the first time I got away with a such a positive comment after this past one plus years of taichi. It felt like a recognition of the effort I have put in! I was happy. I was glad.