Teaching a Live-Dummy to be Soft!?!

[geezer]

Just a quick observation. The other day I was working a chi-sau drill and having trouble with a particular movement. My training partner noted that I was forcing the movement, and not being soft. I suddenly flashed back to something vaguely similar in the Dummy form, relaxed and adjusted my technique, and the problem was solved. Now, I've seen people get violent and go at the dummy all hard-style, but how's that gonna help you with a couple of hundred pounds of hardwood? No, the wooden dummy is unbeatably hard so we live-dummies can learn to be soft! Any thoughts?

[skinters]

some people are all flash on the dummy either real fast or giving it large .
sounds like your hitting the dummy right,also there is only so much you can take going all out on the dummy ,i would rather good technique any day.

whats the saying ....ahh got it ...quality instead of quantity ..well you get the drift .

[mook jong man]

I was always told " You can't hurt the wooden dummy , but the wooden dummy can hurt you " .

One thing i remember from watching my sifu and experienced instructors is that they never smashed the dummy when they trained on it , they flowed into and around the arms like water .

Its usually the novices who go smashing the crap out of it , so it makes a big noise and everyone in the place stops and looks and says wow isn't he good .

To the uninitiated it looks impressive , but in our lineage it is actually the incorrect way of using the dummy and shows the student has a very shallow understanding of its use.

[geezer]

I was always told " You can't hurt the wooden dummy , but the wooden dummy can hurt you " .

One thing i remember from watching my sifu and experienced instructors is that they never smashed the dummy when they trained on it , they flowed into and around the arms like water .

Its usually the novices who go smashing the crap out of it , so it makes a big noise and everyone in the place stops and looks and says wow isn't he good .

To the uninitiated it looks impressive , but in our lineage it is actually the incorrect way of using the dummy and shows the student has a very shallow understanding of its use.

Very well put. The same is true in my lineage.

[qwksilver61]

It brings me back to a couple of past lessons.Big tough (true) Sifu Emin telling me I was tense.I thought about it for a long while....you absolutely can attain (flexible) power from being relaxed....where the mind goes the body will follow....two cents....