How would a high level Tai Chi martial artist do against a high level MMA?

[Tez3]

I'd say both the person and the techniques have to be tested. Ideally in as many ways possible (for both the person and the techniques).

The thing is the techniques in themselves don't need to be tested, they work, what you are doing is testing whether you can do the techniques when you need to, physically the techniques are easy, doing them under duress with a calm mind rather than a panicking one not so easy. People are concentrating on techniques as if they've just been invented and they don't know they work, of course they do, you are testing your ability to use them not the actual techniques themselves.
A roundhouse kick to the head works, no one can dispute that so it's not the roundhouse kick you are testing it's your abilities to use it. people need to separate the technique from the ability to make the technique work, if you can't make it work it's not the techniques fault is it?

 

[Flying Crane]

Because being insular is the way to go?

Are you making random guesses now?

 

[Flying Crane]

Yes. He's a competitive grappler.

Then you continue to be wrong.

 

[Flying Crane]

Competition push hands may not match up with your use of the exercise, but that "shoving match" involves genuine skill and technique. From my standpoint, I can see martial application for that skill, so I would say that there is benefit to be had. I'm not saying those benefits are any better or worse than what you get out of your approach to push hands, but I'm saying they are definitely there.



Just because you can apply something in a fraction of a second doesn't make it not grappling. Ronda Rousey will practice continuous uchikomis in the gym so that she can throw someone in the cage in a fraction of a second.



For me, it's an exercise for developing sensitivity, balance, and structure in the context of medium-to-close range contact with another person. Furthermore, it helps develop skill in manipulating the other person's balance and structure. For a minority of tai chi practitioners, it's also a competitive martial sport.



Okay, in the pub altercation, an aggressor might initiate contact through shoving, or tackling, or throwing a punch which the defender might block and stick to. In this period of contact (which might be short or extended), the defender could use the skills and attributes developed through push hands to maintain his own balance and disrupt his attacker's balance, possibly even applying a throw or armlock.

Using said attributes to apply and defend against strikes would be more the province of sticky hands than push hands, but there is some overlap in the skills being developed between the two training methodologies.





I'm curious - how exactly are you working with your training partners to test your techniques?



Eh, Kung Fu Wang's methodology as described is oversimplified for a variety of reasons, but there is some definite value to the underlying concepts he is working with. I think I may write up a post soon examining some of those concepts.



I'd say both the person and the techniques have to be tested. Ideally in as many ways possible (for both the person and the techniques).

I've seen those push hands competitions live and in person. The skill is minimal. It's mostly brute strength shoving.

 

[Hanzou]

I've seen those push hands competitions live and in person. The skill is minimal. It's mostly brute strength shoving.

So now all of the sudden competitive Tushiou requires minimal skill?

Interesting.

 

[Flying Crane]

So now all of the sudden competitive Tushiou requires minimal skill?

Interesting.

When you try to cram a square peg into a round hole, that's what happens. That's what happens when you turn push hands into a competition.

But when your only experience with Taiji is thru YouTube videos, well you are going to have a piss-poor understanding of what is really going on. I am happy to keep pointing out to you that you know nothing of Taiji. You are welcome to wallow in your ignorance and ignore the education that people here are willing to give you. But when you keep spouting nonsense, well I'll keep telling you that you are wrong.

 

[Tony Dismukes]

The thing is the techniques in themselves don't need to be tested, they work, ... People are concentrating on techniques as if they've just been invented and they don't know they work, of course they do, ...

Really? Which techniques? All of them? You think every technique taught in every martial art is fully proven and equally valid? I don't.

I would say that most techniques taught in a martial arts school could work, given the right context and circumstances. That doesn't mean that they are all good and any failure to apply them is down to the individual being able to hold up under pressure.

I wrote a blog post a while back about high-percentage vs low-percentage techniques.

Some techniques are relatively useful and reliable in a wide variety of situations and don't rely on having skill and attributes vastly superior to your opponent. Those would be high-percentage techniques.

Other techniques are useful in fewer circumstances or rely on having superior attributes. Those are lower percentage.

Some techniques can work, but are risky. Others are safer and carry less of a penalty for failure.

Some techniques can be effective, but only in certain specific circumstances. Depending on the instructor, those circumstances may not be correctly explained.

Some techniques were valid as applied in their original context, but through generations of teachers who have never used them in a combative setting, the details and understanding to make them functional have been lost.

Some techniques could theoretically work, but would require superior skill and attributes, an incompetent opponent attacking in an unnatural way, and quite a bit of luck.

When I was in the Bujinkan, I was taught some techniques that I can guarantee have never been used by anyone in a real fight ever and never will be. That can happen when an instructor gets creative working with a compliant uke who feeds a highly stylized and unrealistic attack. (I'm not dissing everything taught in the Bujinkan, just some specific moves.)

Testing a technique is about establishing where it falls in the categories above. You really need a community of martial artists testing the techniques in a variety of settings over time to do it right. If I find a technique that works well for me, but only 1% of practitioners can get it to work, then it's probably not the best move to make the mainstay of my schools curriculum. Contrariwise, there might be another technique that just isn't reliable for me, but works well for lots of other people.

 

[Tony Dismukes]

I've seen those push hands competitions live and in person. The skill is minimal. It's mostly brute strength shoving.

Hmm. I've been watching some push hands competition and I can absolutely see genuine skill. The technique may not be the same as what you are used to. It may not be the kind you like. It may not be very pretty. You may not be able to see it, but it is definitely there. It is not just a test of who is stronger.

 

[Hanzou]

When you try to cram a square peg into a round hole, that's what happens. That's what happens when you turn push hands into a competition.

But when your only experience with Taiji is thru YouTube videos, well you are going to have a piss-poor understanding of what is really going on. I am happy to keep pointing out to you that you know nothing of Taiji. You are welcome to wallow in your ignorance and ignore the education that people here are willing to give you. But when you keep spouting nonsense, well I'll keep telling you that you are wrong.

I'll just state that it takes quite a bit of skill to keep a skilled grappler like Marcelo Garcia from taking you down. So Chen being able to keep Garcia from establishing a grappling top game shows that there's definitely some skill involved in Tushiou practice.

 

[Flying Crane]

Hmm. I've been watching some push hands competition and I can absolutely see genuine skill. The technique may not be the same as what you are used to. It may not be the kind you like. It may not be very pretty. You may not be able to see it, but it is definitely there. It is not just a test of who is stronger.

Fair enough. I see otherwise.

As I keep saying, push hands was not meant as a competition. It was meant as a training drill. Turning it into competition bastardized it and, in my opinion, undermines the very skills it was meant to develop. And judging Taiji by these competitions, or the skill of a taiji guy by his involvement in these competitions, fails in a huge way to understand what Taiji is and what it has and what it is all about.

 

[mograph]

FWIW ... when I timed a push-hands competition, I saw a lot of guys shoving each other around, using strength against strength. Yep, that can be useful in a number of contexts, but it's not high-level sensitivity according to taijiquan yin-yang principles.

But there was one guy who competed according to principles: he waited (while both players were touching) and deflected investigative attempts at pushing or controlling him ... then all of a sudden, he threw the opponent. He won his matches very quickly, and with no back-and-forth shoving. 10 points was a win, and he won with 12 each time: four throws x 3 points each.

Did he win? No. In the end, he just ran out of gas and lost the final, if I recall. My (likely baseless) speculation may be that because he was very sensitive and won his training matches very quickly (and rarely experienced shoving matches), he never had to sustain his effort through a tournament.

The point? If I were to compete, I'd want to experience shoving matches and wait-sense-throw (my shorthand for what the short-match guy did).

(edit: I'm not sure making it a competition is bad in itself, but I do understand about "investing in loss" as a push-hands training concept. My guess is that if everyone competed according to principles, it would be a boring competition where players would just stand touching each other ... but things would probably get interesting just before time ran out. )

 

[Tez3]

Really? Which techniques? All of them? You think every technique taught in every martial art is fully proven and equally valid? I don't.

I would say that most techniques taught in a martial arts school could work, given the right context and circumstances. That doesn't mean that they are all good and any failure to apply them is down to the individual being able to hold up under pressure.

I wrote a blog post a while back about high-percentage vs low-percentage techniques.

Some techniques are relatively useful and reliable in a wide variety of situations and don't rely on having skill and attributes vastly superior to your opponent. Those would be high-percentage techniques.

Other techniques are useful in fewer circumstances or rely on having superior attributes. Those are lower percentage.

Some techniques can work, but are risky. Others are safer and carry less of a penalty for failure.

Some techniques can be effective, but only in certain specific circumstances. Depending on the instructor, those circumstances may not be correctly explained.

Some techniques were valid as applied in their original context, but through generations of teachers who have never used them in a combative setting, the details and understanding to make them functional have been lost.

Some techniques could theoretically work, but would require superior skill and attributes, an incompetent opponent attacking in an unnatural way, and quite a bit of luck.

When I was in the Bujinkan, I was taught some techniques that I can guarantee have never been used by anyone in a real fight ever and never will be. That can happen when an instructor gets creative working with a compliant uke who feeds a highly stylized and unrealistic attack. (I'm not dissing everything taught in the Bujinkan, just some specific moves.)

Testing a technique is about establishing where it falls in the categories above. You really need a community of martial artists testing the techniques in a variety of settings over time to do it right. If I find a technique that works well for me, but only 1% of practitioners can get it to work, then it's probably not the best move to make the mainstay of my schools curriculum. Contrariwise, there might be another technique that just isn't reliable for me, but works well for lots of other people.

I disagree, the techniques you know work you will have worked out by training them, by drilling them and by 'testing them' where you train, you don't take a random technique then go off and 'test' in a competition. You don't watch your instructor demonstrate a roundhouse kick, do it yourself a few times them go off to fight an opponent in a full contact fight with only a sketchy knowledge of whether it works or not. That's what I mean, the techniques you do will be the ones you've trained.

Frankly if you are being taught techniques that have been used with a compliant uke then the blame isn't on the technique is it, it's the instructor who is at fault.

You should know whether techniques are reliable long before you get into a competition.

 

[Flying Crane]

I'll just state that it takes quite a bit of skill to keep a skilled grappler like Marcelo Garcia from taking you down. So Chen being able to keep Garcia from establishing a grappling top game shows that there's definitely some skill involved in Tushiou practice.

I'll agree with your first part.

Regarding how he got his skill, I'd say it comes more from the other practices in Taiji, and yes, quite possibly from his push hands practice. But not from push hands competition.

And no matter how you want to present it, he is still not a grappling specialist. His training does include some elements of grappling. But he's not a specialist in the same way a bjj guy is. And yes, his skill in Taiji enabled him to make Marcelo work for what he got.

 

[Flying Crane]

FWIW ... when I timed a push-hands competition, I saw a lot of guys shoving each other around, using strength against strength. Yep, that can be useful in a number of contexts, but it's not high-level sensitivity according to taijiquan yin-yang principles.

But there was one guy who competed according to principles: he waited (while both players were touching) and deflected investigative attempts at pushing or controlling him ... then all of a sudden, he threw the opponent. He won his matches very quickly, and with no back-and-forth shoving. 10 points was a win, and he won with 12 each time: four throws x 3 points each.

Did he win? No. In the end, he just ran out of gas and lost the final, if I recall. My (likely baseless) speculation may be that because he was very sensitive and won his training matches very quickly (and rarely experienced shoving matches), he never had to sustain his effort through a tournament.

The point? If I were to compete, I'd want to experience shoving matches and wait-sense-throw (my shorthand for what the short-match guy did).

(edit: I'm not sure making it a competition is bad in itself, but I do understand about "investing in loss" as a push-hands training concept. My guess is that if everyone competed according to principles, it would be a boring competition where players would just stand touching each other ... but things would probably get interesting just before time ran out. )

Interesting observations, and illustrates my point exactly.

 

[Tony Dismukes]

I disagree, the techniques you know work you will have worked out by training them, by drilling them and by 'testing them' where you train, you don't take a random technique then go off and 'test' in a competition. You don't watch your instructor demonstrate a roundhouse kick, do it yourself a few times them go off to fight an opponent in a full contact fight with only a sketchy knowledge of whether it works or not. That's what I mean, the techniques you do will be the ones you've trained.

Frankly if you are being taught techniques that have been used with a compliant uke then the blame isn't on the technique is it, it's the instructor who is at fault.

You should know whether techniques are reliable long before you get into a competition.

I think you're missing the point. Absolutely no one is talking about randomly picking a technique, doing it a couple of times, then going off to test it for the first time in a full-contact fight. If you think that this is what Kung Fu Wang or anyone else in this thread is advocating, then you are misunderstanding what was meant.

We're talking about testing techniques (actually it goes beyond specific techniques, but let's stick with just those for now) with a non-compliant partner/opponent. This can be done with a huge range of formats and intensities and I personally think it's a good idea to explore as much of that range as possible.

There is a huge amount of stuff being taught in the martial arts world that has not gone through that testing process. As a result, a lot of people are being taught crap. In other cases they are being taught material that has validity in the right context, but neither instructor nor students understand what that context is.

If you actually disagree with something I'm saying, that's cool. You've got a lot of experience and I respect your opinion. However, please go back to my previous post and point out what specifically I said that you disagree with instead of arguing against a straw man idea that neither I nor anyone else is putting forth.

 

[Tony Dismukes]

But there was one guy who competed according to principles: he waited (while both players were touching) and deflected investigative attempts at pushing or controlling him ... then all of a sudden, he threw the opponent. He won his matches very quickly, and with no back-and-forth shoving. 10 points was a win, and he won with 12 each time: four throws x 3 points each.

Did he win? No. In the end, he just ran out of gas and lost the final, if I recall. My (likely baseless) speculation may be that because he was very sensitive and won his training matches very quickly (and rarely experienced shoving matches), he never had to sustain his effort through a tournament.

Yeah, that kind of performance is beautiful to see and in my opinion demonstrates some of the highest level of technique, whether you see it in push hands, judo, or sumo.

The problem is, it's not easy to develop the level of skill and sensitivity to pull it off against a tough, non-compliant opponent. In my experience, many of the people who can demonstrate those sort of beautiful blending energy throws in a compliant setting struggle to make them work in a non-compliant context.

The point? If I were to compete, I'd want to experience shoving matches and wait-sense-throw (my shorthand for what the short-match guy did).

Agreed. I think there's a tricky balance to figure out. Being able to blend with your opponent's energy and defeat his strength with minimal use of your own is the highest level of technique. The folks I've seen who can pull that off against tough, strong, skilled, non-compliant opponents have come through the trenches of working through those shoving matches, rather than spending all their time with more flowing, compliant practice. On the other hand, it takes a while to get there and so many competitive grapplers don't get past the approaches that work at the lower levels. I think the best approach is to experience both the rough-and-tumble shoving matches but also work the more idealized forms of practice that remind you of what you are ultimately aiming for.

 

[Kung Fu Wang]

We're talking about testing techniques (actually it goes beyond specific techniques, but let's stick with just those for now) with a non-compliant partner/opponent. This can be done with a huge range of formats and intensities and I personally think it's a good idea to explore as much of that range as possible.

Agree!

In the following "individual technique testing" clip, the "rhino guard" is tested against "punching". It should be also tested against

- kicking,
- locking,
- throwing, and
- any combination of the above.

 

[K-man]

Competition push hands may not match up with your use of the exercise, but that "shoving match" involves genuine skill and technique. From my standpoint, I can see martial application for that skill, so I would say that there is benefit to be had. I'm not saying those benefits are any better or worse than what you get out of your approach to push hands, but I'm saying they are definitely there.

Competition push hands is just that, competition. It is just a way of training a very important concept and it certainly has a martial application.

Just because you can apply something in a fraction of a second doesn't make it not grappling. Ronda Rousey will practice continuous uchikomis in the gym so that she can throw someone in the cage in a fraction of a second.

Quite true. It is knowing when to utilise what you are training. In your example of Ronda Rousey you have describe exactly how it would be utilised, but you might notice that in the example you are citing, she doesn't start in the same way that you would start the push hands competition.

For me, it's an exercise for developing sensitivity, balance, and structure in the context of medium-to-close range contact with another person. Furthermore, it helps develop skill in manipulating the other person's balance and structure. For a minority of tai chi practitioners, it's also a competitive martial sport.

Exactly.

Okay, in the pub altercation, an aggressor might initiate contact through shoving, or tackling, or throwing a punch which the defender might block and stick to. In this period of contact (which might be short or extended), the defender could use the skills and attributes developed through push hands to maintain his own balance and disrupt his attacker's balance, possibly even applying a throw or armlock.

You are describing exactly as I teach it to be used in my training. I wasn't questioning its martial application in the general sense. I was questioning Hanzou's or Drop Bear's understanding of it which seems to be simply black or white.

Using said attributes to apply and defend against strikes would be more the province of sticky hands than push hands, but there is some overlap in the skills being developed between the two training methodologies.

What starts as sticky hands transitions into push hands, or a lock or strike for that matter, as the opportunity arises.

I'm curious - how exactly are you working with your training partners to test your techniques?

Although the question is not directed to me I will describe the way we test it. Against an unscripted attack, with or without a weapon, the defender must engage and redirect or control the attacker's arms to provide the opportunity to counter.

I'd say both the person and the techniques have to be tested. Ideally in as many ways possible (for both the person and the techniques).

Agree totally.

 

[Kung Fu Wang]

I don't mine to play the "moving step push hands" but I don't like to play the "fix step push hands". The reason is simple. I don't like to "yield". I like to "move out of the way".

When my opponent pushes me, I want to

- use my "stealing step" to move my body out of his pushing path,
- borrow his force,
- add my force, and
- lead him into the emptiness.

I can use the "moving step PH" format to develop something that's useful in fighting. I can't do that in "fix step PH" format. Unfortunately, the last push hands tournament judge I was assigned to (in Houston), there was only "fix step PH" and there was no "moving step PH".

For some unknown reason, In US, the "fix step PH" is more popular than the "moving step PH".

 

[drop bear]

When you try to cram a square peg into a round hole, that's what happens. That's what happens when you turn push hands into a competition.

But when your only experience with Taiji is thru YouTube videos, well you are going to have a piss-poor understanding of what is really going on. I am happy to keep pointing out to you that you know nothing of Taiji. You are welcome to wallow in your ignorance and ignore the education that people here are willing to give you. But when you keep spouting nonsense, well I'll keep telling you that you are wrong.

The issue is that when tested against brute force and shoving it falls apart which is your observation of competition. And you blame the comp and not the taiji.

Yet monograph has observed technical taiji working against shoving. Still in competition.

So the testing is refining the taiji into a usable system that has demonstrable evidence rather than being watered down.

This is true with a lot of technique and what people don't understand if they haven't used their stuff under pressure.

I do this to the wrong sort of bjjer as an example. In that I will just maul the guy and see if he holds up.