"A person's unbalance is the same as a weight." Whatever you do to achieve this is good.
Did they fail to teach you this?
Isshin-Ryu also contains push strikes and kicks. Guess they didn't teach you that when you were learning Isshin-Ryu either. How strange.
Any training I have in Isshin Ryu is rudimentary at best. You know that. I am happy to be able to recognize it, but I also feel it is not the art for me, having tried elements of it.
We utilize it. Quite a bit, actually. Its by all means a secondary method, but its there, and has its uses.
Im not aware of any that specialize in it, and really, I dont see why You would need an entire MA for pushing. Thats overkill. As an aspect of a pre-existing one? Thats sound.
I wouldn't say an entire martial art. It is arguable hapkido specializes in grabbing, throwing, and joing-locking specifically, I meant it in that fashion, as part of a greater art.
According to the O/P, he's the last remaining student of a particular style, leaving him the reigning grandmaster of it. Perhaps it will come to him in a dream, or the next time he has tea with the Dalai Lama.
lol. Just because some schools of TKD classify grandmaster simply, as the most experienced person in the art, obviously doesn't mean jack. Reigning? I can't be, as I've pointed out before, whatever I teach, even trying to teach shishi, will end up being more of me, than shishi. Hence why I've removed the dog style techniques and replaced them with TKD and Muai Thai kicks, elbows, and knee strikes.
Shishi baguazhang, in hindsight, died with my master. His advice was to learn Yin-style lion bagua, as oaktree posted a video of, not forget what I had learned, and once having mastered that particular yin style with the other 7 palms, to then go back to shishi and refine it through that lens. The worst kind of training is that which is incomplete, and it is something which feels like your heart is broken, though in a manner you can handle. As somebody who is a brown belt, preparing for your shodan, your path has been a short one, regardless your life experiences when it comes to martial arts. I hope that you do not ever have to experience an incomplete training as I have.
Pushes are also in Shorin-Ryu and Shuri-Ryu. My Shorin-Ryu sensei also thoroughly enjoys White Crane techniques and teaches them periodically, and they include pushes as well. I am confused as to why OP's fellow bagua practitioner was confused.
Shorin-ryu is a great system. Kempo uses similar pushes with both arms to the midsection, but enough to label it as an art which specializes in the kind of push which can hurl person 5-10 feet from the person who executed the technique. I wish I could answer why he was confused, maybe I asked the question wrong to him.
OK.... just about ALL Baguazhang styles utilize pushing, all Taijiquan styles I know of do as well (see An, Ji and Kao) and so does Xingyiquan and even my short lived training in Changquan tells me Changquan uses pushes too. And my Jujutsu from almost 40 years ago did and I even saw some in my pre-Olympic TKD...so yes you are grossly mistaken
This is very true about Bagua, but I think I neglected it in my OP because I am so used to it as an art for redirecting, rather than reapplying force. It is true that some forms do this, Lion notably, though to be honest every animal style in the yin branch of bagua has a kind of push. However, the shishi bagua I practice practices a form of throwing where you carry a strike through to drag the person to the ground, combined with low kicks aimed to control and sweep. It also has a number of stepping turns which can generate a very powerful push. I believe though that some styles of bagua have very limited pushing. I am blanking on the name, but there is a bagua style which draws from yang style, and incorporates xing-yi as strikes.
So it appears that just about every form of martial arts offers various 'push' techniques?
How odd that makes the initial post seem. To me, anyway...
I was hoping someone might be able to identify the more obscure techniques or styles they may know of. This thread has already been a great book, as Oaktree posted another video of his own teacher. He is a fantastic practitioner and from his videos, looks to be a fantastic teacher too. I am very grateful to Oaktree for that. This thread was for anyone interested in developing their push techniques.
I think we have consensus that all MA styles utilise pushes. I even teach the areas of the body to push to achieve maximum effect. Alex, it truly amazes me that you have mastered so many styles of MA over such a long time yet have not been shown the humble push except in the style of Shishi Baguazhang you are the head of. Then there is your friend whose style obviously doesn't teach them either. Is your friend a Bagua master also or is he still learning?
Mastered? I haven't mastered anything. I've only been practicing for 18-19 years. Takes a lot longer than that. My friend's style is jiang, which from what I'm told is fairly rare on the East coast, so I'm lucky to get to practice with him, when he does come to the club.
Perhaps where we are having a problem in communication, and not just with you and myself, but everyone reading, is that I am not talking about the kind of shove which reorients, or moves a person under, say 3 feet, from where they were. The farthest I have pushed someone, and measured, was 9 feet, and it took a lot to do from me. While practicing another push, it occurred to me that I couldn't really recall any techniques which achieved this result in other arts, and wondered why, when I have seen so many arts sharing many techniques. When you move a person under 3 feet, I'd prefer to call that a shove rather than a push. When you push someone, they are moving as if they were hurled, in the direction you oriented. Though there are 'push-kicks' I have never seen it executed to the effect the person is moved backwards at a distance in excess of 5 feet. I understand that feels like a generic number, but to me it really is a significant amount of space. Most kicks which are push kicks, when applied with power, I've noticed tend to either significantly injure the other, or just knock them right over. 800-1000 pounds of force is a lot of energy. If not aimed properly, it's like kicking a loose heavy bag, or improperly held heavy target. I'm sure im not alone on the board in having accidently knocked the holder of the pad over by aiming too high with a push kick.
I am confused by the last para. "But I think all martial arts utilize some kind of push ..." If you that thought that, why did you say "... pushes are conspicuously absent from most martial arts. ( I can't think of any which utilize or specialize in it) ...
When most styles have say (random number) 10 kicks, 10 punches, 5 grabs, 5 throws, and 1 push, I would say the latter is a bit absent compared to the rest. Compared to most other types of techniques I have come across, the kind which generate the push Im talking about (moving the target 5-10 feet from the person) are fairly rare. I've seen it mainly in bagua, as others have pointed out, some in Aikido, a little in karate, tkd, and kempo. Next to none in muai thai and krav maga, though a heavy amount in kendo.
As Chris said above, loads of pushing in Taekwondo, pushing blocks, pushing kicks, pushing palms.
As an external art I am dubious toward the posts of pushing in TKD, though I would like to hear more. It is true there are push kicks and blocks, but they do not move the opponent. Many martial arts make use of a small push, or shove, to relocate or reorient the individual around themself, but few actual employ techniques which completely disrupt the center of balance, off a single point, as Bagua oft does. And this strikes me as odd, for while the philosophy behind bagua is unique, the palm strikes in it can be found across virtually every other martial art style, even if its spins, nerve-locks, and throws are quite unique. I just found it odd that something which can literally move a person in what feels like a second a rings width away isn't employed more often. I imagine somebody quite large could easily get past the 5-10 foot standard im using. 8-9 feet is what I usually achieve, and I had a lot of difficulty at first when executing a push in that I would aim too high, and just teeter them over. Among my favorite bagua techniques is the application of a tai chi technique, snake in the grass, where you step through the opponents legs, and then shift to a very low front stance, and then raise the stance level. This tends to knock most people completely over, but this is not the push I am talking about. I am talking about one where the entire body is used, or at least arms, and the energy transfered moves them back FAR, deliberately.
The people I practice with tell me when they feel it that it's like a jolt of electricity, and water going through them. There are a lot of pushes in ba gua both utilizing stepping, reversing, raising, and turning, but I am speaking about those techniques like I just described above, in other arts such as say TKD and Karate. I agree that in TKD the push kick can push, but from what I've found it tends to either knock them over, or they run into and over it, or just avoid it entirely rather than actually move them back.
But then again the push-kicks I do, at least with my back leg, can move a 275 pound individual in a shotokan front stance. I worry if I execute it like I do on a bag, it might cause injury. Any-time I try to do control with this particular technique it just comes off feeling stilted, wonky, and all around awkward. Anybody have any tips for the MDK guy?
