Female Tractor and Pink Barbie
As my teacher assigned my new partner to me, I thought:" Wow.....is this a woman?" She was barely taller than me, but my Xray eyes scrutinized through her body and I saw heavy bone and muscle mass. At the very moment I gave her the name"Female Tractor" in my mind. For privacy reasons I will not mention which country she comes from because I have been sparring with many tractor type females in many countries.
Female Tractor(FT) and myself started to push hands as relatively novice fighters. She was strong, it felt like a brute disco doorkeeper without any understanding of internal strength. I was not very experienced, neither with brute nor internal force. With my just 100 pounds I had to push against FT in lowest stance. This was the very moment as I thought that everything my teachers taught me was wrong because brute force was certainly better than no force.
"You have a good structure and posture and your body is athletic, your rooting good. You are relaxed enough to absorb somebody else's force." said my teacher. "Ah well, just words." I thought. But I tried to follow his advice and apply what I could remember of the principles. Indeed it was hard for anybody to push me because of my relaxation, body-mind coherence and rooting. My listening skills, however, especially combining it with internal strength was simply not developed enough. Everything I could express through the solo form was forgotten as soon as I came into contact with real resistance from a stronger person.
FT and me had long sessions of pushing hands. I watched her practicing long hours of the solo form, slowly and patiently. Her form visibly became softer and I could feel more softness and patience in her pushing. At the same time my muscle force improved through pushing hands and weapons training. It was not until yesterday that for the first time I could push her off her feet with uprooting techniques. Yet I noticed a soft internal force coming from her body which felt stronger and absorbed part of my own force. I have been practicing for a few years since the first time I pushed with FT and apparently my internal force(jin) improved along with my muscle strength.Chen style forms are very effective when it comes to natural muscle development, as opposed to forced weight training.
The experience is invaluable: Various types of people cultivate their internal strength by taking a completely different path. Sometimes it starts out with more native muscle force like FT. On the other hand it does not occur very seldom that a person like myself who is a figure skater to start out with body flexibility and mental support. Eventually it will develop into the more jin force as well as outer muscle strength. FT and me have become good sports mates and we still laugh when we think back of the first time we pushed together......
Female Tractor(FT) and myself started to push hands as relatively novice fighters. She was strong, it felt like a brute disco doorkeeper without any understanding of internal strength. I was not very experienced, neither with brute nor internal force. With my just 100 pounds I had to push against FT in lowest stance. This was the very moment as I thought that everything my teachers taught me was wrong because brute force was certainly better than no force.
"You have a good structure and posture and your body is athletic, your rooting good. You are relaxed enough to absorb somebody else's force." said my teacher. "Ah well, just words." I thought. But I tried to follow his advice and apply what I could remember of the principles. Indeed it was hard for anybody to push me because of my relaxation, body-mind coherence and rooting. My listening skills, however, especially combining it with internal strength was simply not developed enough. Everything I could express through the solo form was forgotten as soon as I came into contact with real resistance from a stronger person.
FT and me had long sessions of pushing hands. I watched her practicing long hours of the solo form, slowly and patiently. Her form visibly became softer and I could feel more softness and patience in her pushing. At the same time my muscle force improved through pushing hands and weapons training. It was not until yesterday that for the first time I could push her off her feet with uprooting techniques. Yet I noticed a soft internal force coming from her body which felt stronger and absorbed part of my own force. I have been practicing for a few years since the first time I pushed with FT and apparently my internal force(jin) improved along with my muscle strength.Chen style forms are very effective when it comes to natural muscle development, as opposed to forced weight training.
The experience is invaluable: Various types of people cultivate their internal strength by taking a completely different path. Sometimes it starts out with more native muscle force like FT. On the other hand it does not occur very seldom that a person like myself who is a figure skater to start out with body flexibility and mental support. Eventually it will develop into the more jin force as well as outer muscle strength. FT and me have become good sports mates and we still laugh when we think back of the first time we pushed together......
Labels: balance, Chen style, push hands, weapons
posted by Travel and Tai Chi stories @ 5:28 PM
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