Help with sparring

[jotrakoun]

Well, up here in Boston I no longer have a school to turn to for Yangjia Michuan, but in the martial arts club at school, we've started to engage in some sparring. Without having done much of the Great River course that leads up to sanshou, is there anything I can do in these sessions to inject taiji qualities into my sparring?

[J HepworthYoung]

I would think there are things you can do to put TC into sparring.

I'd lean towards Peng, Lu and lift hands/play guitar and drill them solo till you have them in your reflex.

[Nik]

Just do the typical PH manouvres in clinching, there is no need to somehow try to beat forms moves into reactions with a big stick. "Fast wrestling" should be easily applicable into clinch work. The major thing is to get the bridging, intercepting lead punches or kicks, and the approaching (stepping) of opponents getting in range. The brushing manouvres in PH for the upper, middle and lower gates also are the manouvres to react to such lead actions. Don't stay in range to eat jabs, move with their moving so you can close the distance when they close it, ending up too near for their action but in perfect position for yours. You will need to do a heck of work in destabilizing and quick wrestling, best first with a not too intense attacker. You will realize very quickly which "applications" from the bookshelf taken from a form with not even the lightest adaption to concrete positions won't work even with the mildest attack, and what does. It may take some time to get the feeling for how light touches to arms, waist, chest, and slight turns inyour body can easily destabilize someone charging, to get the window for taking his head off with a normal punch, get a lock, or push someone into the next wall. The often seen PH competition stuff is not too helpful, as it often contains 99% tricking around with the rules and 1% real Taijiquan PH. The name of the game is sticking and moving. Play around for yourself, and see what comes out of that.

[Psi Man]

What up, Jotrakoun!

I was asking the same thing of G-man a little while back, and he told me to really practice getting all the principles to work smoothly in push-hands first. Once they're second-nature in push-hands, the sanshou part will come along much more easily. Obviously being good at push-hands is not a guarantee of skill in sanshou, nor is it necessarily a pre-requisite, but it's a good corresponding practice. Do you have a good push-hands group you can find near you?

Even more specifically, you can never drill too much of moving from the waist and fang-song.

[jotrakoun]

Thanks for the advice. I just have a crap load of things to work on. In the beginning my philosophy was that all I knew was the halfstepping, so I'd just half step my way really fast up into people's faces and punch into the openings. That worked well for about a day, until everyone figured it out. Now I'm just working on correcting basic mistakes like focusing too much on my attack and dropping my guard whenever I've found a good opening. The hard part is I feel like I have to eat around all the advice and corrections I'm getting. I have to pick out the stuff that isn't contrary to what I've learned from taiji, and discard the rest, and hope my movement and intention doesn't end up like that of some karateka or Thai boxer. I haven't found a good martial taiji school to consult here, so it's sort of a frustrating reinvent-the-wheel type of process.

But then again, human beings are all made the same way, in general, and the human body doesn't distinguish between a good Chinese, Japanese, or European punch. Good combat skill is just good combat skill, and it is fun to test the limits and potential of what my body can do. And since I started sparring, I've found my forms are getting better. I'm doing them slower than I ever have before, always keeping in mind whether I could issue some kind of strength forward, backward, to the left, to the right, above, and below. I'm not just conveniently 'plopping' into postures like the low punch. But now I want the improvement to go in the other direction, from solo practice to practical application.

[Psi Man]

Have you looked for any Xingyi, Bagua, Yiquan, Systema or Aikido teachers near you? There are possibly some decent practitioners who don't make a living teaching, or don't have public websites whom you'd have to encounter through networking. For instance, I'm sure there are senior students from GRTC who have moved elsewhere and don't advertise their abilities.

If you can't find a high-quality TJQ school, you might shop around for a really good martial arts teacher in another art. You could learn how to fight or grapple fairly quickly in a boxing gym or a judo school. They're maybe not as complete systems, but the hands-on experience and variety of opponents you'd get to practice with would be unparalleled anywhere else. Of course, the injury rate is probably a little higher too, but.... eh heh heh.... martial arts practice is rarely easy and pleasant.

I came to GRTC initially to try out TJQ because I had bad back problems and it seemed like a good school, but I stuck around because the instruction was extremely high-quality. If I didn't get pulled in here first, high-quality martial arts instruction -- regardless of style, is what I'd be looking for somewhere else.