If you keep bringing that arm straight out and so far back anyone could take your arm and walk you around backward. you will not be able to move anyone who grabs a hold of your arm. your elbow should drop as well as you go forward. just saying. A little more drop as you go back wouldn't hurt either so you have some strength coming up if that monkey grabs hold of your arm. when you draw the arm down and towards you that brings that Monkee in closer so you can use the other hand on it's chest to repel it. The story was nice. I have been sent flying with that move by instructors who knew what they were doing. Nice demo otherwise. Thanks.
Hi Vj, Thanks for the comment. These videos are aimed at beginner basics and getting things lined up and not so much martial application. Saying that, Mr. Moy focused on what the Tai Chi did for the body and not how to fight with it. In all the martial training I have done with different systems, I have come to really appreciate Mr. Moy’s understanding of how the body works and what the Tai Chi can do for one’s health. Yes it is very powerful as a martial art but as I see it, the Tai Chi form is not to teach you martial technique per se but more to promote proper movement of the body by changing and strengthening the condition of the body thereby creating better health. Don’t get me wrong. The martial aspects (push hands, applications, etc.), are a lot of fun and truthfully, was the part that got me interested in the Tai Chi in the first place some 30+ years ago. Having my body able to move and function properly, however, has proven to be far more useful to me than having a repertoire of martial techniques. I can count on one hand (less a couple of fingers) the number of times I have NEEDED to fight, but there have been countless times I have NEEDED to recover from injury, illness, life imbalances, etc. The martial aspect becomes secondary and almost irrelevant in this viewpoint. To constantly think and focus on fighting is not beneficial to the body or the mind and can create the illusion of the need to fight and maintain the focus on fighting. This serves only to support the Identity that holds fighting as important and makes it difficult to ‘forget oneself’ and can actually get in the way of spontaneous, responsive movement. Mr. Moy understood the martial applications very well and taught some of this as you may know, but I remember him saying once that when the body changes enough and gets to a certain point, the techniques and tricks don’t work anymore and he would demonstrate this. There was also a workshop where we worked on push hands for quite a while and then towards the end he said “ Don’t fight… never fight… but if you have to fight, win!” Cheers
If you keep bringing that arm straight out and so far back anyone could take your arm and walk you around backward. you will not be able to move anyone who grabs a hold of your arm. your elbow should drop as well as you go forward. just saying. A little more drop as you go back wouldn't hurt either so you have some strength coming up if that monkey grabs hold of your arm. when you draw the arm down and towards you that brings that Monkee in closer so you can use the other hand on it's chest to repel it.
The story was nice. I have been sent flying with that move by instructors who knew what they were doing. Nice demo otherwise. Thanks.
Hi Vj,
Thanks for the comment. These videos are aimed at beginner basics and getting things lined up and not so much martial application. Saying that, Mr. Moy focused on what the Tai Chi did for the body and not how to fight with it. In all the martial training I have done with different systems, I have come to really appreciate Mr. Moy’s understanding of how the body works and what the Tai Chi can do for one’s health. Yes it is very powerful as a martial art but as I see it, the Tai Chi form is not to teach you martial technique per se but more to promote proper movement of the body by changing and strengthening the condition of the body thereby creating better health.
Don’t get me wrong. The martial aspects (push hands, applications, etc.), are a lot of fun and truthfully, was the part that got me interested in the Tai Chi in the first place some 30+ years ago. Having my body able to move and function properly, however, has proven to be far more useful to me than having a repertoire of martial techniques. I can count on one hand (less a couple of fingers) the number of times I have NEEDED to fight, but there have been countless times I have NEEDED to recover from injury, illness, life imbalances, etc. The martial aspect becomes secondary and almost irrelevant in this viewpoint. To constantly think and focus on fighting is not beneficial to the body or the mind and can create the illusion of the need to fight and maintain the focus on fighting. This serves only to support the
Identity that holds fighting as important and makes it difficult to ‘forget oneself’ and can actually get in the way of spontaneous, responsive movement.
Mr. Moy understood the martial applications very well and taught some of this as you may know, but I remember him saying once that when the body changes enough and gets to a certain point, the techniques and tricks don’t work anymore and he would demonstrate this.
There was also a workshop where we worked on push hands for quite a while and then towards the end he said “ Don’t fight… never fight… but if you have to fight, win!”
Cheers