Push Hands is the "other" part of tai chi that makes your practice a true living art Tai chi push hands practice is a necessary next step for tai chi practitioners who wish to make their art come alive. Push hands practice requires two people to engage in a variety of "light touch" moving and walking routines. By practicing these movements, practitioners begin to develop tai chi's sensing, listening, and yielding skills. The Dao De Jing classic reminds us that "knowing others (an opponent) is important for knowing ourselves". By developing tai chi push hand skills, one begins to obtain a profound sense of feeling of ones' body and mind. This ability aids greatly in controlling body, balance, health, perseverance, compassion, and overall spirit.
...with a Partner,Paperback edition of the long-awaited follow-up to,the best-selling tai chi manual of all time, this,new handbook presents detailed instructions in,push-hands, tai chi practiced with a partner.,Illustrated with 97 b/w photographs. Robert Kauz,is also the author of the 'tai Chi Handbook'.,'Kauz is a real teacher, open, generous and,undogmatic' - Asia Fighting News 'Kauz is an,established authority' - Journal of Asian Martial,Arts
This comprehensive introduction to Tai Chi includes a discussion of all the main Tai Chi styles and explains the difference between the various lineages.
Pushing Hands develops sensitivity to the body's internal state and can be used to help control the emotions, the circulation of energy and physical balance. This book teaches the reader how to act in harmony with any external event without losing their 'balance' or center, enabling them to respond with confidence and flexibility to each situation.
An examination of the place of the martial arts in Japanese culture includes discussions of the history, philosophy, and techniques of judo, karate, wrestling, and fencing.
Douglas Lee, a tai chi practitioner for more than 20 years, covers the history and philosophy of the art, general principles of movement, solo exercises, push-hands sparring, applications, tai chi weapons and more.
An eight-time national chess champion and world champion martial artist shares the lessons he has learned from two very different competitive arenas, identifying key principles about learning and performance that readers can apply to their life goals. Reprint. 35,000 first printing.
Tai chi ball qigong training is an important component of proper tai chi chuan practice. For martial artists, tai chi ball qigong training can strengthen the torso, condition the muscles, and increase physical power by using the mind to lead the qi. It can be a major training tool to enhance pushing hands ability. For general exercise, tai chi ball qigong training helps those who might overly focus on 'core body exercises' to strengthen their hips, knees, and ankles. You will improve movement of the spine, increase energy through various breathing techniques, and learn to move many joints properly at different angles. This book includes History of tai chi ball Theory of tai chi ball qigong Tai chi ball warm-ups Tai chi ball fundamentals Tai chi ball breathing Tai chi ball exercises Tai chi ball partner exercises Tai chi ball advanced practice In all my years of teaching, I believe that Tai Chi Ball Qigong is one of the most powerful exercises I have ever seen to rebuild the entire body's health.--Dr. Yang, Jwing-Ming
Millions of people worldwide practice t’ai chi, the most popular form of which was codified beginning in the 1960s by Cheng Man Ch’ing. In this scholarly yet practical book, Professor Cheng shows precisely how the postures and moves of t’ai chi work, with examples from anatomy and physics, both internally as energetic principles and externally on opponents. He clarifies the spheres, triangles, and centripetal and centrifugal forces within physical exchanges such as push-hands. Contrasting Western and Chinese techniques of healing, he also explores the relationships of organs to one another in pathology and the necessary dynamics of treatment. Professor Cheng explains how the practitioner may serve as his or her own doctor and, likewise, as the physician or trainer of an attacker. The martial arts, he says, are not a special case of unusual power, simply an aspect of adapting natural and cosmic law to circumstance. This edition of the classic text contains 13 major essays; oral secrets from Cheng’s teacher Yang Cheng’fu; a Q&A with commentary on martial arts classics; the author’s application and functions of each of the 37 postures of the short form, with the original photographs of him as a young man; two prefaces; and much more.
This is the book Ken Gullette wishes he had been able to read when he first began studying Tai Chi, Bagua and Xingyi in 1987. It gets to the point, stripping the mystical mumbo jumbo away, leaving detailed, real-world explanations of the six fundamental body mechanics that everyone should know when they study Tai Chi (Taiji), Bagua and Xingyi. For the first time, these body mechanics are organized and discussed clearly, with more than 250 images and highly-detailed but simple language. If you are a student or even a teacher of these arts, you should be able to learn something here that will deepen your own insight into the arts. Ken has studied with some top internal arts masters, and during the first ten years he was teaching, he boiled down the body mechanics he learned into six key concepts. In this book, he explains them in the same step-by-step detail that he uses in teaching his students, building on each of the concepts until you have a clear roadmap of what you need to practice for high-quality internal structure and movement. As Ken explains it, "The true intent of the internal arts is self-defense. The body mechanics in this book are the starting point you need to develop the structure and internal strength that is required for the relaxed power, the iron wrapped in cotton, that the internal arts are known for. This is the starting point upon which all other skill is built." Ken has studied these arts since 1987, is a tournament champion, winning in empty-hand and weapons forms, no-contact, light-contact and full-contact matches, and he has students worldwide who have studied his DVDs and his website, www.internalfightingarts.com. Concepts covered in these pages include: the ground path, peng jin, whole-body movement, silk-reeling energy, Dantien rotation, and opening/closing the kua. From the explosiveness of Xingyi to the relaxed power of Tai Chi and Bagua, the road to internal skill is long and difficult, but very satisfying. There is nothing "soft" about these arts. They are powerful arts of self-defense. And it all starts here.
