Tai chi tuishou in self defence

Tai chi Tuishou (Pushing hands) begins as a gentle and cooperative two-person dual pushing exercise. Over time, it can evolve to include all ranges of armed and unarmed combat.
In this video the student gets to experiment with striking ranges and techniques for hands. In some cases she uses and imaginary dagger. in others she uses fists. The pacing is cautious, but progressive and the structure is maintained to encourage a degree of realism without endangering either her or the teacher.
This type of training is not appropriate for everyone, and requires a degree of preparation.

Tuishou training begins as a gentle, close-contact pushing and neutralizing drill. It is a sophisticated and varied training exercise, including mid-range and close range drills, with fixed step, restricted step, moving step, and free stepping. There are dozens of drills with two hands, three hands and four hands, as well as freestyle tuishou. Then applications are added, including strikes, throws, take-downs, joint control and pressure point manipulation. Then weapon drills are added. But these are training exercises. In self defence, no one will challenge you to a training exercise. The skills developed in tuishou are intended to be applied in all ranges, in all contexts. Also, we should not expect punches to be predictable, or standard. The strikes are multiple and varied, and often change direction at least twice.

[Syndicate]

Aww man! "Rin The Destroyer Jess" is great!!! *thumbs up*
(You're amazing as always, Ian ;)

[driver]

"Get rekt" lol Rin the Destroyer has some good one liners

Ian Sinclair
I clicked on this video expecting to see unrealistic eastern mysticism and was ready to tell you all about how how bad it is to teach people in an way that will get them hurt in a real confrontation.. but turns this was a lot better than probably 95% of "self defence" videos I have seen.
I don't know anything about tai chi (except for some laughable no touch stuff I saw online) but I have been in and around combat enough to know this had all the hallmarks of legit self defence training. Your student would obviously hold her own in a real situation, I wouldn't want to go up against either of you.
Interesting stuff, thanks for sharing it.

[taichipandabat]

I think this is where you have to learn the principles of tai chi and the you become that form, this is where you create the "Tai Chi BODY" so sparing becomes easier, you might not be able to execute the moves but your body has become like water, soft but yet stuff Sifu Sinclair

[johningham]

Canadian martial artists living up to national stereotypes?

I couldn’t resist

(sorry!)

[Tasmanaut]

this is really cool, the level of intensity is just right to show application of principles without being overwhelming or so light she can gain an unrealistic expectation of her skill. I assume you tailored this lesson for her as a newer student to give some practical self defence application? It's awesome because you don't see this sort of thing, it's very similar to how I used to practice, in my own flawed way. I would spar lightly with some friends that did a bit of wrestling and wing chun, it would look at lot like this, but I would play the role of attacker initiating, then sticking and defending, kind of a combination of the roles you are both playing. It was a way to sort of demonstrate how Tuishou translates to longer ranges and against different sort of attacks, usually they couldn't see the value in slow pushands until the intensity ramped up a little bit and I could still use the principles, in a sort of imperfect and limited way. Her application isn't perfect, but it's 'good enough' for real practical defence and you're embracing that here while encouraging her to lean further into the principles and gently away from harder blocking techniques. Hopefully that makes sense

[thunderflower]

The water never trained to be water...so if we also see that we remember what makes the water water... Adaptability...non resistance....fulfillness of space available....then our central psychosomatic unit processor will become water if need maybe.
This is what I understand from such a hydro teacher :) and admire him from the bottom of my heart!!!
If I had the money I d fly all the way from Greece to Ontario(?)to spend ten hours with such an amazing in struct or

[kevinparker]

Ah MAN! Don't tell everyone about the creeper attack! (My teacher called it 'the drunken hobo'). I like to call it the shuffling zombie.... Damn! Now half the interweb knows. 😔

[JulieRees-cdum]

I'm lost for words! Thank you both for an excellent push hands tutorial video 🙏 Julie 💞

[simoneriksson]

Looks like you are having fun! 😊also good training and a way to explore other applications of tai chi. You can really se how she develops during the lesson, you seem to be a great teacher// humble tai-chi beginner

[macrumpton]

Really rare and wonderful to see this sort of casual tai chi "sparring". 99.9% of the videos you see elsewhere are the teacher demonstrating how they would repel an attack by a student and it feels very one sided.

[karimsonsafehold]

Her center line is shifting off of her headline. While that is getting out of the way of the force vector, it is disrupting her head-spine line and root. Step evasion patterns won't need the head to weave around as much. I would say it is a last ditch resort to move the head off your spine line. This will create a block later on, but that is a long term goal to work on.

Pros: the reflexes and reaction off the flinch trigger is increasing in control. Working on both upper and lower body movements at the same time.

[ronin]

The only comment I would make is for the uke (attacker) to continue with an attack even if he/she is deflected because that would make it more realistic. Someone on the street isn't going to stop coming after you until there is some sort of deterrent or they get knocked out but this is a good start.

[tombeaudry]

C'mon, leave that poor girl alone 😜

[RasBuyaka]

i wish there were thousands of Mariposa instructors across the globe.

[simoneriksson]

She giggles, she fix her hair, she says "Im sorry" BUT she move her arms like vipers! Rin the Destroyer indeed :)

[kiwirap]

Spotted some good wing chun..better done by a person in another at than how some wc people do it in their own art

[greenshifu]

You encouraged not to say sorry to say, are you ok? I like that. What is your reason for this? Thankyou.

[lovefrompraha]

Lol damn Canadians. Stop saying sorry.

[williamdelong]

Good job. Don't mess with the lady or else lol. Laughter is important for learning. Good teacher. Good student. A kick to the balls will usually slow em down too lol.

[beansnrice]

What I love about this is that it shows nice pure work and growth as a result of the work. From my understanding, Tai chi is all about finding boundaries and learning how to enforce as well as dissolve boundaries. I think those are important skills for anyone to learn and often difficult ones for our modern anxious brains to learn without instruction and practice.

I never trained in Tai chi, instead I trained in Aikido. However, I too was timid when attacking and being attacked. I would always say, "I'm sorry, " "I'm sorry." When I first started, I used to think that I have never said, "I'm sorry, " so much before in my life!

Later I learned that this was teaching me how to experience boundaries and how to respect them. From learning how to respect them, I learned the weaknesses in my own boundaries and from learning the weaknesses in my own I learned of the weaknesses in the boundaries of others.

Finally, learning about the weaknesses in the boundaries of others taught me sympathy and the importance of courage. For courage invigorates the spirit and instills optimism in the face of adversary. This optimism is necessary, because it prevents you from striking out of fear and can even prevent you from feeling the need to strike in the first place.

A victory over conflict itself, which is often a victory over the self, is the greatest victory of all.