10/4
The dancing club was thankfully gone by the time I reached the park this time. More of our people showed up as well, including a newer guy who is particularly good at yanking other people off their feet. I didn’t do tuishou with him; I’d skipped dinner and didn’t feel like I could make the effort necessary. Instead I pushed Mr. V for a while, finding that having no energy to push actually made pushing a little easier.
“Here are two ways to push someone off balance,” Teacher Xu said after he arrived with his son and was watching the various pairs go at it. “Once you focus two points of energy on your opponent’s backbone, you either press the points together or pull them apart.” I assume he meant to pull the points apart, not your opponent. I was having fun pulling Mr. V down time after time, as he would extend his reach too far to maintain his stance and was therefore easily pull-able.
Teacher Xu told us that power came out of a concave shape, i.e. whichever part of you is forced into a concave shape, that’s the direction in which you have the most potential to rebound from. “In order to make your opponent reveal his strategy and therefore his weakness, relax by 50%, and he will show you everything,” he told us.
I suppose he said “he” anyway. In spoken Chinese “he” and “she” sound exactly the same, but it seems that female tui-shou practitioners aren’t as prevalent as male ones. It’s awkward, for one thing, as you can only push their arms and shoulders, while they can push anywhere they like. Maybe there are female-only pushing groups out there that I don’t know about.
Next week I’m going to be in Beijing, so I’ll miss class. See you in two weeks.
