7/25-28 Tuishou
I didn’t do much Tuishou last Wednesday night. I spent the time with forms and stretching, and watching other people push. I did one session with The Guy Who is Not from China, who is beginning to employ the quick push method, trying to surprise me into tightening me up. I’ve found that the most common methods of getting one’s opponent to tighten up into a rigid, easy-to-push line are force and speed. While I do need to learn to deal with these better, I’d still like to get more into more complicated aspects as well, such as yielding and meeting force without tightening up, and delivering power from that state.
Saturday morning found the concert hall at CKS Memorial half-covered in scaffolding, but our space was still mostly there. A worker with a hose sprayed the remains of cigarettes and bird droppings from the floor nearby. I practiced the empty-handed form but not sword as I seem to have broken my practice sword and will have to get another one. This is the third one; I need to take better care of them.
I was reminded as I practiced the form that, not only are there a million things to remember, but also that I am doing a great deal of them wrong. A lot of it is just internalizing all of these things until I don’t have to think about them. Then they will hopefully join my list of tools for use not only in forms and Tuishou, but daily life as well.
Mr. Qin arrived later on, as I was taking some pictures. It seems that, though he is about my age, he actually also studied along with Teacher Xu under his old teacher, the late Teacher Yu, who was a student of Master Song, also deceased. It seems that there’s a bit of intrigue here, as a group of devotees of the late Master Song happen to practice on the veranda on other side of the concert hall, and have been known to act out a bit whenever they catch sight of anyone wearing our purple uniform. They seem to think we’re trying to steal their secrets or something, I guess. Not From China Guy said that, when he was walking by, they glared at him and said “WTF are you looking at?”
Teacher Xu said that they actually worship Master Song and follow his secretive methods. They also frown on Teacher Xu, seeing him as a kind of renegade disciple, which I think is pretty cool. Next time I’m over there, maybe I’ll go take a look.
“Little Qin” (as Teacher Xu calls Mr. Qin) is apparently also involved with them to some degree. I didn’t talk with him about it too much as I practiced with him, however. He told me that I needed to free up my hips and suggested some exercises. I find that I twist too much when I push, which exposes too many weaknesses.
The day became quite hot as noon approached and the other groups left us alone on the balcony. Mr. V and the guy I pushed with at Sun Yat-sen Hall got pretty busy, resulting in Mr. V sustaining a no-doubt unintentional eye-poking. Later, he and an older student practiced moving Tuishou, and they danced around the balcony trying to shove each other over.
“Some people push very well but only in one way,” Teacher Xu was saying. “It could be, however, that if you change your tactics a bit, approach them from a different angle, you’ll find that they won’t be able to deal with it very well.”
