Push Hands: Learn to Fight, Not Push

By Eli Montaigue of WTBA ©2014

Push Hands, is probably one of the most misunderstood training methods in Taiji.  Most schools of taiji teach push hands for the sake of doing push hands, to beat other people at push hands.
Taiji is about learning how to defend yourself in a fight. Pushing is not fighting.  No one is going to come up to you in the street and try to push you over. They are going to punch your face in, then kick you while you’re down.

I know people who have been training in push hands for many many years, and they are very good at “push hands”. If I play push hands with them, we are of equal skill etc.
However, I have been taught to hit from push hands. With these same people, when I start to put in any kind of strikes, they have no idea what to do. Because they have only trained in how to push. They might for example push me a little off balance, which makes me react with a strike. Followed by “you can’t do that, we’re doing push hands!” This only applies to a beginner doing push hands. Of course they must do it in a certain way, to learn certain principles. But if two advanced Taiji practitioners are doing push hands? You can do what you want. You can stand there and kick me in the groin, or head but me in the face. If I cannot stop you? My push hands is not good.

picture 1

Ok, so how and why do we train push hands?

First up, stance!
Most schools of Taiji teach Push Hands from the same stance as they would use in the Taiji form. See picture #1.
This is a big mistake! The large stances in the form, are there for 3 main reasons. 1, to build heat in the legs to help the flow of Qi. 2, to strengthen the legs. 3, to stretch the legs. It is for health and exercise, and is in no way meant to be used for fighting.

The big stance in push hands teaches us many bad habits.  My father Erle Montaigue, use to teach big the stance to beginners, then he would advance them onto the small stance later on.
This is how he was taught.
However, after years of teaching, he found that the big stance, although easier to learn, was teaching the student nothing but bad habits. The big stance gives you a false sense of balance. What use is it to be able to hold your balance in a big stance, when you can’t fight from a big stance. In a small stance, you are more
mobile, you can protect your groin and knees, and you are
training yourself to be able to fight from the stance you’re already in when walking down the street.
The only way to deliver force from a small stance, without losing balance, is to use the same muscles as you would to strike. Via twisting of the waist, compression and release of the spine.
Thus training your body how to strike with power.

picture 2

In a big low stance, you will be more likely to be training your body in the best way to push.

There are no pushes or pulls in Taiji, as they do not have a place in self defence. Unless your opponent is standing on a cliff edge!
{See picture #2}
It’s like if you were doing 500 squats every day and
hoping it would make you a faster runner.
You have to train the muscles for the work you want them to do. When we hold a big stance, this causes us to get into a forward backward weight change.
The pusher comes forward, the receiver evades by sitting back. See picture #1 again.
What’s the first thing you learn in self defence?
When someone attacks you, don’t sit back! You are
putting yourself in a vulnerable position. See picture #2.
In a small stance, when we shift the weight, this causes us to evade to the side, maintaining our forward intent. This now changes the intent of the pushing, from you attack and I defend, to you attack and I defend by attacking! In every attack there is defence, and in every defence there is attack. Basic Yin and Yang. See picture #3 and #4. Notice the closer proximity of the players, and that in Lu #4, it is applied with an intention of sitting to the side, rather then sitting back as in Pic #1.
This means you can maintain forward intent, and truly evade the attack. Sitting back does not get you out of the way of an attack. The closer lateral evasion also puts you in a
position to re attack.
The mind set is most important in Push Hands. Even if you are doing a pushing movement, you should have the body structure and intent of striking.

picture 3

picture 4

Hard or soft?
Ok here is where a lot of people get things wrong. Ever heard the quote “Steel wrapped in cotton?”.
This means we should seem soft on the outside. It does not mean we do things in a soft manor.
Anyone who tells you that you can defend yourself without using any substantial force, has clearly never been put under pressure.
What we do however is to structure the body so, that we have to use very little strength to get great effect. This is what P’eng training is all about. We learn this first in single Push Hands.

For example, when I do Push Hands with a beginner, but someone with much bigger muscles than me, their arms will get sore before mine. To them it seems like I have really strong arms, not that I am all soft and jelly like. But in fact my muscles are not stronger, it’s just that I am structuring my body so that I only have to deal with half the pressure.

The pressure of the incoming push, should start soft for the student to learn. Too much pressure in the
beginning can cause the student to use bad technique. But be sure to increase this to as much pressure as you can develop, as someone attacking you is not going to do so lightly!
From the receiving part, well you should use as much pressure as you need to. As you get more advanced, this amount will get less, as you will learn to move your centre around the force coming in.
Very soft training has it’s place, this teaches us to “listen” with our hand.
But to have this as your only practice? Well that would be like learning to kick without being able stand on one leg.

When I was learning push hands, if I did something wrong, lost my balance, or opened my guard etc,
I did not get pushed over. I got punched in the side of the head! Or kicked in the groin!
Two advanced Push Hands players should look like they are having a fight, not like they are dancing.

picture 5

Ok now onto attacks.
In the beginning, for students learning the ground work for Push Hands, we do some “pushing” attacks. This teaches the beginner how the hold up a strong guard, stay grounded and move their centre out of the way of the
incoming force.
Then the power speed and aggression of the attacks are increased gradually, till they are full real attacks. Any type of attack can be put into push hands, from a practical cross punch, (see picture #5) to a silly back spinning kick to the head. It is most important not to see Push Hands as a competition!
It is a training method. Yes you try your best to hit the other guy, so you could say that you are trying to beat him. However, what you have to do in your push hands, is to use all types of attacks, not just the ones you’re best at. For example, if I was competing, I would only use the techniques that I knew were best for me. But this would not give my partner a very rounded training.

I would never throw a back spinning kick in a competition, because I know it is not my forte.
Same with grappling, I would not use this if I wanted to beat the other guy.
But I will use them in training, so that my partner gets to train against them. I still throw the attack as best I can, trying to catch my partner out. But knowing that due to the fact that I am throwing an easily defeated attack, I will most likely be the one to get hit. I have tested this one many people. They only train practical attacks, then they get hit by the silly attacks, because they are not use to them.

picture 6

In defence though it is different. You see if you attack, you are not reacting, you have made a conscious choice to attack. But if you are defending, you are reacting to
something your partner is doing. And when you are training your subconscious to react, you want to train it in the most practical way that will be best for protecting yourself in the street.

Your first reaction in a situation should be to strike.

It is the quickest and most likely way to protect yourself. See picture #6. In my opinion, other methods such as arm/wrist locks, sleeper holds etc, should only be used when you know you have control of the situation. Perhaps there is a drunk guy in the pub, you have some mates there, you know there’s no real danger. So you would try to take care of the guy without doing too much damage.
But someone breaks into your home and catches you off guard, you have to protect your family. So your first reaction should be to strike. This is why we practice our locks and holds from the attacking part of push hands.

So to consolidate, if you have been training in push hands for anymore than a year, but don’t feel comfortable when someone is throwing punches at you, then your push hands has not done its job.
As I said at the top, what use is a training method that only makes you good at doing the training method.

♦

Eli is a guest writer for the CombativeCorner.  If you enjoyed this article, please check out the others that he’s done for us.

– 10 Questions with Eli Montaique

– Standing Three Circle Qigong

Special thanks to Francesca Galea, Leigh Evans, and Lars-Erik Olsen, for appearing in the pictures

Proof read by Francesca Galea
Written by Eli Montaigue 04/12/2014

© Eli Montaigue 2014

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Eli Montaigue is a man of many talents.  He’s the chief instructor of the World Taiji Boxing Association, inherited from his late, legendary father-teacher Erle Montaigue and also the lead singer of the band Powder Monkeys.  Originally from NSW, Australia he currently resides in London, England.  Intent on spreading quality martial art teaching, he conducts many workshops throughout the year, locally and internationally.  For more information, visit the WTBA website at www.taijiworld.com

10 Questions with Eli Montaigue

What was it like as a youngster growing up with a father so well-versed in martial arts?

Well when I was younger, it was always cool knowing my Dad could kicks anyone’s ass kind of thin.  It was great also because I was home-schooled, and Dad did a lot of his classes from home, so he was always around.  There was of course a lot of play fighting etc, though from as far back as I remember whenever we’d be wrestling, he’d be getting me to strike in ST9 etc, so of course I was to small to hurt him, so I got a lot of Dim-Mak practice.  It was when I was 14 I started taking the training seriously, 7am every morning for 2 hours, a class with Dad.  Girls were the only thing that ever made me late!  Like father like son!
As I started getting better at the fighting arts, I became his main training partner, he called me Kato (Pink Panther), as I would always attack him in the house, either with a punch or a heap of questions.
I started at 14 with him having to push me to train, then by 16 he was having to hide!  I was so into it, and wanted to be as good as him.

When and how did the drive to become a martial art teacher start and/or evolve?

I guess ever since I started enjoying the training I figured I’d start teaching one day.
When I was 16 I started attending all of Dad’s workshops and classes, and helped out teaching the beginners.  Then when we moved to Wales, when I was 18, I got a job offer through one of Dad’s other students  to teach Tai Chi form and self-defence to children at the public schools in Swansea.
It was a great place to start teaching on my own, as they were aged from 5 to 15 years old.  So didn’t matter if I made mistakes.  That built up my confidence as a teacher.  Then after a year of doing that, I opened my first self-run classes.  At 19 years old I was very skilled in the arts, and a good teacher, though looking like a kid I wasn’t able to get many people to stay with the class.  (As so many people think Tai Chi teaches have to be old!)
So most of my students were of people who knew who I was.
I opened up more classes in the week, knowing I wouldn’t get many people to the Bagua one, but just did it because I liked this girl that was attending, so meant I could see her more.
She became my first love, and we were together for nearly 4 years.
So yeah I loved the arts, loved teaching them, and found that I could make money doing it!  So it’s not really something you’d say no to.  And when I started traveling all over the world with it, I got hooked, and has grown bigger and bigger.  Then Dad died, and I suddenly had a lot more work to do!
What is your daily training routine like?

I get most of my training though all the teaching I do.  That’s been one of things that has taught me most in my training.
So at the moment, I just do a little on my own.  Wake up, do a little stretching on my legs, Qigong, Tai Chi form etc, then I get all my partner training in classes.
When I was younger – 14 till 20 or so, I did a lot of learning new stuff through the day, class with Dad in the morning, and then watching DVD’s.  Then I would get Dad to look at what I learned to show me where I was going wrong.  And I would do my Standing Qigong for 20 to 30 minutes morning and night, in Australia in the summer I’d get up at 5am just as the sun was coming up, as even then it was 30 degrees, so was to hot in the day for Qigong.
As someone from the fast-food generation and someone who constantly travels, how does your diet fare?

And I’m a Vegetarian! No. I really don’t have much of a problem finding food.  France is the hardest.  They don’t seem to understand the concept of not eating meat.  But I always manage to find good healthy food.  The only time I would not eat well would be on a long driving trip, as the food in the Motorway services is not great.
You have to look a bit harder, but there’s good food in most places.

What are some of your favorite forms or exercises to practice and why?

My favorite form would be the Yang Lu Chan Tai Chi form – For it’s “stoner qualities!” It gives the best feeling of building power in my body, and switching off the mind – getting high off the Qi.  It to me is the most complete form, I could do just that form everyday and get what I need out of it.  I’ve felt the most interesting things happen to me in that form, and seen great things in other as well.
Push Hands also.  I feel push hands has taught me more than anything else about the fighting side of things, and it’s s a great full body work-out as well.

How does your method of teaching push hands differ from most traditional styles?

Our push hands is to train you how to kill.  And there are no rules, just like there are no rules in the street.  All other styles that I’ve seen, seem to do push hands to beat other people at push hands!  I don’t know why you’d want to do that.
They push you and if you move your foot they think they’ve won! – whilst being completely oblivious to the strike I have just put in (while moving my foot).  We don’t stand still when we fight, so we don’t in push hands.
Other styles seem to put a great emphasis on up-rooting.  They try to get you off balance, then push you back.  This is what we teach to beginners only, for a bit of grounding and balance training.  If I try to up-root one of my advanced students, I’ll get a punch in the face for it! You can not up-root someone that wants to smash your face in… just like if I try to put on an arm lock, or throw a fancy high kick.  These things do not work in real fights, and push hands is about real fighting.  So once we learn the basics of push hands, if you were to watch me and another instructor doing it, we just look like we’re trying to kick the shit out of each other.  We try to pull any deadly shots, but there are still a lot of bruises and bloody lips etc.  After one of my last sessions I was limping home, and my partner was throwing up in the street!
Internal arts have been called the “soft styles” – This is because we are soft on the inside, in that we use the least amount of muscular force to get the job done.  So we look softer than someone using more muscle etc.  But in these modern times this has led everyone to believe that we fight softly!  You can’t fight softly, anyone who tells you this has had a very sheltered life!

Your father imparted many things to you over the years, what sticks out most in your mind?

To not take things so seriously.  Make fun of yourself.  Never think yourself better than anyone else.  How to love, how to hug, even to those you don’t even know.  To show love to them and care.

What would you have been doing if it wasn’t for the martial arts and why?

Music –  I do it now anyway.  I’m a drummer in a rock band, and also play for the Swansea Belly Dancing girls.  When Dad died someone had to fill his spot in the band as lead male vocals.  At that time we found out I actually had his voice.  So I’m now lead singer for our band.  So I guess if I didn’t have the Tai Chi I would put more time into singing and try to do something there.

When someone is starting out in Taijiquan, what is most important for them to concentrate on?

Depends on the person.  Young, fit guys usually have to work on softness, whereas girls tend to have to work on power.
I guess the main thing I work on with beginners would be strength and structure, while at the some time staying soft.  And just do it!
So many people worry so much about if they’re doing it right, that they never do it!  You’re not going to get it right at the start, so just do it as best you can.  We all suck at the start, I have video footage to prove it!

What does Eli like to do when he is not training, teaching or traveling the country doing workshops?

Mountain hiking/camping. Skiing, Motorbikes, spending chilling out time with family and friends, hugging, swimming, ping pong, roller-blading, Kayaking, Cycling, playing drums, singing,…or when I’ve just been doing to much, my friends will make me have an evening of doing nothing!  Just sit around watching movies, chatting, and just wasting time.  That’s always nice too, just not all the time!

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STANDING THREE CIRCLE QIGONG   |   ELI MONTAIGUE

Living 100 Years: Re-Learning to Breathe

The famous comedian George Burns was once asked, “What’s the secret of Life?” … of which he replied,

“Keep breathing.”

Wise words from a guy that reached the ripe ol’ age of 100 (and two months).

The word is Qi (pronounced “chee“).  We’ve heard it plenty… some of us have read up on it… but every one of us has experienced it [just most of us haven’t been aware of it]!

When I speak to youngsters about qi, I often allude to the Star Wars films in which George Lucas replaced “Qi” with “the Force.”  Qi is a term that means energy, or breath.  It is the prime-mover of our existence and permeates throughout the universe.

There are different types of “Qi Training” (called Qigong) such as: Buddhist Qigong, Taoist Qigong, Wushu Qigong and Medical Qigong.  Within these, the practitioner learns to harness and cultivate this energy for the purposes of: emitting, absorbing, cleansing, conditioning and healing. [Author’s note: Wushu Qigong should not be attempted without a qualified teacher. Practitioners should also have a basic understanding of qi and qigong training before wushu qigong is attempted].  And yes, there are even methods: Natural, Differential, Reversed, Dantian, Embryonic and “method of no-method.”  All have their benefits but it is the first, Natural Breathing Qigong, that we will focus on for purposes of “beginning at the root”, health and in developing a habit of “correct method.”

Breathing and its link to good health makes plenty of sense …for it’s the air we breathe, the oxygen that’s delivered to our cells and all the “energetics” at work that nurtures Life.  But it’s our awareness of our breath through both moving or non-moving activities that bolsters results.

• Awareness: Concentrating on the “breath in” and the “breath out” focuses our mind internally and removes us from outside thoughts and common distractions.  Thoughts will always enter-in (it is our nature as humans to think).  But just as ripples appear on a pond… let the mind return to calm and think back to the breath as it is drawn into the body and finds its rest in the lower abdomen.

A MYTH:  Healthy breathing does NOT mean expanding the chest and letting as much oxygen in as possible.  By doing so, oxygen restricts the hemoglobin molecules and less is released to the cells.

THINK QUALITY OVER QUANTITY. 

• Quality:  Soft. Quiet. Relaxed. Smooth… all of these should be words to describe how you are breathing.  As you breathe into your nostrils (at a relaxed, steady pace), imagine the breath going all the way down to your abdomen (aka. dantian).  By bringing your breath to your dantian, even smallest blood vessels will relax and open and will enrich your body with a greater flow of blood, oxygen and qi.
• Natural or Diaphragmatic breathing: Breathe through the nose at a soft and steady rate and bring the breathe to the abdomen.  Allow the abdomen to expand (by way of the breath, and not by your abdominal muscles pushing outwards).  As you breathe out, do so by breathing out through the nose and allow the abdomen to contract/go inward.
• Relax: This cannot be repeated enough.  The better you are at relaxing, the greater the benefits you will attain from your practice.  Bring your thoughts away from school, work or any other outside distractions.  If your thoughts drift… return back.  Over time, over practice… the “return” will be easier and easier.
• Posture:  There are many qigong postures and all of them will have to be adjusted slightly since we all are built differently.  I have 3 basic postures that I use and they are: standing, sitting and laying.  I use each of these postures throughout the day (as I am often in one of the 3 postures naturally).  For instructional purposes, a standing posture should be made with a straight spine, head erect, knees slightly bent, arms by your side and the tip of the tongue resting softly behind the roof of the mouth (behind the first two teeth).  For more on standing qigong, please check out Eli Montaigue’s Combative Corner contribution entitled, Three Circle Qigong.

Illustrations of qigong movements are helpful, however the mother of movement will always be stillness.  There are many great books that may help you to better understand qigong such as: Qigong Empowerment, by Master Shou-Yu Liang & Wen-Ching Wu and The Way of Qigong, by Kenneth Cohen… but the act of qigong is a relatively simple way to improves your health and longevity.  Time, patience, willpower and correct intention are the only requisites.

Michael Joyce

Original article posted, April 2008 at ChenCenter.Com

Us at the Combative Corner welcome your insights as well.  Here are just a few of the questions we’d like to know.  Please post your response in the comment section below.

• HAS QIGONG WORKED FOR YOU ?
• WHAT HAS BEEN YOUR EXPERIENCES ?
• MIGHT YOU HAVE ANY WISDOM YOU’D LIKE TO IMPART ON US ?
• MIGHT YOU HAVE ANY QUESTIONS FOR US OR OUR READING PUBLIC ?

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Erle Montaigue: Remembering a Legend

No artist-teacher, in these early days of The CombativeCorner, garnered more inquiry than did Erle Montaigue.  It was with both shock and sadness that when I approached his son, Eli on January 26th to see if his father would be keen on doing a 10 question interview with us, that I would read the words, “You’re a day late… we lost him yesterday afternoon.”  Erle was a monumental fixture to many martial artists over the years for his lively, and thoughtful teachings of the internal arts.  In 1979, Erle burst on the scene with books, articles and videos and introducing people to something that many people became fascinated over, ‘Dim Mak’ (translated: The Touch of Death).  Erle, from his earliest days, was an honest and giving teacher and one that felt that it was important for serious students of the martial arts know the inner sanctum of its teachings, and not get washed away with the hype and mysticism that so many people place on the internal arts.

What was to be a “10 Question with Erle Montaigue” is now something completely ‘different.’ Which is probably how Erle would have liked it.  In this article I hope to both introduce Erle (to those who do not yet know him), and to ‘stroke the embers’ of Erle’s teachings so that we do not lose sight on what’s important.  For more articles on Erle, his articles, books & dvds, music and more, please click on the above image.  For more information on Erle’s second passion, music, click the link –here-.  A friend of mine did an article on Erle in his blog, Nagual Time (“The Real Deal“).

So, without further ado… some ‘snip-its’ from the writings of the “Bad Rock Musician of Neigong.”  You will be missed but never forgotten sir!

Friends, students and family of Mr. Erle Montaigue – we’d love to hear about your experiences with Erle.  Please use the comment box below and tell us all just what impact he had on you.

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Are shortened-forms bad for you?

The main aim in our Tai Chi practice is to try to emulate the internal flow of energy with a set of natural movements. So we do a posture that works upon the Colon, then we do a movement that works upon the Lung etc. So if we change these postures around, and our movement is linked to our internal Qi/energy, we will upset that balance because our movement is no longer flowing from one organ to the next. And we then become ill over time, allowing external pathogens into the body because we no longer have protections.

(read full article: here )

Are the internal arts meant to be soft?

There really aren’t any translatable words for ‘soft’ and ‘relax’ in Chinese. Both of these words need a sentence or two, in order to say what they old masters really meant. And you must also take in to consideration that when the old masters spoke about Tai Chi ch’uan for instance, they weren’t only talking about the slow form but rather the whole shebang of training methods that are present in all internal systems. What most ‘masters’ only ever teach and actually know are the initial basic beginner’s forms and when we stick the two words ‘soft’ and ‘relax’ over the initial basic forms, and especially if those masters then teach that those forms are used for self defence, you get a somewhat different view of what the old masters actually meant!

(read full article: here )

What do you think about the practice of Fa-jing?

Fa-jing is the motor of tai chi, it is what makes it go and is the reason that tai chi’s translation hold the lofty name of “Supreme Ultimate Fighting or Fist”. The Yang tai chi form that Doc-Fai Wong (regarding an article from Kungfu Magazine July 2004)  mentions not having fa-jing is only the very beginner’s form where one learns about balance and timing and begins to get his or her internal workings in harmony with the external movement. This is of course essential to any healing or self defence art. As one progresses, slowly, the fa-jing is introduced teaching the student that they have great power locked within their body that can be accessed with this fa-jing or “explosive energy”. If a student were to practice fa-jing too early, they might cause damage to their skeletal structure unless they have been doing some other martial system where their body is used to rigorous movement.

(read full article: here)

How do you get your Qi to sink?

The trick to getting the Qi to do what you want it to (to SINK) lies hidden in a phrase that I always remember, told to me by one of my teachers way back. In fact it was one of the very first things he told to me, thus: “Qi is like a shy girl; she looks at you from behind a tree when you are not looking and you see her out of the corner of your eye and she disappears. Then you TRY to see her every day after without success until you are not trying and then swhe will appear again when you least expect it.”

And this is the total secret to your advancement and understanding of your Tai Chi practice. Simply DO IT! No silly mind games, no thinking low, or I must sink my qi, no thinking of honey rolling down your body etc., or the many other games that we are told to play as these are all CONSCIOUS thought and another important classic saying that I was told way back was that: “Conscious thought will block the Qi”.

(read full article: here )

Is there Pushing in Pushing Hands?

When I first began my training in Taijiquan, I too was impressed with masters who could push people several feet away. I trained and trained until I too could do this. But my first real confrontation in the street showed me that I had been wasting my time and had to revert back to what I had previously known in order to defend myself! I then began investigating real Taijiquan rather than giving it up altogether and I am thankful that I did not give up as I met my main teacher who did not teach any pushing during push hands, he only struck!

I would ask why he struck me (rather hard) from such short distances as I would find it almost impossible to defend. His answer was that fighting happened HERE (in my face) and that if I could almost defend myself against his close attacks, then I would have no problem in the street.

(read full article: here)

What do you do about the Taiji ‘Doldrums’?

The (taijiquan) form causes us to feel good, so good in fact that there comes a time when we begin to slow our practice until we are not doing any practice at all! The good feeling lasts a little longer so that we then make excuses for not practicing as it is after all time consuming and take some effort, especially in the early mornings. One great excuse is that how can this set of physical movements help me in any way. Surely it is just a lie or some invention by someone to make some money! So even the masters begin to doubt whether Taijiquan is actually able to help and put it down to just the simple exercise that it brings to the body. So, some take up walking or swimming as a substitute and this works for a time.

However, over time, the body and especially the mind slips right back into normal Western living patterns where we become depressed, drink lots of coffee (as a substitute for Taijiquan as it makes us feel good) which causes the depression to worsen. Eventually, life is just not good anymore, especially if you are over around 45. Everything seems like there is no purpose and we become just like everyone else on the planet with the same depression diseases!

…Once you know that it is the Taijiquan alone that is healing you, you will then practice every day no matter how great you feel as you will realise that it is this simple set of movements that is causing you to be in this great area of health and well-being.

(read full article: here )

How ‘intense’ should Taijiquan be?

Probably, like just about 90 percent of the western martial “arts” community, you will be contemplating on words like, peaceful, running brooks, soft music, ballet, yoga, calm, Taoism philosophy, non-violence. If those words did come to mind, then you, again like most of the western martial arts world would be dead wrong.

Sure, Taijiquan has the above aspects simply because the body must be relaxed, or as the Chinese put it, in a state of sung, but for the most part, Taiji is a very violent martial art. In fact, I always tell people when they are looking for a Taiji class, to look for violence in that class. If it is not there in the advanced classes, then leave that class.

(read full article: here )

Can anyone learn the Dim-Mak (or Death Touch)?

Anyone is able to learn the very basic Dim-Mak strikes and make them work. We in the original Dim-mak arts such as Taijiquan call these strikes, the “Children’s Strikes”, those that are taught to children so that they can protect themselves very quickly not requiring any real training or power. These strikes include those to the back of the head using an open palm slap, those to the ST 9 point (carotid sinus) which works upon the physiology of the body to maintain a relatively even blood pressure. When struck, this point, which is located directly over the carotid sinus, causes the brain to think that extremely high blood pressure is present so it sends a message to the brain which in turn sends a message to the heart via the vagus nerve to either slow right down or to even stop! This is how this strike works. And literally, ANYONE can do it on a ‘sitting duck’, those who make themselves available in seminars for instance, to a teacher who thinks nothing of damaging those students just for a boost to his own ego. There are however, many other points on the body that also act to lower the blood pressure like those associated with the gallbladder, intestines and the urethra. The stomach for instance has nerve endings in the lower part of the stomach coming from the vagus nerve which when struck also cause the knock out from a sudden lowering of blood pressure and heart slowing.
Those strikes to the back of the head using an open palm shock the brain when even light pressure is used, often causing a knock out. Strikes to the back of the neck will also cause the ‘easy’ knock outs by the action upon the ‘brain stem’ or reptile brain when it is kinked. This is a medical fact that when the brain stem is kinked, the brain goes into knock out.

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What role does the mind play in performing Gung-fu?

Imagine that you are holding a big yellow juicy lemon in your hand. You must SEE the lemon in your mind’s eye, you must feel the waxy texture and that little lump at the end. Take a big knife and cut the lemon holding one half up to your mouth and squeeze the juice into your open mouth.

What happened? Your mouth produced saliva didn’t it. You really didn’t have a lemon, you were only imagining it. Your mind however, still caused your body to do what it would have done had you a real lemon!

It is the same with the martial arts. When we practice our forms or katas, we imagine the opponent in front of us. Provided that you have a good imagination, your sub-conscious mid will be doing all of those self-defence applications as you go through your forms. The good thing is however, that you do not have to imagine the applications every time you practice. Only once or twice do you have to be told what the applications are and only once or twice do you have to go through the whole form imagining that you are performing those applications. After that, those movements go into your ‘long term’ memory and you no longer have to think about them, they will just happen sub-consciously. IT does not take long for a ‘short term’ memory to become long term.

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What do you think of teachers that teach you how to knock someone out?

Even the proverbial little old lady is capable of knocking someone out after being shown how and where to strike. But put her in to a situation where she has to defend herself and she will of course not be able to use her newly found knock out methods.

No one is able to knock someone out who does not wish to be knocked out. One of the first things I tell people at my seminars is to ask if anyone would like to try to knock me out. Of course they expect me to just stand there and allow them to strike me. I do not do this and of course they are unable to even get close enough to touch me let alone knock me out.

Now this is nothing special as I have known experienced kick boxers who have challenged some of the better known knock out specialists to KO them when they are simply covering up as they would normally do in a match. The ‘expert’ was in all instances unable to get anywhere near the recipient. For this you have to have the ‘opening techniques’ using fa-jing or explosive energy.

My advice is always find out what you are going to be taught at any knock out seminar. If you are only going to be taught what points to strike, then do not waste your money. If however, you are going to be taught HOW to knock out a good fighter who is not allowing you to do so, then go. And in my years as a self-defence instructor, I have never come across anyone who was able to show exactly how to knock someone out who was not a willing subject. You might as well go to a physiology lesson with a good doctor and learn about the carotid sinus and other points on the human body which will cause the recipient to be knocked out when struck.

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