Those who are defensive do not understand;
those who understand have nothing to defend.
(Lao Tzu)
Vulnerability
Particular care needs to be taken when handling your partner
during self defence training.
Loose, heavy strikes using body weight can have unpredictable
results; chin na, striking and
fa jing can produce significant injury.
Use caution when handling the following areas of the body:
Face
Neck
Spine
Joints - shoulders, elbows, wrists, hips, knees & ankles
Fingers
Treat your practice partner with compassion and
empathy; use their responses as a guideline rather your own expectations.
If in doubt, move slowly and carefully - remaining balanced at all times.
Everybody is vulnerable to damage, so handle each other
with care.
Realism
Self defence training needs to be as realistic as possible
without anyone actually being hurt.
Realism does not necessary involve aggression and danger.
Unrealistic behaviour:
Continuing after being struck in a vulnerable location
Impractical grabs/holds/contact
Moving your arm for the opponent
Tensing-up and struggling when your body has been struck in a vulnerable location
Striking in order to miss (out of range or inaccurate)
Failing to exploit opportunities
Ultimately, unrealistic behaviour will not make any
difference to your practice partner.
They will simply learn to work around you or train with somebody else.
Full-contact
Tai chi can cause too much
damage
to your practice partner if they attack you full-contact.
Periodically we encounter new starters who dispute this.
We invite them to receive a gravity strike in order to test their
hypothesis.
The ones who agree to the experiment never ask to train full-contact again
in our class.
Contact without damage
Ideally, your attacker should be quick and accurate but not imbue
the strike with too much force.
The impact will feel like a deep, heavy, penetrating slap rather than a painful blow.
This approach is called 'different-contact'.
It means that your partner can deliver fast strikes
without too much fear of hurting you, and you can respond appropriately
without damaging them in return.
Being hurt during practice benefits nobody.
Different contact is an alternative to pulling punches,
full-contact or touch-contact.
A useful by-product is that you learn not to push
upon impact and this is an essential consideration when employing fa jing.
Page created 6 May 2000