Push hands in the hard arts and partner drills in all arts?

My Karate style has partner drill and I never liked them very much. They really didn't seem to work. One day after my mention about this a senior student hinted that they had been watered down because students got careless didn't have control and injured each other. I continued to do the drills because they are requirements for the ranks but I changed my attitude and tried to see what has been taken out and modified. Surprisingly I came up with very functional and downright vicious techniques and now I like the drills. Apparently the watered down version did not irretrievably hide the true potential of the techniques and someone who was smart enough and spent enough time with the drills could eventually find the true meaning. The drills are different than our Kata and a nice addition to learning bunkai.

In Taiji we were working on push hands and Master Chen my teacher got frustrated with everybody muscling their way through the push hands, trying to pull each other off balance when were were only told to do the exercise and feel your opponents, not fight. The punishment was no practicing push hands for a year only our forms. I was a beginner then and hated push hands. I never learned anything with it constantly being pulled off balance by someone who had to prove how good they were and how bad I was. I was glad not having to do push hands anymore and practiced my form. One year later we did push hands again, and what do you know through practicing my form I had learned push hands without realizing it. My partner and I were switching directions and stepping and I followed without a second thought.

Because of both of these experiences I honestly do not know what to make of partner drills. I know that partners are needed for practice in martial arts but I am not sure if pre-prescribed partner drills are necessary or if the same results can be achieved through more freestyle technique training with a partner. The benefit of a prearranged series of moves is that you do the same thing over and over and you don't have variations. The more variations the longer it can take to grasp a concept by trying to figure out what variations have what results on the outcome of a technique. I have trained both ways. The way with the many variations was harder but in the end I think I understood the techniques better. The other way made me grasp the concept better but when I encountered a variation it was harder to adjust and make the technique work anyway. Long term it was all good because eventually I got the hang of the technique and learned to adjust to variations better. How many ways can you get up a mountain? All you need is a good guide.

There are various repeatable patterns in Okinawan arts. For Japanese origins, you can look at the 3 tone repeatable sequences in various kenjutsu lines.

Anything can be productive or counter productive, based upon the incompetence of the various people around you.

When it was said that hard and soft had the same goal, they were speaking of ancient neigong foundations that used breathing to maximize yang or ying powers. In the modern world, the hard styles wouldn't even be considered very muscularly powerful by say, the SHaolin conditioning. Without the foundations of ancient Chinese knowledge, there is no such thing as the same "goal" let alone the same methods, for what is deemed muscular based arts and non-muscular based arts today.

The fundamental benefits of two partner drills should be.

1. Repeating sequences or free form decision practice.

2. Training both people in something useful, not having one act as a practice dummy all the time (although sometimes unavoidable).

3. Weave and inter connect defense and attack sequences together so one attack hits another's defense, and recycle repeat so as to minimize time loss in training.

In push hands, one person is pulling or pushing, while utilizing basic balance and rooting foundations, but whether they attack or defend, they are never sitting around doing nothing. And the other person reacts or anticipates actions, doing their own attack and defense routines at the same time in a adaptive context.

The format of the training, called training methodology, is something that can only be understood through study. And that's not through the study of martial arts, but martial methodology and training methodology. Different issue/skill set.

Honestly, even chi sao is a very different exercise from push hands. They don't really train the same concepts. Similar principles, but the underlying training in chi, rooting, bone, and yi from the internal arts is missing from Wing Chun. Chi sao is like a mix between push hands and Filipino tapi-tapi.

That.said, I believe all martial arts would benefit from push hands, but that's because I think the internal styles are the best around. A karateka who's hell bent on being hard won't see the benefit of push hands, but I would argue that's because he's pursuing a less efficient fighting path. I don't know of other styles that incorporate push hands except the internal styles.

EDIT: Hard arts talk a good game when it comes to internal, but look at the results. Even the very high level karate guys use hard jing, and they rarely develop internal power to the level of the Chinese masters. Teruo Hayashi in "Budo: The Art of Killing" is a good example, and a very good martial artist. Listen to the way he breathes while doing his exercises; he sounds like he's wheezing because he's making he's trying to make his organs hard. Very good martial artist, very powerful, and legitimately doing internal; but taking a path that isn't efficient or healthy in the long term. Compare that with a high level guy from the Chinese schools like Ren Guang Yi. Very untroubled breathing, very fluid movements, but extremely powerful over his whole body. Seeking "hard" limits your ability to build internal power, and "hard" and "yang" are not necessarily the same thing. This is not to say that a karate guy couldn't kick my rear on any given day or that I couldn't learn something from one; you don't have to be high-level internal to be a good fighter. However, I feel the Chinese arts train to a much higher and more complete level.

Look at the guys that build huge callouses on their hands. Good for punching? Sure. Pull out knives, and suddenly having hands like clubs is a disadvantage. Same holds with manipulating a firearm, practicing medicine, or a variety of other tasks that can come up in daily life. Compare that with Chinese Iron Palm/Fist, which, when done properly, has no effect on the utility of the hand. Similar goals, but very different paths and end states.

Very interesting. You can see how well they maintain their balance. In TKD, I have done something very much like the first sequence, single hand, constant contact, in an L stance. The object is to get the other guy off balance, so he has to break contact. It is a nice training drill. We do many one on one drills. One steps, two steps, semi free and free style sparring are all one on one exercises. One new drill I'm fascinated with is synchronized kata. Synchronization requires more concentration and precision, which are both good attributes in any style. Of the other drills, my favorite is semi free sparring. In this drill, two students work out a choreographed fight. Start with one attack and one block. Add a counter attack and a return block. Keep adding layers, as many as you can remember. Collaborate on good blocks and counter attacks, forcing each other to stretch his abilities. Gradually build to full fight speed. Properly done, it is a terrific mental and physical workout, a great addition to most any type of training.

Aloha Krauss, Chuan Fa was what I learned back in the 1980's. When I went back to train about 5 years ago, I learned Emperado Method. I still prefer Chuan Fa.

We were taught that the trapping drills are just training drills, and that we would never be using them in a real street fight. We were taught that in a real street fight, you finish the fight with the minimum amount of moves possible.

In Goju Ryu we practiced pushing hands (Kakie), but it isn't soft like that. I can't speak for other styles of Karate, though. I'm not sure if what ones do or don't.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x8l57jXXEUc

Pushing Hands is a great exercise to practice. We practice it on our Hapkido school, though I'm also unsure if it's a native method of training to Hapkido or not, or if it was inspired through our observation of Taijiquan. In any case, we treat it as an important part of training. We do several different types, like the ones in your video, but primarily it's harder and we follow up with techniques like the one in mine.

In my opinion, if you ONLY train your push hands/chi sao in this manner, it's a waste of time. You'd be better off just sparring instead. This kind of soft, easy going type of exercise in which there is no resistance from the partner is alright for beginners learning the basic movements. But, for this skill to be utilized effectively in a fight or sparring match, you must learn this stuff in Gradient Steps.

The problem I, and many other martial artists, have with this typeof training is that you simply wouldn't be able to use it against any competent fighter, whether they're trained or just run of the mill street fighters.

Let's look at the setting of this video. They're in a huge, wide open field. They're both in very low stances, and no footwork is being used. MOST IMPORTANTLY, neither opponent is resisting. When I say resisting, I don't mean just power. I mean using strength as well as speed, footwork, evasive movements, moving in and out of pushing hands range, etc. Everything someone could use in a real fight. I know that resistance is not the point of these types of drills, but a Karate fighter wouldn't care about that. If you tried this against one of them, they'd simply say "Well, screw this." then proceed to move out of range with footwork, stand in a higher stance, and blast you with kicks. And you would have to adjust and spar them on their terms, because you've never trained to handle this possibility.

Now, reffering back to what I earlier stated about training in gradient steps, I'm not saying that pushing hands is totally ineffective all together. It simply needs to be adapted to modern times. I believe that to actually develop a skill with this drill that you could use in combat, you must follow these steps:

1)Practice like you see in this video. Get a feel for what it is you're doing.

2)Start going faster. Get to a point where you can do these movements at full speed.

3)Now mix it up. Have your partner change his stance. Have him fight you at a different range. This forces you to figure out a way to stop fighting on his terms, and force him to fight on yours. Have him throw some strikes. Why? Because it's realistic. Nobody but another fighter trained in your art will stand there with you and do the drill. A real fighter's going to get up and hit you. If you train against someone like this, then when the time comes that you have to fight someone like this, you'll be able to effectively apply your skillset and control the fight.

EDIT: And reading back on what "?" said, I believe most martial artists are hell bent on what they want to do, regerdless on what type of martial art they train. If someone that on;y trains in a martial art like shown in the video, they're going to look at my comment and insist that I just don't get it or that I don't know what I'm talking about.

This is the biggest problem in martial arts today. All arts need to adapt and compromise. Not all of the drills and techniques used in all arts from hundreds of years ago are going to work today. And people need to accept that, and adapt to what works TODAY. But other arts need to compromise as well. If a Wing Chun fighter is willing to adapt his Chi Sau training so that it could really be effective, then a Karateka should be willing to compromise and incorporate such drills into his art, because that would make his art MORE effective. But if every martial artist on every side of the debate is too damn hard headed to change, all martial arts are going to become a big joke.

i know goju ryu utilizes this, i dont believe shotokan does.

i did that in one other style of karate, and i just can't remember which one