I was particularly interested in reading about Sanshou, the two-person form. My teacher in Santa Fe, Michael DeMarco, introduced advanced students to Sanshou once he felt they had sufficiently mastered the Long Form and had had some experience with Push Hands. It is rarely taught in most venues for learning Tai Chi, perhaps because the form itself, be it Short Form or Long Form, Yang, Wu, Chen or Sun, demands a great deal of time for learning and for serious practice. Through Brennan’s translation we have this description from Chen Yanlin:
Paired practice is related to each of the entire series of thirteen dynamics [i.e. the eight techniques of ward-off, rollback, press, push, pluck, rend, elbow, and bump, plus the five directions of footwork – forward, back, left, right, and center] within the solo set. One by one they are plugged in, according to appropriateness of response, and linked together with each other to compose the two-person sparring set. The way it has been put together can be described as seamless, constantly transforming, endlessly subtle, and is truly the masterpiece within the system.
You begin your study of Sanshou by practicing solo, that is, doing one half of the “dance” without a partner. This lets you concentrate on the form of the movements and establish a natural flow and rhythm. Later you work with a partner in a choreographed sequence of movements. The roles of each participant are reversed and the form becomes cyclic.
There is what I would call a “combative” form of boxing called Sanshou, which has evolved from different martial arts techniques, wrestling, kick boxing and so forth. The term means “free hand” and is characterized by a seeming lack of rules, an “extreme” combat sport. There are many tournaments of Sanshou boxing and the similarity between this and the traditional Tai Chi form is hard to visualize. Around 1979, the Chinese National Sports Committee began experimenting with Sanshou as a competitive sport. In “A Brief History of Sanshou” by Master Li, Yongqian, Master Li explains:
Sanshou: San means open or free . Shou means hands . Sanshou literally means open or free hands . Sanda: San again means open or free . Da means hit, beat, or fight . Sanda is the more common term, whereas Sanshou is the official name since Da makes it sound too brutal or violent.
But the Sanshou form we are concerned with is the antithesis of violence. It is about sticking and following, about sensing your opponent’s energy, as Chen Yanlin says, “neutralizing and issuing” in subtle and continuous movement. I’ve always found Push Hands to be limited, especially the fixed stance version of Push Hands. In the Two-person Form of Sanshou the art of Tai Chi reveals itself, the nature of the individual movements becomes clear.
awesome i like your perspective.I also understand that the Two man fighting set was not created by Yang Family. Fu zhong Wen said that it was a pre-conceived form and not really true to fighting. The two man fight set as I understand was copied by a student 4th generation Chen Yanlin who was a student of Tian Zhou Lin. He asked Yang Chen fu if he could borrow a Yang family's manual of techniques. He got to borrow it for one night and Chen Yanling had many scribes copy all the techniques in one night. Later Chen Yanlin he strung them together in a two person set which the understanding it would train the 13 energies, stepping, distance, countering, general attack and defense, as it comes to be a bridge towards pure "san shou" or free fighting.
ReplyDeleteNice post. And nice blog too.
ReplyDeleteLast night I had a realization: Tai Chi is not slow-motion dance but slow-motion martial art. I became fascinated but that thought and have decided to start learning about and practicing Tai Chi.
Any input on what I definitely should read, watch and practice?
Thank you.