Greatings all,
I agree with most of what you have written, but was wondering if you would elaborate on “sliding is not permitted.” I agree that “pivoting, rolling, and coiling are necessary...” and that unintentional sliding is not desirable (it could indicate a lack of stickiness or lack of control at the point of contact), but I was taught “smearing” by Zhang Luping. Smearing is like spreading something viscous (like honey) across the opponent’s skin in order to control them.
I am not sure what you mean by “smearing.” Could you describe it in physical terms or refer to something in the Classics that describes it?
For us, “pivoting” is used to change the orientation of your body part—usually your hand—while maintaining pressure against the opponent. If you had a nail that went through the center of rotation connecting your body part to the opponent’s, the nail could only rotate, but would not otherwise move.
“Rolling” is used to change the point of pressure as you roll your body part against the opponent’s body part. The rolling action is along a geometric line or ray. If you had nails along that line, it would be as if you used pressure to sequentially put one nail in the opponent’s body part as you pull out the previous nail in succession with the same motion. In simple terms, it’s like a bicycle wheel rolling against the ground.
“Coiling” is merely “pivoting” and “rolling” combined. It is typically used to move from one side of an opponent’s body part to the other. It is like a snake coiling up a tree.
We have a few exercise you can use to practice these skills on yourself, either individually, or all together.
During our basic circling drills and applications, we try to keep at least two points of contact in order to control the opponent. It is normal to attach and detach as the circling progress, but we still try to maintain two points of contract at all times. Sometimes, your original point of contact needs to change without detaching, and that is when we use pivoting, rolling, or coiling.
We do not permit sliding because it implies a loss of control, just as sliding across ice does. While your are sliding, you can still vary pressure in certain ways, but this is not what we would call sticking.
When you have the two points of contact, it might be possible to slide at other points in order to get into position; however, even there, it would be preferable not to slide if possible. An example of inevitable sliding is during pivoting, since only the central point is “stationary” and all other points of contact around that point would require a sliding motion. We would not term this sliding, hiowever.
Gentlemen....
The reason there are discrepancies in our understanding of these terms is because it depends who have we learnt them from. Here are the definition of zhan lian, nian sui (粘连黏随) defined from the former Tai Chi master 楊班候.
I do not see how this passage is inconsistent with what I explained. In fact, I referred to it in drafting my earlier post. Yang Banhou says
zhan, nian, lian, sui are the most basic of Tai Chi techniques of Jin/energy methods and the most fundamental skill. (沾連粘隨，是太極拳最基本的技術勁法和基礎功夫). Since these are part of the Jin/energy method, I see no contradiction in showing Jin that is detectable by the opponent.
One of our inspirations is Sunzi. He did not stress so much hiding your force or showing no force, as hiding your disposition of force. We do not strive to hide our Jin, but rather not let the opponent know too much about the full and empty of our Jin. We want the opponent to feel something, but not be able to get it.
For our approach, as I understand it, I think it is useful to treat separately many things that some others treat together. Basically, I am referring to the quality of force and the appropriate amount of force.
I have described the appropriate quality of force above. Like the power of water to float things, it is not dependent on the amount of force.
During our normal circling, we do not want the mutual pressure to be too heavy, or else both practitioners will feel very unstable and will have difficulty with the training.
Within your own body, you want your upper body to feel relatively light and your lower body to feel relatively heavy. Your middle should feel flexible. I use the word relatively, because it addresses the proportions, not the amounts. You can absorb heavy pressure through your arms, while still passing the bulk of the pressure to your lower body as long as your lumbar spine area is “loose.” Thus, even with heavy pressure coming to your arms, your upper body can be relatively “light.”
In doing form, you need to lengthen the limbs to loosen them, but do not do this so heavily that your limbs become stiff and tight. This is one way we understand “Use mind intent, do not use force.”
Another thing that we talk about is that our Tai Chi first prioritizes being soft, but then ultimately we want to use soft and hard combined. Doing form, we want to feel the Yin-Yang changes and not just be Yin all the time. This does not mean being alternatively soft and hard, but rather feeling the change between left and right, up and down, empty and fall, storing and releasing, opening and closing, etc. In push hands “tactics,’ you want to understand both full and empty and can affect either.
Also, in our push hands, we follow the maxim “If the opponent does not move, you do not move”; however, this is not taken literally. We can take either a Yang approach or a Yin approach. In a Yang approach, you make the opponent give you the energy you need. In a Yin approach, you just wait for it. This is why we just don’t want to react to the opponent, but control the opponent.
Take care,
Audi
a tissue along a wall. I contrast this with trying to push the tissue around at the edges. It’s like the difference between using an eraser on a blackboard to erase a chalk figure and pushing the eraser around at the edges like a hockey stick on a hockey puck.