Bao wrote:twocircles13 wrote:The way I have been shown yielding and neutralization by other taiji practitioners is, the opponent pushes my arm. I absorb his force by allowing him to shift me in my stance. This loads his energy into my rear leg and muscles (or spine or arms or all these)
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If you have another method, I would love to banish my assumptions.
That's how beginners are taught and how many intermediate practitioners play.
The problem is that your opponent can follow your movements and fill in the gap.
A good opponent will trap you and won’t let you escape.
Yep, this. If you run, I follow until, as previously mentioned, you run out of places to go.
I prefer to direct his force away directly upon touch and connect with his center as soon as possible.
I don't care about center, the center will come along.
EDIT: I know we differ on this and I haven't been able to quite articulate it, but, contextually and conditionally, I'd say that I'm connecting to their tension. That's the handle I use to move the rest, regardless of where their physical center or centerline or center of gravity might be. The tension connects me to their "center" the way gravity connects ME to the center of the earth, and they're providing it, unless they're collapsed, at which point, yeah, hunting for something to find purchase on.
When I push on my teacher, he doesn't run away or try to hide his center, he uses my tension to take away my "a place to stand" as Archimedes might say. The coolest little tricks seem to come from dynamically changing the classes and arrangements of levers in the system.
Everything is about timing, so it's better to always be one step ahead.
Yep.
Also, I don't shift my weight very much, I prefer to keep a forward stance and the weight in my front foot.
Yep.