Kung Fu and Tai Chi Performance & Promotion - Friday Sept 21 6pm

September 21st at 6:00pm
Live Music, Food and beverages
$7 at the door
Invite friends and family to this exciting event!
A Fundraiser for the 2013 International Kung Fu tournament in Baltimore 

100% of proceeds go for our competition team

The Art and Spirit of Push Hands

Enjoy this excerpt of a longer article by Marilyn Cooper at Pushing For Peace :

T’ai Chi forms adhere to the laws of physics and human nature. The postures are relaxed, stable, and connected to earth, freeing up the mind and nerves to sense and experience force. Over time and with experience, the T’ai Chi devotee is able to feel increasingly subtle levels of energy, thought and force.

Very deliberately, the mind moves the body in space while energy moves within the body frame. The slow pace gives the mind’s eye time to synchronize many small details, from the top of the head to the bottoms of the feet. Inner strength and awareness is developed slowly but surely – and safely.

“True life is lived when tiny changes occur.” (Leo Tolstoy)

Push Hands has various structured drills that stimulate internal energy and can evolve into spontaneous style or natural boxing. Players learn how to relax and lower their center of gravity, to meet hard (Yang) with soft (Yin), and to image an opponent during solo form practice. When based on the actual experience of doing forms with a training partner, imagination and memory are both engaged.

The more receptive and relaxed you are, the more you move with the force being delivered, and the harder it is for your partner to find your center. This is because you are responding to her or his searching rather than initiating. Push Hands helps you to become more centered and relaxed, one who stays calm, aware and patient, no matter how great the stress.

T’ai Chi develops sensitivity; the ability to listen to energy. Listening energy trains the ability to feel force as it materializes, which is the first step towards being able to neutralize that force. Before it is fully realized, by sticking (constant adhering) to the ground-swell, force can be received within ones frame and effortlessly recycled back at the giver of that force.

The mind should be empty and the body in a state of non-rigid readiness. This is no different from most sports — except that the poised, aware state is the entire modus operandi of T’ai Chi and Push Hands. A lapse in awareness, a moment of distraction will be felt by the more alert player, and is an opportunity for a gentle push, pull or combination of the two.