Tai Chi and Competition: Team Tournament & CACMA (Part 2)
By Rachel Prevost
Now, I’d been doing the solo form for about a year. At the time of the tournament I had gotten several moves into Part Two of the form. I’ve never had to try and do the solo form AND keep my hands from shaking. Somehow, (and I’m not sure how,)I managed to do all of Part One just at the right speed to finish up in the amount of time I was allotted without forgetting anything or tripping over my own two feet. In hindsight I know I had tensed my shoulders up a lot but at the time it was the only way to keep my hands from fluttering uselessly. I still remember being surprised that I’d gotten Gold for solo form.
Originally I wasn’t going to sign up for the Push Hands competition, but one of the Peaceful Dragon Sifu’s, after checking with my Sifu, asked me to compete. I had no idea what it was going to be like but considering if all else failed, it would still be extra points for my team, so I decided that it couldn’t hurt to enter.
I received various hints and training throughout the day, which did help some. Up to that point I’d only done” fixed” step push hands, but both linear and circular styles would require me to move my feet.
I’d like to say I can remember what happened during my push hands events but all my matches were very…well, not quite frantic, but things were happening so fast and I was so unused to being in a push hands match where the other person really was doing everything they could to take my root, that there wasn’t much thinking going on, at least not from my side anyway.
Linear Push Hands is sort of similar to the fixed step push hands we do in class except you’re allowed to do “Bamboo Stepping” as you push. The competition ring is two pieces of tape on the floor about three feet apart with a plus-sign in the middle. You have to stay inside the tape lines during your match and start in a bow stance with your front foot on one side of the plus sign.
You start by doing a variation on “Grasping the Sparrow’s Tail” three times and then the match really starts. During the linear push hands I was competing against the same three guys I’d competed against for solo form. This time I got bronze. Not bad for not having a clue about what I was supposed to do.
My last event was Circular Push Hands, which is the same basic concept as linear push hands except you’re inside a tape circle that you can’t go outside of without your opponent getting a point. You also start with your opponent beside you but you’re facing in different directions.
For Team Tourney we circled each other three times then started pushing in earnest. Guess what? Yup, went against the same three guys as before. This time I got silver. The weeks of doing Ying Bou in Martial Applications class must have helped.
Before and after all my competitions there were plenty of people offering advice and letting me know how to do better next time. If I had to put it in a nutshell what I learned the most from Team Tourney, it comes down to two main lessons. The first is that no matter how much you may *think* you know the Tai Chi form, until you’re under a high stress situation you don’t really know that you know the form. The second lesson has to do with the reason we repeat things again and again and again. It’s because when someone’s really and truly out to take your root, you either know what you need to do, or you don’t know anything.
Columbia Tai Chi Center students De Anna Beasley (top) and Andrea Bonisoli Alquati (bottom) compete at CACMA