Other Dirty Attacks to Be Aware In PH

Traditionally PH is PH, to suddenly strike without both people's hands making light contact first, was regarded as a dirty attack.

I remembered once in Xu Chang (许昌), Hen Nan, there were seven Wu-Hao style Tai-chi masters lined up to have PH with me in Xu Chang Mosc. They were all famous top disciples of Wu-hao Tai-chi grand Master Chen Gu An’s (陈固安).

The PH went smoothly for the first six opponents, but the last one who was in his forties, when he was pushed around, got upset and suddenly punched my face. Even though I tried to avoid his fist, as it was so unexpected (such behaviour was regarded as dirty and low class in PH tradition, so people normally wouldn’t expect it will happen in PH), I was still hit on the cheek.

I said to the guy, "that was not PH. If you want free sparing, then ok, let’s do that".

Very soon he dropped on the ground, and we stopped free sparing. From that event on, I have been always alert and more ready for any dirty attacks in PH.

In 1995, after taking Patric Kelly to master Ma Yue Liang, I also took Patric to meet some other Tai-chi masters (while Patric was having some private tuition from Master Ma’s senior student Chen Zhao Mao <陈兆毛>). We went to Shanghai Wu Shu Institute and Patric had PH with the instructors Master Feng Ru Long (冯如龙) whom was Fu Zhong Wen’s (傅钟文) student, and Master Chen (forgot his name, he was a Chen Zhao Kui’s <陈照奎> student). Both of the instructors didn’t manage to get any advantage when doing PH with Patric. During his PH, Master Feng suddenly tried to hit Patric’s groin with his hand, then PH discontinued.

One of the Chen Style practioner Master Gu in "Shanghai People’s Park" said to us that Master Qian Zhao Hong’s (钱兆鸿, a Chen Tai-chi and XYLHQ practioner) PH was very good, and took us to meet Master Qian. I don’t know whom Master Qian leared his Tai-chi from, but he was a student of master Wang Shu Gen (王树根) for his XYLHQ.

As Qian’s job was a carpenter for a primary school, he got big and strong arms through years of doing lots of manual sawing and shaving work. Master Qian and Patric were locked in PH, nobody was able to push other side out, as they both used lots of strength. Suddenly Qian grabed Patric’s small finger and tried very hard to break it, Patric got out of it with lots of pain and lucky his finger wasn’t broken as Qian was not fast enough.

Patric was understandably very upset. At the time, I thought that if Qian wanted to break someone’s bone in PH with his Chen style Tai-Chi grabing technique, why didn’t he try to lock or break bigger joint, like wrists, elbow etc. Trying to break someones finger, and also being the small finger, was the dirtiest thing I had ever seen! It was a shame to CMA (and even he tried so hard, he still failed!)

I was sorry for Patric to see the ugly dirty side of the new generation of Chinese martial artists.
The reason I wrote all the previous cases, was that Master Ma Yue Liang’s teaching never mentioned those dirty tricks and attacks, so I was not aware that people in PH could have no respect of tradition and do all those dirty tricks and attacks. Even if those dirty tricks and attacks are successful, they wouldn’t prove anything; in fact only make the opponent look down on them.