I was just wondering if it's useful for us to play with others from different lines. It looks like they are basically doing Ding Bu Tui Shou. We wouldn't want to be picking up their body mechanics, but maybe it's still a useful "lab" for testing our abilities with some live pressure?
If it's useful, there seems to be a lot of these clubs around from different lineages and styles, so it makes access to live pressure easier to find.
Apologies in advance for the way too many words. I am burdened with trying to fix the kid's misbehaving Ipad so I am frustrated beyond reason and do not have my wits.
I don't try to get too deep into this topic because whatever I say has an appearance and it's probably inaccurate.
I am not in a position to tell people what they cannot do or to try and influence them to stay in my cult. This cult is too much of a sausage factory to keep anyone captive.
That being said, as a teacher and with experience with my own curriculum I think it is generally not really useful to go out and mix it up with others until one is well trained and developed in this method. The reasons are as follows:
This particular curriculum is basically-
Solo drills to develop basic structure, connection/power
Solo drills to develop martial tools
Partner drills to develop facility employing martial tools
Partner drills to develop structure/connection under duress
Partner drills to develop live improvisatory abilities
Solo forms to develop and refine structure/connection/power/method
There is probably a lot more to this list, but that's a start. The partner and solo drills map out fairly clearly a spatial, kinetic, physical environment that will yield results if confusion (lack of clarify) is kept to a minimum. Clarity is entirely the purpose of having a hands on, technique and method based approach that the ubiquitous "it's all just principles" crowd resents. Our intent is to vanquish the fog and the darkness and put this thing simply into the light.
If you are quite experienced at the map this path lays out, then you may perhaps enter into the chaos of egos, bullshit philosophy, false technique, false context, cheating, gaslighting, and/or wild idiocy that you will find populating so much of the rest of this scene. In that messy environment the clarity of your developed spatial and 'jin' structure will likely shine as a beacon in the storm. At that time if you find your initial methodological organization fails under the wild pressure you may then see what you can learn or change to adapt to a new situation.
If your basic map is not well developed and reliable you will quickly surrender it out of necessity to adapt to a new environment. This, means surrendering it before it is functional. Of course the result of that is often doubt and lack of confidence in the method. In that situation, adapting to chaos before having reliable tools is not helpful. Many of the tools are here in the curriculum but you may not have learned them yet. Better to learn clear and useful tools than desperate make shift measures.
The goal, for the moment, is to reduce chaos and lack of clarity until one has a clear approach. Then start filling in the blanks with real tools rather than desperate bullshit. The best approach is to work with others who know the same methods and reinforce them until you reach that point. That is my experience anyhow.
The other issues are that those you will meet and practice with out there will either know methods that suit a really different context of engagement, (that we don't want to train for) such as competition, or a skewed idea of martial reality, or (more likely) they really really suck and just invent weird garbage. As annoying, discouraging or comical as it might be to engage, the problem is that they- are learning from and adapting to YOU every time you engage. This is exactly WHY people have these get togethers; most of them are without a paddle on the great fecal river and looking for a piece of fresh wood to grab onto (and drag under). That wood would be you in this case, offering them a lifeline. That is what they are hoping for, someone who knows something, anything, that they can leach off of, and leach they will.
You may think you suck and so no one can properly leach but you would be wrong about that. Each person will likely study the hell out of what they think you did. I do not condone helping.. I am no longer helpful.
Again, I am not in a position to tell you no, but I've laid out why I think it is counter productive, negative and takes you off the path. This path was carefully laid out for specific results. I hope we all get those results, and maybe they are not all encompassing but they are some form of clarity that can be built upon further. The same cannot be said for random approaches out there. For more on the risks, see the post directly above.