Tan Tui 2: "Cross Punch"

One of the more important things in Chinese martial arts is the development of cross body coordination.  If you think about the fact that few of us are truly ambidextrous, you begin to see why this can be important.  Without taking the care to train bilaterally, you will overdevelop one side, and underdevelop the other, and this can have consequences if you cannot bring your favorite side into play when you are sparring.  But contralateral or cross-crawl type motion is not just making certain that both sides are strong enough or fast enough.  Rather, it is about the coordination of both sides simultaneously.  Cross-crawl or cross-midline movement is used in stroke recovery to help patients retrain their nervous system after injury.  It's also been shown to help children with neurointegration of movement.

"One of the key components to a child’s mobility is his or her demonstrated ability to maintain balance through learning proprioceptive boundaries. According to the Center for Development – Pediatric Strategies, early movement skills such as crawling, and creeping begin the processes of hemispheric integration. Crossing the body’s midline develop neurointegration skills necessary for movement as well as cognitive processes such as reading, writing, and mathematics. Although crawling and walking are not solely responsible for neurointegration, they are a primary means of accomplishing this among infants. In particular, balance and the proprioception necessary for mobility requires use of both brain hemispheres.

So it is, of course, interesting that the second Tan Tui sequence focuses on exactly this sort of cross body movement in the cross-punch kick combination that repeats throughout the sequence.  It should be noted that this combination is one of the more commonly occurring combos in Longfist kungfu.  This should tell you something.   The combination is not just for training coordination, but also since it is a high-low attack from the opposite sides of the body, it requires opponents to process a bit more (unless they are used to seeing it) before they can deal with the attack.  Below is a bit of detail on Tan Tui 2 training strategies you can use in our current space-limited situation."

In upcoming videos, we'll continue to look at the Tan Tui sequences, but that's all for now.  Stay tuned, and stay safe.

Sifu Tim