"This is done through the movement principles and the standing posture. Many times people fail in push hands because they lose the balance of the dantian. Maintain the beginning posture then when you move, maintain the two movement principles."
The Song of Push Hands describes one's ability to beguile the opponent then push him out. The idea of push hands as a training exercise which includes the soft application of martial technique is, in and of itself, a competition. The ability to do or not do what is described in the song of push hands is the actual demarcation line of skill in push hands. Therefore, it will be obvious when someone of higher skill pushes with someone of lower skill. Therefore, based on what is written in the classics, push hands can be used to determine relative skill.
Li Yu-Yi said,
In "For hao Weizhen to Cherish", Li Yi-Yu describes push hands as a sort of randomness in which "if you can draw the opponent in..." etc. This leads us to believe the relationship he is describing is not necessarily one of master and student but one where the player of lesser skill is earnestly trying to compete with his opponent for the application of skill. On Push Hands, Li writes "It is said: “Knowing both yourself and your opponent, in a hundred battles you will have a hundred victories.”" This seems to imply that push hands, while not being an actual fight, is indeed some form of competition.
Sun Lu-Tang said,
In "A Study of Taiji Boxing", Sun Lu-tang advises us to play push hands as often as possible, for learning. However, he is clear that we are to consider our partners as an "opponent".
"An ancient man said [Confucius, quoted in the Zhong Yong]: “To go far, we must go through what is near.” Therefore begin with the four primary techniques as a starting point, and do not go beyond them until you first get them down. If you want to delve deeper into the art’s subtleties, it is a good idea to seek a teacher who understands them. Working personally with such a person will get you on the right path (and there is no lack of people with a deep understanding of this art). All day, every day, constantly practice playing hands, then after not many months you will get the essentials of “guiding the opponent in to land on nothing” and “four ounces moving a thousand pounds”. Once you get these essentials, you can put them into your Xingyi and Bagua, and you will see that this theory conforms to them and is not contrary to them, thus merging the three arts in terms of function. You will be able to come away without coming away and to crash in without crashing in. You must carefully study this in order to grasp it."
Xiang Kairen said,
Xiang Kairen writes, in "My Experience...", "To practice “listening to energy” in pushing hands is mainly a matter of “seeking opportunity”, and of selecting opportunity based on attacking from the right position and the right direction. As long as your eyes are able to not miss the opportunity, then your attack will also not miss the direction. Your martial skill will thus be superb, and will not at all depend on speed in your hands and feet.
Discerning whether your achievement is deep or shallow, whether your skill is high or low, will lie entirely with this principle. If you do not wait for opportunity, and do not sense the right direction and position, your performance could only be regarded as hitting and grappling like a savage."
He also writes, "Among practitioners of Taiji Boxing, everyone understands that the solo set is for developing a foundation and that pushing hands is for training function."
He also quotes one of his teachers, Liu Enshou, who gave him special push hands instruction: "“Pushing hands is a kind of training method, not sparring. You can’t have a competitive mentality. It’s not about win or lose. If it was a win or lose struggle, we would both be using varying postures, never deliberately standing in one place waiting for each other’s attack.”"
Chen Wei-Ming said,
In his "Questions and Answers" book, Chen Weiming writes, "Begin by moving in patterns, every day doing hundreds or thousands of reps, and then naturally your legs will develop root and the flexibility of your waist will greatly increase. By the time a year has passed, you and your partner will be seeking energies. (This means you will be both moving free of pattern, attacking and neutralizing as you please.) You must not be seeking energies too soon. If too soon, you will enjoy using effort until it becomes habitual, making yourself incapable of achieving skillful intent instead."
Regarding "“Forget about your plans and simply respond to the opponent.”" Chen Wei-Ming writes, "These words from the essays are the same as Laozi’s message [in Wenzi, chapter 3] that “to give is the way to get”. The extent to which I go along with the opponent depends on the degree of my skill:
– If I have a lesser skill, then I must go along with him longer, and I must wait until his power has finished in order to be able to counter.
– If I have a somewhat greater skill, then I can go along with him to a shorter extent, waiting until his power has come out halfway and interrupting it, and then right away I can counter.
– If I have a much greater skill, then I go along with him the tiniest little bit, interrupting his power from the start, and then right away I can counter. Sometimes when I am sticking to him, his power is completely unable to issue and I can instantly release energy, in which case I do need to go along with him, for I am in charge."
Wu Tu-Nan said,
He writes, "The playing hands method for warding off, rolling back, pressing, and pushing is a means of practicing the four primary techniques for dealing with an opponent. It is the most important exercise within Taiji Boxing. However, previous masters only recorded the names of the techniques, not the practice method for learning to apply them, leaving students with nothing to work from."
Wan Lai-Sheng said,
In 1932 he wrote, "Four-technique pushing hands is for after you have completed the solo set. It trains the four methods of warding off, rolling back, pressing, and pushing, although the other four techniques of plucking, rending, elbowing, and bumping are also hidden within it. You ward me off, I roll you back, you [press] me, I push you. Function lies in the interrelation between these four techniques. Once you complete the four-technique pushing hands exercise, there is still another exercise of four techniques, which involves stepping below during the use of the arms above."
Li Xianwu said,
In "Taiji Boxing" (1933) Li writes, "Pushing hands is called “playing hands”, also “touching hands” or “nearing hands”. Two people use their hands to push at each other in endless circles, round as a ball. The result of it is that they train awareness and practical application.
The basics eight techniques are called: ward-off, rollback, press, push, pluck, rend, elbow, bump. Throughout endless transformations, everything arises from these eight techniques.
In the beginning of the training, work only with choreographed movements proceeding in sequence, thereby causing your sensitivity of touch to daily increase. Once you are skillful at this, then you will at all times act nimbly, able to issue with but a single touch, no longer limited to choreographed postures, transforming endlessly. Anticipating an opponent’s condition of movement of stillness, emptiness and fullness, you will naturally have the abilities of “neither coming away nor crashing in” and “comply and bend then engage and extend”. Able to both stick and yield, a mere four ounces can move a thousand pounds."
Chen Xiao-Wang said,
In IKF magazine, 1991, Chen Xiaowang is quoted; "Chen style push hands tended to be done in a moving fashion. One attacks forward while the other retreats backward, front on or side on and so forth. The other styles like to do it in a more or less stationary manner, with less ‘fa jing’ and less aggressive moves. We also tend to use chin na and take-downs a lot. We treat push hands as a mockfight rather than an exercise. You have to be thrown around a lot to know what your ‘qi’ or your ‘jing’ is doing."
In "Discussion with Chen Xiao-Wang" (Nick Gudge), he says of the current crop of 'free-form' push hands, "Some enter the tournament without proper practice. There are two aspects to push hands: 1. actively attack, 2. passively protect yourself. If you are being pushed you must protect yourself. You should learn and understand both aspects of the competition. The problem with the tournament is that many try to be number one (win), so both partners are actively attacking each other at the same time. This is the problem. Sometimes the competitors are not well matched either."
Chen Ziqing said,
In Mark Wasson's interview, he relates how Chen Ziqing learned to do push hands. "When Ziqiang was training in push hands to compete for different competitions, every student in the school had to form a long line, and one by one each student had to attack Ziqiang. Usually within seconds there would be a loud slamming noise and the attacker would crawl away to get back into line, and the next opponent would immediately attack Ziqiang. This would go on for hours non-stop, with no breaks. No one ever came close to taking Ziqiang down, and Ziqiang never tired, even after having faced down each student in the school at least thirty times. After a competition was over, the grueling training regime in the school would resume back to normal, and never was there so many grateful faces on so many students, because Chen Ziqiang would finally stop pounding people into the ground and start teaching again – at least until another competition was near."
He says, ""When you do pushing hands, you try to 'uproot' your opponent," he says. "Then it's easy to throw them down. Beginners usually cannot keep a good root. You move them a little and their energy becomes like cooked noodles – too soft, with no strength to deflect incoming force. Uncooked noodles are stiff and can easily stand on one end to support downward – or straight on – force. But if you use horizontal force, they are too brittle and break. To uproot your opponent, you need to split his energy. You need to get him going in two directions.""
"Pushing hands," he says, "was designed to practice one's skill and taiji strategy. This involves learning both attacking and defending skills. Most beginners just want to attack, however, because attacking is easier, and it takes less skill. Defending is always much harder to learn how to master. But against another trained martial artist, one's ability to defend is what will determine the outcome of the fight. So people should practice more learning how to dissolve an opponent's energy than think about attacking."
Hong Jun-Sheng said,
Hong, the famous student of Chen Fa-Ke relates, "In the beginnings of my Wu style Taijiquan studies, teacher Liu (i.e. Liu Musan) told me, that the slower the movements, the better the skill, that is: the better the skill, the slower one can practice. When teacher Chen came for the first time to teacher Liu's house, after exchanging the greetings, he (i.e. Chen Fake) performed the First and the Second Routine of Chen style Boxing; everybody prepared over an hour to admire famous master's art. Unexpectedly the demonstration of both routines took only several minutes, and the Second Routine contained some leaping and very fast movements, and Chen's stamping shook tiles on the roof. Teacher Chen sat (with us) for a while after the demonstration and then left. Afterwards everybody was making comments - some said Chen practiced so fast, that considering the principle "move like pulling the silk" the silk would tear; some said stamping did not conform with the rule of "taking steps like a cat". However teacher Liu said: "Although the movements were fast, they were all round; although the power was issued, he was still relaxed; since we invited him, we should learn; after we learn the routine, we ask him to teach Pushing Hands; if he is better than I, then we continue to learn the Second Routine". (note: the result was that Chen was far above Liu in push hands skill and they decided to learn from him).
Chen Xin said,
In "Chen Xin's 36 Push Hands Sicknesses," the sicknesses of Qinling (#8), Qiya (#13), Ba (#24) and others all illustrate wrongful kinds of competitiveness. Especially Tuoda (#35), to suddenly hit, is an example of the kind of competitiveness which ills modern competitions. It is this particular fault we can see even Chen Weiming admit – what an inspiration, that there is always room for improvement. If even so for him, however more so for us.
Wang Feng-Ming said,
In the book "The Essence of Taijiquan Push Hands Technique" written by Feng Zhi-Qiang's disciple Wang Feng-Ming (11th Generation Chen Style), we see a totally different take on the exercise than shown by the Yang derived schools. Wang writes of Feng's teaching,
"Taijiquan push hands is a way to check how much and how well a practitioner has mastered the eight techniques, five steps, adhere/connect/stick/follow skills, and usage of other energies (jin) through form practice." Continuing, "Practice shows that push-hands can be used as the sole criterion reflecting a practitioner's level of Taijiquan, like a ruler or a mirror."
Further, "Push-hands exercises can be used to further assess the correctness of form practice, usage of energies, and movements."
Chen Ziming said,
Chen Ziming in 1932 writes, "Scraping hands, or “pressing hands”, is what the Yang family calls “pushing hands”. My teacher said: “The four techniques of ward-off, rollback, press, and push are an exercise of two people joining hands and a marvelous method of working the whole body.” He also said: “It is the way of the universe, nothing more than hardness and softness. Thus when scraping hands, if he attacks using hardness, I respond using softness. There is hardness within my softness, and thus it is difficult for him to defend against me.”"
He continues, "You and a partner touch hands (same way as in sparring), both of you knowing that you are to use methods of drawing in the other person, and not to use unbalanced energy (i.e. an energy of animal vigor). You now go back and forth with a naturalness and some degree of awareness for the exercise’s transformations and fluctuations. You will slightly be able to see ways of winning, and come to understand why one of you is winning and the other is losing. Knowing why you just lost, you will then begin to sense that the subtleties of the “playing hands” exercise come entirely from the ordinary practice of the boxing set. All of the principles within the boxing set manifest from a balanced energy. Playing hands is the application of that balanced energy."
Chen Fa-Ke said,
"It is unacceptable to hurt your opponent in push hands."
Conclusion
1. Push hands has two main purposes
a) as a learning tool it is the second major practice phase of taijiquan, without which one cannot learn to understand the 13 energies (ex. Chen Weiming writes, "Begin by moving in patterns, every day doing hundreds or thousands of reps, and then naturally your legs will develop root and the flexibility of your waist will greatly increase. By the time a year has passed, you and your partner will be seeking energies.) (ex. Li Xianwu writes, "In the beginning of the training, work only with choreographed movements proceeding in sequence, thereby causing your sensitivity of touch to daily increase.")
b) as the sole criterion for comparing one's skill in taijiquan without actively fighting (ex. Hong Junsheng's Liu story, Wang Feng-Ming, etc).
2. Some people practice push hands incorrectly. For example they only try to attack and do not try to defend themselves. However also that "We treat push hands as a mockfight rather than an exercise." -- which we suppose could be a form of "no longer limited to choreographed postures," (see above).
Our conclusion is that it is utterly vital to practice push hands until one has developed sensitivity of touch and is able to deal with incoming attacks in a manner closely resembling the form of the push hands one is engaging in. "Breaking the circle" and shoving, hitting, etc. is categorically not push hands, nor may push hands be skipped or looked over as a training method in authentic tai chi.
Of course, we could just forget all this and throw down.
In closing i will provide a short explanation of Chen Xin's 36 sicknesses. I would like to pose these as a question: Do you feel that these are still valid? Are they valid in your style (yang, sun, wu, etc.)? Are some of them outdated? Thanks for your response!
tuishou 36 sickness
1. Do not withdraw your body when you are not in an optimal position (instead, deal with the sub-optimal position).
2. Do not disconnect from the opponent in retreat.
3. Do not shield your body from your opponent's attacks with your hand (at the last minute-- i.e. do not be afraid to use your body to handle the attack)
4. Do not block (hit) attacks.
5. Do not clash (hit) against the opponent (see 4)
6. Do not gamble by blindly crashing forward (ex. do not have the idea of striking forward when there appears to be no resistance)
7. Do not dodge attacks (rather, stay connected)
8. Do not bully the opponent in his own circle (rather to draw him out to expose a mistake)
9. Do not chop (i.e. karate chop) anything.
10. Do not clinch.
11. Do not press to stop your opponent from moving (rather, go along with his movement)
12. Do not rub against the opponent (casually or as an attack).
13. Do not bully the opponent with overwhelming force.
14. Do not hook around the opponent (esp. wrist or foot)
15. Do not separate from contact.
16. Do not try to trick your opponent (ex. by presenting a false energy he cannot understand) or by fooling him against his perception in other ways (your shoelace is untied)
17. Do not grapple.
18. Do not push aside, shove or yank.
19. Do not require the opponent to push hard against you (do not give the opponent a heavy weight he cannot withstand.)
20. Do not attack without seeing the target.
21. Do not fix weaknesses in your shape by pushing sideways against the opponent.
22. Do not always repel the opponent without luring him in. (Instead of blocking a person from coming in you should study how to lure someone in and upset his balance.)
23. Admit defeat; do not play the clock or play recklessly to turn a certain loss into a random victory.
24. Do not use strength to push against the opponent's weak spots (however tempting)
25. Do not switch horses midstream (ex. do not push an arm left then right where pushing left has no purpose); do not release a grab with the right so that you may grab with the left and strike with the right)
26. Do not grasp the opponent's wrist (or other) to apply technique.
27. Do not forget to use silk reeling (do not use linear motion)
28. Change lively (Do not turn before your opponent has fully withdrawn; do not continue to push if he is turning, etc)
29. Do not rely on physical hooks such as hooking the foot to produce a throw (allow the opponent to fall or step back naturally)
30. Do not lift up or pull down against the opponent's line of force (ex. do not lean weight on the arms)
31. Do not try to withstand the opponent's force (do not present a heavy burden when he is pushing).
32. Do not conflict against the opponent's force (rather to attempt to follow it).
33. Do not roll to the side to avoid an attack (I don't understand what this means)
34. Do not fold to attack the opponent or suddenly hit from the other side - ex. when I push the small end of the stick down, the big end turns back and hits me. Do not use a technique which causes your opponent to hit you.
35. Do not suddenly hit or use a surprise attack (suddenly speeding up, etc).
36. Do not escalate conflict (ex. when you are losing in order to try and catch up.)