Pushing hands | ||
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Partner work
Pushing hands enables a student to train a wide variety of skills without
the dangers associated with actual combat.
There are many different kinds of pushing hands exercises, including:
Single pushing hands
Double pushing hands
Da lu
Monkey paws
Pushing legs
All of these exercises are variations on a
theme; teaching similar yet different skills.
Biofeedback
Partner work is an excellent way to develop the awareness required to feel
and understand
tai chi chuan (dynamic balancing boxing).
Exercises such as pushing hands can be practiced very softly so that the
subtlest pressure and tension can be felt immediately.
There is no competition involved; no rivalry or aggression.
Students are primarily concerned with cultivating internal skill and
maintaining appropriate body use.
Tai chi is something like 80% wrestling and 20% striking. Does
pushing
hands look like boxing or wrestling? Wrestling!
The reason why the originators of the internal styles gravitated toward the
grappling portions of their art is that you can practice grappling moves 99%
the same as they will be used in a street fight.
(Tim Cartmell)
Skills
Pushing hands trains a variety of skills simultaneously:
• Stickiness
• Sensitivity
• Non-opposition of force
• Peng
• Timing
• Going with the flow
• Rhythm
• Optimal framework
• Manipulation of balance
• Listening with your body
• Patience
•
Presence
• Practical yielding
• Composure
Presence
Students feel rather than think.
They re-train their nervous system to respond rather than anticipate.
Instead of psyching-up and getting-ready, the
student becomes calm and patient; responding to what is happening as it
is happening.
Pressure
This exercise teaches the body to relax and yield when it encounters force.
Instead of using brute strength, students apply pressure and yield like ice melting.
Accomplishing this skill fulfils one of the main
precepts of tai chi which states that no more than 4 ounces of
pressure must be applied or received at any time.
The longer I train the more I
see in the web pages.
It's like peeling back the layers of an onion...although the words stay the
same. It's my experience and understanding that is evolving. (And I have so
much more to grow!!)
I enjoy working with people that are obviously further along the journey.
But training with Sifu Waller is monumentally humbling. You get the
impression that you are only still standing because he's decided you can
learn more by being upright.
Doing pushing hands with Sifu Waller teaches so much and shows how much
there is to learn. It doesn't matter how much I feel I've progressed, I
always feel like I've only just started! And yet Sifu Waller is able to
determine your level and be just out of reach rather than dominate.
For me that just fills me with the desire to learn more and to train for
longer!
I always leave a session eager for the next one.
I want to say thank you to both you and Sifu Waller for helping me on my
journey and constantly challenging me.
(Chris)
Sensitivity
Pushing hands and the other
sensitivity drills train
the student to flow with the incoming force.
This is not simply evasion or random movement.
The student must maintain contact and yield with skill and awareness.
Your body acts as a feeler; sensing movement, tension... and
intention.
Softness
One of the most difficult aspects of practicing tai chi is
softness.
On a crude level, softness refers to the muscles being relaxed rather than
tense, the joints being mobile rather than held.
This is really just the beginning.
Yielding
If Taoism is the art of adjusting to life, then tai chi is
the art of adjusting to the opponent.
This process of adjustment is what yielding is about. Balancing, sensitivity, change.
Success with yielding will enable you to take the attacker off-balance
without endangering yourself. The line of incoming force is neutralised
without blocking.
Bridging exercise
Exercises such as 'pushing hands' must be seen in the wider context of
tai chi.
They are not an end in themselves.
Many tai chi people train pushing hands at the beginners level and never
move onto the more sophisticated levels.
This denies the student the real benefits of the exercise.
Pushing hands development
Your pushing hands must evolve into an exercise that teaches fighting skills that
can be
utilised in combat.
Blend, withdraw, lead into emptiness, remain sticky and take
advantage of opportunities.
Expand your awareness.
Pushing hands is about contact and sensitivity, feeling and stickiness,
using your nervous system rather than your
thoughts.
The role of pushing hands
Pushing hands can be seen as a form of grappling.
Having made contact with an opponent, you are essentially pushing hands.
At this point, you can employ any of the three main areas of skill (chin
na, shuai jiao or jing)
in order to incapacitate the attacker.
Pushing hands fills the gap between an attack being launched and the
defender finishing off the opponent.
Reflex
Pushing hands teaches you to move in relationship with outward circumstance;
to change and adapt, to find weakness and respond without thinking.
To gain this level of skill you will need plenty of mindful training.
Encourage your partner to exploit every hole in your defences, to
look for errors in timing and gaps in your awareness.
Invite them to attack you continually.
The more awkward your partner can be, the more skill you will acquire.
You would like to
believe you're relaxed and when someone puts their hands on you and pushes
all of a sudden you realise just how indignant you are about that whole
thing happening.
Some people are very stretched and they have a full split or they are very
balanced on their hands and they can do a handstand but when you put your
hands on them all that ability goes out the window and they resort to
Cro-Magnon behaviour.
(Roberto Sharpe)
Page created 27 June 1995
Last updated
16 June 2023