Friday, October 18, 2013

Pushing Is Not the Aim, But the Aim Leads to Pushing

Pushing hands is the foundation for pair practice. But we should not be misled by the name "pushing hands". It is not about learning how to push. It is about learning how to sense force, how to neutralise force, how to use your opponent's force.

You push, so that your opponent can learn how to sense your force, neutralise it, and then try to use it against you. Then when he pushes you, you try to do the same thing. The "push" in pushing hands is for you to help your opponent learn and vice versa.

Pushing is not the objective, it is the method. To become obsessed with pushing becomes detrimental to learning. Because you don't need to be good in taiji to be able to push. But you need to be able to relax, to be able to fulfill the fundamentals of taiji, before you can sense force, neutralise it, and use it back against your opponent.

So don't confuse the method with the aim. But the aim will lead you to the method too. In the end, it is a cycle, by learning how to relax, to sense force, to neutralise it and use it back, you also learn how to push.

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