Push Hands—Its Place in Tai Chi Chuan

In practicing forms, we put into practice the differentiation of yin and yang on an individual basis; i.e. you differentiate the yin yang within your own body.

As you progress, you would want to differentiate yin yang working with another person - that is short is what push hands and Tai chi for self defense is all about.

>>> From : http://www.taichiforarthritis.com/newslettertcaa/0204/0504.htm

Push Hands—Its Place in Tai Chi Chuan
By Nigel Tuck

Drawn to Tai Chi by its legendary health benefits, many people are unaware that it’s a martial art and are surprised to see students in pairs practicing what, to the uninitiated, may look like a form of wrestling.

What is Push Hands and where does it fit into Tai Chi?
A major problem with the many forms of martial art practiced in China for centuries was that training in them could, and often did, result in serious injury or even death. With the creation of Push Hands by the founder of the Chen style of Tai Chi Chuan, the risk of injury was greatly diminished and a system of training par excellence was born. It enabled the dedicated student to learn, and appreciate, the subtleties of this most sophisticated of the martial arts.

The Forms
The forms are the foundations on which you build your Tai Chi. Unless you devote yourself to perfecting the forms, and to regular practice, you will be building a castle on sand.

Many of the attributes of a martial artist can be gained by practicing the forms. You can thus strengthen your muscles and improve your flexibility, balance, and fitness, as well as improve relaxation and calmness of mind. You will also learn body coordination and the correct postures for attack and defense.
Importantly, you will also develop a solid base (known as your root) and build up your internal strength.

Your teacher will be able to let you know how successful you have been in gaining these attributes. However, there are limits to what even the best and most attentive teacher can do. Only you can judge the calmness of your mind. And how do you evaluate progress in developing your root and building up your internal strength? The answer to the last question is—Push Hands.

Push Hands
One of my teachers described Push Hands as doing the form under stress. Essentially, with hands and/or forearms touching, you try to find a chink in your partner’s defenses and attempt to push and/or pull your partner off balance. At the same time, by yielding to his force you must neutralize your partner’s attempts to push and/or pull you off balance. All the while, you strive to maintain correct posture and a solid stance.

Push Hands thus becomes the perfect laboratory for testing your flexibility, balance, relaxation, calmness of mind, posture and ability to coordinate your body—all the attributes you learned in the forms. By practicing the forms you learn Tai Chi; in Push Hands you apply what you’ve learned. By applying the Tai Chi principles you’ll learn in more depth about, and improve your performance of, the forms and improvement in the forms will improve your Push Hands ability. So, as opposed to the vicious circles we all know about, the forms and Push Hands create a positive circle of learning and advancement in the art.

Without the feedback from Push Hands, improvement in the forms will be finite. The possibility of improvement in Push Hands, however, is infinite. There’s no end to the quest for mastery.

The Desire to Win
Training in Push Hands requires a partner. You should not regard him or her as an opponent but as a friend who has graciously agreed to help you in your practice with the aim of mutual benefit.

However, you will find it difficult to divorce Push Hands from its competitive aspect. When you are pushed you feel you have “lost” a point and when you successfully unbalance your partner you feel you have “won” a point. When you “lose” a point you may feel that you must now “win” one to get revenge.

Then, as you gain experience in Push Hands you discover that the less you try to “win” the more successful you become. In other words, the less your ego intrudes into the practice the better. (If you feel, as I do, that we are much better off if we are in control of our egos, rather than slaves to them, then I can heartily recommend Push Hands as the ideal arena to do battle with your ego.)

Strength vs Skill
The claim has been made that for years the National Push Hands Competition in China was won by weight lifters with no Tai Chi experience.
I am unable to verify the truth of this claim, but the inference is clearly that skill in Push Hands is no match for physical strength. One response to such claims would be to point to the legendary bout in Malaysia between Tai Chi Master Huang Sheng-Shyan and a champion wrestler. The wrestler was 20 years younger and 15kg heavier yet Master Huang won by 26 falls to zero.

Alternative Training Methods
There may be other ways of training in the martial art side of Tai Chi Chuan, but Push Hands has been created expressly for training in those principles that are unique to Tai Chi Chuan. Principles such as not meeting force with force, of relaxing and yielding (overcoming hardness with softness) in order to deflect a force of 1000 lbs with 4 oz. Push Hands also enables us to train our sensitivity so as to detect an opponent’s attack at the moment (or even before) it’s launched.

In order to apply these skills we must overcome our natural instincts. For example, when pushed aggressively our natural instinct is to tense up, not to relax and yield; when our arm is pulled our natural instinct is to resist and pull back to free the arm, not to relax the arm and “give it up.” To overcome our natural instincts and to apply Tai Chi principles without thinking takes long hours of training, and Push Hands, designed specifically for this purpose, is the ideal way to get such training.

Through books and studying the forms we can gain an appreciation of the principle of Yin and Yang on which Tai Chi is based, but only in Push Hands can we gain a true understanding of how the constant interchange between Yin and Yang works in combat.

Then after years of training comes that first magic moment in Push Hands when it all comes together. You detect your partner’s attack before it’s launched, you yield, neutralize and counter and your partner falls with hardly any effort on your part and you know that Tai Chi works.

On Reaching the Highest Levels of the Art
If you’re practicing Tai Chi purely for its health benefits you don’t need to learn Push Hands. There are some purists who would claim that you are not, therefore, practicing Tai Chi. But I‘d respond by saying of course you are. You’re not playing football are you?

Can you reach the highest levels of the art without mastering Push Hands? Unfortunately, the answer must be “No.” But you’ll still be able to enjoy the health benefits and have a lot of fun learning a fascinating art while doing so.

Conclusion
Returning to the title of this article: “Push Hands—Its Place in Tai Chi Chuan,” I’m reminded of the famous quote from Jerome Kern regarding Irving Berlin’s place in American music: “There is no place for Irving Berlin in American Music—Irving Berlin is American music.”
For me, there is no place for Push Hands in Tai Chi Chuan—Push Hands is Tai Chi Chuan.

Push Hands is Tai Chi Chuan every bit as much as the forms are. Together they are the Yin and the Yang of Tai Chi Chuan and as such, for the martial artist, they balance and complement each other.