TAI CHI PUSH HANDS COMPETITION

Personally, I don't believe in tai chi push hands competitions. I've been to many push hands competitions as an observer and all the times what I see is often the contest of brute force and wrestling. Real tai chi skills are totally non existence in these push hands competitions. In the last competition I went to, I witnessed 3 tai chi chuan veterans embarrassed by youngsters who have only practised tai chi chuan push hands for less than 1 or 2 years. These veterans have been doing tai chi for more than decades.

Most competitors are too eager to win in competition and right from the start they push and struggle with each other hoping to score points and win the competition. Many competitors rely on external techniques to win over their opponents. Hardly do I see any real tai chi skills of adhere, stick, follow, neutralize and fajin.

At one time I have the "privilege" to push hands with one 3 times national push hand champion. He admitted to win in push hand competition, tai chi skills are not enough. The aggressor usually has advantage. We started a friendly match and for a moment it was like pushing hand with a sumo wrestler. He put all his body weights in front and aggressively attempting to push me. I refused to let him land his weight and strength on me, maintaining light contact I can easily neutralized his aggression. many times he almost lunge himself to the ground because of putting too much weight in front.

In that short 5 minutes push hands, I managed to push him away neatly more than 10 times to zero. And he was grasping for air. I am not against push hands competition, but we need to be careful not to neglect tai chi principle of not opposing and let loose. It is better to loss correctly than to win incorrectly. Invest in loss and it will pay you handsomely later.

THE SECRET OF BEING ROUND

How to be round is hard to comprehend intellectually. Only by practise and internal understanding would one be able to know how to be round. Why do tai chi masters want to be round? There are at least two reasons.

Firstly for combat effectiveness. Lets look at electric fan. When it spins, it created a round shape and this round shape is created by the moving of its blades, controlled by the center. Tai Chi works the same way in combat. Imaging our two hands are the blades of a fan and our body is the center. When force is directed at one side, that side will move backwards to accommodate the oncoming force, but because we are round, like a fan, the moving backward of one blade will caused another blade (hand) to move forward at the same time in one integrated motion. When opponent strikes at one side, he will find that particular side move backwards neutralizing his force and at the same time, the opponent is under attack by your another side, making a complete circle....yin and yang. If you are round, your combat skill will be superb.

Secondly, when you are round, your whole posture will be balanced. Right, left, up, front are all balanced at the center. When you are balance, your pengjin is intact and the strongest.

The next timje you perform your tai chi set, try to comprehend the roundness within your form and self.

THE SECRET OF SEALING IN PUSH HANDS

In push hands a student is often told to do these; attach to your opponent, stick to him like a glue, follow his direction of force, neutralized it, lead him to emptiness, uproot him and discharge your force onto him. Very seldom do I hear a student is advised to seal the opponent before uprooting and discharging on him. Sealing is very important as if your opponent is not sealed skillfully, he can easily regain balance and neutralize your force.

Sealing has three primary functions; 1) it destroys your opponent's power structure unable him to generate resistance. Even if he can, forces generated will work against him. 2) it uproots him and 3) it prevents him changing and escaping. If your sealing is good, your push hands will be equally good.

Let me share with you one simplest way to seal; control his elbow. In push hands many people neglected the controlling of elbow. Lead his elbow forward when he push, press his elbow towards his center line when he withdraw. If your own pengjin is strong, by controlling his elbow, your opponent will be helpless against your attack. Now you have this secret, put it in practice and see how it works in push hands. You will be amazed.

THE SECRET OF PENG

It was said Yang Lu Chan won all his fights by only using peng, lu, ji, an in pulling the peacock's tail. Is this possible? I would affirm by a resounding "yes". A skilled taichi master should be able to control his opponent fully upon 1st contact. And most often than not, peng jin (wardoff force) is used here.

Peng is described as having the characteristic of floating by wave. Pengjin should cause your opponent to lost his root and floated, as a result, losing all his strength to attack or counter attack you. How can this possible? Pengjin manifest from your feet, guided by waist and manifest in the hand in a 45 degree angle. Very important is that your wrist attach to your opponent and twist clockwise 45 degree into his center line coordinating with the entire body. This will cause his frame to collapse and spine twisted locking all his energies and severing his root. If you can intercept this way, the battle is as good as won.

Few months ago I joined an Aikido workshop pretending to be a novice. In one exercise, we are instructed to block a punch and follow-up with a take down by executing a neck lock. A paired with 2 gentlement, one of them was a Malay silat master while another was an Aikido 4th Dan black belt. Both were awed by the way I blocked their punches. They said for some reasons my block made them felt almost like spinning and before they know it, their back was exposed to me. I explained to them giving the analog of throwing something to a spinning top which will cause the oncoming force to be rebelled sideways.

Evidently to me at least, peng can be very dangerous and effective in fighting if you know exactly how to use it.

TAICHI IS NOT ABOUT TECHNIQUES

Did Yang Lu Chan has a secret taichi form that was the deadliest? Was Yang Shao Hao's compact form better then Yang Cheng Fu's expanded form? Is Chen style better than Yang style or Yang style better than Wu style and so on? To me, all these are questions from an uninitiated. Tai chi chuan was never about forms and techniques.

All tai chi chuan styles abide by the same set of internal principles that were clearly stated in Tai Chi Chuan Classics. The styles, forms and techniques may vary but the principles are the same. By analog, tai chi principles are the roots of a tree, internal force forms the trunk of the tree and styles, techniques and physical forms are the branches, stem and leaves. So how can we say this style is better than that style and vice versa when all come from the same source?

Taichi founder Chang San Feng said "what is tai chi chuan? tai chi chuan is made-up of 13 postures". "What is 13 postures? They are peng, lu, ji, an, chai, lieh, zhou, kao, left, right, forward, retreat and center". The level of competency in these 13 postures determines the effectiveness of one's tai chi chuan and styles, techniques and forms have very little to do with it.

The next time you hear about so and so is in town teaching secret forms and etc, and charging an exorbitant amount, don't bother even to check it out. Just concentrate doing your 13 postures right and you will be on your way to mastery.

Tai chi chuan is not about physical forms, techniques and style.

HOW TO IMPROVE YOUR PUSH HANDS

Many of us know push hands is for us to acquire tingjin (hearing) skill and gradually progress to tungjin (understanding). But even after many years of practice many still fail to have any real success, why?

Of course there are many reasons for this lack of success and one of them is the lack of focus to understand the oncoming force. Very often we would ask how to neutralize this push and that push, what should we do if he does this or that...all these are focusing on techniques, and will never bring us closer to tungjin. We should pay more attention feeling the point of contact and 'listen' where the force is focus on. Initially, you will feel the pushing force is very widely spread on you but when your concentration improve and your feeling becomes more acute, the 'spread' will become smaller and smaller. It will reach a stage where you can clearly discern the contact point as small as a dot. At this stage, you will be able to neutralize big force by just a slight movement. Impossible? Picture this, a gladiator is pushing at you full force but using a pencil. The contact point is only the tip of the pencil. You don't need to turn the whole body to neutralise this big force through a small contact point, i.e. a pencil right? Just a slight turn to neutralize the touching point will do.

The next time you do push hands, focus on the touching point and try to find its center. If you focus attentive enough you may just find the dot.

THE SECRET OF AN

In so many tai chi chuan players I have met, only a handful are able to use short force (duanjin). This is understandable considering the fact that short force is indeed harder to manifest than long force as it requires the issuer to have high level of song and body coordination. However, the main stumbling block is not that many people are not competent enough. Regrettably, it is because many people today do not emphasize the training of short force.

Many people take tai chi chuan and push hands as recreation activities. They are complacent just to be able to easily neutralize a fellow practitioner attack and push him away. They do not look at tai chi chuan from the perspective of self defense. Most of the time, these people will have a rude awakening when they match their artificial push hands skills against a non-cooperative outsider.

In his writing Yang Ban Hou admonished us to train our jin from one inch to tenth of an inch to hundredth of an inch. We should refine our force (jin) to become shorter and shorter until it appears like power coming from stillness. When we can do this, outsiders will find it very difficult to match our skill because they will be sent flying upon the slightest touching. If you consciously train to shorten your fajin, you will find your push hands ability improve correspondingly.

Stillness is better than short. Short is better than long. Long is better than broken.