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.
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