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.

SECRET APPLICATION OF FAJIN

Fajin or emitting force in tai chi chuan should be like a bomb explodes. From a totally relax position you suddenly exploded with a big burst of energy sending your opponent flying a great distance away, injuring and even killing him on the spot (under extreme situation). Split second after your have fajin, revert to relax mode with no tension and residue force remaining. Your force suddenly appears and suddenly disappears. This way your opponent can never read you.

Your force must be quick, sharp and penetrating like a whip or an arrow. A sledge hammer can break rocks but it cannot break feathers. If your force is strong but brute like a sledge hammer, you will not be able to defeat an opponent who is fast, agile and evasive. However, if you force is quick, sharp and penetrating like a shooting arrow, your opponent will find it very difficult to evade because just by merely touching lightly you can already fajin on him with full force.

Try hitting a piece of hanging paper. If you cannot break it, you need to work harder on your fajin quality. If you can break it all the times, you are on the right track.

THE SECRET OF JIN (INTERNAL FORCE)

The secret of internal force or jin lies in your ability to fang song. Song has three purposes in taijiquan. Firstly, it enables chi to flow smoothly. Secondly, it enables you to neutralize oncoming forces and not get affected by them. And lastly, song enables you to discharge force efficiently by allowing force to flow smoothly from feet to limbs, resulting in a powerful fajin.

Therefore, the next time you do taiji and been asked to fang song, know why you are doing it for. If you know song is a state required for neutralization and fajin, your song will be correct and will not be soft like bean curb that cannot be used for self defense. The relationship between song, strength and jin is like the process of melting iron.

Strength is like iron. It is dull, clumsy and not flexible. A muscular man is very strong but he lacks intelligent force. Whereas jin is like melted iron, it is more refined, polished and fluid. To make the transformation possible, high heat is required to melt the iron. Heat is but an environment, a mean to the end (melting iron) and not the end in itself. Same with song, it is but a quality (an environment) required to change brute strength into powerful and flexible jin.

When you understood this and can connect song to chi and jin, with persistent training and self analysis, you will gradually attain what is called in tai chi chuan as 'iron wrapped in cotton'. You will be able to find hardness within softness and vice versa that makes tai chi chuan so profound and effective.

Song without jin is like bean curb easily overpowered. Strength without song is like a piece of dead wood, easily broken. Jin is like a whip, flexible, powerful and explosive.