Pushing Hands Archive
Real, power push hands develops self-defense prowess, not just sensitivity. Never push to push people. Push to learn to fight. Health comes from this, not from fantasy.
The Latest Pushing Hands Workshop was September 19th, 2008
My thanks to
Scott White and his
Personal Training Zone
4022 South 2700 East
Salt Lake City, UT 84124
(801) 596-7035We do push hands in most classes, and the next Full Pushing Hands Workshop is in March 2009.
- Single Pushing Hands
- Double Pushing Hands
- Corner Pushing Hands
Done well, with firmness and structure, elasticity and sensitivity, balance and timing, each Pushing Hands Drill provides insight into body-mind movements. Inspire strength and expire fear-reactions to grasp and hone these drills.
Each one compounds on the lessons of the others and integrates into a fluid-flowing, combat-training system. They provoke awareness. Breath deepens, body structures strengthen, and movement sophisticates, through repetition in each drill, stimulating potent healing potential.
Single Pushing Hands
“If you learn nothing else, learn Ward-Off (Peng)” suggests a Classic Taiji Writer. And indeed, Single Pushing Hands teaches Ward-Off-By-Lifting-Upward. A great reality and powerful metaphor, this concept develops strength and sensitivity in the resisting arm — through resistance. First and foremost, train the Ward-Off with a firm structure to produce strength in the tissues of the warding arm.
Push firmly toward the opponents center, and resist steadily throughout the pushing motion. Train this repetitive motion until arm muscles tire, ache, and weaken, then notice core body muscules participating and guiding; wear out that arm long enough to feel the core. This gross motion becomes subtle as one gains enough structural strength to resist with less and less mental effort. The body begins to feel, through and beyond tensions, resisting minimally, exactly where necessary. The body begins to read the opponent’s force trajectories, smiling with just the right amount of tension. Fascia and tendons and ligaments gain tensile strength through repetition.
Read Three Great Drills That Build Self-Defense »
Single Pushing Hands Builds Reflexive Power
Place your hand on a hot stove and — jerk it away. That’s a reflex! For all the times it works, keep it: you’ll need reflexes later. Your body, your nervous system, crafted this technique for a long time. Use your current training strategies and single pushing hands to unleash the power of reflexes!
Three training methods promote vibrant self-defense: strategic, reflexive, and sensitive.
Strategic models employ set routines and applications to mock attacker behavior and defender technique. Good stuff, and every movement education employs it. Hard styles utilize this approach to a large degree. Faster forms, both one-person and two-person rely on strategic concepts. They hold the possibilities of near-full-power because random attacks are removed. Such drills improve an individual’s threshold of resiliance; they toughen you up!
Sensitivity models reduce fear-reactions and increase deep-body awareness. Slow forms, sticky hands, and soft, punch-absorption practices do this too. By learning to resist little, responding and flowing with attackers, a defender learns to coil around force and to redistribute force into an attacker. These drills and methods create proper responses and deeper inner power.
(Sometimes: because of choreography, strategic models of self-defense become unrealistic, and they may accidentally teach rigidity to bodies and fear-reactions to minds—an uh-oh reflex. Likewise, because sensitivity models utilize slow, soft motions to emulate realistic attacks, they become unrealistic, often teaching weakness to bodies and fantasies to minds by devaluing force and pretending toughness.)
Reflex training exists between hardened training and softened responses. Long-term reflex training represents a balanced approach. Unlearn conditioned fear-responses, and develop sturdy of body, mind, and spirit. Built-in to your spinal column, reflexes —like the hot stove reflex— cause action before you can think about, or cognitively process, events. Strategic methods go reflexive by adding random elements and by increasing perceptions; i.e. strategic methods become reflexive by inserting softness and sensitivity. Sensitivity methods go reflexive by toughening up, by adding some force and oomph to your work.
Single Pushing Hands releases innate, reflexive power by allowing one to practice either or both: structural, heavy hitting push-hands or soft, light, sensitive pushing hands.
Single Pushing Hands, utilizing the methods from the World Taiji Boxing Association,
- builds circular strength
- releases reflexive self-defense
- sensitizes coordination, balance, and timing
How do we do it?
Read The Secret of Reflexive Self Defense »
Motility, Long Form, Applications, Pushing-Hands, Striking!
The system of Tai Chi Chuan begins and evolves through five methods: light, sensitive body exploration, properly executed form practice, amplified and visualized self-defense and/or healing scenarios, precise push-hands training, and coiling striking motions. Real Taiji classes include
- exploring natural joint motions
- form practice (and some Qi-gong)
- application visualizations
- push-hands training (structural, not spaghetti-style)
- striking practices
Classes and class components evolve and compound upon one another.
Read Class Contents: Taiji System »
- Single & Double Push Hands Workshop
6-9 pm on Friday, May 16th, examine the martial cycles of pushing hands.
Tai Chi Chuan, an internal martial and healing art, develops inner power and strength using a training drill called Pushing Hands. Gain and develop coordination, balance, and timing by Pushing Hands. Learn to interact with sensitivity, grace, and power!
