Tai Chi Push Hands, also known as Hand-holding, Hand-shaking, and Circle-turning; recently, some people have named it Rubbing Hands, but it is generally called Push Hands, including the national official competitions. Tai Chi Push Hands confrontation, practice to understand strength, practice skills, is a method used in Tai Chi practice, and is also an intermediate way to learn Tai Chi boxing and apply it. It is a wonderful way to learn to understand strength, and it is also a ladder from learning the frame to learning free-hand fighting. Tai Chi Push Hands must be fully focused, light and lively, and long-term practice can gain a strong interest and be fascinating.
Push Hands Secret says: “Peng, Lu, Ji, An must be serious, follow up and down, and no one can invade. Let him hit me with great force, pull four ounces to move a thousand pounds, lead in and fall into the air, and then come out, stick to the top without losing it.” It is also said: “If he does not move, I do not move; if he moves slightly, I move first. Strength seems loose but not loose, about to be extended but not yet extended, stretching with the curve, the strength is broken but the intention is not broken, the intention is broken but the spirit can be connected” and so on, are all true portrayals of Tai Chi Push Hands Kung Fu.
1, The Nature and Significance of Push Hands
Tai Chi is the body and Push Hands is the use. The body and the use should be closely combined to improve Kung Fu. You should practice the boxing well and then apply it to Push Hands, use the boxing to enrich Push Hands, and use Push Hands to test the boxing posture. In other words, Push Hands is based on the boxing posture, and in turn tests and corrects the boxing posture technology. If the boxing posture is theory, then Push Hands is practice. In this way, the combination of body and use, theory and practice over time can form a leap in Kung Fu, but these can only be fully trained with scientific methods and gradually reach a high level. Of course, if you only practice the boxing posture without pushing hands, it is difficult to deeply understand the various requirements of Tai Chi, let alone flexibly use the boxing posture, breathe freely, and skillfully exert strength, and you can’t achieve the high achievement of fighting sports at all.
Pushing hands is a form of combat training for Tai Chi martial arts. It is a two-person competition under actual combat conditions without protective gear, comparing internal strength (endurance) and sense strength (flexibility), and skillfully using Tai Chi techniques to control one’s own balance and destroy the opponent’s balance. The two people put their hands together and entangle each other, the upper one ties the other with his hands, and the lower one trips the other with his feet and legs, and the upper and lower parts cooperate to knock the other down. Pushing hands is a martial art in which both parties compete with bare hands. It is neither a fight in a hurry nor a casual joke, but a serious comparison of internal strength and skills. Once in contact, the two parties enter the stage of mutual exploration. They must measure the strength of the other party through the comprehensive movements of their hands and feet, and respond calmly to the challenge; see who can easily knock the other party down or subdue him. The whole process is achieved by using the sensitivity of the skin touch and proprioception of the whole body to detect the size, hardness, softness, emptiness, length, speed and direction of the opponent’s strength, and reflect it to the brain to make various countermeasures to take advantage of the situation. In this process, you need to be good at perceiving the opponent’s strength, weakness and direction of force, and be good at controlling the opponent in various situations and delivering effective blows. It is a comprehensive training for the skin touch, proprioception, reaction speed, strength skills and internal strength quality of both parties. A skilled pusher can sense the size, force point and direction of the opponent’s force, the change of the center of gravity, the timing of the force and the effect after the force is exerted, etc. by listening to the force. The higher the level, the stronger the ability of this comprehensive skill.
It must be pointed out that although push hands is the main means to acquire Tai Chi fighting skills, it requires the whole body to be used in push hands training, not limited to pushing “hands”, but to push (send, hit) people, including aggressive methods such as random grabbing, hard rushing, catching and hitting, flashing, surprise attack, and chasing, as well as defensive methods such as interception, blocking, looking after, grabbing, flashing, following, and receiving, as well as comprehensive fighting techniques such as grabbing, throwing and hitting. It itself has certain fighting practicality and can exert real fighting effectiveness, but it is not actual combat after all, but only fighting practice.
However, to a certain extent, compared with free-hand fighting, the internal changes of push hands technology are more subtle than those of free-hand fighting technology. In terms of training content and difficulty, the former is much more complicated and difficult than the latter. Of course, push hands will eventually serve free-hand fighting. Although the fighting forms are divided into push hands and free-hand fighting, the two complement each other and are a unified whole.
2, Pushing Hands Method
Each Tai Chi has its own pushing hand method, which is generally similar and has its own characteristics. Here we mainly introduce the traditional Tai Chi pushing hand method inherited from Zhaobao Town, Wen County, Henan Province. This pushing hand has its own distinctive characteristics. For example, in terms of style, it emphasizes the cold, crisp, fast and vicious hand, the shock bomb shaking, the continuous use of moves and changes of strength, strength following strength, and moves connecting moves, so that the opponent has no chance to breathe. In terms of techniques, it emphasizes the joints, grasping, closing, separating tendons and crushing bones, picking, twisting, and breaking. When pushing and turning, the wrist is straight, the fingers are extended, and the fingers are slightly upturned, which is called not losing the hand. In terms of body movements, it emphasizes rising and falling, advancing and retreating, dodging and turning, swallowing and spitting, and avoiding the real and attacking the empty. In terms of footwork, it emphasizes sneaking into the body, buckling and closing the posture, changing the active steps, and stepping to the fixed position. In addition to the common methods of upper plate hand techniques and body techniques, such as peng, liu, ji, an, cai, liu, jiao, and kao, its greatest feature is that it has inherited the ancient Tai Chi upper plate grasping, locking, jutting, overlapping, crushing, throwing, and pulling; the sixteen methods of the middle plate: rising, falling, advancing, retreating, leaping, dodging, and turning. Including pulling, passing, and lifting, ringing, and swallowing and spitting; and the sixteen methods of the lower plate: entanglement, kneeling, picking, chopping, hanging, kicking, hooking, breaking, and cutting, and rolling, so it forms the upper, middle, and lower three plates of forty-eight light and dark methods, which is indeed “each method has a word, each word has a secret, each word has a use, each sentence has a method, each word is a pearl, and each sentence is embellished”. The three plates of kung fu are integrated into one, and the whole body is trained to be a Tai Chi, Tai Chi is everywhere, and everything is like a hand, and it is launched wherever it is.
Before practicing pushing hands in Zhaobao Tai Chi, you must first practice the single-position plate moves. The most common forms are Cloud Hands, Wild Horse Spreads Mane, Reverse Rolling Arm, White Crane Spreads Wings, Single Whip, Oblique Line, High Exploring Horse, Cross Hand, Vajra, Flashing Arm, etc. And one-on-one practice, one person sits on the pile and hands over, and the other person practices, such as small opening and closing, lazy tie clothes, white crane spreads wings, high Exploring Horse, reverse rolling arm, cross hand, oblique line, string punch, cover hand punch, and various hand methods of grasping and breaking, leg methods of kicking, hooking, hanging, kicking and releasing skills. Among all these, the most commonly used method of practice is from new to familiar, from slow to fast, from sitting on the pile to not sitting on the pile, from dead pile to live pile, from feeding hand to feeding strength to not feeding strength to finding strength, feeling strength, asking strength, and automatically exerting strength. Step by step, gradually reach proficiency and freedom, and do whatever you want.
The traditional Zhaobao Tai Chi push hands uses the up and down push method as the basic method. The so-called up and down steps means that two people stand opposite each other, you take a step forward to attack, I take a step back to defend; then I take a step forward again, and you take a step back again. From one step forward and one step back to becoming proficient in the steps, that is, you can move forward and retreat at will, but there are also certain rules and characteristics when practicing. For example, if you extend your right arm and take a right step, I extend my left hand to catch your right elbow, and then my left step is placed in front of your right toe. But remember, my left foot (front step) must be a false leg, and it cannot exceed your right foot, otherwise it will be controlled by your leg method. On the contrary, when I step up my right foot and move my right arm, you step back with your right foot and right arm, and switch to step up with your left foot to the outside of my right toe, and catch my right elbow with your left hand, and the two of us form a straight step. You step out with your left foot and I step out with my right foot, and you step out with your right foot and I step out with my left foot, each taking half. In fact, the two of us are one body, and the shape formed by our feet is exactly the Tai Chi diagram. The point where the two people’s chests fall is the center of the Tai Chi diagram. The place where the two people’s feet step is exactly the fish head of the two yin and yang fish, and the back foot is the fish tail. In addition, the arm posture of the upper plate also has unique requirements. In addition to the general requirement of sinking shoulders and hiding elbows, it is also particularly required that the fingers are put together in sequence and always stick to the back of the opponent’s hand. This hand shape is called unity hand or blade hand. When not using a move, the tiger’s mouth and fingers cannot be opened, and the palm cannot be accidentally turned down. Because if the fingers are opened accidentally, it is easy to be grabbed, twisted, and crushed by the opponent. It is easy to hide the elbow and drop the elbow when the palm is turned down, and it is easy to expose the elbow and be controlled by the opponent. Therefore, the secret is: “Follow the palm to attack, open the hand to hit.” It is also said: look at the elbow when you attack, which is what most people think: “The hand does not leave the elbow, the elbow does not leave the hand. If the elbow leaves the hand, you will definitely attack.” The secret says: “When you encounter a force that does not resist, you tend to attack, and the heavy is light, you will definitely attack.” One hand accounts for both hands, and the flying hand is infinite.
Zhaobao Tai Chi Pushing Hands can be divided into two categories: single-person pushing hands and double-person pushing hands. Single-person pushing hands is mainly based on mindfulness. You can draw circles and arcs in various directions with one arm, or you can draw the route of double-person pushing hands with both arms. You can think about the coordination of hand, eye, body and footwork, and train with a sense of fighting. Single-person fixed-step circle drawing exercises include left and right inner circles, outer open circles, left and right flat circles, front and back vertical circles, left upper and right lower, right upper and left lower oblique circles, etc. The circle can be large or small, fast or slow, from large to small, from small to large (you can also keep your appearance still and practice turning circles with your mind while walking, sitting or lying down). The body can also move up and down, front and back, left and right, left and right, right and left, and coordinate movements. The arms can be single or double, or they can be alternating, and they can be performed in sequence without restraint. The three elements of mind, qi and strength are combined into one body.
Double-person pushing hands can be divided into single-arm double-person pushing hands and double-arm double-person pushing hands. You can move in a fixed step, up and down, or in a moving step, and you can do it at will. For example, when two people are doing a single-arm push-hands at a fixed step, they step out with their right hands, with the backs of their wrists touching each other. When A advances, they step into a bow stance, and when B retreats, they move into a virtual sitting stance. This goes back and forth. Then they switch to the other side, using the same method. They can draw a flat circle at shoulder or chest level (the advancing party should try to touch the opponent’s shoulder or chest with their hands, while the defending party should try to retract their arms and sit and turn their waist and hip joints, with their arms sticking together to guide the movement) or make vertical circles forward, backward, up and down, etc. This makes it a live step, which can be done as you walk and turn. When two people do a double-arm push-hands at a fixed step, they first do the four-square and four-corner push-hands, and they can keep changing the circles on one side, and then turn to the other side. After both sides are proficient, they can cooperate with each other and switch the exercises at will.