{"id":8186,"date":"2024-08-30T12:27:00","date_gmt":"2024-08-30T11:27:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/121671d.netsolhost.com\/azitaiji2019\/blog\/?p=8186"},"modified":"2026-07-30T16:30:54","modified_gmt":"2026-07-30T15:30:54","slug":"push-hands-tui-shou","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/londontaiji.com\/blog\/2024\/08\/30\/push-hands-tui-shou\/","title":{"rendered":"Push Hands\/ Tui Shou"},"content":{"rendered":"\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>\n

After learning taiji as a beginner for a while you will be ready for the next stage of practice. As our classes have mixed levels of experience, it may not be clear what the next stage is. When students finish learning the form (tao lu), what is next? <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Although it is not set in a structure or time frame, what usually follows is learning and practising push hands (tui shou). <\/p>\n\n\n\n

By now in our training we should have mastered some form of relaxation (level one) and have begun whole body movement (level two). Of course this varies from student to student, and these two levels, mentioned in a previous article<\/a>, will be a continuous, ongoing learning process<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We continue to learn more intricate movements in tao lu, but we also begin to train in push hands.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is a two person training routine practised in internal martial arts of many styles. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

At foundation level, we learn how to maintain a closed kua, relax into the training routine (which at the beginning may seem impossible), and learn how to \u2018flow\u2019. A side benefit to this training is the improvement in the strength of your legs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This form of training also enforces grounding, or rooting, which is an extreme advantage to achieve when you progress into learning applications. With rooting as a defence, you are not quite a \u201cpushover\u201d. When someone tries to win over you with an application you will be much harder to unbalance. On the attacking side, rooting will give you the \u201cextra\u201d power.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The more you train, the more you will start to be lighter in touch with your training partner (opponent), and your ting li (\u542c\u529b) power will develop. Ting Li is the ability to feel what your opponent is doing. Literally translated – your listening power. In order for this to develop you must\u2026 relax of course!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As beginners, especially to push hands, it is important to master the foundations well and be as precise as possible. To \u201cwin\u201d against your opponent, it is not so much your level of expertise but your ability to eliminate your mistakes so that you do not give any advantage away to your opponent. A tennis analogy would be: in a baseline rally, the one to win is usually the person who does not make the first mistake.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Some other useful thoughts by David Roth-Lindberg<\/a> including his experience of when you should learn push hands<\/a> can be found in his blogs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The following are three types of push hands we practise. This is not a comprehensive description, it is just a general outline. To really learn, you need to do this face to face.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

1. Single Hand Push Hands<\/h1>\n\n\n\n

In this school we start off with single hand push hands – with hands at medium height, then training at high and low heights separately. Unlike other styles, the stance may seem awkward as all feet, both yours and your opponents, are parallel to each other in a line while waist up you turn to face your opponent. This is a foundation level of push hands – stance training and whole body movement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When practising, we keep the movement flowing and at an even and slow speed – it will seem as if we are circling our arm in a horizontal plane as we attack and defend forwards and backwards. Eventually the circle becomes more oval. When we push\/attack, we push intentionally to the opponent\u2019s chest using mainly our legs (simplistically) whilst keeping the structure of our arm as it circles. As we defend we practise the ability to avoid the attack  without using muscle force to defend. Instead we keep our arm structure and use the movement of our legs and the rotation of our body to defend ourselves from the push\/attack.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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