Your TaiChi Practice: What is the purpose of training Tai Chi push hands?

The concept of push hands in Tai Chi (or tui shou) is ultimately rooted in the principles of the art itself. The basic concept of Tai Chi is discerning and differentiating between the substantial and the insubstantial. For example, when walking, one foot is placed on the ground and carries the weight of the other foots which steps forward.

The weighted foot thus bears the force and is substantial in comparison to the stepping foot which is insubstantially moving into the emptiness and potentially carrying the weight. Once you step, the substantial and the insubstantial shifts, and now the other foot bears the weight, etc. With Tai Chi, the basic concept is the same. It is a matter of rootedness, balance, and understanding the movement and balance of one’s partner or opponent.

Training in tui shou thus enables the practitioner to obtain a sense both of their own balance, of their partners, and in consequence, of how to upset that balance.

Through practice one slowly develops a sense of where one’s opponent has placed his or her weight, of where their center is located and where it is moving – hence a sense of the substantial and the insubstantial. One then seeks to ‘appropriate’ the opponent’s balance, to take it and use it as one’s own, to manipulate and control it as one pleases.

This skill is essential when it comes to fighting. The moment that an opponent lashes out, kicks, punches, strikes in anyway, a practitioner who has developed a keen sense and feel through push hands, will understand where and in which direction the energy of the attacker is moving, and in consequence, be able to receive, ‘stick,’ and redirect that energy.

The root of Tai Chi practice lies in this ability and in essence it is that of avoiding a sense of becoming ‘double-weighted’. An example of double-weightedness are two Rams running at each other and butting heads, or two competitive fighters striking at each other with all the strength they can muster.

In Tai Chi, one avoids an excessive or superfluous use of muscle power – which in the end tires the body. Rather, when the bull charges, one acts like the toreador, swiftly moving aside and allowing the energy of the bull to pass along.

Push hands thus acts as a training method for developing the skills required for successful application of Tai Chi techniques.

As such, the practice of the solo forms are of themselves incomplete. Although they develop an inner sense of self-balance, grace, flow of movement, and inner strengthening of the body, nonetheless, without the practice of feeling one’s opponent, of sensing where their balance is and where it is moving, the solo forms will remain an empty dance, removed of purpose.

Furthermore, in feeling the force of one’s opponent, one develops a more refined and deepened sense of one’s own balance.

A principle of martial arts is that of knowing both oneself and one’s enemy. In a way, the practice of tui shou helps to develop both.