Push Hands and Taiji Sparring

Training for Sparring   by Master Chen Zhao Kui

Taiji Sparring/Fighting Principles by Conn Cummins (Walk the Torque)  Dec 8 2007  from  www.EmptyFlower.net forum

Teaching Beginning Push Hands by Toni DeMoulin

1.   Listening Energy (ting jing) using the Sticky Hands Drill.   November 24, 2007

2.   Yielding and Listening Energy using the External Neutralization Drill.   November 30, 2007

The main reason I pick these exercise to introduce push hands is because everyone can be somewhat successful at it and it is fun, non-threatening.  Very suitable to beginners including senior citizens. They will get used to touching someone and being touched. They will learn to work and move together. Their stances will teach them a lot about their taiji in forms and the forms will help them a lot in push hands. Their fear of pushing and being pushed will be calmed.

The reason so many taiji students don't like push hands is that traditional training is begun with hours and hours of one hand circles and two hand circles in a fixed stance, for years. The talented student will do well with this approach, but for the average taiji student, most will get bored with the one hand circle and silently say to themselves, "Alright already, big deal, come on lets dooo something, this is sooo boring, my partner can't do this very well, his hands are sooo tight and heavy, my back leg is killing me, when is this going to be over!"

We really loose our students' interest fast when we teach them two handed circles (press, ward off, roll back, push). Now the students are silently saying to themselves, "I can't do this, it is tooo hard, this guy is sooo stiff and heavy, my arms hurt, my back leg hurts, opps...ah.. where was I supposed to put my left hand? Aggh! I can't do this, when is this going to be over!"

I have found, after a lot of experimenting, that students enjoy learning push hands when you can first get them to do fun free style push hands, both fixed and moving. I will be adding more training drills, applications and beginning push hands exercises that will be easy and fun that will allow them to be "playing" push hands very quickly.
 

When the students get comfortable and enjoy "playing" free style push hands, I move on to concentrate on teaching the traditional one hand and two hand circles, then add applications from their forms. And then it really gets fun!

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