This second article provides more details about these basic components of Push Hands.
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“Know Your Enemy and Know Yourself”:\u00a0 <\/strong>Is the well known axiom of combat by Sun Tzu in his classic book The Art of War<\/em>.\u00a0 The full quote [1] means that if you know your enemy and the enemy doesn’t know you, then you will win the battle.\u00a0 This is the significance of “Ting<\/strong>.”<\/p>\n In Taiji, you learn about your opponent through touch, i.e., the contact point between you and your opponent.\u00a0 You learn about the location, direction, strength, speed, etc. of your opponent’s intended attack.\u00a0 By relaxing yourself, you increase the sensitivity of your body at the point of contact.\u00a0 Furthermore, by relaxing yourself, your opponent will not be able to learn about you.\u00a0 So what the opponent feels is like touching cotton, soft and without much resistance.\u00a0 The end result is you know your enemy and your enemy doesn’t know you.<\/p>\n This is why Taiji always emphasizes relaxation and soft movements [2].\u00a0 Relaxation, then, contributes to both the health aspect and the martial aspect of Taiji.\u00a0 As a matter of fact, these double benefits apply almost universally to many aspects of Taiji, that is, what is good for health is also good for martial art, and what is good for martial art is also good for health.<\/p>\n When your opponent carries out his attack, you immediately need to do two things.\u00a0 One is to turn you body so that the attacking force doesn’t end up on your body, at least not fully on your body.\u00a0 Another is to deflect the attacking force.\u00a0 Let’s denote the direction of the attacking force as x, then a small force along the perpendicular direction y will be able to deflect that attacking force, because the attacking force has no force component along the y-direction.<\/p>\n This is the fundamental basis of another classic Chinese saying “four ounces can deflect a thousand pounds.”\u00a0 The word “deflect” means that you apply a force with a component along y, the perpendicular direction of the attacking force.\u00a0 Since the thousand pound attacking force has no component along the y-direction, a small force in the y-direction will be able to deflect. [3]<\/p>\n Note that the classic Chinese saying doesn’t say that “four ounces can oppose<\/strong> a thousand pounds.”\u00a0 To oppose successfully against that thousand pound attacking force, you will need a force that is larger than thousand pounds.\u00a0 Then the person who wins the battle will be the bigger and stronger person.\u00a0 The classic Chinese saying only says that “four ounces can deflect<\/strong> a thousand pounds.”\u00a0 In Taiji, a smaller and weaker person can defeat a bigger and stronger opponent.<\/p>\n Supplement Your Opponent’s Attacking Force:\u00a0 <\/strong>Instead of opposing your opponent’s attacking force head-on, supplement the opponent’s attacking force with a small force along the same direction (direction-x), i.e, yielding<\/strong>.\u00a0 Then the opponent may over-extend himself, and lose balance.\u00a0 That is, you just change the victim of this combat from yourself to your opponent.\u00a0 When we combine this yielding x-force with the previous deflecting y-force, your total response to the opponent’s attack along the x-direction will be a force somewhere between the x-direction and the y-direction.<\/p>\n When the opponent senses that he may be losing balance by over extending himself in the x-direction, he may try to retrieve his attacking arm and change direction and move in the negative x-direction.\u00a0 Then you also change direction and move in the negative x-direction, and change your defensive motion to an offensive motion by moving your arm forward toward your opponent.\u00a0 This is precisely what is practiced in the second form “Wild Horse Shakes Its Mane” of the Simplified Yang Style 24 Form.\u00a0 From yielding as a defensive move to a counter attack as an offensive move is so typical of Taiji that it is reflected in the Taiji symbol<\/p>\n The white fish-like part in the Taiji symbol can be thought of as a defensive move, and the black fish-like part can be thought of as an offensive move.\u00a0 The small black dot inside the white fish-like part can be thought of as the potential for an offensive move while executing a defensive move.\u00a0 Similarly, the small white dot inside the black fish-like part can be thought of as the potential for a defensive move while executing an offensive move.\u00a0 When the Taiji symbol is rotated, the white fish changes into the black fish, and the black fish changes into a white fish, signifying that in Taiji one is in constant motion, changing from a defensive mode to an offensive mode, and changing from an offensive mode to a defensive mode.<\/p>\n If we understand the concept explained in the previous paragraph, we understand the fundamental basis of Taiji, the constant motion and change between defense and offense, which is so eloquently captured in the Taiji symbol.\u00a0 This fundamental basis of Taiji is already exhibited very early, in the second form of the Simplified Yang Style 24 Form.<\/p>\n Circular Motion and Silk Cocoon Reeling:\u00a0 <\/strong>The above discusses the importance of yielding and deflection, and then changing from defense to offense, and offense to defense.\u00a0 This is why Taiji involves a lot of circular motion, in particular, in a technique known as “silk cocoon reeling (\u7f20\u4e1d\u529f<\/span><\/span>)<\/strong>.”\u00a0 Silk cocoon reeling refers to the technique of pulling a silk string from a silk worm’s cocoon to provide the ingredient to make silk clothing.\u00a0 To pull the silk out of the cocoon, one must apply a force.\u00a0 However, that force must be steady to continue pulling the string, but can not be too large, because the silk string will break easily if the force is too large.\u00a0 Since the silk is wrapped in a cocoon, the motion of pulling out the silk has to be circular.\u00a0 This means that the pulling force has to be firm but not too strong and moves in a circular motion, like screwing or unscrewing a screw.\u00a0 To provide that constant pulling motion without getting tired quickly and without breaking the silk string, the arm must be relaxed and the movement must be soft.<\/p>\n Let’s now discuss how is this related to Taiji push hands.\u00a0 As discussed previously, the Taiji push hands practitioner must be relaxed to “ting” or to learn about the opponent and not to allow the opponent to learn about you.\u00a0 He also must yield and deflect, i.e., apply a force that is somewhere between the x-direction and the y-direction if the opponent’s attacking force is along the x-direction.\u00a0 He also must constantly change from a defensive motion to an offensive motion, and vice versa.\u00a0 If you visualize a circular motion of your right hand (to be more specific, visualize your right hand doing a clockwise circular motion) while simultaneously moving your right hand slightly backward, you are deflecting and yielding to the opponent’s attacking force.\u00a0 Furthermore, after you have successfully deflected your opponent’s attack, you launch a counter attack by pushing forward with your hand.\u00a0 That is precisely what you are doing after your right hand has completed part of the circular motion, and then instead of continuing to move your right hand slightly backward, you now move your right hand forward, i.e., you just changed from defense to offense.<\/p>\n Generate Power Quickly:\u00a0 <\/strong>When we counter attack against an opponent, for the attack to be effective, there must be sufficient force to the attack.\u00a0\u00a0 Since the transition from defense to offense occurs quickly, we must be able to generate power quickly, i.e., “fa-jing<\/strong>.”\u00a0 The silk cocoon reeling movement is temporarily interrupted with “fa-jing.”\u00a0 The importance to be able to generate power quickly becomes even more important when as discussed earlier, the transition between defense and offense may be repeating itself constantly.<\/p>\n Brief Summary:<\/strong>\u00a0 In practicing Taiji Push Hands with a partner, we are utilizing the forms that we learn in practicing the various Taiji form sets in a one-to-one combat situation.\u00a0 We make use of the basic techniques of Taiji:\u00a0 relaxation, soft steady movement, “ting,” “yielding,” “fa-jing,” and circular motion as in silk cocoon reeling.\u00a0 We execute the movements as reflected in the Taiji symbol.\u00a0 As mentioned in the previous article, PushHands is practiced via initially a series of choreographed-exercises for the two participants (e.g., one-hand, two-hand, stationary, and moving choreographed-exercises), and later to non-choreographed free-style push hands exercises. [4]<\/p>\n [1] \u201cIf you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle.\u201d<\/p>\n [2] Soft movement until the time for you to counter attack.\u00a0 Then you “fa jing,” i.e., generate power quickly.<\/p>\n [3] Of course, the amount of time it takes to deflect depends on the strength of the deflecting force.\u00a0 If that deflecting force is very small, it will take a long time.\u00a0 Therefore, in actual combat, that deflecting force cannot be too small.\u00a0 What is important for the current discussion is to understand the concept:\u00a0 that a small force in the perpendicular direction of the attacking force can deflect a large attacking force.<\/p>\n [4] There are many books on Taiji Push Hands.\u00a0 One good reference is the book \u592a\u6781\u63a8\u624b\u6280\u51fb\u4f20\u771f, <\/em>2005 by\u00a0\u738b\u51e4\u9cf4 (in Chinese.\u00a0 My English translation of the title is Treatise on Skills of <\/em>Taiji Push Hands<\/em>, 2005 by Wang Feng-Ming).<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The article “Taiji Push Hands:\u00a0 An Introduction” in the previous release describes Push Hands which is the practice with a partner applying many of the techniques and forms in Taiji form practice for martial applications, i.e., for one-to-one combat.\u00a0 It describes the basic components of Push Hands: Ting (the ability to “listen” to your opponent’s […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dontow.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5292"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dontow.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dontow.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dontow.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dontow.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5292"}],"version-history":[{"count":19,"href":"https:\/\/www.dontow.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5292\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5328,"href":"https:\/\/www.dontow.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5292\/revisions\/5328"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dontow.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5292"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dontow.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5292"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dontow.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5292"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Image](\"https:\/\/upload.wikimedia.org\/wikipedia\/commons\/thumb\/1\/17\/Yin_yang.svg\/253px-Yin_yang.svg.png\")
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