push hands

[dashao]

hey there i am looking for some pointers on push hands just some basic tips to get that advantage anything usefull you may have come across in your travels. anything at all. especially when the other person uses a lot of strength. i have gotten as far as investing in loss . :p

[Guo_Xing_Yi]

"Push-Hands. The handbook for non-competitive tai chi practice with a partner" by Herman Kauz

ISBN 0-87951-754-9

[cybermonk]

I have been doing tai chi for a relatively very short time but I can tell this: When someone is using a lot of strength redirecting motion at the right time will put him in a more unbalanced position. Like always yield until the time is right. Hope it helps :)

[dashao]

good stuff :D i will take a look at that book too cheers any more pointers are welcome

[TkdWarrior]

u know anything about bagua stepping? I found that very useful when someone uses too much strength on it... if u cannot push up/redirect someone's attack then this stepping helps..
Lemme try to find couple of videos on this.. n then i'll post a link about stepping...
cheers
-TkdWarrior-

[daftyman]

hey there i am looking for some pointers on push hands just some basic tips to get that advantage anything usefull you may have come across in your travels. anything at all. especially when the other person uses a lot of strength. i have gotten as far as investing in loss . :p
I am going to assume that you are doing push-hands in the form of (push, press, ward-off, roll back) as seen in a lot of the Cheng Man Ching books.

How long have you been pushing hands? I ask because you cannot really rush things. If you want to learn the sensitivity to be able to read whats going on you've just got to stick with it. You can learn a lot from losing, or more properly not being bothered of you lose, or afraid of losing. I say this from the standpoint of having studied PH for 5 years and I am now pretty much able to neutralise the incoming push most of the time. My ablity to uproot my partner is also getting better. (A good uproot is pretty effortless and seems to send the guy flying without you realising how you did it! At first anyway.)

Here are some things that I notice in people starting out in push-hands:
Their hips are too stiff, so that they do not fully shift the weight back and forwards or turn the hips. The looser your hips the more you will be able to do.
Not really listening to what's happening, they just doggedly insist on doing what they are doing and wonder why they keep getting pushed.

I'll tell you a couple of things you might want to play with, but they are just tricks. They are not guaranteed to work on everybody. They will on some though.
Your partner is pushing at you with a lot of strength.
You yield a little more and pull him forward and to one side (hard to describe really) Kind of a roll back movement. This could well pull him off balance.
As your partner comes in turn your body and as one side moves away you push with the other side on his elbow or shoulder. To neutralise you have to affect his body, not just his arms.

Just be careful not to oppose strength with strength. If you are cool with losing for a while, and the other guy keeps using strength, you will surpass him. Might take a while though. If he is not actually using strength but his 'root' and you are not able to, as yet, tell the difference, then the above stuff might not work.

To work on increasing your own root hold postures such as play guitar and lift hands. Also you can work on lowering your posture. Do it gradually and watch out for pain in the knees, if they hurt, rise up a little.

Hope this all helps. Stick at it, just keep going and things will eventually improve.

[dashao]

good post vamp will try and keep them things in mind when training i havent been at push hands very long which is why i am asking for tips i still feel i am using too much strength myself never mind my opponents .but will keep at it