Push When You Can

One of the things that I learnt today during pushing hands is that it is important to push when you can. Up till now, I usually don't push when I can. If I feel that I have already gained the upper hand, and can push my opponent away, I usually stop there. But today, I realised that it should not be this way. Pushing back is very important.

The first reason is because my opponent may not think the same way as I do. He may use my moment of hesitation to retaliate. And he may not stop just at gaining the upper hand. He may be out to win, and thus he may decide to push back when I don't push him. Thus, it becomes a case of "if I don't push him, he will push me." This is of course very dependent on the opponent. If you know the character of your opponent, you can then decide if he is someone who will take advantage of your being nice (by not pushing him when you have the chance). If he is someone who will take advantage of this, then it may be an option to push him when you can. Of course, another way to look at it is you should let him retaliate just to see if you can counter his retaliation.

Another reason is because you never know if you can really push him if you don't actually push him. So what if you gain the upper hand? Have you really gained the upper hand? Are you really able to push him? You won't know unless you actually try to push him. Who knows, you might have thought you have gained the upper hand, when actually you have not.

The third reason is to help your opponent to learn. By pushing him, you are exposing his weakness. This lets him know what he is lacking in, what his weakness is, and thus where he should devote energy so as to improve. This, I feel, is the most important reason why we should push when we can. After all, pushing hands is not about winning. It is about learning together, and improving together. Learning from each other is an important part of pushing hands, and if we hold back, we are not really helping our fellow practitioners.