Relax and Push

I was pushing hands with my teacher when I realised the difference between the way we pushed. For me, I use my legs to push my body forward and backwards. But my teacher uses his leg to push his body back and forth, and at the same time is able to turn his kua so that his body also turns while moving back and forth.

The result is that while my force is in a straight line back and forth, his force is able to move in a circular manner. He is also able to use my straight force and turn it back towards me via turning his kua.

Another observation is that while I need to shift my weight back when trying to ward off my opponent's force (because I am still unable to properly turn my kua), my teacher is able to ward off my force simply by relaxing his kua, such that he does not move back. As a continuation of that, he can straight away push back. So he holds his ground, then push back, while I move back before I can push back. If an opponent is able to sense me moving back, he can move in, preventing me from pushing back.

So everytime I try to push when I sense my teacher has relaxed his force, he instead uses his relaxing to ward off my force and at the same time push back towards me. So instead of my force flowing in to take up the supposedly vacuum his relaxing has caused, I find his force inching towards me instead, until he eventually decides to seal me off and I lose my balance the moment I try to move.