Pushing Hands Training Mentality

What is pushing hands training about? Why do we train with a partner? And how should we train with a partner?

In pushing hands, the objective is to make your opponent lose his balance. You can either push him, or let him fall off balance from over-exertion of his own force. The aim of the training is to correctly apply the principles of taiji so as to be able to sense your opponent's force and his centre of gravity, such that you can then ward of his attacks and use his force against him.

Thus, when training with a partner, we should as much as possible try to push him, so that he can learn to ward off our attacks. And we should as much as possible let our partner push us, so that we can learn of our own weaknesses and improve from there. When we push our opponent and he loses his balance, we are not trying to prove who is the better practitioner. Rather, we are just trying to help our partner learn about his own weaknesses. Similarly, when our partner manages to push us away, we should thank him for showing us our weaknesses, and work on the problems exposed. When we start to push at each other with the sole purpose of making the other fall, we have lost sight of our aim. It is something that we all need to remember and continue to ask ourselves as we practise pushing hands.