Your Talk Reveals Your Walk

Taiji is about relaxing, about how to use your opponent's force against him. Because you are using minimum force during pushing hands, your arms shouldn't get tired. Instead, your arms get tired when you are using force to resist. My arms used to get tired in my beginning years of pushing hands, because I still have not learnt how not to resist. But over the years, I have learnt that the more your opponent tries to use force, the more you should try to relax. When he uses force, he tires himself out, he starts panting. By staying relaxed, you conserve energy.

So when my fellow student was talking about how he easily tires when he practises with another student (who is new and uses a lot of brute force), it is a revelation that he is still not able to relax when faced with force. He is still resisting.

Being relaxed doesn't mean giving space to your opponent. In fact, by being relaxed, all the more your opponent won't be able to come in. But it is human nature to push back when pushed. That is instinct. We train because we want to change that. We need to train long and hard to change that instinctive reaction.

And so I continue to walk this path.