Kenjutsu and Taiji

I went to watch the movie "Love and Honour" (武士の一分) and saw the similarity between taijiquan and kenjutsu (Japanese sword fighting). In it, the main character was told that for him to win, he must be ready to die while his opponent is fighting to live. What this means is that to win, you must be willing to give up everything, including your own life. The way to lose is to cling on to life, to be afraid of losing everything. When you are ready to lose what you have, you will find victory.

This is very similar to what my teacher has always been saying about taijiquan. When we are afraid to lose, we become tense whenever we sense that we are going towards a situation that is disadvantageous to us. We start to struggle and use brute force. That is when our opponent is able to use our own brute force against us. But when winning is no concern to us, when we are ready to lose, even when we are in a position of disadvantage, we can continue to remain calm, remain relaxed, and from there try to find a way to turn it to our advantage.

When we are no longer focused on winning, our view is not obstructed by victory, and we can see the bigger picture (the full situation). And that is when we are able to find a solution to our problem.

Japanese Drums and Taiji Part 2

After talking with my wife today, I have found another similarity between Japanese drums and taijiquan.

We all start out learning the movements. It is the same whether it is Japanese drums or taijiquan. We first learn the basic movements (how to beat the drum, which hand to lift, etc.) followed by learning how to string together a series of basic movements. Then we move on to learning the details of each movement, such as how high to lift the hand, how fast to flick the wrist, etc.

Sad to say, by the time most people reach this step, they stop learning. They think they have learnt what can be learnt. What they have learnt, however, is just the shell. It may look good, but it is without content, without meaning.

An average Japanese drum performer is able to perform all the movements flawlessly. A good performer, however, understands the requirements of each movement, and how it adds to the overall beauty of the performance. He or she is able to adapt movements to the rhythm, to play around with the music to make it truly his or hers. Why? Because he or she understands why each movement must be carried out in a specific way. He or she understands the beauty behind the moves.

It is the same with taijiquan. An average practitioner is able to carry out his form flawlessly. A good practitioner, however, understands the meaning behind each movement in his form. He understands why each movement must be carried out in a specific way, why in a certain movement, the hand must be exactly this high, why the weight is on a specific leg. When he performs his form, you can see the spirit of the form being expressed, you see the meaning behind the moves.

It takes time and effort to reach that level. And how many of us, living in this time and age, with so many distractions, can actually say we are devoted enough to our arts to be willing to put in time and effort to reach that level?

How to Seal

While pushing hands may be about pushing, the ultimate aim is not to be able to push away your opponent, but to be able to seal (feng 封) such that he is unable to move, such that when he moves, he loses his balance instead. So how do you go about doing this?

The most basic is of course peng. Whenever your opponent pushes, first relax, then use peng to ward off his force and thus neutralise it. Then, using the strength generated by your back leg and relaxing your arms, push towards your opponent. If you use less strength than he does, he won't be able to feel your force. But he will know that you are pushing him, and he will in turn try to neutralise your force and then counterattack. Allow him to. When he counterattacks, repeat the same procedure of relax, neutralise, push back. Each time you push back, gain a bit more ground. And each time that happens, your opponent has less space to move before he goes over his centre of gravity (ie. lose his balance).

Eventually, as you relax and then press your advantage, you will reach a point in which you are able to move in close to your opponent, and he has no space less to move without losing his balance. When you have reached this stage, you have managed to seal your opponent off. If he tries to move, his own force (his movement) will cause him to lose balance and fall instead. This is using his own force against him.

The Dark Side

See this post here on my other blog on "the dark side of the Force" (a spin-off from watching Star Wars). It is about how anger and fear brings one away from achieving the fundamentals of taijiquan.

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.

How to Peng part 2

After lessons today, I tried to confirm with my teacher on how to peng. When your opponent presses with both hands, and one hand is pressing stronger than the other, then you can use the strength of the stronger hand to peng, ie. if his hand on your wrist is stronger, transfer his force to your elbow.

But what if the force on his two hands are about the same? My teacher said that is when you have to use kua to peng, to turn his force away. Relax the kua, then slowly turn your kua, which will turn your waist, and thus redirect his force away from you.

How to Peng

I learnt something today while pushing hands. It came about because I was not doing my peng properly. My opponent pointed out that my arm was becoming flat (my upper arm was pressed against my body), so he was able to push me each time. The way to remedy this is to peng so that he cannot push me properly. This was during two-hands pushing hands. Basically, I should peng such that his hand that is on my wrist is unable to push properly. That was when I realised how to use his strength to peng. By relaxing my kua, relaxing my arm, I was able to use the force of his arm (the one pushing my elbow) to peng, preventing his other arm from pushing at my wrist properly. Basically, transfer the force acting on my elbow towards my wrist. Come to think about it, this is similar to Pie Shen Cui 撇身摧 that my teacher once told me about. "Return his force acting on your elbow back to him."

Staying Calm

It is actually very important to remain calm, even in the midst of action. This was the lesson that I learnt today after reflecting on my actions during pushing hands.

Usually, when I push hands, I don't seek to push away my opponents. Once I am able to neutralise their attacks and get within their defences, I usually stop without going through with my own counterattack. For example, once I peng away my opponent's attack, and manage to get my hand on his torso, I will stop, instead of pressing on and pushing him away.

What really got me all worked up today was when I did this, my opponent kept resorting to brute force to counter. His brute force attacks became very fierce, and that really got me worked up. In the end, I lost my cool, and went down the slippery road of trying to win (by pushing him away). My mind became pre-occupied with pushing my opponent down, rather than relaxing and countering his attacks. Thus, there were occasions when I countered brute force with force, or when my responses to his attacks were very rough (bordering on trying to break arms...)

I actually lost the essence of taiji. I was trying to win, when taiji is not about winning. I should have stayed calm, continue to relax and listen to his force. Instead, I was trying to push his away, and ended up with a few times when I used brute force too. I feel like I have lost everything that I have learnt, because using brute force is NOT the way, relaxing, listening and then countering is the way. I thought it was because I was unable to listen and react quickly, so my actions became very rough. On reflection, it was not. I became rough because I was out to win. And that is the one thing that I should not have done at all.

So, from now on, I will keep telling myself to relax, listen, counter. And if my opponent uses brute force and I am unable to react in time, I will just let him push me.

Japanese Drums and Taiji

I had the chance to watch a Japanese drums performance by the Japanese Association today. It was an event at Yio Chu Kang Community Club, and they were performing as one of the items. Besides being a great performance and totally enjoying them beating the drums, I also noticed something about them that led me to see the similarities between Japanese drums and taiji.

The starking similarity is in the way we use our legs for strength. Taiji theory always stresses that strength (power, force, and so on) comes from the legs. The force generated by our legs is channeled through our waist to our arms. The very same thing was observed of the performers for Japanese drums. By shifting their weight between legs, and turning their waists while shifting their weight, they were channeling the strength generated by their legs to their arms, where they use it to beat the drums. Looking at their kua, it was similar to taiji. The kua does not stick out when they shift their weight from leg to leg. In fact, looking at their kua, it makes me feel ashame that they can relax their kua better than me!

The other point is something that my teacher likes to stress. He always tells his students that taiji is about enjoying it. When we practise, we should try to practise with a relaxed mind, and enjoy the practice, rather than stress ourselves with making sure our movements are 100% correct. When the Japanese drums performers from the Japanese Association performed, you can see that they are really enjoying every moment of their own performance. They are not stressed out over the possibility of making a mistake during the performance. They just relax and enjoy their own performance, bringing in their own personalities into the performance.

In summary, Japanese drums is similar to taiji in the way we generate and use strength, and in the attitude we have towards our respective arts.

Relaxing Kua When Pushing Hands

I guess this is soon going to become the "Relaxing Kua" series.

I was pushing hands today, and came to experience for myself the importance of relaxing my kua when my opponent pushes. When my opponent pushes, and I relax the kua of my back leg, I am at the same time able to relax my arms, and turn my body, warding off his force.

But every once in a while, especially when his force is big and fast, I panic a bit, forget to relax the kua of my back leg. Because of this, I am unable to turn my body as my stiff kua has now been locked. In order not to resist his push, I keep shifting my weight back, but with no way to turn his force away. The result? I get backed into a corner, with no way of escape, and eventually lose my balance or get pushed away.

So watch your kua, it is very important when you are trying to turn your body to redirect attacks away.

Relaxing Kua When Shifting Weight

Just a very short note. This is about how to relax kua. There is a need to relax kua when shifting your weight. When the weight is on the back leg, and you want to shift your weight to the front leg, first, you need to relax the kua of your back leg. Then, slowly push with the back leg to shift your weight to the front leg. A common mistake I make when shifting my weight is to forget to relax the kua of the back leg before I push with it to shift my weight forward. The result is the bobbing effect, in which your body moves up, then down, as you shift your weight from back to front.

Strong to Gentle Part 2

I talked to my teacher about this (see previous post here) today. He said that being able to use an opponent's force against him in a gentle manner is really a matter of skill, which means practice, which means time. First is to develop the strength of your peng, which must come from the strength of your legs. When you are able to direct the force generated by your legs up to your arms, you will be able to peng and withstand your opponent's force, no matter how strong it may be.

At the same time, you must train to turn you kua. Without training your kua, you will not be able to turn and redirect your opponent's force, especially when it is strong. The key to turning your opponent's strong and abrupt force into a gentle counterattack is to turn slowly. To be able to turn slowly requires you to be able to turn your kua and be able to withstand his force with your peng.

For beginners like me, when we first start to become able to feel our opponent's force and use peng to redirect it, we are usually not yet able to control the speed of our peng, being either overly anxious or overly cautious. We meet the opponent's abrupt force with our abrupt peng, resulting in our opponent losing his balance in an abrupt manner. It takes time and practice before we can acquire the skill to peng slowly, slowly drawing our opponent into losing his balance.

Taiji and Principles of Life

Taiji is a way of life. It is not just a martial art, it is not just a sport, it is not just an exercise. It is a philosophy on how to live life.

Taiji teaches us that we should not be consumed with the desire to win. When pushing hands, we should not be aiming to push our opponents down. We should be concerned with developing our skills in the basics of taijiquan, such as how to peng (ward off) and an (push) correctly. When our minds are not clouded by our desire to win (and our fear of losing), we are less likely to resist our opponent's force, and thus more able to feel his force, and subsequently use it against him. Similarly, in life, it is not about winning all the time. The less occupied we are about winning or losing, the less pressure we feel, and the better we perform as we are not stressed by our emotions.

My teacher likes to say that, when pushing someone, you only use 70% of your full effort, leaving 30% to give yourself some leeway in case he counterattacks. Forcing your opponent into a corner is bad, as a cornered dog will bite back. Also, committing yourself 100% means that you cannot pull back should he be able to redirect your force. In life, when dealing with people, we also give them some leeway. We shouldn't force people too much, as they may then react in unexpected manners when backed up against the wall. By not overly forcing people, you are giving yourself more options to deal with them.

And there are times when you lure your opponent in, or follow his force, letting him think that he has gained the advantage. Then, when he commits (or even over-commits) himself, you ward off his force and use it against him. When applied to life, sometimes it may be more advantageous to give way to others first. Let them have their way, before you try to steer them towards yours. Sometimes you must retreat first before you can advance.

Wisdom of Our Forefathers Part 2

The people who developed taijiquan really are great. They not only studied human anatomy in great depth, they also studied human behaviour.

It is human nature to be afraid of losing, to want to win. Humans are impatient. And taiji takes advantage of these. Fear of losing (or the pressure to win) causes one to make mistakes, as judgment is clouded by emotions. By learning to keep calm, the taiji practitioner is able to see, and feel, much more clearly than someone whose mind is preoccupied with winning and losing.

And when one is afraid to lose, the reaction to resist an oncoming force becomes second nature. And taiji uses that second nature against you. When you resist, the more you resist, the harder you fall. Our forefathers studied the natural reaction to resist, and taught us to relax instead, so that we can feel the opponent's force, redirect it and use it against him.

It is a natural reaction to move back when attacked. Besides resisting an oncoming force, we move our body back to put distance between us and the opponent. Taiji teaches us not to run away. By running away, we let the opponent close in further, backing us up against a wall. Instead, when the opponent attacks, we should be ready to stand up to his attack, and be ready to meet his force.

Strong to Gentle

By relaxing, I am able to sense when my opponent starts to use force, and if he uses brute force, I am able to ward it off. The problem with this right now is that, I am still unable to control his force. So if he uses a lot of force, by warding off his force, it causes my opponent to move very abruptly. That is not what I want to achieve. I want to be able to do what my teacher can do. When he wards off your force, it is in a very gentle manner. Even if you use a lot of force, he is able to use your own force against you, yet it is not abrupt. It is very gentle, so that even when you lose your balance, you probably won't hurt yourself.

I thought the key lies in relaxing and drawing circles. Well, I tried that, and nope, I was still unable to use my opponent's force in a gentle manner. Relaxing and drawing big circles only allowed me to better ward off his force, but if his force is abrupt, he still loses his balance in an abrupt manner. I guess I need to think more about this, and maybe ask my teacher.

Sun Tzu's Art of War and Taijiquan Part 2

"Attack that which he must defend." When your opponent attacks, the first priority is to ward away his force. Next comes counterattack. Now, sometimes that is difficult, especially if you have trouble using his force against him. For example, his force is also very soft, so you find it find any force to use against him. What you can do then it to make him react, make him use force, by acting in a way in which he must response. For example, if your opponent is pushing you, with his hands at your elbow and wrist, one way is to use a bit of force at your elbow, baiting him to change the force he is using on each hand (change his 虚实). Once that happens, you can then take advantage of his lighter hand to move in. If he reacts and his lighter hand becomes the heavier hand, you move in on the other side instead. This allows you to slowly gain ground.

"Know yourself, know your enemy, and a hundred battles you can fight without worry." Knowing yourself comes from practising routine, in which you learn how to relax, how to shift your weight, how to maintain your balance, etc. Knowing your enemy comes from being able to listen to his force, which of course is the result of practising pushing hands. Only with these two will you be able to meet opponents with confidence each time.

Wisdom of Our Forefathers

My teacher was talking about relaxing our kua today, and it struck me how much study our forefathers put into developing taijiquan. They must have studied human anatomy very closely and realised that usually, when we move, the hip swings together with the legs (the femur and pelvis move together, just watch any pretty lady walking down the street :) And they developed taijiquan to exploit this. When leg and hip move as one, a person's centre of gravity can easily be moved. By practising and learning to relax the kua, so that hip and leg do not move as one, a taijiquan practitioner is able to move his upper body freely and yet maintain his centre of gravity. So he is able to move his opponent while holding his ground.

Locking

My teacher is good at locking my arm when doing single hand pushing hands. By locking, I do not mean those locks used in judo or other martial arts, in which arm locks are used. I am referring to my teacher putting his wrist on my wrist, and I am unable to move my arm without locking myself.

The feeling is this. He puts his wrist against mine. He doesn't push or pull, or do anything at all. Yet when I try to use peng to move his arm, I find that I cannot move his arm. The more I try to turn my kua to move my waist so as to peng, the more I find myself locking my arm against my body. And of course, using brute force does not help at all. My teacher simply uses whatever force I bring against him to put me off balance.

When I ask my teacher how to counter this, he tells me to peng. But of course, he says my peng is not able to move his arm yet because my kua is still not able to turn properly. Basically, the kua of both legs must be able to turn fully before a person can peng properly. Otherwise, there will still be a bit of ding (resisting force) left, which is why my teacher is able to lock my arm without having to do anything more than putting his wrist against mine.

I guess it is back to practising lan que wei...

Don't Push Too Hard

Yesterday, I was pushing hands when I realised that my opponent was using a lot of brute force. He was using the strength of his arm to push, rather than the strength from his legs. So I tried to use it against him. I kept pushing in, trying to use his force against him the moment he moves, trying to seal off his movements. I kept moving in, pushing his limits, trying to seal off his movements even before he gets to move much.

In the end, I kept committing myself too much. I kept pushing him limits, not giving him space to breath, and in the end, I found out that I was delving too deep into enemy territory. There were a few times when I over committed and lost my balance instead, having pushed too far. By trying to prevent my opponent from moving, I ended up going in too deep with my force, allowing him to use it against me.

The moral of the story is that, the more allowance you allow your opponent, the more allowance you are giving yourself. My teacher likes to say, "Give your opponent 30% chance to escape, and you are giving yourself a 30% chance of escape too."

Sun Tzu's Art of War and Taijiquan

Taijiquan is like war. Or at least, that was the impression I got when I was reading a few passages from Sun Tzu's Art of War the other day, trying to kill time.

"Armies are without fixed disposition just as water is without fixed form." Similarly, in taiji, force is like water, flowing in wherever there are openings. There is no fixed "this hand must be hard and the other soft". Whichever hand is the one using force is whichever hand that is unopposed (ie. there is an opening provided by the opponent there.)

"Make the enemy adopt a disposition dictated by you." In taiji, using light and heavy, hard and soft, you shape your opponent's response. You make him move in the way you want him to move. In other words, you take the initiative away from him. He may or may not be the first to move, but you always end up having the initiative and making him respond to you instead.

"Adopt a position of no defeat." Master peng, and you will be able to ward off all attacks on you, and therefore place yourself in a position of no defeat. It is why peng is the most important of the taiji basic movements. Once you are able to prevent yourself from defeat, you get to choose when to sally forth with your attacks.

Old versus New and Fajing

I was asked why I am not learning Chen Style New Frame, since I have already learnt the Old Frame. Well, my thoughts on the new frame is that it is not really that new after all. The old frame is the origin, and the new frame was introduced to show off one of the more distinctive feature of Chen Style Taiji, which is fajing. The old frame first routine teaches basics, the second routine emphasises fajing. The new frame first routine just adds a few more fajing into the old frame first routine. So, if I can do my old frame first routine correctly, and practise the few fajing inside, I will be able to develop my fajing too. I don't need to learn the new frame to be able to fajing.

On the topic of fajing, a fellow student commented that Yang Style, unlike Chen Style, does not have fajing. I think this cannot be further from the truth. All styles of taijiquan have fajing, it is just whether it is done in an obvious way, or a less obvious way. For example, Chen Style has very distinctive, strong and fierce fajing, but not seeing the same thing in Yang Style or Sun Style does not mean that they don't have fajing. When pushing in Yang and Sun styles, there is a small, final turning of the hand and sitting of the wrist. That is the fajing in these two styles. It is not as obvious as in Chen style, but it is fajing all the same. It is a softer form of fajing.

Thus, there is no real need to practice a routine that has a lot of strong fajing. There are many forms of fajing, and it is better to practise a routine that is well balanced in both strong and soft fajing. After all, taijiquan is not about how strong your fajing is, but how well you can use it.

Relax but Peng

I learnt something new again today. It has to do with relaxing (song) and peng. While pushing hands today, I tried to relax so as to feel my opponent's force, and from there neutralise it. But I forgot to do a very important thing. While relaxing, I forgot to peng too. The result was that my opponent was able to push in quite close to me before I turn and ward off his attacks.

After a while, I recalled my teacher saying that when I peng, I need to make the force at both my wrist and my elbow the same. When one is heavier than the other, my opponent will be able to exploit this and enter where my hand is lighter. That was when I realised that I have not used peng when he pushed. What I had been doing as my opponent pushed was to relax, let him push in, sense his force, then turn it away. But this allowed him close to my body, putting myself at great risk should he suddenly use brute force.

So I tried to peng while relaxing when my opponent pushed. The result was totally different. I was able to keep him away from my body, yet at the same time, I was able to feel when his force is coming. I was able to neutralise his attacks far from my body. The next question is to find out how to use the strength of the back leg to peng while relaxing and letting my opponent push towards me.

Laziness is a spiral

Very few people turned up for lesson today. I am sure it is not that they are lazy, but still it affected me a bit, since laziness was something that my superior talked to me about yesterday. You can read about my thoughts here in my other blog.

Even if it is not laziness, we just shouldn't miss lessons without reason. After all, the teacher takes his time and effort to show up, we should show respect for him and turn up for lessons too. If we have any good reasons not to, we should inform the teacher beforehand. Being tired is not a good reason. Being busy is not a good reason too if we can still squeeze time out or rearrange our schedule. Good reasons would be things beyond our control, like the boss calls a last minute meeting, the car broke down on the way to class, etc.

Making Mistakes

My teacher, and also one of his senior students (he has been with my teacher for over 20 years) said the same thing to a fellow student today. "Making mistakes is making progress." When I first heard this, I was wondering, huh?

The explanation soon followed. When you become aware of your own mistakes, that is the first step towards making progress, towards improving. When we first start learning, we are more focused on trying to remember the steps, and fail to pay adequate attention to the little details as well as the principles of taiji. But as we progress, when we start to realise our own mistakes in details or principles, that is when we know what we need to change. Being aware of our mistakes is the first step towards being able to change them.

Which is why my teacher and senior student bother said the same thing. Once you know your own mistakes, you will start to think about how to correct them. You will start to tell yourself to watch out for the same mistakes, and try not to make them again. In doing so, you are actually improving your form, and it brings practice from "remembering the steps" to the next level of "correcting mistakes".

Slow versus Fast

Why do I do my taiji sets slowly? For the past 6 months and more, I have been taking about 25 minutes to complete one set of Chen style old frame first routine. When I lead my fellow students in practice, the feedback I get is that this is too slow for them, most of them are unable to follow, especially towards the later half of the routine. So today, I did my routine much faster, just to see how it is like.

Firstly, the reason I take 25 minutes to do one routine is not because I intentionally work on making my movements slow. Instead, the reason is because I am checking myself for mistakes. I keep checking whether I got each movement correct, whether I am following the principles of taiji (such as keeping my back upright, relaxing my kua, shifting my weight properly from leg to leg, etc.) If I don't take time to practice each movement, I would not be able to check my movement before I move on to the next.

Of course, in Chen style, there are specific movements which needs to be fast (the punches, the kicks) which is where I move fast, as per the requirements of the movements. But since taiji is about having both fast and slow, whenever I do a fast movement, I compensate by doing movements before and after it slow. But again, this is not intentional. I am just moving slower so that I can check myself better in preparation for moving fast, to make sure that I have everything correct before I fa jing.

So what happens when I practise fast? I had the feeling like I was rushing through the routine. In fact, before I could even check my movements, I was moving on to the next one. Basically, I was not learning anything, it seems like I was just going through the motion. In fact, I usually sweat a lot when I practise. But when I increase the pace, I had thought I would be panting and sweating by the end of the routine. Instead, I wasn't sweating as much, and I wasn't panting at all. My legs didn't feel tired at all. Going at that pace, I probably could have done the routine a few more times. Compare this to when I practise slow. Usually, after the second set, my thigh muscles would be aching, and by the third set, I would be feeling ready to crawl home.

Practising fast may be good at first, because you get to practise the routine a few more times, making it easier to remember. But once you remember the movements, it is time to move towards practising slow, which is to pay attention to the details and make sure that you are practising each movement correctly.

Attitude when pushing hands

Having the correct attitude when pushing hands is very important. After all, pushing hands is a learning activity for both parties involved. We are there to learn from each other, both to learn about ourselves as well as our partners. During pushing hands, through practising with our partners, we learn about our own strengths and weaknesses. We also learn how to listen and know the strengths and weaknesses of our opponents.

So what is the correct attitude towards pushing hands? Well, I don't dare to say I have the correct attitude. All I can do is share with you my attitude towards pushing hands.

First, be humble. Even if you have been pushing hands for a while, you are not perfect, so be willing to accept that fact. There are times when others can manage to push you. Accept that with grace, rather than frustration or anger. Don't think too highly of yourself when you manage to push your opponent. Sometimes, it is because he doesn't want to resist your force. Sometimes, it is because he may cause you harm if he tries to ward off your attack.

Be willing to accept defeat. After all, if you start out already willing to lose, you will not panic when an opponent manages to push you. If you don't panic, you are less likely to resist his force. Your mind will be clear to consider your options, and you can then act accordingly. Keep telling yourself not to resist (it is a common mistake for everyone). Keep reminding yourself of the basics (peng, relax the kua, turn the waist, etc.)

Be patient. Look for openings in your opponent's actions. Take your time to adjust yourself so that you do not present any openings for your opponent. Take your time to look for ways to counter your opponent's attacks.

Treat your opponents with respect. Do not cause intentional harm to your opponents. Which means that cai, lie, zhou and kao should be used sparingly. Also, sometimes, when your opponent's force is too great, warding it off may result in you throwing your opponent way off his balance and causing him hurt. In such cases, it may be better to let him have his way (as long as you don't end up hurting yourself) rather than to ward off his attack.

The above has helped me to learn and benefit from my pushing hands sessions. If there are any other pointers, please feel free to share them.

How Not to Resist

Today, during my weekly pushing hands session, two of my fellow pushing hands partners were up against one another. One of them (the squash player) decided to use brute force. The other, not being one to submit easily, decided to use brute force against brute force. The scene reminded me of two bulls with horns locked in a fight. In the end, the squash player was able to push the other away most of the time. The bottomline? When using brute force, the one with the stronger muscles win.

So how NOT to resist brute force? While the principle of taiji is to relax, the mental attitude is also very important. There is no use telling someone to try to relax if he is not willing to try. Just as the Chinese saying goes, "He who gambles must be willing to accept losses", the correct mental attitude for those learning pushing hands should be, "He who takes part in pushing hands should be willing to accept being pushed by his opponent." With this mental attitude, you can then go on to tell yourself, to remind yourself constantly, "When he pushes, I will not use brute force to resist, I will try to neutralise his attacks by relaxing."

While initially, you will probably find yourself being pushed around a lot, as you are unable to relax and use peng properly yet, after a while, you will realise how relaxing actually allows you to peng properly, and that is when you will start to have minor successes in neutralising attacks made using brute force. The more relaxed you are, the better you are able to sense your opponent's force, the better you are at knowing where to redirect that force to neutralise it and even attack back.

Knee Injuries

A common problem experienced by beginners is knee injury. Some of my fellow students, especially the new ones, complain about feeling pain in their knees after starting to learn taijiquan. In fact, when I first started learning from my teacher, I had the same problem too. My knees would hurt, and I would ask myself what was the cause. I thought it was because my legs are still not strong, my knees not used to the exercise. In the end, I started to wear knee supporters during practice, and even took glucosamine to help my knees heal. After about a year, however, the problem seems to have been cured, or at least gone away.

However, looking at my fellow students who are now facing the same problem, I think I know what is the real cause. Beginners are unable to relax their kua. Thus, when they bend their knees, without relaxing the kua, their weight is supported by their knees, putting unnecessary stress on their knees. If they relax their kua, their legs will become like a spring, and their weight will then become evenly distributed along their leg (like in a spring). This prevents unnecessary stress on their knees.

Thus, if you are currently experiencing pain in your knees, look at your stance. Is it because your kua is not relaxed, and you are putting unnecessary stress on your knees? Your legs should be like two springs supporting the weight of your body, not like two twigs about to break under the weight of your body.

Resistance is Futile

Yes, it is true. Resistance is futile. No matter how strong you may be, resisting is not going to work. One of my pushing hands partners likes to use a lot of force. When I am able to relax and redirect his force away, I am able to neutralise his attacks in time. However, when I am unable to, and I try to use force too, and resist his force, we end up in a deadlock. Worse, he is a squash player, while I don't lift weights... so you can guess who has the stronger arms. I end up with very tired upper arms...

But how to resist the temptation of resisting? How to tell your body to relax, and how to react in time to redirect his force away? I know the key to redirecting his force is in my kua, but I am still unable to relax my kua to use it correctly. Most of the time, it is still my backside that is moving around, or my kua will stick out (especially the back leg). I guess this is a reflection of my movements. This is an area that I will need to work on when practising my routine. Only when my movements become second nature, will I be able to correct apply them during pushing hands. Meanwhile, I just have to live with being pushed around whenever I am unable to neutralise my opponent's attacks.

Appearance 神态 and Details 细节

I was talking to my teacher about slow movements when practising Chen style. He told me before that in Chen style, there must be slow and fast movements (有快有慢, 快慢相应), and when he demonstrates this, there is the flavour of Chen style. However, whenever I try to practise movements slowly, I am unable to replicate the same flavour. Instead, my movements are just plain slow and neither resembles Chen nor Yang style.

This may be because of paying attention to details (细节). When I try to pay attention to the details (keeping body upright, shifting the weight properly, making sure my wrists, elbow and shoulders are correct, etc.) I am not paying attention to appearance (神态). The result of paying attention to details is that as my attention is constantly roaming around my whole body, my actions end up losing continuity (no 绵绵不断), and the upper body and the lower body do not move as a whole (no 上下相随). As a whole, my routine still looks quite loose (散).

However, when I try to pay attention to appearance, I still cannot bring out the flavour of Chen style (or Yang style) as the movements lack sufficient meaning (lack 内涵). This is because the details are just not there.

Details allow you to apply taijiquan. Appearance shows the application of taijiquan. One cannot do without the other. However, in the beginning stages, it is impossible to do both. Paying too much attention to appearance will mean that the details (and therefore the basics of taijiquan) are not there. In the long run, this will hinder my progress. However, paying too much attention to details will mean I can apply taijiquan but don't know how to apply the movements, ie. I can peng, but I won't know when to peng.

The path seems to be to start with the basics, to start with paying attention to details. With sufficient practice, your body will start to move as a whole. Once you have reached that state, more emphasis can be placed on appearance, so that in the end, not only can you apply taijiquan, but you know when to apply the various movements.