Respect

As martial artists, ethics is an important part of life. Being skilled in causing harm to people means that we are expected to carry ourselves in a different way, to be more demanding on our own behaviour. We should be pillars of morality. And one of the most important value when dealing with people is respect.

In the past, people have only one teacher. If they want to learn from another, they need to seek their teacher's permission, even if their teacher may not be as skilled as the other. A teacher is like a father, and you had to treat him as such.

Nowadays, this thinking has probably changed. People don't learn from a single teacher anymore. They switch teachers like they switch jobs. When they find someone better, they fly there like bees to honey. They start to forget who was the one who taught them the basics, who was the one who taught them to recognise what is good skill.

Respect your teachers. Respect those who have treated you well. If you don't respect those whom you have benefited from, others will not respect you as well.

Constant Practice

Constant practice is the key to improving.

Due to work commitments, I haven't been diligent in my taiji practices. And it shows. My legs are not as strong as they used to be, so my stance is now not as low when I do Chen style taiji. Couple that with my backside sticking out (because my legs get tired too easily), I would say that I have taken a few steps back instead of going forward.

My teacher sees it, and has been hinting to me that I haven't been practising enough. I guess he is being nice in not telling me straight that my level has dropped. But he also knows that he doesn't have to be too straightforward, that I will get the hint. Guess the only way now is to try to find time to practise on my own even when work seems to be piling up to the sky.

Taiji and Religion

Some people get confused between taiji and religion. Just because the taiji symbol is used as a symbol by Taoism doesn't mean that taiji is part of Taoism. Some Christians that I know decided not to take up taiji because of this. And my teacher was relating an incident about a talk he gave at a mosque. He was talking to the Muslims gathered at the mosque about taiji (they invited him), but at the end of the talk, they asked if there are Muslim teachers. I don't know what that has to do with learning taiji.

Personally, I don't think practising taiji means you are a Taoist. My teacher used to teach at a Catholic church, and he himself is not Catholic. Yet the father there welcomed him and let him used the church grounds to teach taiji to the church goers. If a Catholic father does not see taiji as part of another religion, then why should the rest of the layman?

Yet in another way, taiji is similar to religion. Not any religion, but religions in general. Why? Religion is about faith. No one knows what Heaven is like, yet faith allows people to follow in the teachings of a religion, believing that it will ultimately lead them to where they want to go. In practising taiji, we must have faith too. Right from the start, we are unable to use soft to counter hard. But we must have faith in the teachings of our teachers, and the teachers before them. Follow their teachings and it will ultimately allow you to use soft to counter hard.

National Wushu and Taiji Display 2007

I heard that this year, the National Wushu and Taiji Display will take place on 15 Sep 2007 at the usual venue (Indoor Stadium). Tickets are available from the national wushu federation, as well as community centres. From past years' experience, tickets will be sold on that day itself at the entrance as well, so if you really have no time to get the tickets, you can always try your luck on the actual day itself. If anyone has any more information on this event, do feel free to share!

Stiff Arms or Not

I asked my teacher how is it that the arms can be relaxed, yet the force generated by the legs can manifest itself at the arms and actually flip an opponent away. I would think that in order to transfer the force from the legs to the arm, the arm and torso should be a whole unit, and by shifting the weight and using the kua to turn the waist, the whole torso and arm would turn with the force generated by the legs.

But this means that the arm is stiff. Which obviously is wrong. But if we relax the arm, then when the torso turns, and the arm does not, the force doesn't get to the arms...

I think the answer could be that the arms are relaxed. The force generated at the legs are not used to forcibly flip an opponent away. Rather, listen to the direction of his force, and use the force generated in your legs to gently shift his force in the direction that you want.

Taiji and Kendo

Yesterday, during pushing hands class, we had Japanese visitors. One of them is a kendo practitioner. Having done a little bit of kendo myself, I was trying to explain to him about taiji and pushing hands. While explaining to him, I made a small discovery, that taiji is similar to kendo in that, to win, you must not fear losing. One of the common mistakes in kendo is to always be on the guard, for fear of exposing yourself and letting your opponent land the first blow. While you may not lose if you always keep your guard up, you are not going to win too. And worse, if your opponent is faster or stronger, he can either slip past your defence, or simply plow through it.

The trick to win at kendo is to actually allow your opponent to attack you. When he is attacking, he cannot defend. And that is when you strike. When he attacks, he opens himself to attack. You use that opening to attack. But first, you must be willing to let him attack. You must be ready to lose, should your attack on him fail and he lands the first blow.

I explained this to the Japanese visitor, hopefully he sees the common ground that taiji shares with kendo in terms of thinking. I would think that the way of the warrior is to be ready to lose. Only then are you ready to win.

A Step Back

I think I have came up against a block. After pushing hands today, somehow, I felt tired in my arms. Which means I must have been using brute force. Otherwise, why would my upper arms be tired? But I was trying my best to relax... yet, I end up using force. Why? I was trying to peng away my opponent's force. I was trying to shift my weight, and through that, turn my kua and from there turn away my opponent's force. But somehow, the force generated by me trying to turn my kua just doesn't get translated to my arms. So in the end, I still end up using brute force to turn away my opponent's force. So the more force he uses, the more force I had to use to turn it away.

So how do I transfer the force generated at my kua up to my arms? I wished I know... guess it means a lot more practise with my forms. I must admit that I have been lax in my practice of late, because I was down with a cold and also because of work. Somehow, that must have shown today when I was pushing hands. The force generated just wasn't being used. And I end up doing what I tell others not to do - use brute force. I tell others to relax, yet I myself was unable to do so.

Big and Small Circles

Just thought I wanted to bring up something that my teacher talked about the other day.

A key to taiji is in drawing circles. And those circles do not stand alone. Using the kua, small circles drawn through shifting the weight from leg to leg (and turning the kua) are translated into big circles drawn by the arms. The small movements (circles) at the lower body translates into big movements (circles) at the upper body. And key to that is using the kua.

Observing my teacher, he is able to move his legs very slightly, yet translate his power to his arms to generate a big circle. For us, we shift our weight back and forth between our legs, with very big/obvious movements at the lower body. But most of the power generated is not translated to our upper body, and we end up drawing smaller circles. And smaller circles mean less power.

Push With Back Leg Part 2

I came to realise yet something today while practising Yang-style taijiquan. My teacher always tells me to relax my kua, especially when I am shifting my weight. Right now, I usually am aware and try to relax my kua before I shift my weight to my back leg. Then, when pushing forward, I use my back leg to push. I realised today that when pushing with my back leg's strength, I was not relaxing my kua enough. This actually means that when pushing, my back leg's kua is actually resisting. Which is why when I push and my opponent resists my force, we will end up in a deadlock, and I am unable to use his force against him.

By relaxing my kua even when pushing forward, I should then be able to absorb my opponent's force should he choose to resist my push, and subsequent redirect his force back to him. I do wish to try this out during the next pushing hands session, but I am still unable to relax my kua and still push. Guess this means a lot more practice!

Take Your Time

Hurrying is not going to help. More haste, less speed. It takes time to learn a skill, and taiji is no different. If we expect to see results after one or two years, then why would people spend their whole lives studying taiji and still continue to pursue it?

Living in our modern world, we expect to see instant results. Why wait for the webpage to load? Switch to 10Mbps broadband. We have instant noodles. Why search for a payphone, use a handphone instead. We expect everything to take less time than before. And taiji is no different.

But taiji is different. Just as it takes time to learn calligraphy, time to learn to read, time to learn to swim, it takes time to learn taiji, and time to learn how to apply taiji. Hurrying is not going to help at all. In fact, hurrying may be detrimental to improving at taiji, delaying your learning journey.

The saying goes that it takes 10 years before you can truly call yourself a taiji practitioner. But that was in the past, when people practise day in, day out, seven days a week. Nowadays, if we only practise pushing hands once a week, and only two hours each time, can we even expect to get close in 10 years? If we only practise once a week, then 7 years of work can only truly count as 1 year of practise.

There is no short cut. Practise often, practise hard, and be patient. While a better understanding of taiji principles will help, you still need practise in order to improve. Don't feel disheartened just because you don't think you are improving. You won't see results in one or two years. But give yourself time, and you will find that, with practise, in one or two years time, you will definitely be better than before.

What It Means To Relax

My teacher tells me that to relax the arms, you have to first relax the kua. Thinking about this, I think I am starting to understand what he means.

When someone pushes your arm, if your arms are relaxed, but your kua is not, what happens is that the balloon that your arms form with your body becomes flattened by your opponent's force. But when your kua is relaxed, when your opponent pushes your arms, the balloon doesn't really flatten. Instead, your whole upper body moves back to absorb his force.

But you control your movement. You don't move straight back in the direction of his force. As your kua moves to absorb his force, at the same time, your kua is moving to change the direction of his force. And thus you are able to redirect his force against him.

So being like jelly is not relaxing. You relax so that you can become a balloon, an elastic rubber ball, capable of deflecting someone's force back at him.

Peng Like Rubber

I was a bit frustrated today during my pushing hands session. Somehow, I was unable to use my opponent's brute force even though he was using a lot of force and I was trying my best to relax. Thinking back, I guess it is because I don't really understand how to relax and how to peng properly. My teacher always like to draw the analogy of peng to being a balloon. After today's session, I think I am finally getting a glimpse of understanding about what peng really is.

Think about a concrete ball. When you strike a hammer at it, it will crack. Then imagine a rubber ball, and when you strike the same hammer at it, instead of cracking, the hammer bounces back. This is how to peng properly. When you relax your arms, you are not letting your arms hang soft. When your opponent pushes, your arms absorb the force, then bounces back. Your arms and your body forms the rubber ball, while your waist (and kua) is used to turn the rubber ball to deflect away your opponent's force.

When your opponent pushes the rubber ball, your body must move as a whole, using your kua to absorb whatever force that your arms (the rubber ball) cannot, and then using your kua to direct his force back towards him. Not resisting his force doesn't mean you let him push in all the way. Your arms must still bounce back at some point in time. What I have been doing wrong is that I let him push in first, then when I cannot let him push in anymore, I start to shift my weight behind to absorb more of his force. What I should do is to absorb his force by moving my kua, at the same time trying to keep my arms (the rubber ball) as intact as possible, yet allowing for it to flatten a bit if need be. But when my arms flatten, there must be a point to bounce back.

I'll try this out and see if it works. Hopefully, my understanding is correct and this helps me to improve. But then, even if it is wrong, it is still a lesson, since I then know what I shouldn't do.

Whose Force Is It?

I have been busy with work and moving house lately, so I haven't been able to write much.

Anyway, one of the questions that came up during my taiji journey is, how do you know whether it is you using force, or is it your opponent using force? Whose force is it anyway?

What I heard from my teacher is that, sometimes, when you feel that your opponent is using a lot of force, it may not be so. It could be that you are using brute force, and because your opponent is able to relax and return your force to you, you think that he is the one using force. When in actual fact, the source of the force is from you.

So how do you know whose force is it? Well, if you are using brute force, your arms will start to tire soon. If your opponent is the one using brute force and you are relaxed, then his arms will start to tire, not yours.

Moving Together

Recently, my teacher pointed out one of my mistakes to me, something which I had all along thought was correct. But it was actually wrong. In the past, I had thought that using my waist to move my arms meant something like swinging my arms using my waist (to put it in an extreme manner). When I turn right, my arms would then follow. Then, when I turn left, my arms continue to turn right for a while before following my body and changing direction to left.

But my teacher told me that this is wrong. When I turn my waist to the right, my arms should follow and move to the right. When I turn my body to the left, my arms should straight away follow and turn to the left. Otherwise, there will be a point in which my arms are moving right when my body starts to move left. This flattens the "balloon" formed by my arms and my body, weakening my peng and thus giving an opening to my opponent for him to move in.

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.

Continuous Learning

Everytime I practise, I try to check my movements to make sure that what I am doing fits the image I have in my mind. This image was formed as I learnt from my teacher. When he teaches, I try to imitate his movements, forming an image in my mind. Over time, an image of each movement starts to form in my mind, compiled from watching my teacher perform each movement. And it is against these images that I constantly check my own movements with.

Yet learning does not stop here. The images I have in my mind were formed through my observations of my teacher's movements. Each detail that I observed was seen through the filter of my understanding of taiji at that time. Thus, even though my teacher's movements may not have changed, each time he performs a movement, I pick up different details. And as my understanding of taiji changes, the details that I pick up will change.

So the important thing is not to let the images in my mind crystalise and become cast in stone. The images must constantly change as I observe my teacher, slowly shaping itself to becoming more and more like what he does. And how to do that? Not only must I keep my mind open and ready to change my images, I must also improve my understanding of taiji so that the details I pick up will be meaningful.

Don't let what you see become a mindset that ends up restricting yourself to your own little well. If we are not as good as our teacher, it may not be because the teacher is bad at teaching, it may be that we ourselves have stopped learning.

Admitting Defeat

It is very important to know when to admit defeat, to know that you are bested because the opponent is better. When you use brute force to win, your opponent will not admit defeat willingly. It becomes a battle of muscles, and victory depends on who can push harder.

When you are able to push your opponent because of skill, because you are able to counter-attack with his force, your opponent still may not be willing to admit that he is bested. He may instead be mistaken, thinking that you are using brute force, when actually, you are using his force back on him.

When you are able to seal off your opponent, such that if he doesn't move, nothing happens, yet when he moves, he immediately loses his balance and falls, he will know that he has been bested, and would be more willing to admit defeat.

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.