Here is one aspect of the Tai Chi Jing “Pluck” applied to Push Hands.

This is from the new video Tai Chi Push Hands Vol 4: Bridging the gap between Push Hands & Self Defense. Available now at Clear’s Tai Chi Online

This is from Volume 2 in our Tai Chi Push Hands series. If you have trouble with this exercise go back and work on the exercises taught on our Internal Power page and our Chi Energy page.

And of course the exercises leading up to this on Volume 2 of our Push Hands series will be very helpfull as well.

Click here to check out the 5 Volume series on Push Hands.

To an untrained observer, push hands looks like a grade school game. simply try to push the other person until someone falls or moves.

Seems simple. However, if you are really trying to learn Tai Chi, this is not the goal. When you practice push hands, you are not trying to physically move your partner.

You are really trying to move your opponent’s energy.

If you can do that, physically moving them is no big deal. In fact, it takes very little physical effort at all. This is why when we practice push hands we usually practice very softly.

It doesn’t take much training to physically shove some one. It’s just a matter of having muscle. However, push hands is about developing real internal power and skill.

And if you have internal power, physical strength won’t be much help against you. An opponent’s strength will only push them off of you.

Someone would have to weigh three or four times more than you do in order to move you with sheer physical strength.

When you are pushing someone, look for breaks in their structure, places where there are gaps in their posture. These are energetic breaks and a person can be pushed using these. If you can’t find these gaps, then look for their root and move it.

If someone pushes into you, you can move your center of gravity out of the way and push them perpendicular to yourself.

What It Feels Like

When a large wave rolls in and hits you, you can be knocked over, dragged down, and pulled ashore.

Yet there is no place where you could hit the wave and find resistance.

This unstoppable wave-like force is one important quality you want to develop when you practice push hands.

Have you ever seen a bear stomping its feet getting ready to charge?

Each foot in turn comes crashing down into the ground. This kind of movement can help you to achieve a deeper root.

Before you do this exercise, make sure you have a good structure. You should already have good Wu Chi posture and be able to root before you begin practicing with this kind of exercise. This exercise won’t help you much unless you have the basics in place.

How To Do It

Lift up one leg and then let your body drop as you stomp your foot. Don’t stomp using your muscles so much as let your entire body weight crush down into your foot. The purpose of this motion is to get absolutely all the tension out of your body so that you are completely relaxed.

Make sure your knees stay bent during this entire exercise. DO NOT straighten your leg. If you have pre-existing knee issue then use a gentler exercise.

Go back and forth between your feet. Think of the lumbering, stomping motion of a bear or an elephant and this will help you to understand the kind of movement you should be doing.

As you come down, exhale, and drop your weight into the floor. You should feel a crushing motion down in to your feet.

As with the waterfall rooting technique, when you are done with the bear method of rooting, you will want to do Carry the Cauldron and Grand Tai Chi and walk it off without trying to root to restore your body to a normal state.

Photo by: Eric Kilby

Find the smallest details.

When you first start out doing push hands drills, you have a sense of your opponents’ body, but it is often quite vague. You can’t make out a lot about what is going on inside your opponent.

Start with the big picture

After a bit of practice, you learn how to figure out big problems in your opponent’s structure.

Maybe they are leaning back to far or they are tense all through their shoulders.

When you get to an advanced level, all this has changed.

You can see the big picture, but you can also see a lot of detail as well.

Then learn to perceive the smallest detail

Imagine you are in the middle of a stadium. You can take in the stadium as a whole. However, you can also look at individual elements separately. You can look at the goal post, or at chair. Your you can look at one individual seat. You could even look at the lines painted on the stadium field to the point where you were looking at one particular blade of grass or even at one particular fleck of paint on the blade of grass.

This is the level of detail you can eventually achieve. You no longer sense only big problems. You also sense seemingly tiny flaws in a person’s structure. You learn to catch micro misalignments. You have the ability to spot even the tiniest bits of tension in muscles or internal organs.

There is a lot you can do with this kind of sensitivity both for combat purposes and for healing. Push hands takes time and practice, but it is well worth the effort.

Photo by: André Zehetbauer

Push hands is a game, and like most games, its easy to get caught up in winning. 

When you’re playing a game, it feels like the point is to win. However, the real point of push hands is to develop Tai Chi skill.

First by correcting your structure and then later on through developing your sensitivity.

Play against yourself

Since push hands is really about development and not about winning, in reality you are only ever playing against yourself.

Focus on being completely relaxed, aligned, rooted and on breathing deeply. Once you are doing these well, focus on developing your sensitivity.

Test your opponent & yourself

You will need to test your opponent with your hands to see what’s going on inside them. But the point is to develop sensitivity rather than to try to push them.

My experience of playing push hands against an advanced senior master is much the same as my experience of playing against a beginning Tai Chi student. This is because in both situations, I am doing the same thing. I am trying to develop my sensitivity, my sense of what is going on in their body.

If I find that I’m getting pushed a lot, I will talk to the person I’m working with and ask questions to try to figure out a neutralization for what they are doing.

Investing in loss

Maybe once in 30 or 40 games, I will play competitively just to see where things are at. But in general, if I’m getting pushed a bit, I don’t worry about it. If I lose a bit, it doesn’t really matter as long as I learn something.

In order to develop my Tai Chi practice, I am investing in loss.

Don’t forget to check out our 10 Minute guide to Internal Power Training and learn the basics of how to build internal structure and sensitivity

Two people stand holding each other’s arms. Both of them try to push the other one off balance and finally, you see one of them step back. The hand holds might vary, but in general, this is the basic format of push hands games.

You might have played these games in your Tai Chi studio or you might have even seen them played competitively. Although push hands drills look comparatively simple, there’s a lot more to them than you might imagine at first glance.

At Clear’s Tai Chi, we don’t focus on the competitive aspect of push hands where people try to shove each other. There’s a lot more going on than that.

Internal push hands drills build energetic ability and teach skills that are necessary for using Tai Chi as a martial art.

1) Build better structure.

If you play Clear’s internal push hands and your body structure is incorrect, this will be immediately apparent because your opponent will easily push you. In fact, an opponent with well-developed sensitivity may not even need to actually push you in order to be able to tell that you are off.

Of course you will have lost the match, but you will then be able to correct your structure and improve your Tai Chi. In the same way, push hands will teach you to root deeply and with the feedback of an opponent, you will be able to tell how well you are doing.

2) Develop Deeper Relaxation

Clear’s internal push hands also develops relaxation. If you play, you will quickly learn that tension in your body gives your opponent a handle to grab on to. It makes it easy for you to get pushed. And so, with practice, you relax. In fact, what you are learning is the principle of Sung, or relaxation while maintaining structure.

3) Greater Sensitivity

Though push hands really improves your structure and your rooting, these can be practiced without other people around. However push hands also helps you to improve your sensitivity. This is some that can’t be done without someone else present.

When you first begin to play push hands, you will begin to sense the lines of force in your opponents. Next you will begin to feel their alignment. This is where you can learn to tell where your opponents have something wrong with their body structure. As your skill develops, you will be able to pinpoint their mistakes and move them.

And much more…

Eventually you will learn to do even more with push hands drills. You will not only sense the lines of force that an opponent is using but you will also learn to sense their intentions. You will learn to sense where their mind is going and be able to neutralize their movements before they even make them.

Try it for yourself

Check out our free guide: How to build Internal Power and learn the basics of Clear’s Internal Push Hands. Then grab a training partner and try it out for yourself.

We are finishing up a new DVD on the Clear’s Internal Push Hands method.

Here’s a video clip showing the internal Iron body & palm that you will develop from the methods shown on this DVD. This is not the primary focus of the dvd. It’s just one of the many skills and body qualities that this method builds.

The DVD will be available in late January / early February 2010. To get the latest info about release dates & pre-order specials sign up for our newsletter by clicking here.

photo by: spaceamoeba

Included in this post is a long term training progression for Clear’s Tai Chi Internal Push Hands method.

I am sure to some folks that much of what I am listing will seem unbelievable.  In the last year I have demonstrated most of these Internal Push Hands skills to non-students on non-students without telling them what I was going to do beforehand and with them having no prior knowledge of me.

I have demonstrated all of these Internal Push Hands skills at one time or another to all of my close students.  I have one student who is able to do most of what I am listing here and a lot of my regular students have experienced it from him at one time or another.

Please make arrangements to visit if you would like to see these Internal Push Hands skills for yourself.  I have nothing to hide and will openly share.  These skills take a lot of work and time to build and so far I have not found any tricks or short cuts.  As a result I am not worried about hiding it and if you can debunk it somehow and show me a shortcut that actually imparts the skill and ability that I have then I am more than happy to pay you for the privilege.

I try to approach all of my studies with a critical and skeptical mind.  Over the years I have disregarded a lot of material and focused my efforts on what really works and gets results.  For me it has to work even when the person I am doing it to does not believe it at all and is trying to circumvent it.  After all what good is it if it does not work in the real world.  I do teach for a living and so at the point where it becomes instruction to you as opposed to a demonstration or simple comparison of some kind I do humbly request to get paid for my services.

Clear’s Internal Push Hands
Training Progression

1. Listen for Partners Heart Beat
2. Feel Partners Energy Sink & Move Inside their Body
3. Sink your own Energy by dissolving
4. Sink & Dissolve while you push
5. Feel opponents root depth, blockages and stiffness
6. Troubleshoot partners lack of depth, blockages & stiffness
7. Dropping the Root Deeper Game
8. Must be able to quickly drop your root lower than their root with ease
9. Try Different Hand Positions
   • 1st  (Strongest) Position should be under armpit
   • Hands on waist
   • One hand on waist & one under armpit
   • One hand on waist & one on shoulder
   • Hands on shoulders
   • Hands on elbows
   • Hands on forearms
   • Hands on back
   • Any Position while stronger but lesser skilled opponent has a stronger position
10. Use 4 oz. to Move 1000 pounds
11. Must be able to sense opponents root depth by placing a hand on them
12. Sense when opponent is about to push and slowly push them first so that their push is negated because their intention and energy is cut off
13. Must be able to feel the direction of the opponent’s body energy through contact with their arm
14. Must be able to quickly tell where stiffness or root imbalance is in subject’s body by sight
15. Must be able to tell the difference between an opponents physical energy and mind intent
16. Must be able to basically manipulate an opponents internal energy with your mind
17. Must be able to block the opponents mind intent
18. Must be able to move a beginning player without having to make physical contact with them.   (Empty Force)
19. Must be able to heal by feeling through physical contact utilizing the internal sensitivity
20. Must be able to heal by feeling & utilizing the internal sensitivity without any physical contact
21. By the time you reach this level you should be able to perform a nice level of Fa Jing whereby you physically move very little but they move as if you hit them hard and fast.
22. More and Higher Levels

I recommend that anyone reading this post on Clear’s Internal Push Hands first read the previous post and watch the video on the right.

Once you have read the previous post and seen the video and worked on some of what is being shown then I recommend you read and step by step put into practice what I am listing here.

1. Both People Place Both Hands Below the Neck and Above the Waist
2. Relax and Sink your Root/Energy
3. Try to Feel the Other Person’s Root/Energy
4. Slowly Push -When you think you have found their root/energy -If you are correct they will either easily move or they will have to adjust their position and change their root/energy so that they are not easily moved
5. Keep your Root/Energy Down and Hidden so that the other person can not find it
6. If the other person finds your root/energy then try to adjust (sink more and let the body turn a little) so that they can not move you – Use the Ahhhhhhh Method
7. Continue to Play this game until you can easily hide your root/energy so well that an opponent can not find it and until you can easily find someone’s root/energy

The next post on Internal Push Hands will be a list of the training stages from beginning to quite advanced.