O
ver the long course of my martial studies I have been very fortunate to visit numerous martial arts schools. I regularly noticed a dramatic difference between my visits to internal (Tai Chi, etc) schools and external (hard style) martial arts schools. Almost all my visits to both types of schools would begin the same. I would met the teacher and the students, exchange thoughts and perspectives on a variety of topics, and demonstrated various Tai Chi forms. In almost every external school, someone would politely ask if Tai Chi was really a martial art. I would respond with; “Let’s find out." I would then spar with some number of people at various degrees of intensity. It was a good learning experience for both parties. My visits to Tai Chi Chuan schools were different. I was almost never asked to spar, but occasionally I was asked to do push hands. Often, this was a strange and disconcerting experience. Tai Chi people would wonderfully talk the internal talk. They would cover chi flow, energy, softness, body unification, etc in a comprehensive and thoughtful manner. When we began push hands, things went off the rails. Either my partner was an ethereal bowl of Tai Chi mush or things rapidly descended into Tai Chi Sumo with hard shoving and poor martial technique. I have no idea how either of theses push hands approaches benefited anyone. The Tai Chi Sumo people's constant hardness and opposition would greatly hinder any health benefits and would never stand up to a experienced fighter. The Tai Chi mush exercise might be useful if your goal was to be a lo mien noodle, but hardly beneficial for developing mindfulness and energy awareness. In fairness, there was the rare knowledgeable practitioner, but they were disappointingly few and far between. I realized that the external schools had a clear primary objective; to develop high level martial ability. They saw sparring as a vehicle to help them improve their art. They knew what they wanted from sparring and how to teach it. Unfortunately, the large majority of Tai Chi schools had no clear idea of what they wanted from push hands, what it was, and if and how it could it help them. I concede that my thoughts are based upon an admittedly small statistical sample. However, I do feel that the question what of exactly is push hands, why do we practice it, and what do we hope to get from it, needs to be addressed by the Tai Chi community. Why Practice Push Hands? The following are my perspectives and I understand that there are many other equally valid ideas and perspectives. I am a huge proponent of respectful exchanges of ideas. I believe that as long time passionate Tai Chi students, we need to constantly examine what we are doing and evaluate how it help us get where we want to go. This is how we grow as people and as martial artists. A good place to start is questioning what we want from our Tai Chi investment. The old quote, if you don't know where you are going then any road will take you there is especially pertinent in Tai Chi study. Do we want to be martial artists, moving yoga people, mindfulness practitioners, or some mixture of the above? I'm not placing judgment on anyone's goals. My point is that it is critical to have a goal in order to evaluate if your actions are helping you achieve it. My Tai Chi teachers, Professor Huo Chi Kwan and Master Tuey Staples always stressed that push hands was a mechanism for students to experientially understand the martial and health aspects of the internal martial arts. These aspects include energy interpretation and redirection, centering, and circular movement.
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Professor Huo and Alan Ludmer with Tuey Staples onlooking — 1975
