Tai Chi Tuishou aka "Pushing Hands" or "Push Hands"

Tai Chi Tuishou (Pushing Hands) Lesson 1

Tai Chi Tuishou or pushing hands (push hands) is one of the core elements of tai chi training. It is not taught in every school. However, if you are learning tai chi as a martial art, an understanding of tuishou is absolutely essential.

Aside from the martial arts skills that it teaches, tai chi tuishou is also very useful for understanding not only the relationships between different parts of the body, but also the subtle and profound relationships between the body and the mind and between thought, emotion and posture. Every time there is a thought there is an emotional response, and every time there is an emotion, there is a corresponding physical response.

Tuishou teaches you how to recognize the nature of this relationship, and also to notice the ways in which this understanding can make you stronger and ignorance of it can make you vulnerable.

The first thing we learn in tai chi, through practice of the standing meditation and by practising the form, is how to stop fighting ourselves. If you are in the habit of fighting yourself, as most people are, then when you encounter and opponent, the battle will be two against one. That is hardly fair. If, however, you can master the basic skills such as how to stand, breath, relax and coordinate the body and mind, then you will have learned not to fight yourself. Then, when you encounter and opponent, your own superior balance will often be enough to win the fight. You will find yourself naturally using the opponent’s own force, effort, and self-defeating tension against them. The opponent will be so busy defeating himself, that you will win without effort.

One of the most important fundamental principles of tai chi states that you should learn to defeat 1,000 pounds with 4 ounces. All too often, students fall into the trap of thinking that they have to do something to defeat their opponent. Even worse, they sometimes have trouble getting past the need to feel that they can control the opponent or other aspects of their environment. This cannot be done. It is not even possible for the student to control their own mind, much less the action or thoughts of other people.

However, you can learn to regulate your own thoughts and emotions. You cannot control these things any more than you can squeeze water in your hand. Fortunately, tai chi tuishou can teach you to regulate the effect that thoughts and emotions have on you. First you must learn to read your own mind, then you can regulate it. When you are good at regulating your own mind without trying to control it, then you can apply the same skill to the art of not controlling the opponent. This is real martial skill, to release control, and instead let your thoughts, emotions, and movements flow like water and constantly adapt to changing situations. If you do this with the purpose of maintaining your own balance, then you will find you can apply the same skills to regulating the affects of the actions, thoughts, and emotions of an attacker.

This skill is easy to apply, but difficult to master. By that I mean that you will take some time trying to understand and apply the method, but once you have the skill, it manifests without effort as a natural instinct.

You can probably see how tai chi tuishou skills can be useful not only as a martial skill, but also as a useful skill for daily life. You can’t control the Universe or change what the universe is going to do. Instead, we learn to regulate our own mind and body so that we end up in the part of the space/time that best suits us. This will seem to the untrained mind as if we are manipulating space and time itself. In reality, it is only the mind that moves.

The highest level of skill involves actually finding the part of the other person’s mind that wants to lose. It is like looking for the shadow in the other person’s awareness. This requires eliminating the shadows in your own mind.

The development of this skill both requires and depends on the ability to understand yourself and understand you opponent. You will never learn anything about anyone by hating or fearing them. Instead, you must develop authentic rapport with your opponent. This doesn’t mean pretending to have rapport. You must cultivate genuine love for yourself and for you opponent. This is the only way to effectively follow the opponent’s mind. It is the only way to overcome your own fear and the only way to prevent irrational reactions. This is why the founder of Aikido said that the true spirit of budo (the warrior way) is love. He was not merely being altruistic. He was being immensely practical.

If you want to be able to develop the most effective method of beating the @#$# out of your opponent, you must start by loving them unconditionally. You can’t fake this. You can try to fake it as many do. That will only have limited success, though, and you will eventually get beaten up by someone who loves more unconditionally than you do.

Tai chi (supreme duality) refers to the nature of yin and yang. It also refers to the source of tai chi, which is Wuji (non-duality). So when you are practising taijiquan (Tai Chi Chuan), part of understanding tai chi is becoming wuji. You must open up, relax, let go of your own ego, and avoid trying to control the opponent. If you are one with the universe, and they are not, then they will defeat themselves by the nature of their own attack.

All of this theory is nothing more than a bunch of fortune cookie platitudes unless it can be realized through practical exercises.

So, in the next several lessons we will work on the practical and the mundane in order to realize the profound and mysterious. This is the way of tai chi.

Tuishou (Pushing Hands) Lesson 2

Ian Sinclair teaches tai chi tuishou (Pushing Hands) with the assistance of Adrian Bhatti.
In this lesson, we discuss the principles of sticking, following, and the importance of these skills in self defence.

Part 1

One of the biggest mistakes that students make when they encounter an incoming force is trying to actually do something about it. That is to say that they try to control the incoming force. This response fails because you become focused on the attack while the opponent is focused on you as a target. You may defeat the first attack, but that only succeeds in changing the way in which you are defeated.

Trying to control the opponent's attack, causes you to actually decrease your ability to defend yourself. You end up attacking the opponent's weapon, and abandoning your own balance and structure to do so. The opponent's attack may then be changed, but his or her energy continues toward your centre, which is now without any defence.

The key to successfully defending against an incoming force is maintaining awareness of that which you are trying to defend. You must then use your superior structure and balance to engage the opponent's force and move at right angles to the attack without compromising your own structure. With proper basic training and by cultivating awareness or your centre and your opponent's structure, you will be able to "neutralize a thousand pounds with four ounces."

This is why tai chi is practised slowly. Slow tai ch practice enables you to build strong thighs, and a relaxed internal power that can respond to force without using force.

Part 2

If I fight against the opponent's strengths then I will leave myself open.
Tai chi classics say "Bu diu, Bu ding" (don't against, don't back too soon). You don't fight against the force and you don't retreat from it. Instead you learn to engage the attack without force, and to find the part of the attacker that is tempted to resist but not able to resist effectively.

Tai Chi is very useful for cross training in other styles such as judo or jiu jitsu, and is often taught to suaijiao competitors. Push hands can help you to refine your awareness of angles for throws and take downs. It will help you to feel where the opponent's centre is and how the structure of the body and the intent are aligned.

Tai Chi can also help you to avoid the tendency to get attached to what they think is an advantageous position. Often a student will get to a position where they are so convinced of their superior position that they abandon sensitivity and commit to what they think is a sure thing. As soon as they do that, the opponent has a chance to change shape without being detected.

Tai Chi push hands skill is recognized by advanced martial artists of many other styles, because it teaches what Takuan called "cutting the line between before and after."

Part 3 (Addendum)

When you can stay on the opponent's centre without letting them engage your centre effectively, they will be confused and unable to effectively manipulate your centre. This is a skill which transcends both speed and timing.

It is not about what you do. It is about how you are.

There is much talk about a straight line being the most direct path between two points. But physics tells us that a curved line can be a faster path than the most direct one.

However, there is nothing faster than already being there. That is the secret of tai chi.

- Ian Sinclair

Tuishou (Pushing Hands) Lesson 3

- part 1, Horizontal Peng and Lu

This is one of the first tai chi push hands exercises that most people learn. Unfortunately, few students actually develop a complete understanding of the importance of this drill. They usually get bored before they find out how interesting it is. It is regrettable that this is often the fault of the teacher, who never learned the profound nature and importance of basic exercises.

This exercise is about the addition of vectors. It teaches us to add energy to the opponent's push without resisting against it. We don't try to take anything away from the attack. Instead we add to it the energy that will make the attack miss.

It also teaches us to avoid the most common error in martial arts, which is the emotional response that makes us use force against the attacker. This error actually prevents the attacker from missing. It gives the attacker a way to feel where your centre is and what you are doing.


If you are not sure that you are doing the exercise correctly, think of it terms of a martial context. Would your strategy work if the attacker were trying to punch, kick, or throw you?

First do nothing. Next do less then nothing. Then, quit doing that, too.

- Ian Sinclair

Tuishou (Pushing Hands) Lesson 3

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part 2 vertical circles

Tuishou (Pushing Hands) Lesson 4

This lesson explores the application of the "Four Directions" ( Peng, Lu, Ji, An) in the context of a single-handed two-person exercise.

Peng ~ "Ward-off", or "Boing"
Lu ~ "Rolling" and neutralizing in order to maintain engagement with the opponent's centre.
Ji ~ "Cramming" - a focused, horizontal energy
An ~ "Pressing" or "Pushing" - a downward and forward energy

Equally important, or even more important, is developing the ability to let go of the four basic energies when they become obsolete.
In order to apply each energy correctly, we must become equally skilled at not applying them.

This exercise is often taught as nothing more than a simple horizontal circle. It is a universal exercise common to all styles of tai chi. This is because, in spite of its apparent simplicity, it teaches some of the most important concepts in the practice of martial arts.

Tuishou (Pushing Hands) Lesson 5

Wrist spiral and rolling hand method is another basic single-handed tuishou drill which incorporates peng, lu, ji, and an.
This exercise should be practised with minimal pressure but with maximum awareness of the vectors of force and the types of power involved.

Tai Chi Tuishou (Pushing Hands)

Lesson 6

- Four Hands

This is the bread and butter of tai chi training.
In a perfect world, you would be able to defend yourself against all attackers, and in your daily life get through every challenge, by using only the four perfect energies of Peng, Lu, Ji, and An.

These four energies don't always work, however, because things happen. Sometimes the opponent is lucky, and sometimes the opponent is just better at this stuff. (When Peng Lu, Ji and An fail, then we have to fall back on secondary techniques like Zai, Lieh, Zhou, and Kao. But we will talk about them later.)

Four hands deals with just about every hand technique you can imagine, including punches, pushes, grabs, joint locks, pressure points, etc. And the energies apply equally to techniques of all kinds, including kicks, sweeps, and even ground techniques.

It is hard for beginners to understand the importance and universal application of this exercise. But that is why it is an advanced art. Only advanced martial artists will really understand what the practice is all about.

Tai Chi Tuishou (Pushing Hands)

Lesson 7

- Four Hands (Continued)

Tai Chi Tuishou (Pushing Hands) Lesson 8

- Basic neutralization practice

Neutralizing the opponent's force without using force requires the ability to sense the opponent's intent before the have applied it, but after they have committed to it. This is where we get the tai chi proverb, "If my opponent doesn't move, I don't move. If my opponent moves, I move first."

In this exercise, we learn to use our structure and intent to neutralize the opponent's attack before the attack has moved.

It important that this exercise is done cooperatively and safely, but with real intent and honest energy.
Don't try to win. This is not a competition. It is an exercise. You will never win an exercise.

Tai Chi Tuishou (Pushing Hands)

Lesson 9 - Outer elbow spiral and rolling method

Tai Chi Tuishou (Pushing Hands) Lesson 10

- Inner elbow spiral and rolling method

Tai Chi Tuishou (Pushing Hands) Lesson 11

- Forearm circling in vertical rotation method

Tai Chi Tuishou (Pushing Hands) Lesson 12

- Tai Chi vs Muscle Testing (Applied Kinesiology)