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Push Hands in Spartanburg SC?

Pushing hands or Tui Shou is said to be the gateway for students to understand the martial aspects of the internal martial arts (內家 nèijiā): leverage, reflex, sensitivity, timing, coordination and positioning. Push hands in Spartanburg SC works to undo a person's natural instinct to resist force with force (or as in Chinese, Li with Li), teaching the body to yield to force and redirect it. Health oriented t'ai chi schools may teach push hands to complement the physical conditioning available from performing solo form routines. Push hands allows students to learn how to respond to external stimuli using techniques from their forms practice.

Among other things, training with a partner allows a student to develop ting jing (listening power), the sensitivity to feel the direction and strength of a partner's intention. In that sense pushing hands is a contract between students to train in the defensive and offensive movement principles of their martial art: learning to generate, coordinate and deliver power to another and also how to effectively neutralize incoming forces in a safe environment.

Chinese characters - Push Hands / Pushing Hands / Tui Shou or Tuishou is a combination of two characters “tui” (推) and “shou” (手). With “tui” meaning to shove, to push forward or to advance and “shou” meaning hand, “tuishou” means pushing hands, sometimes also translated with sticking hands, thus underlining the contact the pushing hands make. Another Chinese expression for Push Hands is “dashou” (打手). “Da” means to strike, to hit or to knock. This expression of “striking hands” tends to emphasise the fighting or attacking aspect of Push Hands practice.

Fixed and restricted step Push Hands can be described in the following way. Two people face each other at arms distance, both with the same foot forward. The forward hand of each participant is raised to approximately chest height with the palm facing in, and the back of the hand lightly touching the same part of the other player’s hand. The rear hand (the hand corresponding to the rear foot) is placed gently on the elbow of the other player’s lead elbow, so that both players are in an equal starting position. Feet should be comfortably placed so that each player feels balanced and stable from the start.

To initiate the exercise, each player cooperatively moves his or her arms, waist and legs in a circular pattern for three rotations, after which the significant aspect of the drill begins. After the third rotation, each player attempts to remain in light contact with the other player’s arms while at the same time remaining in perfect balance. A loss of balance can be detected by observing the feet of each player. A player who is pushed or pulled off balance will usually stumble out of his or her stable position and have to reset his or her stance to resume play. Players are permitted to put their hands on the other’s body to attempt to unbalance him or her, while at the same time following certain guidelines established at the start. Examples of such guidelines might include keeping the feet in place, not using brute force to unbalance the other player, not grabbing the other player with both hands at one time and not losing contact with the other player throughout the exercise.

Moving step push hands starts the same way, but the goals are different. The goal is to push your opponent out of a circle or to knock him down or both.