Grandmaster Tse’s Tàijí Fist 147

Chén Wáng Tíng’s Poem 陳王廷太極拳經總歌 Pt2

Chén Wáng Tíng’s 陳王廷太極拳經總歌 Poem say, “Contacting, touching, spiralling and circling skills – they make us feel our enemies’ energy 諸靠纏繞我皆依. Chopping, hitting, pushing and pressing skills are advanced劈打推壓得進步, Carrying, shifting, horizontal and grabbing skills are hard to defend against 搬擱橫采也難敵.”

To feel our opponent’s energy, we need to make contact, touch, spiralling and circling skills – this is Tuī Shǒu 推手. From this line we can see that Chén Wáng Tíng 陳王廷 did create Tui Shou in the beginning, even though it might be different from the Tui Shou today we are practising but it was a sort of the form of Tui Shou training in his time of creation. By contacting the opponent and then using the circling, spiralling skills we make them react and then we know how to defeat them. Chopping, hitting, pushing and pressing are all attacking skills that the opponent will find hard to defend, so we can win the fight. Carrying, shifting, horizontal and grabbing skills are hard to defend against These are controlling skills. If we have been grabbed and we cannot do much, then we have lost. In Tàijíquán, we like to let our opponent think they are free, but actually, they are being controlled. Then when they are in a weak situation, we can defeat them. So, to defeat our opponent, we read their energy, control them, then finish them.