Grandmaster Tse’s Tàijí Fist 203

Tuī Shǒu 推手 Training Part 1

When we start Tuī Shǒu 推手 Training, we begin with one hand stationary. Everything we do should start simply and easily then we will become interested in it, then we want to carry on learning it. You should not make things difficult to beginners otherwise nobody wants to learn the skill and in the end skill will be lost.

We begin with Dìng Bù Dān Tuī Shǒu 定步單推手 – Single Hand Stationary Pushing Hands. We begin by facing our partner and we both stretch out a hand so that the palms facing each other as if we are shaking hands. This is to measure the right distance. You then we both put one foot forward, usually it is the right foot first, and our feet should be close together. We can adjust the back foot to make out position feel comfortable. If we have our right foot forwards, we then use our right hands to contact each other.

There are four basic movements, forwards, turn, backwards and open. When we move forwards and backwards there is no movement in the waist, the waist only moves when we are turning and opening. And we turn, we turn our waist inwards and when we open we turn the waist outwards. So the beginning sequence is, I push forwards and my partner moves backwards. If I turn my partner opens. There should be no other extra movements. This is the train the normal response to pushing and turning.