Grandmaster Tse’s Tàijí Fist 207

Tuī Shǒu 推手Training Part 5

After Dìng Bù Shuāng Tuī Shǒu 定步雙推手 – Double Hand Stationary Pushing Hands, we need to start practising Huó Bù Shuāng Tuī Shǒu 活步雙推手 – Double Hand Stepping Pushing Hands. So after we have become good at stationary Tuī Shǒu we need to progress to stepping Tuī Shǒu. Fighting is moving, it is never stationary, even if it happens in a very small space. Stationary Tuī Shǒu is important as it teaches us how attack and defend when moving from the waist. All of Tàijíquán’s 太極拳 fighting skill is based on a circle, and so we have to be able to move from the waist. The Tàijí symbol is a circle with one side dark and the other side light and keeps rotating. This symbol represents the principle of Tàijíquán. Tàijí follows the principle of nature, which keeps going around, just like the seasons, spring, summer, autumn, winter and then it repeats. So when someone attacks us, we use the principle of the circle to yield and then direct the strength back to the attacker.  When we attack, we circle our energy to the opponent, making them lose their balance. We need to be able to do this when we are stationary and when we are moving, then we can do it is all positions. We have two ways to train the stepping, in one we lead the energy and in the other we follow the energy.