DISCUSSION

“Almost There” Concept: People tend to put everything in towards a goal they believe they getting really close to achieving it.

You want your opponent to remain committed to a position for as long as possible because this makes him more predictable and vulnerable to your attacks. For example, you can grab his hand and redirect him to disrupt his balance, making him even more vulnerable.

The bottom line is that extending the contact window makes it much easier to find openings in your opponent’s attack.

Push Hands (Tui Shou) Principles and Timing: Fighting is an interactive process. You can gain an advantage when you have more information about your opponent and the situation. We use Push Hands to develop your sensory ability.

Push Hands is not combat but rather a specific style of training your sensory abilities. The goal is to learn to gather information through sensing your opponent’s energy, primarily through the points of contact. Like sparring, Push Hands is not pre-orchestrated. Both practitioners try to gain an advantage by manipulating each other’s balance. Striking is not allowed.

You should focus on sensing your opponent’s tension, angle of attack, and balance. Learn to listen to force (Ting Jin) by staying relatively relaxed. You will use information gathered to manipulate your opponent’s balance through pushing, pulling, misdirection, and much more.

Practitioners maintain continuous, light contact, yielding when the opponent increases pressure and filling the space when the opponent retreats. If contact is blocked, change direction or approach immediately rather than trying to overcome the resistance with muscle.

The above is not intended to highlight any particular style of Push Hands, nor is it about who wins or loses. The woman on the left is visually impaired, yet she still stepped forward to compete in a Push Hands tournament.

Remember, martial arts is not just about hitting people. I hope you learn to appreciate what you can do with what you have today. Through that process, you may discover new ways of thinking and, hopefully, develop a greater appreciation for what you already have and with work, what you can be.

Minimize Impact Strategy: When you fight, you may get hit even if you win in the end. That is a fact. If you assume you can get away without even a scratch, you are being unrealistic. Just as a world-class tennis player may win straight sets against a beginner, winning becomes far less certain when your opponent is as strong as you are—or, in the extreme case, much stronger and faster than you. So, you have to learn to take hits.

Rather than attempting to avoid every attack, block every strike, or build enough muscle to withstand a direct hit, a smarter approach is to reduce the impact by changing the contact surface or using a slight sliding motion. These subtle adjustments can be far more effective.

With such minimalistic defensive strategies, you can get from point A to point B faster because you have less distance to cover. Furthermore, when you become more comfortable taking some hits, you will be less skittish, more centered, relaxed, and balanced, and less likely to overcommit.

Circle Mechanics: Concave vs. Convex: Concave circular movements (collapsing the elbow and tucking it inward) absorb and redirect incoming force with minimal energy by moving along the “surface of a ball.” Convex circular movements (hinging from the shoulder), on the other hand, push against and directly oppose incoming force, wasting muscular effort.

Modular Technique Assembly (IKEA Approach):

Different concepts come into play during different phases of an encounter. The ultimate goal may also vary depending on the situation, the personalities involved, and the options available. Therefore, when learning a skill, you must be adaptable.

For example, a boombox is extremely easy to carry because everything is bolted together into one unit. However, when one component stops working, the entire system may fail.

When learning fighting techniques, skills should be broken down into discrete components (touch points, pivots, rotation, footwork, finishing, engaging, mechanics, etc.) that can be modified, rearranged and adapted dynamically. You must understand and train each component individually, then learn to connect it with different components and experiment with various combinations. Only then can you adapt your techniques effectively when the situation calls for it.

Footwork with minimum movement: Footwork with Minimum Movement: In combat, everything happens so quickly that you simply cannot afford any preparation time. Small foot movements, such as the “heel-toe” technique, give you the advantage of shifting out of the way with minimal effort. They are also less obvious to your opponent.

You do not have to stand on one leg at any point. This slight shift can be used not only to generate power for your strikes but also to change the contact surface for defensive purposes.

Situational Awareness, Avoidance, and Choice: Fighting should always be your last choice. To be able to avoid and minimize conflicts means that you should detect and assess threats and risks quickly. I don’t mean to behave like a scary cat, what I mean is to be aware of risks around you instead of being immersed within yourself, just like how some people hay walk at night wearing dark clothes while playing with their phone.

Personal safety emphasizes proactive avoidance, reading intent, and distance management. Things can be as simple as walking wider around blind corners increases line of sight to spot ambushes early; tactical choices when followed can range making an abrupt change of direction, cross the street where it doesn’t make sense to verify bad intent, etc..

Reflexive, Conscious vs. Unconscious Responses: Many of our movements and reactions are governed by the unconscious mind. Some are simply nasty old habits that we need to undo. Others are new movement patterns that require whole-body coordination. Until we repeat these movements thousands of times, our old habits may persist, making it difficult to establish new productive response patterns.

One pattern that requires considerable retraining is our tendency to tense up rather than relax. Learning to relax under pressure is not just useful in our style of combat; it is also a form of self-development that can improve how we interact with other people.

The unconscious mind governs many of our automatic survival responses. By observing our own reactions and those of others, we can learn how these habitual response patterns can either help us or get us into trouble. Our strategy is to practise until we can rely on these newly developed patterns to our advantage.

SCENARIOS

Experiment with expanding your space through a convex arm circle versus absorbing incoming external force through a concave circle. Start on the horizontal plane, as if you were drawing a circle on a piece of paper, and feel the difference between the two movements.

High-Low and Low-High Attack Patterns: Common attacking sequences exploit defensive openings created by attack level-changes. Effective defense requires coordinating body and hand movements to avoid leaving static, exposed openings.

EXERCISES

Class Logistics and Solo Practice: Given our limited in-class partner training time and my upcoming travel schedule, you must do your best to practice independently. Make use of notes from past classes to deepen your understanding and figure out how to practice the concepts and techniques on your own. All these exercises contribute to your overall development. I will ask each of you what you have improved on during the two weeks of break.