Practicing the internal art of t’ai chi ch’uan gives the kung fu practitioner more energy for external training and improves fighting skill. Rather than a kung fu "work out," when we separate our bodies from our minds by pushing past pain, t’ai chi ch’uan is a "work in,” with the mind, heart and body as one.

Practicing t’ai chi ch’uan brings us closer with the unbreakable laws of nature. Strength is developed slowly but surely and safely, over time.

"True life is lived when tiny changes occur." (Leo Tolstoy)

T’ai chi ch’uan sparring, or push hands has various structured drills that stimulate internal energy and can evolve into “spontaneous or natural boxing.”

Players learn how to relax and lower their center of gravity. Slight shifts in balance and tension are felt from the constant contact. Players learn to absorb and counter force instead of resisting it, to meet hard (yang) with soft (yin).

The more receptive and relaxed you are, the harder it is for others to find your center. Push hands makes you more centered and relaxed, like the ideal person who stays calm and patient, no matter how great the stress.

T’ai chi ch’uan develops sensitivity; the ability to “listen” to energy. Listening energy can receive force, which is the first step towards being able to neutralize that force.

The mind should be empty and the body in a state of non-rigid readiness.

This is no different from most sports -- except that the poised, aware state is the constant requirement of T’ai chi ch’uan and push hands. The player who is more relaxed and aware can receive force and use that force to load up the legs and waist to return it.

T’ai chi ch’uan forms are the expression of Taoist thought applied to human physical movement. Practicing T’ai chi ch’uan over time results in the ability to move incoming force and stay calm and balanced. The appearance of effortlessness comes from relaxing to encourage the flow of natural energy.

Push hands is the synthesization of Chan Buddhism and Taoism. The Buddhist disciple Da Mo brought Buddhism from India to China. In China, Tamo advocated learning from individual experience rather than scriptures.

Taoism is the innately Chinese world view that describes the nature of phenomenon; how things happen. Taoist thinking divides the universe up into two opposite forces, whose interplay results in neverending transmutations. These two forces are called Yin and Yang, respectively meaning literally “the dark side of the mountain” and “the sunny side of the mountain”. The concept of balancing the flow of energy between Yin and Yang is a prevailing theme in Chinese thought.

Sports have long been considered a wholesome outlet for competitive, warlike instincts. The playing field in team sports represents the battle for turf. With t’ai chi ch’uan push hands, the playing field is within the boundaries of your own body frame, and even deeper, into your unconscious mind.

When another person is “in your face” or too close for comfort, tension rises. When you push hands, you must stay relaxed, but aware while in constant, close contact with another individual. With experience, you can feel their whole posture from a light touch.

"The meeting of two personalities is like the contact of two chemical substances: if there is any reaction, both are transformed." (C.G. Jung)

When in contact with superior, spontaneous players who are my teachers, I have crumbled to the floor harmlessly from a well placed touch. Their more expanded awareness spread into my denser energy, like a hall of mirrors that seem to diminish forever -- them feeling me, feeling them, feeling me, ad infinitum ...

Students can develop and compare roots, relaxation and understanding of form by pushing each other. When you are both equally relaxed and rooted, whoever can keep receiving force without tightening up will “win.” This is opposite of our previously held notions about winning in which the most forceful person prevails.

“Real learning comes about when the competitive spirit has ceased.” (J.
Krishnamurti)

It works in t’ai chi ch’uan movements with a partner and it works in life with people and events. It is so obvious that it sounds redundant - life is a constant flow of changes. Flowing with those changes, without resisting or trying to control, is a rare feat and a huge ability.

The most basic human instinct -- self-preservation -- in the skilled t’ai chi ch’uan player has reformatted at a higher level. The realization that ones own survival is intricately connected with the preservation of all life is analogous to Buddha’s compassion on a physical plane.

With t’ai chi ch’uan skill, this constant flow of changes occurs within a stable muscular/skeletal structure that changes to accommodate force, no more and no less than necessary. The applier of that force is moved with his or her own movement. The attacker feels contained within a higher circle of awareness in which the more skilled player chooses how much and where to deliver force. The attacker feels disarmed -- as if when pulling the trigger, finds the gun empty.

When we do t’ai chi ch’uan, our “mind’s eye” strives for correct body mechanics. With the integrity of the proper structure, we simultaneously engage the imagination in a limitless flow. Like the inner dialogue of the artist -- the interaction of the brain’s hemispheres between technique and imagination -- we integrate layers of information to develop a coherent whole. Separating the mind from the body develops this wholeness, so that they may reconvene on a higher level.

“In order to see, we must step out of the picture.” (Sri Aurobindo)

When I was in my teens and twenties, despite my intense external training, every time I pushed hands with harmless looking, mellow t’ai chi ch’uan people, I would be tipped off-balance. After sparring with Shaolin, Karate or other external-style practitioners -- a smack here, bruise there, shake hands and make friends -- I felt as if nothing much was learned.

Later in my thirties, after practicing t’ai chi ch’uan seriously, a tae kwon do practitioner saw me practicing in the park and asked to spar. She was a strong kicker. I only remember holding her wrist gently as she fell and pulling her up to her feet before she hit the ground. Although unharmed, she walked away, sat down on the park bench and cried. I hope she found a good t’ai chi ch’uan school after that experience.

The receptive force can change in an instant, unbalancing you, moving within the your structure and uprooting you so you have no force. T’ai chi ch’uan training makes you responsive rather than reactionary.

With t’ai chi ch’uan you can choose to use minimum effort and not injure or be injured. The physical laws governing t’ai chi ch’uan reaffirm the notion common to all spiritual texts, that rightness pervades over events. If you can relax, while holding your ground and not react mechanically, but just be there, what happens to the force that was issued?

Encountering no resistance, it dissipates. It dissolves into the void, released from the chain of events by the superior individual. It exhausts itself with repeated attempts to find somewhere to bang against, dissolving in tears of frustration, or peals of laughter.

"He who knows himself is wise. He who knows others is enlightened." (Lao Tze)

Countering well-timed force from a good root requires skill and sensitivity. My students and kind, patient, champion t’ai chi ch’uan pushers have been my teachers. They have shown me the higher levels of skill to which I humbly aspire.

"To lead a creative life, we must lose our fear of being wrong." (Joseph Chilton Pierce)

A dancer who prepares at the barre with perfect form, but can't move freely when the music plays, a musician who can only play others’ compositions, or an artist who can only illustrate and copy remind me of the t’ai chi ch’uan player who has has beautiful form but tenses up in combat. T’ai chi ch’uan forms will teach you how to fight if you "play" with them.

"We learn to do something by doing it. There is no other way." (John Holt)

Push hands is very different from sparring. Often, disciplined athletes are unable to feel the subtler energies in t’ai chi ch’uan. The distance between the opponents is close, so close you can feel every move at its source. You can feel your opponents’ breath and hear them think.

This is one of the aspects of push hands that is so fascinating -- the process of thought manifesting into action, the sensation of the ethereal becoming matter.

“The world of reality has its limits, the imagination is boundless.”
(Jean Jacques Rousseau)

You begin by touching lightly. The contact is constant and light. "Even the weight of a small bird would cause the whole position to shift." (Tai Chi Classics) The pushes are relaxed, loaded into the hip and waist and screwed up and out of the ground and into the opponent's structure.

Like driving a car on an icy road, when you go really slowly, nothing too bad can happen. New drivers (and new players) often steer the force mechanically to one side. This results in turning mechanically to the other side rather than finding a more efficient energy pathway. When these paths are discovered, it feels like power steering -- just a touch moves the opponent. Then the moves in the form are re-discovered.

When stuck on a position (during an argument or in t’ai chi ch’uan) you can become emotionally upset, tense, and fearful. With t’ai chi ch’uan, there is no chain reaction of anger, because the redirecting of force is not confrontational or painful. Muscle and bone do not clash, rather, energy moves energy.

The pusher looks for imbalances in the opponent's energy and structure, fills the empties and redirects the fulls, like Traditional Chinese Medicine, acupuncture and shiatsu, which look at the body for deficiency and excess. Sensitivity is the key here, the ability to listen. Like a therapist listening to a patient’s issues before prescribing treatment, the energy must be "listened to" while a response is chosen.

When a position is held rigidly, unchanging with the flow of force, it becomes (like a technique) a predictable, moveable object. The untrained instinct is to try to hold a position with strength, to tense up with fear of loss. "Pride goeth before a fall" is an appropriate saying for this scenario.

When you feel your center of mass (what rhymes with "mass … ?") go over your heels, you are off-balanced, unless you retreat by stepping back before you are knocked over.

Training with a partner helps the student find the flaws in his or her own structure. Then solo form training becomes more infused with awareness. Practicing push hands makes the movements in the form acquire deeper relevance.

Like creative musicians who “really swing,” as opposed to classically trained musicians who must read to play, often the best pushers are not performers of complex, classic forms.

"Do not fear mistakes. There are none." (Miles Davis)

Appearances are deceptive. Some t’ai chi ch’uan practitioners train that aspect almost exclusively and have taken push hands to extreme levels of proficiency. Their forms might look funny, focusing on feelings over aesthetics, but you don't want to tease them too much! There is a beauty in their simplicity, sincerity and inner focus. And their t’ai chi ch’uan skills are very real.

"When all agree upon what is beautiful, this too becomes ugly." (Tao Te Ching)

The sensation of getting pushed feels like when you lean too far back in a chair or think there is another step when climbing the stairs. There is no bruising or bleeding as in sparring. You only risk injury if you stiffen up.

Every time there is loss (something I have experienced often), there is one consistent factor -- a break in the energy flow, a lapse in concentration. The other player caught you thinking instead of responding. Or set up a series of automatic reactions to which he or she had a conclusion.

Just like the form, relaxing and sinking into the earth is the way to push and avoid being pushed. To do this simultaneously, or have it done to you, is the most mysterious feeling of all. When it is done to you, it feels like a breeze passing over you or a wave in the ocean -- like something coming over you that can do nothing about. When you do it to someone else, it feels like they did it to themselves and you did nothing!

When a push is well countered, the reaction is most likely mystification. "How did you do that? Because there was no force and I just went flying across the room?"

"The job of the artist is to always deepen the mystery." (Francis Bacon)

By Marilyn Cooper

Little River Kung Fu Website: http://www.littleriverkungfu.com Marilyn Cooper has studied and taught the ancient art of Chinese Kung Fu since 1967. She has trained under four of the most renowned Chinese masters in this country. (Kuo Lien Ying, Y. C. Wong, Brendan Lai and Peter Kwok.) Cooper has been the subject of numerous feature newspaper articles, and has been profiled on ESPN "Inside Sports". She has lectured and performed at universities and on cable television. Her writing on the subject of Kung Fu has been published nationally in "Inside Kung Fu". In 1987, Cooper took a grand championship in Northern Shaolin, and in 1995, a gold medal in Guang Ping Yang Tai Chi. Many thanks to Marilyn for Providing MI Magazine the permission to feature her articles in this edition of MI Magazine.

Copyright © 2005, Marilyn Cooper