Push Hands Workshop Part One
We had a great push hands workshop on Saturday in Davenport, Iowa. About 7 or 8 members of the online internal arts school were there. The workshop was videotaped for other members. I started putting it on the school's website today.
We went over 6 patterns of Chen tai chi push hands, starting with single hand push hands.
Push hands has several benefits; it helps develop sensitivity, it shows you the weaknesses in your form, and it teaches you to change in response to an opponent. It involves joint locks, strikes, and takedowns.
According to Grandmaster Chen Xiaowang, push hands can help you discover the weaknesses in your movement that put you in a vulnerable position. You learn how to soften and deflect and how to exert force at the right opportunity. You learn how to remain in a strong position relative to your opponent.
All of the internal strength skills apply to push hands -- using the ground path, maintaining peng jin, using whole-body movement and silk-reeling. Push hands is a physical skill that requires years of practice to become proficient.
We went through 6 patterns in about 3 hours. It was a free workshop for members of the online school, and each attendee will receive a free DVD of the workshop.
Now that I'm back in the Quad Cities, I plan to hold regular workshops, free for members of the online school. Their only fee is to appear in the video of the workshop, which will be edited into lessons for the online school and produced into DVDs.
The next workshop will likely cover the Hsing-I staff form, but a workshop on push hands fighting applications is coming soon. We covered a few applications and counters during Saturday's workshop, but I'll give the attendees time to practice the patterns before we move more seriously into applications.
--by Ken Gullette
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Ken Gullette
I have practiced martial arts since 1973 and began studying the internal arts in 1987. My goal is to cut years off your development time by coaching you in the real skills for high-quality Tai Chi, Xingyi, Bagua. To see more about my bio, click the "About Ken" link on the menu at the top of this page.
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