Tai Chi Chuan - Merging and the Gap

Tai Chi Chuan – Merging and the Gap

I’m going for a new attitude. Push hands seems to do that to you if you continue on its path and strive to learn more and better ways to be full, soft and effective.

I’m intrigued with the neutralization part of the sequence. That happens to be most of the sequence. How might we frame our efforts here?

For the most part, I’m trying to not get pushed. This results in trying to get away.

This can be obvious, this can be subtle. I know that I need to stay connected and listening at all times, yet I frame those guidelines to serve the purpose of not getting pushed, being out of harm’s way, trying to get away.

WRONG!

The neutralization should afford you an opportunity not to get AWAY, but to get WITH. If you put your mind and body into serving that goal, I think you will be in a far superior position. The closer you get, the more you will have in your hands.

Tai chi always reminds me of the adage: “Be close to your friends; be closer to your enemy.”

In a way, we turn our opponent, our enemy, into our closest friend.

But in addition to getting closer, merging as a goal in the neutralization, the follow up to this is to never attack your opponent. Never. Attacking is a “doing” agenda and we are committed to “non-doing”. (Getting away is a “doing” activity as well.)

[In push-hands, we are attempting to push someone with “four ounces of strength.” Masters can blast you off your feet into the air for many feet doing just this.]

So if you have a great neutralization, what should happen next is to experience a place in your opponent that is an opening in their wholeness. The place that is vulnerable. A gap. The Yin place. The place you will follow and fill up. The place you move into. Even better, you don’t look for this place or try to find it. It should appear before your eyes (and hands.) It’s simply there like turning the corner and suddenly Niagara Falls appears.

This has nothing to do with attacking!

If you find that opening, you have the key to a great push. If you take up that space, they will be uprooted. This is following the logical conclusion to a round in the push hands form. The energy gap in their energy field gives you a place to fill. Of course, this is a mechanical gap in their external shape as well. However you conceptualize it, there is a break in their external shell and you simply go into that space. No attacking, just filling up the space. Just following the logical conclusion of the connection between the two of you.

Needless to say, HOW you fill up that space is yet another topic. But I think a good start is to NOT ATTACK that opportunity but to let their gap give you a direction to move into. The “gappy” partner will be surprised because we rarely feel our own “gaps.”

This is yet another reason that “invest in loss” is so valuable. If you don’t defend or fight off your partner, you will be pushed a great deal. Not fun! But a great return on investment because you are learning to hear what they are doing and what you are doing in response to their doing. To go into defense mode, getting away, stopping them from what they want to do or go where they want to go, this clouds your ability to see what is LITERALLY right in front of you. Clear yourself of all intention, let them win, see what is happening TOTALLY. Do this for a few years and you will be the wiser for it. That invaluable experience will only point the way towards a valid, non-doing response, and then the clarity to see/feel the gap in their attack.

Yes, if they “attack” you, this is a doing movement, and they should be the one that gets pushed out. Odd to think that “to do” is to die!

Here are some of the tell tale signs that you have attacked: For one, they get hard and resist you. Or they sense something is wrong, and start to flail about. Or they accelerate some attempt to run away, to get away. Or they go into rooting mode (not a good way to neutralize a push but many do this!)

If a red flag goes off in your partner when you attempt to fill the gap, most likely you are simply doing a clever softer version of attacking. Or you haven’t really identified the gap to begin with. Or you are relying on speed to catch them off guard. If there REALLY is a gap, the “gappy” partner will only realize it once you are in and they are becoming unbalanced, that is, when it is too late.

My thoughts for today for Push Hands 101. Next blog will be on Push Hands 102.

When I get there.