Tai Chi Chuan – Following INTO a Seamless Push

Tai Chi Chuan – Following INTO a Seamless Push

My teacher, Maggie Newman, has relentlessly and repeatedly asked that we make ourselves comfortable.  The question arises, how do we make our partner comfortable when we begin to push them?

I have a talented partner who, if he glimmers but a speck of you are about to push him, he gets reactive.  Like many of us.  He runs, attacks, hunkers down and roots, wriggles, collapses to create space and so on.  But what if, as the push begins, he didn’t have a clue as to what you were up to?  What if he had nothing to react to and when he finally got the message, it’s too late.  He’s pushed.

That’s a big goal – not only are you comfortable, but you make THEM comfortable.

But how?

I suspect the key is that as you perceive the potential for a push that you hold the breaks and continue to follow them, really follow them, such that they take themselves into your push.

Here’s a thought.  My back is draping downward, relaxing into my feet.  This is like half of a “U”.  The other half is coming up through their feet and my hands.   This is from my perspective.  This is what I want.  They have the same perspective, but coming from their back, down into the feet, etc.  But if they are stuck, in a sense, their back just got jammed.  It is now going up, not down.  Their back is going up and my back is going down.  Do you see the complete circle here?  If I meticulously join with THEM to complete THEIR circle and then rotate the entire circle forward, my feet have an opportunity to “take out” their feet.  This strikes me as seamless push. 

If you can’t really feel someone who is going with you, how can you detect a push coming?  (You can’t!)

Here pushing is NOT pushing.  It is joining with the partner and letting the circles take their logical course.