Master T.T. Liang’s feet were so damaged by soldiers in WW2 that most people in his condition would have a hard time walking, yet he would easily push his students while in old age. Cheng Man Ch'ing meanwhile, as an old man, would send his students flying. To an extent, I have experienced this as well, and have had moments when I have pushed people far larger and stronger than me with the minimum of effort and baffled myself in the process. But how do I get that to work in all of Tai Chi? How can I make this a conscious action rather than something that turns up now and then?
To achieve a point where softness can overcome hardness, and to understand the Tai Chi principles in more than a surface level intellectual capacity, I can assume that first of all a certain amount of work has to be put in. This is known as the "gung fu" of Tai Chi; both the people I mentioned put huge amounts of effort into mastering their skill, training for hours at a time day in day out for decades. Training will let me explore and understand my body, and as this happens I can understand softness and how it can be made useful. As I have experienced it, the foundation work has to be put in before the next level of understanding can be grasped and manifested in technique. Ron Seih is insistent on this point as he proclaims in his book Tai Chi Chuan: the internal tradition, "Tai Chi is dead… we give it life". So, before I can get softness to work I have to feel and experience what it is and what it is not so that I can recognise when I’m soft and when I’m not and adjust accordingly. Therefore, every second of training is useful even if in retrospect it was "wrong".
The Tai Chi form works extremely well as a foundation for exploring the principle of softness and for getting to know oneself, Cheng Man-Ching said that: "knowing yourself comes from the Tai Chi form, where you learn to be relaxed, balanced, connected and synchronised without any external forces effecting you". The study of Tai Chi, however, is much greater than the outside movements of the form and the overall study then takes on a grander significance. Wee Kee Jin in an article titled The Art of Receiving makes a good point when he says that: "the Tai Chi form is only a tool for you to transfer the principles of the Tai Chi classics into your body, and eventually the form should become formless because any movement you make should have the principles within it". The form is a place where we can develop, learn and go back to but the form is just the start of it. If softness is to help me in push hands, I must develop softness in life as well. For, if there’s tension in life, it will show itself in the body and will therefore show up in push hands, resulting in being pushed. If we are open we can then regard being pushed as a sign that we are not soft enough, and must put in more work to that particular area and therefore we develop and become more skilled, more sensitive and more soft. So Tai Chi, and the inherent idea of softness within the principles must become a way of life. This might mean looking at the way I am, how I treat myself, how I interact with the world and what I put into my body. In the Tai Chi classics it is said, "first in the mind then in the body" – Wu Yu-Hsiang. It would therefore, primarily, mean looking into the way I think and transforming from inside out. Cheng Man-Ching put it: "to become so that the very atoms of your body become soft". Push hands can let us know where we are and where we are not soft, we can then learn from there.
So, in life and in Tai Chi we can work on softness. Practically, how and why does it work in push hands technique? In my current understanding of Tai Chi, softness is vital. All aspects of Tai Chi are improved by softness: issuing force, receiving force, neutralizing an attack, leading, following, improving the flow of chi in the body, circulation, balance, calmness of mind etc. Push hands can work as a way of testing these qualities. In push hands, first of all, being relaxed and soft in the body and in the mind allows for greater root. When we let go of tensions, we become more connected with the earth, we let gravity do its job, pushing us straight into the ground and so we are much harder to push. If we are tense we become disconnected from the earth and are easily pushed over. We are brittle and light rather than soft and heavy. Our quality of peng is therefore directly related to how soft we are. When we improve our root it is easier to maintain balance and, since this is the case, we can be more sensitive to our partner’s actions and respond accordingly. In the classics it says: "The opponent doesn’t know me; I alone know him" - Wang Tsung-Yueh. Being relaxed, soft, balanced and centered allows us to be sensitive enough to know where our partner is yin and where he is yang. To know where he is soft and where he is hard, where he is over-extending and where he is vulnerable. We get this by listening "ting" energy, by connecting and feeling our partner with softness. We then respond accordingly, we meet hardness with softness, we yield and redirect incoming energy and push where our partner is exposed. And so, by being soft we can: "Use four pounds to deflect a thousand ounces" – author unknown. We can get this by correct touch, in Wang Tsung-Yueh’s section it says: "From familiarity with the correct touch, one gradually comprehends chin (internal force); from the comprehension of chin one can reach wisdom". It is especially important when issuing force to be relaxed, soft and balanced, if we are not, a good player will sense this and all the good work earlier on is wasted. If we are relaxed, importantly it will be a stronger push. Muscles work better when they are relaxed. If you watch an elite 100m race 99% of the time the most relaxed athlete wins. A prime reason for this is that there is better connection with the ground, which is where the power comes from. Furthermore, chi flows better through a relaxed body, so we will have more power and fewer blockages. We will also become healthier and our bodies will function better. The circulation improves; we take deeper breaths, which means more intake of oxygen to the muscles and to the organs. That means stronger, flexible, supple muscles, and better functioning organs, which means we are more adaptable in life. In the classics it says: "when you are extremely soft, then you become extremely hard and strong. Someone who has extremely good Tai Chi Chuan Kung Fu has arms like iron wrapped with cotton and the weight is very heavy".
By becoming soft, we become more open to the world around us, we are more aware of what is happening, we can then adapt to suit the circumstances. So, in push hands, by being soft we can know where our partner is, we know his strengths and his weaknesses. We can then avoid his strengths and show up his weaknesses (this is a pretty nice thing to do as he would otherwise be ignorant of it). Because we are soft we are also better equipped to deal with changing situations, we are more agile, more supple, healthier, stronger, and more balanced in all of life. In general we will then be more successful, happy and fulfilled people. If we read the Tai Chi classics it tells us to "carefully study…. Think over carefully what the final purpose is: to lengthen life and maintain youth." – author unknown. We get this by becoming tai chi.
