36 MISTAKES IN PUSH HANDS BY CHEN XIN

This article describes some common mistakes or misunderstanding in Taiji Quan push hands practice. Each one has an item name and one or two explanatory sentences. The last paragraph is a summary of the article. Some of these mistakes are in general principles and some are with specific techniques. This article is important and interesting, especially for beginners. Because the principles of Taiji Quan are very different from other kinds of martial arts, some skills and principles are right and work well in other arts but not in Taiji, especially some skills which depend a lot on person’s athletic ability. This article tells us what skills are wrong in Taiji push hands practice, even though we may feel some of them are obviously right. The mistakes are called sickness which means they will block people from developing real Taiji skills. It does not mean people can never use them in their fighting. It means people should not intentionally use them in their practice. If one thinks it is good for he/she currently and does not want to change, generally he/she will get bad habits and can never reach a high level. In Taiji practice, people always say that you should throw something away which maybe you feel good today but is wrong in principle. For example, if you use your hand to block your opponent's hands from pushing your body, it seems like a good defence. But if you just do it in your practice, you will not have a chance to study how to solve the problem when your body gets pushed directly. From Taiji principles, you should defend against your opponent with any part of your body. Wherever an opponent touches you, beat him back from there. Because the principle and skill of Taiji push hands are unusual, there are a lot of skills that are really difficult to understand for beginners. So to understand this article will really help people to understand Taiji Quan. If you read this article and feel something confuses you, it may mean you need more practice and to study Taiji principles more deeply. Be careful, it is the most important thing to separate what is right and what is wrong in your practice. Do not judge what you do solely based on whether it works for you now. You also need to access whether what you do is consistent with Taiji principles. Never let bad habits and faults get in gained into your body and into your practice.

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