by Allo » Thu May 01, 2008 9:37 pm
The "an" or "push" exercise is also the only parallel handed pushing hand techniques I have seen in Tai Chi as well. However, the way you neutralise the opponent's attack is very different from the crossed hand technique. I can think of two main differences:
1) In the crossed hand technique, you're always coiling in a way that keeps your hand on your opponent's external side (and on top). But in the parallel handed pushing hands, you're always trying to maintain being on the internal side.
2) When you attack in crossed hands, you're always pushing on your opponent's wrist, whereas in parallel pushing hands, you're trying to actually attack their body and therefore when you attack, you're not actually trying to stay in contact with you opponent's limb, but actually trying to get away from it instead.
To all proficient Tai Chi practitioners out there - is this information correct?
Some more questions:
- Could a training routine be developed that trains one hand attacking and the other neutralising in parallel pushing hands, instead of both attacking at the same time and then both neutralising at the same time?
- What about a parallel hand training routine that only used one hand instead of two? (i.e. my RIGHT hand pushes opponents LEFT hand and other hands are not active?) In this type of pushing hands, if you are neutralising the attack, do I always need to neutralise to the RIGHT or can I also neutralise the other way? After neutralising, would I always try to stay internal or external to the opponent?
I would be very grateful if someone could help me with these questions. I still remain surprised that there are no training routines out there for this. There are similar parallel pushing hand situations in the Tai Chi fighting set, but there's not enough detail there.