Essence of Pushing-hands

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The Essence of
Crane-style
Pushing-hands

"Pushing hands" training practices (of one format or another) are found in a variety of martial arts, and have many millions of practitioners. This website is dedicated to the format known as "Crane-style Pushing-hands". It is meditative and non-martial and has a unique method by which a practitioner deals with pushes across his centre-line.

It is solely to this format that the term "Pushing-hands" refers, hereon throughout this website (purely for the sake of brevity).

Pushing-hands encourages thought-free, harmonious interaction between practitioners by advocating the "watercourse-way", in which force is never met with force but is deflected, using pliancy and natural flowing movements. Central to this "empty-handed art” is the dynamic, vital, mobile interplay between two training-partners who maintain continuous, meaningful, physical contact. It is non-competitive and is, in fact, a form of interactive moving-meditation, an antidote to aggression-promoting martial arts.

At its simplest, alternating training-partners attempt to severely upset each other’s balance/posture via a push, each attempt being neutralised and then immediately responded to with a counter attempt. Once a practitioner’s body has acquired such attributes as "contact reflexes", (i.e. touch-triggered reactions,) and the ability to "borrow force", Pushing-hands serves as a fundamental framework within which an infinite variety of forces can be safely experienced.

At its most rudimentary/basic, Pushing-hands has the appearance of one training-partner unfailingly defending themselves against an attacker’s persistent, non-prearranged, diverse combinations of thrusts, balance/posture-threatening pushes and pulls, grips and locks. At its more refined, there is a degree of harmony as forces circulate within the duo; but ultimately, with the roles of "defender" and "attacker" forever interchanging, and both training-partners focusing on "the moment", a special dynamism can be both seen and felt.

Although this website's authors (Dave Franks and Daniel Langton) gratefully learned this format's key mechanics from Nathan Johnson (the founder of Chan Tao, Zen Shorin Do and Kodo Ryu), the attitudes expressed throughout this website do not necessarily represent those of any group or organisation. With regard to the research and videos presented within this website, the assistance provided by Roy Smith (senior Kodo Ryu instructor – Southampton, U.K.) was invaluable.