4. HOW TO DRIVE
One Way to Drive a Change of Side (when in Pushing-hands-orientation)
HOW THE PUSHING-HANDS SYSTEM WORKS
Knowing how to Push-hands is dependent on understanding and appreciating:
Knowing how to Push-hands is dependent on understanding and appreciating:
a) how “the Pushing-hands system” works (i.e., the physical principles upon which it functions and its underlying non-competitiveness) and therefore
b) the attitude with which it needs to be practiced.
Pushing-hands works by both training-partners "keeping silk" (i.e. the sustaining of the pressure at each point-of-contact), such that each of them can confidently allow his body, without conscious thought, to monitor and respond to the other's movements with well practiced/programmed touch-triggered reactions.
Although brief moments of motionlessness may occur in Pushing-hands, continuity of movement is one of the art's defining characteristics. It is an integral part of "keeping silk" and, even when one or both of the training-partners is inexperienced, this continuity can be ensured by a receiver, having averted a balance/posture-threatening push, always giving back, if it is possible, a reciprocal balance/posture-threatening push.
To Push-hands is to uniquely, endlessly exchange a range of "techniques", continuously (i.e. without any interruptions or intermissions etc.).
At its simplest, the activity of Pushing-hands may indeed seem to be merely an unending oscillation in which training-partners reciprocally give a balance/posture-threatening push and then immediately respond to receiving one. If the activity, the practice, remained this simple, each training-partner could use his conscious thinking process (typically) to recognise his training-partner's action(s), remember how he himself should react and then “send the appropriate orders” to the appropriate part(s) of his own body. In this scenario, he would just about be able to keep up, producing reactions that would appear to be instantaneous. However, as soon as more complexity was introduced (e.g. series of movements that alter the relative orientations of the two training-partners' arms and legs), his “conscious thinking process” would be too cumbersome and therefore too slow; it would not be able to “keep up”!
Another problem with a “conscious thinking process” is caused by the mind's pattern-recognition ability, which manifests itself as a tendency to predict what it expects to come next and, if allowed, to order its body to react to, what may well be, a fictitious, imaginary stimulus, instead of reacting to a real one!
Fortunately there is a different "reactive system" which will "keep up" and will not lead one astray; it is the same system that immediately removes one's hand from an oven's hot plate, and that keeps one on one's feet throughout a headlong flight down a steep, rugged and bumpy hillside. This system, in order to function, requires:
a) each practitioner’s body to have been programmed (by many frequent repetitions of some practice-drills and lots of Pushing-hands practice) to react without any conscious thinking, but in accordance with three rules: "keep silk", "keep your mid-line guarded" and "maintain your leverage", and
b) each practitioner’s conscious mind to abandon control of his body, leaving its control to the body itself, and instead to focus, to concentrate on the dominating principle of Pushing-hands which is "keeping silk".
Because the term "meditation" is most frequently applied to "seated-meditation", "moving-meditation" may seem, erroneously, to be a contradiction in terms but, in fact, it is only by practitioners achieving "the tranquil state and total relaxation of the mind and body" (to which many dictionary definitions of "meditation" refer) that Pushing-hands is possible.
Pushing-hands is, in fact, a unique "form of interactive moving-meditation, an antidote to aggression-promoting martial arts", even though its practice could only enhance the natural survival skills of a practitioner who was being subjected to aggression.
N.B. Seated-meditation versus Pushing-hands.
It is from the endless stream of thoughts, generated by the conscious mind, that the meditator tries to detach himself. Success in achieving this "detachment", by a meditator who is solitary, cannot be verified by an observer: the solitary seated-meditator may appear to be tranquil etc., but, in reality, he could, just as easily, be doing mental gymnastics or even be asleep ! However, success in achieving this “detachment”, by a meditator whose ability to continuously physically interact with another person is dependent on such success, can continuously be verified both by this interacting other person and by observers.
Pushing-hands works by both training-partners "keeping silk" (i.e. the sustaining of the pressure at each point-of-contact), such that each of them can confidently allow his body, without conscious thought, to monitor and respond to the other's movements with well practiced/programmed touch-triggered reactions.
Although brief moments of motionlessness may occur in Pushing-hands, continuity of movement is one of the art's defining characteristics. It is an integral part of "keeping silk" and, even when one or both of the training-partners is inexperienced, this continuity can be ensured by a receiver, having averted a balance/posture-threatening push, always giving back, if it is possible, a reciprocal balance/posture-threatening push.
To Push-hands is to uniquely, endlessly exchange a range of "techniques", continuously (i.e. without any interruptions or intermissions etc.).
At its simplest, the activity of Pushing-hands may indeed seem to be merely an unending oscillation in which training-partners reciprocally give a balance/posture-threatening push and then immediately respond to receiving one. If the activity, the practice, remained this simple, each training-partner could use his conscious thinking process (typically) to recognise his training-partner's action(s), remember how he himself should react and then “send the appropriate orders” to the appropriate part(s) of his own body. In this scenario, he would just about be able to keep up, producing reactions that would appear to be instantaneous. However, as soon as more complexity was introduced (e.g. series of movements that alter the relative orientations of the two training-partners' arms and legs), his “conscious thinking process” would be too cumbersome and therefore too slow; it would not be able to “keep up”!
Another problem with a “conscious thinking process” is caused by the mind's pattern-recognition ability, which manifests itself as a tendency to predict what it expects to come next and, if allowed, to order its body to react to, what may well be, a fictitious, imaginary stimulus, instead of reacting to a real one!
Fortunately there is a different "reactive system" which will "keep up" and will not lead one astray; it is the same system that immediately removes one's hand from an oven's hot plate, and that keeps one on one's feet throughout a headlong flight down a steep, rugged and bumpy hillside. This system, in order to function, requires:
a) each practitioner’s body to have been programmed (by many frequent repetitions of some practice-drills and lots of Pushing-hands practice) to react without any conscious thinking, but in accordance with three rules: "keep silk", "keep your mid-line guarded" and "maintain your leverage", and
b) each practitioner’s conscious mind to abandon control of his body, leaving its control to the body itself, and instead to focus, to concentrate on the dominating principle of Pushing-hands which is "keeping silk".
Because the term "meditation" is most frequently applied to "seated-meditation", "moving-meditation" may seem, erroneously, to be a contradiction in terms but, in fact, it is only by practitioners achieving "the tranquil state and total relaxation of the mind and body" (to which many dictionary definitions of "meditation" refer) that Pushing-hands is possible.
Pushing-hands is, in fact, a unique "form of interactive moving-meditation, an antidote to aggression-promoting martial arts", even though its practice could only enhance the natural survival skills of a practitioner who was being subjected to aggression.
N.B. Seated-meditation versus Pushing-hands.
It is from the endless stream of thoughts, generated by the conscious mind, that the meditator tries to detach himself. Success in achieving this "detachment", by a meditator who is solitary, cannot be verified by an observer: the solitary seated-meditator may appear to be tranquil etc., but, in reality, he could, just as easily, be doing mental gymnastics or even be asleep ! However, success in achieving this “detachment”, by a meditator whose ability to continuously physically interact with another person is dependent on such success, can continuously be verified both by this interacting other person and by observers.
Martial arts invariably advocate that the response to an attack should include not only a "technique" to block or evade the attack, but also a retaliatory "technique" which punishes the attacker. This punishment's severity, however, does not necessarily equate to what the attacker "deserves", because it is determined, rather haphazardly, by the personality and/or mood of the retaliator (How angry or scared or brave is the retaliator ? Does he think that the punishment should be severe enough to deter the attacker from attacking a second time or enough to deter/physically impair the attacker from attacking the retaliator/anyone ever again ?) Also, the severity is limited by the retaliator's strength, speed, fitness and agility (all of which inevitably diminish with age), and by his skill and his size.
In contrast, Pushing-hands is a unique, non-competitive, physical expression of the non-judgemental philosophy: "If you try to push me (testing my balance and posture), then I'll respond in kind (without adding any punishment/penalty, even when the original force is threatening/aggressive).". This is achieved by each training-partner being in a meditative mental/emotional state whenever he is "defending" and allowing his body to act, without conscious thought, according to a few programmed (i.e. often-practiced) principles.
The truly non-competitive nature of Pushing-hands can be appreciated by examining in detail how, without any conscious thought, its "principle of non-judgemental reciprocation" is adhered to.
The causes of the individual actions of each of two training-partners are complex and, when the practice is in Two-drivers-mode, identifying and understanding these actions is very difficult (nay impossible). Clarity, therefore, is best served by restricting the following analysis to the simpler One-driver-mode practice, in which, for the duration of the "bout", one training-partner is the receiver, who
(i) copes with each force "thrown" at him by the other training-partner, the driver, and then
(ii) responds, if it is appropriate (and physically possible), by giving a reciprocal push.
Each time the receiver copes with a driver-given force which is balance/posture-threatening, the receiver's torso typically:
a) is "contorted", by him rotating his hip-line horizontally, and/or
b) is "relocated" (along with the rest of him), by him stepping and/or shuffling.
(See "Deflection of an Outside-push", "Deflection of an Inside-push and its Transference to an Outside-gate" and "One Way to Drive a Change of Side (when in Pushing-hands-orientation)".) A physical change, of some sort, with regard to the receiver's torso, of which he cannot help but be aware, occurs.
The receiver is also aware when his torso is neither "contorted" nor "relocated", typically when he copes with a driver-given force that does not threaten his balance/posture. (E.g. The receiver, by immediately replacing his Contact-arm with his other arm, relieves the discomfort caused him by a driver-given force that merely pushes an arm of his across his centre-line.)
So the moment immediately after having “survived”/coped with the driver-given force, (and before another is forthcoming) is the time for the receiver to give any appropriate reciprocal push. But what determines whether such a push is appropriate ? Since all of the receiver's actions are dictated physically (by what he senses with his body) and never mentally (by what he thinks or emotionally feels with his brain), his response to a driver-given force includes a reciprocal push solely if that force had threatened his balance/posture (i.e. if, consistent with Pushing-hands principles, “A physical change, of some sort, with regard to the receiver's torso, of which he cannot help but be aware,” has occurred).
Interestingly, a reciprocal push, typically, completely reverses/undoes any "contortion" and/or "relocation" of the pusher's torso.
N.B.
Nice though it would be (i.e. in perfect harmony with the system's non-judgemental principle) if the strength of a reciprocal push exactly matched that of the training-partner-given force that caused it, such equivalence does not (necessarily) occur. This is because the human body, as the mechanism that deflects/absorbs/stores the earlier force, rarely operates perfectly. Nevertheless, force can be "borrowed" and so a strong "initial push" will often be responded to with a strong "push back", etc..
HOW TO PUSH-HANDS
How to Push-hands is best taught by physically engaging in it, and not by writing about it as if it could be learnt merely by reading. Nevertheless, it can be considered as follows:
Role-independent Principles
You and your training-partner should establish "rapport" and agree upon a "strength of silk". (There is little point in trying to practice if the strength and/or speed of one training-partner's push is more than that with which the other can cope.)
As a training-partner, your balance, posture and leverage are persistently being challenged and so if any of them is lost, re-establish it immediately.
One of your objectives is to protect your body's integrity: not to let your training-partner put your body and/or his body in positions that are disadvantageous to you or which make you feel uncomfortable, which requires that you "deflect" your training-partner's balance/posture-threatening pushes and therefore that your leverage is reliable.
N.B. A push in your inside-gate is potentially much more threatening than a push in one of your outside-gates, simply because (by definition) the inside-push does not have an arm of yours between the pushing arm and your torso.
If your training-partner gives you a balance/posture-threatening inside-push, deflect it and "transfer" the pushing arm to the appropriate one of your outside-gates. (I.e. Do Deflection of an Inside-push and its Transference to an Outside-gate.)
N.B. If, instead of doing such a “deflection and transference”, you were merely to dispel/absorb such a push, then you would be failing “to protect your body’s integrity”, for the pushing arm of your training-partner would now be positioned such that:
a) it could/should immediately be used by him to give you another (this time, short-range) balance/posture-threatening inside-push and/or
b) it would be obstructing your attempting to give a reciprocal push.
In fact, all of your objectives require that you adhere to merely three principles or rules:
Rule #1
Maintain contact with your training-partner and "keep silk".
Rule #2
Keep your mid-line guarded, including
deal with balance/posture-threatening pushes etc..
Rule #3
Maintain your leverage, including:
a) if by not stepping (or shuffling) backward your leverage is endangered, do a backward Step (or Shuffle-step) appropriately, and
b) if a contact-arm of yours changes from being "stable" to being "unstable", (and if the movement of neither of your arms is restricted), then replace (at the point-of-contact) this "unstable" contact-arm of yours with your other arm. (See "Contact-arm (stable and unstable)" and "Contact-arm Replacement".)
[It is this feature that gives the Pushing-hands practice its depth, its richness, and its apparent complexity, making it so much more than merely the exchange of basic pushes, and thereby requiring its practitioners to be able both "to receive" and "to drive". Pushing-hands practice is conducted in One-driver-mode (until both training-partners are quite experienced after which time Two-drivers-mode may be used).]
[In a "bout" of freestyle Pushing-hands, techniques of all sorts can follow each other, sometimes quite quickly. Within just the first 30 seconds of this clip from a Two-drivers-mode "bout", all of The-three-changes (to the point-of-contact), a Lying-Dragon escape from one of several cross-arm sword-grips, a Tiger's-Claw escape from a non-cross-arm scabbard-grip, and attempts at both a two-handed wrist-lock and a two-handed arm-lock can all be seen.
How to Push-hands is best taught by physically engaging in it, and not by writing about it as if it could be learnt merely by reading. Nevertheless, it can be considered as follows:
Role-independent Principles
You and your training-partner should establish "rapport" and agree upon a "strength of silk". (There is little point in trying to practice if the strength and/or speed of one training-partner's push is more than that with which the other can cope.)
As a training-partner, your balance, posture and leverage are persistently being challenged and so if any of them is lost, re-establish it immediately.
One of your objectives is to protect your body's integrity: not to let your training-partner put your body and/or his body in positions that are disadvantageous to you or which make you feel uncomfortable, which requires that you "deflect" your training-partner's balance/posture-threatening pushes and therefore that your leverage is reliable.
N.B. A push in your inside-gate is potentially much more threatening than a push in one of your outside-gates, simply because (by definition) the inside-push does not have an arm of yours between the pushing arm and your torso.
If your training-partner gives you a balance/posture-threatening inside-push, deflect it and "transfer" the pushing arm to the appropriate one of your outside-gates. (I.e. Do Deflection of an Inside-push and its Transference to an Outside-gate.)
N.B. If, instead of doing such a “deflection and transference”, you were merely to dispel/absorb such a push, then you would be failing “to protect your body’s integrity”, for the pushing arm of your training-partner would now be positioned such that:
a) it could/should immediately be used by him to give you another (this time, short-range) balance/posture-threatening inside-push and/or
b) it would be obstructing your attempting to give a reciprocal push.
In fact, all of your objectives require that you adhere to merely three principles or rules:
Rule #1
Maintain contact with your training-partner and "keep silk".
Rule #2
Keep your mid-line guarded, including
deal with balance/posture-threatening pushes etc..
Rule #3
Maintain your leverage, including:
a) if by not stepping (or shuffling) backward your leverage is endangered, do a backward Step (or Shuffle-step) appropriately, and
b) if a contact-arm of yours changes from being "stable" to being "unstable", (and if the movement of neither of your arms is restricted), then replace (at the point-of-contact) this "unstable" contact-arm of yours with your other arm. (See "Contact-arm (stable and unstable)" and "Contact-arm Replacement".)
[It is this feature that gives the Pushing-hands practice its depth, its richness, and its apparent complexity, making it so much more than merely the exchange of basic pushes, and thereby requiring its practitioners to be able both "to receive" and "to drive". Pushing-hands practice is conducted in One-driver-mode (until both training-partners are quite experienced after which time Two-drivers-mode may be used).]
[In a "bout" of freestyle Pushing-hands, techniques of all sorts can follow each other, sometimes quite quickly. Within just the first 30 seconds of this clip from a Two-drivers-mode "bout", all of The-three-changes (to the point-of-contact), a Lying-Dragon escape from one of several cross-arm sword-grips, a Tiger's-Claw escape from a non-cross-arm scabbard-grip, and attempts at both a two-handed wrist-lock and a two-handed arm-lock can all be seen.
Knowing "How to Push-hands"
entails knowing both "How to receive" and "How to drive".]
You can enact the role of
"receiver" by adhering to the following program which
enables you to:
a) keep contact with a
retreating driver,
b) do basic Pushing-hands (i.e. either "keep in" or "transfer to" the appropriate one of your outside-gates, each balance/posture-threatening push that you receive, and respond to it),
c) deal correctly with receiving
other-than-basic pushes, including those that cause a replacement of your
contact-arm and those that cause a change of side (left and right), and
d) deal correctly with being
gripped (either by one or by two single-hand-grips) while or
preceding receiving a push and/or a pull.
N.B. When being “tested at the limit”, with one's success being far from automatic, achieving one's practical objective is of prime importance and superficial elegance is secondary. A tennis player, for example, by stretching and reaching clumsily to his limit, may manage to intercept his opponent's “otherwise winning” shot and keep the ball “in play”, thereby achieving his objective, even though he may well not strike the ball with the “sweet spot” in the centre of his racquet head. Similarly, a Pushing-hands receiver who, through being surprised and/or pressurised by his driver's forces/techniques that seem to be new (i.e. previously unencountered), may well lose not only his “superficial elegance” but also his balance, posture and/or leverage, thereby making an unwanted, immediate break in the “bout” of freestyle Pushing-hands a real possibility. He can, however, achieve his objective of maintaining (or restoring) the continuity of the action of the “bout”, if he spontaneously continues to pay attention, to focus, to concentrate (thereby re-establishing his balance, posture and leverage) and remains unconcerned about any temporary loss of elegance.
N.B. When being “tested at the limit”, with one's success being far from automatic, achieving one's practical objective is of prime importance and superficial elegance is secondary. A tennis player, for example, by stretching and reaching clumsily to his limit, may manage to intercept his opponent's “otherwise winning” shot and keep the ball “in play”, thereby achieving his objective, even though he may well not strike the ball with the “sweet spot” in the centre of his racquet head. Similarly, a Pushing-hands receiver who, through being surprised and/or pressurised by his driver's forces/techniques that seem to be new (i.e. previously unencountered), may well lose not only his “superficial elegance” but also his balance, posture and/or leverage, thereby making an unwanted, immediate break in the “bout” of freestyle Pushing-hands a real possibility. He can, however, achieve his objective of maintaining (or restoring) the continuity of the action of the “bout”, if he spontaneously continues to pay attention, to focus, to concentrate (thereby re-establishing his balance, posture and leverage) and remains unconcerned about any temporary loss of elegance.
N.B.
Reminder:
"Pushing-hands has no left
or right bias and so it is purely for
the sake of clarity and readability that some of this website's descriptions of
(sequences of) movements are left-right specific." (See
"Left-right Neutrality").
Being Pinned:
If the outside, gripped push
across your centre-line presses your contact-arm against your body,
the arm is "pinned" and its leverage needs to be
re-established.
Demonstrated in this video are four "gripped
pin" attempts. The pins' heights and the grips' types used are,
in order, mid-level sword-grip, mid-level scabbard-grip, upper-level
sword-grip and upper-level scabbard-grip, and are escaped from by
doing therefore Lying-Dragon, Tiger's-Claw, Tiger's-Claw and
Tiger's-Claw, respectively.
Receiving Pushes:
[Although there are several
questions regarding each push that you receive (e.g. Which of your
gates is it in ? Is it crossing your centre-line ?), which
arise in determining how you deal with it, your body does, in fact,
already know the answers, even as you first feel the push; and so
your reaction, if your body has been programmed by repeated practice,
is thought-free and therefore immediate.]
N.B.
In order to maintain your leverage, it may be necessary to do a
backward Shuffle-step
simultaneously.
The key to the uniquely non-competitive
nature of Pushing-hands,
is in the driving. As the driver, your job is NOT to try to drive
"better" (faster, stronger or more aggressively) than
your training-partner can "receive". No, your primary concern is to
get an ever improving performance from the receiver, your training-partner.
His skills should be exercised and his limits tested with skilful, considerate driving (within, of course, the limits of your driving experience).
When you have only a little
driving-experience, be content with basic pushing and from there
driving:
a) The-three-changes (to the
point-of-contact), and
b) changes of side (left / right
feet foremost).
N.B. Whenever the receiver moves a non-contact-arm of his to a position between his mid-line and yours, thereby guarding his mid-line (Rule #2), he should find an arm of yours already there.
N.B. Whenever the receiver moves a non-contact-arm of his to a position between his mid-line and yours, thereby guarding his mid-line (Rule #2), he should find an arm of yours already there.
When you have acquired a little
more driving-experience, gripping the receiver's wrist(s) can be added to your repertoire. However, be aware that, because:
a) in order to threaten the
receiver's balance and posture you need to do more than merely grip
him (I.e. you need also to push or to pull and/or to rotate (twist) a gripped arm), and
b) each grip-escape that you drive needs you to immediately react
to it, by re-establishing "normal contact" (via a push or another
grip etc.),
this more complex driving requires a degree of expertise.
(N.B. Failure of the receiver to adequately deal with any of your forces/techniques, is the fault of him or you or both of you. Make sure that none of the blame is yours.)
In
a similar way that the greatest increase in a tennis player's "ball
returning" skills comes from him facing shots, the returning of
which "stretch" him physically, (and not those that are
easily within or obviously beyond his reach,) the greatest increase
in the Pushing-hands receiver's skills (reactions which he may not
even realise he has acquired) comes from him being "stretched"
mentally, by having to apply "Pushing-hands principles"
spontaneously, to deal with forces/techniques that seem to be new
(i.e. previously unencountered).
So,
when you are an experienced driver, you
can "test the receiver at his limit" and stimulate his
spontaneous skills
by confronting him with forces/techniques which may seem, to him, to
be new by, for example, applying "old" ones in new orders or
starting one before its predecessor has completed or applying two
simultaneously, but always, always, "keeping silk". (N.B. Failure of the receiver to adequately deal with any of your forces/techniques, is the fault of him or you or both of you. Make sure that none of the blame is yours.)
You, as the driver, are responsible for
maintaining virtually continuous action/movement and so, if you do
nothing to which the receiver feels he should react, then the
result should be that he reciprocally does nothing. In itself, there is not anything
wrong with such a pause, so long as "silk is kept" and
the inactive moment lasts for no longer than a second or two.
1)
give a basic push such that the receiver has to rotate his hip-line horizontally
clockwise to deflect it.
a) momentarily widen your stance by
moving your right, rear foot to your right and then immediately
completely close your stance by withdrawing your left, front foot to
the adjacent position and
b) supersede the point-of-contact by
withdrawing your right arm and using your left arm to reach
underneath your right arm, to make meaningful contact with (but
without actually moving) the receiver's left arm.
(N.B. This reaching
to make contact with the receiver's left arm is saved from being the
potentially strategically suicidal "reaching across the
receiver's centre-line" by the receiver's hip-line having been
caused to rotate horizontally clockwise by the preceding push.)
a)
move your right foot forward such that you are then in Pushing-hands-stance and
b) use your left arm (your new contact-arm)
to push the receiver's left arm toward his left armpit,
thereby
forcing the receiver to do a backward Step.
You
and the receiver are again in Pushing-hands-orientation but
now "on the other side", and the receiver should deflect
and/or respond to your push accordingly.
