BackgroundTaiji, as known to the public, is typically pictured as a series of choreographed movements excuted in a seemingly meditative state. It is because of this, the public has often misunderstood the true essence of taiji. It is also not rare for the public to dismiss Taiji as merely an exercise routine befitting to people on the other end of the age spectrum.

While there are many articles that has been written about Taiji in most media out there possible, generally a well-researched article would point out specifically that the term Taiji is actually incomplete with the word “quan” (read: chu-when). The word “quan” attest that Taiji is itself a martial art in its own right. Therefore, the proper address to be accorded to this unique martial art is “Taijiquan”.

To be in congruent with the purpose of this document, a detailed discussion on Taijiquan will not be made here. Rather, this document serves to introduce a specialise branch of training that is common and necessary in Taijiquan, chiefly known as Push Hands.

Push Hands: A Brief IntroductionPush Hands is a training method in which two individuals are pitted against each other for basically two purpose, as similar in all full-contact martial arts. First, to defeat the opponent using *Taijiquan principles, and secondly to be able to remained balance (or rooted) upon impending attack from opponent.

In general, there are two schools of push hands. These two schools shared the same Taijiquan principle, but differs in terms of execution. One school is known to propagate the traditional methods, where a great emphasis is placed on the intellectual research on the myriad of taijiquan techniques while the other is geared towards competitive (and deemed more towards application) style. These two schools, while differs in execution, actually complements each other.

Push Hands as a Competitive SportIn recent years, full contact martial arts such as Mixed Martial Arts (MMA) has been gaining prominences due to the excitement and its ability to promote an environment where people can actually “fight” with injury risks being mitigated due to the implementation of rules. However, the chances of getting injured, albeit less serious as in free fight, lingers openly. This potential injury risks have somehow restricted public’s willingness to participate openly in MMA despite their raging interest. Therefore, MMA is usually reserved to those who are willing to dedicate a lot of effort and time into the craft. And also, MMA usually impose age restriction, where participants of certain age (usually >35) are not allowed to participate.

Push hands, on the other hand, despite not allowing punches, strikes, on-ground chocking, kicks, joint-locking and a host of techniques deemed dangerous and that potentially may threaten the safety of the practitioners, there are myriads of defence/attack/counter-attack techniques that can generate the intensity equivalent to those in MMA (Techniques are best presented visually). Since no MMA-like strikes are allowed, therefore, competitive push hands is widely considered to be more safer without compromising the excitement.

On top of that, push hands competition generally does not implement age restriction. However, despite this, all due care will be executed to ensure that participants are at the best of their health prior to participating. Therefore, it is not common for some organisers to request for a medical declaration. In essence, as age restriction is not part of the agenda, push hands competition can actually attract a wider spectrum of participants and audiences.

The following illustrates some of the typical push hand actions in competition.

Some take down techniques.

A participant (blue shirt) after being taken down.

The standard stance prior to the start of a bout.