Partner exercises (Pushing Hands)
Wu style Pushing Hands (推手tui shou) comprises a huge variety of partner exercises originally conceived to develop skills for the unarmed combat.
These exercises emphasize the art of ting jin (听劲), hearing the power.
The Tai Ji Quan differs two kinds of power Li and Jin. Li is considered to be a simple power more external and gross only deriving from pure muscle strength. In contrast Jin develops from the body’s movements and postures while the limbs follow a natural penetrability of Qi.
An essential aspect of training Tui Shou is the permanent contact to the partner using hands, arms, and also legs in order to feel the partner’s intention through his movements and react accordingly to let his possible attack end in emptiness.
A long and continuous training is necessary to master this skill. For that it plays an important role in Wu style Tai Chi Chuan as the training of Pushing Hands also has a great impact on the solo forms.
Within the traditional Wu Tai Chi Chuan many of these techniques are cultivated and build an own system of systematic exercises.
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Systematic practise
As described in the solo forms also the Tui Shou comprises well defined sequences of practise.
At first the “single hand” exercises (单手dan shou) are trained to develop a sensibility for the hands, elbows, and arms. Following these exercises further practise using both upper limbs are performed (双手shuang shou) including principles of techniques known as peng, lü, ji, an, cai, lie, zhou, and kao on any level of the upright body.
All these techniques are trained systematically in order to be able using them in free application.
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