When you do push hands exercise, you are entering an "agreement" as my friend Saul Krotki used to say, basically an agreement not to go outside the mild confines of the exercise. Of course in my many decades of indulging this ridiculous pushing hobby, lots of people have gone a bit overboard under the duress of suffering ego damage. I remember one quite experienced guy, teacher of another brand of Tai Chi, who I pushed with for the first and last time in a park. The guy was so tense that just by touching me he was bouncing off without me even having to do anything, I felt kind of bad about it. But apparently he felt worse. He didn't say anything much during the session but I could feel he was seething underneath. Towards the end he looked at me furiously and said "I feel I want to kill you" and he was serious. You could see it in his face. We wrapped it up shortly thereafter.
But I understand. Totally. It's all ego anyway, not only his but mine as well. But I don't mind too much what people do. Some people want to use their grappling. They want to lock, trip, sweep, throw, shoot, you. Then others want to hit you. Some people like to play with your knees or neck. It's all good. Not a problem. But there is ONE illegitimate move that stands out way above the rest. I should say POTENTIAL illegitimate move, because thank god nobody's ever gone THAT far with me in push hands per se (not speaking here about other martial training venues). All push hands illegit moves are equal but one is way more equal than others - the head butt.
See when you "agree" to push hands you are placing yourself in a uniquely vulnerable position with respect to that particular nicety - the head butt. Fortunately nobody has yet thought to try that on me. But now that I've written this post maybe I'd better give up push hands forever! Cause now they're clued as to the ultimate close range move. The headbutt had both more potential for damage and far harder to counter in time at the range than anything else that could be done.
Actually come to think of it, I did witness Yao Chengguang using that to great effect (smashed up bloody nose) on a big guy with whom he was doing (the Yiquan version of) "push hands".
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The land energy (Pele energy?) of the Big Island is beyond compare to any other place on earth than I know. Absolutely palpable, the entire Island (not only Hounaunau) is buzzing and vibrating with elemental spirit energy like a radioactive beehive. I don't understand why some people can't feel it.
