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From the great blog http://northstarmartialarts.com/blog1/?p=1770

Anyone who has ever done push hands with a Cheng Manqing lineage person has probably encountered the “why do I need to defend my head defense.” It is so weird, they never admit that they are making a mistake. But Tabby does something interesting. He claims that the difference in push hands methods is an indicator of a difference in the fruition that each person is seeking.

Here is what Tabby says the purpose of push hands is:

The Push Hands Drill of Tai Ji Quan is a diagnostic practice to identify tension in oneself and a partner and a developmental practice to foster skill in the application of internal energy to such identified tense zones to move the partner’s entire body with a light physical touch

For me, views always come first. My view of push hands is that it is a game designed to get us to drop our aggression. As the first Chapter of the Daodejing explains, when you drop your aggression the order of the cosmos reveals itself (note: there is no “it” or “self”, the use of language creates some limits here). One might ask, “After I have seen the order of the cosmos, why would I want to do push hands again?” And the answer is that the order of the cosmos reveals itself differently each time. Experiencing the order of the cosmos is not an advantage, it doesn’t make us superior or more powerful, it is simply a moment of inspiration.

Can you use this ‘order of the cosmos’ inspiration to fight? Of course you can. It would be a very mundane usage by society’s standards, but the cosmos doesn’t care.

Now let’s go back and analyze the method. The method of push hands is to meet your opponent hand to hand while maintaining, embodying and expressing kong ling.

From http://dojorat.blogspot.com/2010/09/eight-trigrams-and-five-elements-of-jou.html

“The Tao Of Tai Chi Chuan – Way To Rejuvenation” by Master Jou Tsung Hwa

One night, as I practiced Tai Chi Chuan, I saw the crescent moon rise. Suddenly, I understood the connection Chang San-Feng made: the back of the hand is yang, the palm is yin. As the hand turns, a crescent of yang appears. We have two hands, so they must match one another like the relationship between the sun and the moon.

From this I was able to recognise that the pa kua, representing eight phases of cyclical change, is the key to the torso method in Tai Chi Chuan.

The master key to the art of Pa Kua is the circular arrangement of the eight trigrams. Practitioners may imitate circular walking, but they must understand the eight trigrams for their art to truely be “Pa Kua”. The master key to Hsing-I is the relation of the five elements in each movement.

See the dust raised by Buddha’s Warrior Pounds Mortar. Like thunder.