Clear Internal Push Hands

I have begun calling the primary Push hands method we practice Clear Tai Chi Internal Push Hands method. I originally learned the method from Ma Yeuh Liang when he was 95 years old. He and his wife (Wu Yin Hua) were the head of Wu Style Tai Chi and were the senior living Tai Chi masters by age, years of practice and knowledge in the world at that time.

I was introduced to Master Ma and his internal push hands method by Wen Mei Yu. They led our group to Master Ma and other senior masters in Shanghai and they helped teach us.

Wu Yin Hua’s father and grandfather were both famous and her grandfather was Wu Chien Chuan the founder of the Wu Tai Chi system. Ma and Yin Hua were already married and famous Tai Chi practitioners in China in the 1930’s. When I learned internal Push Hands from Ma in 1994 I was told that Ma invented what he called NO STYLE Push Hands because he found that it was the fastest way to really build internal skill and ability. After 15 years of practice and working with this method I have come to understand why he felt that way.

First of all if I want to check the average person for how much real skill and ability they have I can play this kind of internal push hands with them for less than 1 minute without shoving them and know exactly what they have and what they do not have. In fact, most of the time when I play this with various Tai Chi folks they push themselves off of me while they are trying to move me. All I do is stand there and feel what they have and do not have. I have worked with the Internal Push Hands method long enough to find a lot of things not originally taught to me but that have come to me as a result of practice and analysis and research. So, over the long haul what I have done with the practice has made it mine. Stating this I must give all credit to Ma. Without him I simply would not have this level of ability today.

When Clear Tai Chi hosted Liu Ji Fa (one of the Wu lineage inheritors) here in Tennessee for 2 weeks in the fall of 2008 he told me that No Style was not the name of this method and that it is not taught or practiced publicly so in order to maintain the integrity and not mis-attribute something to Ma that is innapropriate on my part I will hence forth be using the name Clear Tai Chi Internal Push Hands Method for the name of this specific practice. I of course will always give credit to my sources of influence which obviously include Ma but also Don Ethan Miller and Uncle Bill (Willem de Thouars) amongst others.

It is my hope that this new name “Clear Tai Chi Internal Push Hands method” Internal Push Hands for quick reference will also help to alieve some of the confusion that I have received from so many serious Tai Chi students / teachers when they call me asking about learning real internal skills from me and I start talking about Push Hands. The word Internal is what I hope will set this apart as in all reality it is the primary difference between this and every other version of Push Hands that I have seen.

Here is a free video that gives some basic beginning instruction on this.