So I decided to do a little research on it.
First I discovered that the Chinese name is 推手
推 (tui1) is easy enough, it means "push, shove", and contains 隹 (zhui1 dove) which I also learned recently. And of course I've known 手 (hand) for a long time.
Next, I researched the Chinese names of the movements of 推手, and tried to match them to what Master Liang taught in class. In his class they always say "peng lu ji an", but I didn't know these words and couldn't find some of them in my dictionary.
The first part is hardest. After research on the web, I found that the character for "peng" is 掤 but when I look up this character in a dictionary, the meaning and the sound do not match. But I'm sure it's the right character for two reasons
- the right hand part 朋 (friend) has the right sound
- the characters are listed on a web page on Taiji.
Jings(勁 )are mental power which utilize Qi to maintain the body postures. "Eight Jings" are Peng (掤 ), Lu (履 ), Ji (擠 ), An (按 ), Cai (採 ), Lie (列 ), Zhou (肘 ), and Kao (靠 ),The page never gives the meaning of this word, but it does say
"Peng is to pressurize the body and to project the Qi to the outside edge of the body" To get the meaning, I went to another page:
- Peng (掤) - An upward expansive energy, forward or backward, yielding or offsetting usually with the arms, often translated as "Ward Off."
At some point it's time for 履 (rollback). The dictionary says this character means "shoe" or "tread/walk on", but in Taiji it means "a sideways, circular yielding movement", usually translated as "roll back".
In practise, at the 掤/peng stage, both partners stand face to face, right feet forward, right arm against right arm, palms inward, each pressing on the other (warding the partner off). The action begins as my partner exerts more force by leaning towards me (adding his body weight to his arm strength). I answer this with 履. The are various ways to do this, but the simplest way is this. I use my left hand to grab his elbow on the outside, and move my right hand to his right wrist, then drag his arm to my side, and twist my body. This means he is no longer leaning on me, but falling to my right side. He was trying to use his weight to knock me over, but now he is falling and I am stable.
Next my partner answers this with 擠 (simplified form 挤). He brings his left arm on top of his right arm and uses the extra strength of both arms to continue to try to knock me over. This requires pushing back to centre instead of the side (in 履 I dragged his arm and his whole body to my right, his left).
Now he has the advantage. At the beginning, he was using the strength of his right arm only plus the weight of his body. I answered by trying to take control of his right arm and drag it to my right, neutralizing the "attack" (not really an attack, just an exercise). He answered this part by bringing his left arm into play, on top of his right arm, and continuing the attack, this time with the force of both arms. At this point my left hand is still on his right elbow, and my right hand is on his right wrist but not helping. However, I have some extra time to react because he has to return the action to centre (I dragged him to the side). During this extra time I position both hands to do the final part of the exercise:
按 (an4, àn, press down)
As the final stage of the first cycle begins, his arms are locked together, his left arm on top/on the outside. I put both of my hands on top of his arms, mainly his left arm), and push/press him down and away
As this part ends, we are back to the beginning, except that the arms are opposite: we take our right arms away and the left arms are now in the same position the right arms were at the beginning. Now we change roles, I attack him, he pulls my left arm, etc.
