“Your left and right hands should cooperate in your strategy,” Teacher Xu told us on Saturday morning at CKS Hall. I’d missed the previous week due to having to be in a parade featuring a naked man on a truck. “While one is opening the door on one side, the other should be closing the door on the other.”

I’d run into Mr. V in the subway on the way to class that morning, which took place in our old practice space, which was vacated by the black-shirted kung-fu group for some reason. I should note that Mr. V isn’t really that Violent; there are many students, especially the newer guys, who are much more egregious than he is. Still, he hasn’t expressed a desire to practice with me since that time when he was pushing with one hand.

Actually, Teacher Xu says that we should abolish the word “push” from tuishou, because it’s detrimental to the real practice of give-and-take actions and intent that is Tuishou. I agree, in that I can’t bring myself to push on command. I tend to concentrate more on being fluid and only “attack” when I see an opportunity that I just can’t pass up and sticks around long enough for me to recognize it, as I’m a little slow. Oftentimes my partner will tell me to attack them, but I find that if my intent is to attack I do much worse.

While watching other students push, I paid particular attention to their feet. I noticed that the newer students’ feet rolled around and left the ground a lot, while the more experienced students’ feet stayed more or less flat. Then I noticed that Teacher Xu’s feet rolled and lifted as he pushed, but the difference was that his feet seemed to be making those motions at his command, rather than in reaction to being pushed as seemed to be the case with the newer students. I suppose it’s a phase-by-phase thing. Later, practicing with Mr. Hu, I found that concentrating on his feet would occasionally call attention to an opportunity I would otherwise have missed. But I still found that by relaxing and using circular re-direction of his force helped a lot more. It was very instructive, as he’s a lot more forceful now than he used to be, and if I directly countered him I’d end up losing or “winning wrong” i.e. relying on brute force instead of relaxing and manipulating his energy. Also, people tend to expect resistance, and when they don’t meet it, they get confused and don’t know what to do. It throws them off.

One of the violent new guys was trying to throw the UPS guy around the balcony, resulting in a lot of thudding and tumbling. Little Mountain Pig was teaching while his wife minded their small son and daughter, who were crawling around their dual-seat stroller. No sign of Little Qin. In the middle of the square, a group of enthusiastic foreigners kicked and played tag, counting up as far as “three” in Chinese.

Due to a prolonged hunt for earphones in the city, I was late to practice, arriving around 9:30pm. Everyone was already there and busy practicing. A rather violent new guy was throwing people around, or trying to, narrowly missing me as I walked up. I hoped I wouldn’t have to deal with him before he mellowed down.

I did some of those exercises where you bend backwards until you fall over, falling on a railing or something similar, to increase my backstance’s range a bit. Then Yang Qing-feng and I practiced for a bit. I was really tired, but it was good. Not a lot of instruction, just straight practicing.

I noticed that some people, in addition to having dramatic post-push poses, hold on to them for a long while, as if they’ve just pushed their opponents into another part of the country and are waiting patiently for them to return from a prolonged vacation. In the meantime, the person who has just been shoved slightly off balance stands waiting awkwardly for the PPP act to end so they can get back to pushing. Funny.

Teacher Xu was busy with the violent new guy, so I pushed with his son, who seems to have improved a bit. He’s still easy to evade, is pretty pushable, and needs to cut his fingernails. I was so tired I nearly fell asleep, which was probably good for my pushing, very relaxed and natural. At one point I kind of wrapped his arms around his head, causing him to spin like a top, and I have to admit I laughed at the sight.

Afterwards he and Teacher Xu left, and I went through the sword form my usual three times. The sword still feels heavy starting out, but by the third time I was into it again.

Usually people only show up for class around 9pm, so I hung around a nearby coffee shop by the park until 8:30 before going over to the monument. Just about everyone was there already, however, and busy pushing. I stretched and went through some form work before pushing with Not From China, who was surprisingly subtle, though he had the annoying habit of repeating “Don’t use force, don’t use force” while he shoved in a definitely forceful manner. Teacher Xu told him to avoid excessive force, which explains it. Anyway, better than usual, though he nearly took my eye out with one quick blow.

Next up was Weeble. Pushing Weeble is like pushing an overly excitable fireplug. Any attack would generate a flurry of motion, and he was almost completely unyielding. As we practiced, a middle-aged foreigner walked into the park, accompanied by a couple of Taiwanese girls, and asked me what we were doing. I said it was a kind of applied Tai-chi. “So not like Karate?” he said.

“No, softer.”

“Like sumo!” one of the Taiwanese girls said. At least I think she was Taiwanese. I could be wrong, as I never heard her speak Chinese. But the foreigner shook his head.

“He’s not fat enough,” he said as they left.

Teacher Xu reiterated the idea of pushing the back of your opponent, and luring them in with imaginary lines. Also, he said to concentrate on their feet, but never on your own.

After class, when most everyone had departed, I went through my sword routine a few times, and showed Yang Qing-feng my new practice sword, which I’ve gotten used to and like a lot actually. I can feel its weight and even the wind on the blade when I swing it. Qing-feng uses a heavy sword himself, so he appreciated its heft.

I didn’t go to practice last week, and the typhoon hit on Saturday, so practice was canceled. This Wednesday was Double Ten, a holiday. So I didn’t get back until Saturday at CKS Hall. Workers were taking down a bunch of scaffolding left over from the celebrations, and I took pictures of them.

Not many people were there this time, though I showed up late, around 10:30. The black-shirted Kung Fu guys were nowhere to be seen or heard, but some students were practicing cheerleading routines.

I didn’t get much pushing in this time; mostly I went through my forms. Teacher Xu told another student not to just go limp when confronted with force. “Relaxing isn’t the same as just letting go of everything,” he said, and I realized that that is probably what I’m doing wrong when I’m trying to relax, i.e., I’m confusing relaxing with just letting go of everything and throwing it aside. I should instead relax, but keep everything in the game, so to speak.

While I was pushing with the UPS guy, a large, chunky foreigner and his extremely blonde girlfriend walked up after watching us for a while. It turned out that they were Austrian. “We have something similar in Austria,” he said, demonstrating a kind of pushhands where the feet are outside of each other and the opponents hold hands and try to shake, push or pull each other off balance. He tried it a few times with the UPS guy and failed. Then they tried to do regular tuishou, and the UPS guy kept pushing the Austrian guy over, as his girlfriend watched with an encouraging expression on her face. I felt kind of bad for her, and was about to suggest letting the Wookiee win when the UPS guy lost a few bouts. Whether he did it on purpose or not I have no idea, but the couple seemed gratified when they finished.