Peace

Principle:  Stabilization

We have all seen it. In the demonstration, a Master takes his stance, and ten students line up to push him. The example is impressive but arranged so that the students' push is transferred directly into the teacher's stable base. It's not a trick but conveniently omits the principles of tilt. Still, it is an elementary illustration of stabilization.

A masterful example of stabilization, as found in Chen's Taiji, exhibits elastic recoil. Energy movement is what internal arts teachers must show to be considered valid. The student punches or pushes the teacher, who accepts the student's energy and "returns" it to him, giving the appearance of the student "bouncing off."

Sifu Chen highly regarded elastic recoil. From the beginning of his teaching, he explained that it was a robust form of Peng energy and stabilization. He drew an image of a basketball placed in a corner. He would then ask what happens when the ball is hit by a club or stick. He drew another picture of the ball deforming but returning to its previous form as the energy from the strike bounced the stick back.

As students, we mistakenly referred to this as rebound, not understanding the conscious internal backward movement from impact or force. This highly developed form of Chen's recoil and "springback" energy provides the quality of bouncing the student off.

What Sifuu admired about this aspect of stabilization was the degree of control required using soft tissue recoil. It wasn't enough to be stable in your stance; recoil demanded a degree of stability that could capture the force of a blow. Chen's recoil wasn't merely a bodily retreat from the impact of force. It captured, redirected, and returned the force to the opponent.

The "bounce" motif is only one of infinite usages. The more strenuous push hands taught the use of recoil from the perspective of high, medium, and low stances.