Shadowhand Taijiquan

Hardness and Softness

There is a second consideration in favour of the use of softness to conquer hardness. Hardness requires strenuous exertion of force which requires more oxygen to be pumped to the muscles which in turn makes the heart beat faster. The increased heart rate and insufficient oxygen supply causes gasping resulting in nervousness, loss of concentration , reduced sensitivity and rashness of action.

This is an unfavourable situation that can be taken advantage of by your opponent. In contrast, softness avoids the use of awkward force, making one agile in the body, hands, waist and legs, freeing one from getting nervous, and making one keen in sensation. In an encounter, if you know your opponent's strength and weakness, while he does not know yours, you will have a great superiority. That is the reasoning behind the use of softness to conquer hardness. In coping with an enemy attack, one should not meet force with force, instead, one should avoid where the enemy is strong, and neutralize and counter attack where he is weak.

Taijiquan contains many downing techniques, for example, Step Back and Repulse Monkey, Snake Creeps Down, White Crane Flaps Its Wings, and Lotus Sweeping Kick.

If, in a self-defence manoeuvre , you are very close to your opponent, it will not be wise to get entangled with him. The better tactic is to use downing techniques to throw him down by borrowing his momentum.

In addition to a skilful mastery of the forms, keen sensation and quick action, the key to the downing techniques is to be tranquil, avoid answering force with force, go with the opponent's movement, and use your skill to render his force ineffectual before downing him.

When you have learned which part in your body the opponent wants to attack, you should take the initiative, and intercept and neutralize the enemy attack in mid attack, and then hit back.

In practising downing, one must first understand that if an opponent is strong in the upper body, his lower body will certainly be weak; if he is strong in the right, he will surely be weak in the left; if both his upper and lower body are strong, then his middle section will surely be a weak point. An understanding of this principle helps.

Thus if your opponent's hand strength is focussed above, the lower part will be drifting. But if he is exerting force from below, the upper part will surely be a void.

You should give a wide berth to his strong points and attack his weak, void points, and do that rapidly. If you spot even a small opening, you should take the initiative and attack him where he is unprepared. But you must judge accurately and watch out for any trap possibly laid by your opponent. Getting trapped can place you at a disadvantage, or even get you downed instead. It is best to move only after he has started to move so that you will have full knowledge of where are his strong points and where are his weak points. You will then be able to neutralize his attack according to the way he exerts his force, and, in the meantime, launch a counter attack.

But what if he refuses to make any advance? In that case you should lure him into a movement by pretending that there is a weakness in your defence which you have neglected to guard. It will lead him into a trap. But creating favourable situation in this way is possible only to persons with a comparatively high level of achievement behind him.

The exercise of downing is done through practice. The experiences secured in practice have to be combined with theory to attain a thorough understanding and to effect a rapid progress.

In tackling an enemy attack, put into practice the Taijiquuan principle of conquering movement with tranquillity and checking hardness with softness, and use the methods of neutralizing and dragging.

Cheng Tin Hung passed away in 2005 after a long illness but these two short passages aptly demonstrate why he was so highly regarded as the T’ai-chi Bodyguard and explain how he managed to keep the fighting art of Taijiquan alive when so many other masters took the easy road.