Yielding is one of the most important skills in Tai Chi. However, most people do not yield, they redirect. Worse some people are overly concern themselves with return attack, as they think that one must return the force to win. When you want to win, your mind is in a different space than yielding and your yielding will not succeed.
So what is yielding? First of all, it’s not just neutralizing, and it is not grounding an incoming force. Not that they are ineffective, but they are not yielding.
In Chinese, yielding is 走化 zouhua, literally: zou, to move; hua, to change, transform. The key to understand yielding is the lines in the Tai Chi Classics:
My opponents do not know me.
A fly cannot land (on me).
If you ground a force, then you are giving your opponent a chance to know you. At the highest level, if a person has a high level of Qi, then they can absorb the incoming force with ease without a fixed center. However, very few people are at that level.
Neutralizing is not enough as it only corresponds to the hua aspect. The zou aspect must also present. Therefore, to yield, one must be Song (*) and the timing must be just right. This is called using Ting Jin (“listening” skill). In other words, as the Classics say
Adhere, follow, stick, and link (**)
So how does one avoid “yielding to death?” A common misconception is that one must return the force, or a person would run out of room to yield. However, this is a misconception based on equating yielding with collapsing. Yielding must be done with no-force, but the structure must be maintained (Zhong Ding, central equilibrium in Chinese). This does not mean that you brace or maintain a (rigid) frame, but that your movement and your internal jin (Nei Jin, as in the title of this blog) prevent you from collapsing.
It’s the level beyond Song, it’s becoming Empty. When you are empty, no one can know you and a fly cannot land on you.
(*) The relax yet alert state.
(**) Subject of another post.
I’m glad to have come across your blog. I find it quite interesting.
I have been studying Wu style Taijiquan for a little over a year. There are 12 (I am told) different types of push hands practice one progresses through. In the first four I’ve been taught, the emphasis is on … yielding.
Yield: just like a car. You wait for just a bit of information, then go! Likewise, I wait to understand my opponent’s energies then I slip past and pound him one. Bang! In the car analogy, we might consider Smashing Derbies.
Sloppy Pushing has us believing that yielding is, as in a two man saw, moving back when he moves forward. Not so. In fighting: when the opponent moves forward, move forward.
Your words move, change agree with mine; your other translations lose me. I wouldn’t yield to death, and I can’t run out of room to yield (I move forward and laterally to yield). Hmm. Any ideas?