The four words in the title refer to principles essential to tai chi with a partner. We read them first in Yang Banhou’s 1875 book “Explaining Tai Chi Principles.” Zhang Yun wrote an essay on them called “Four Important Skills for Push Hands and Fighting” for Tai Chi magazine (now out-of-print) in 2001, and many people I pay attention to consider it authoritative.
I used these two texts as the “primary sources” for what follows, but I also referred to a thread on the Yang Family Tai Chi Discussion Board. It’s a long thread. When this happens on that board, it’s never because of acrimony or a “flame war.” Rather, it’s usually because several people who are VERY good at tai chi are trying to put a difficult-to-explain concept into writing. There are lots of metaphors, comparisons, a lot of fishing around for the right language and requests for clarification, people realizing they’ve spent several comments basically saying the same thing to each other in different ways, and so on.
This is a warning, to me and to the reader. If authoritative experts take several pages each to try to explain a concept, I shouldn’t presume to do any better than them, and the reader shouldn’t expect to come away with a complete understanding either. These are things that must be felt and practiced; the best a written explanation can do is give impressions – they can’t be grasped by words alone.
“Stick, Adhere, Connect and Follow” are always in the context of partner-work. They make little sense in the solo form; and if one is still learning the solo form, what follows is either best put off until later (because you’re not at that “Station of the Cross” yet) or read with the understanding that what’s said here can’t really be grasped until later.
What follows is an elucidation of each of the four skills by
various writers, and my own interpretation in brackets, where I think it might
help or where I differ. For ease of
reference, each source will be abbreviated as
follows:
YBH: Yang Banhou
ZY: Zhang Yun
DB: Tai Chi Discussion Board (various contributors)
粘 (Zhan, “Sticking”)
YBH: “Sticking means to lift up high.” [to uproot one’s opponent]
ZY: “The original
meaning of Zhan is to adhere or stick something up. In Taiji Quan practice it
means to get your opponent to follow you a while under your control. It looks
as if your opponent is struck to your hand (or the other part of your body).
The technical term of this is “stick a person up” (It does not mean to grip or
hold him up!). If you can do this well continually, your opponent appears to
follow you and jump as if you have bounced him…. When the opponent has lost his
balance and tries to use you to keep his balance, he must follow you to move.
While most of the time Zhan is used to get your opponent to follow you in an
upward direction, it can be in any direction. When using Zhan, you do not use
your force to move your opponent, instead he is moved by his own force but by
your control.”
DB:
“For a short answer, ‘sticking’ means staying in contact with the opponent
so that he cannot separate to execute an effective technique.”
“Zhan - follow reaction - Borrow force from opponent Lead into emptiness [under
the heading ‘Creating problems for your opponent’]”
[Taking all-in-all, I define “sticking” as “actively maintaining contact with both the opponent’s body, energy AND intention”]
黏 (Nian,
“Adhering”)
YBH: “Adhering means to stay attached.”
ZY: “The original
meaning of Nian is stick, adhere or paste to. In Taiji Quan practice it means
to keep contact your opponent, and through this contact to make him feel uncomfortable.
Keep this contact and never let him go away, like something adheres on his
body. Be careful, it does not mean to use big force to hold your opponent. It
should be light touching. When you use this skill, you should try to use the
minimum force. We always say to unsettle your opponent a little bit each time but
continually, until the opponent is in big trouble. Do not let him feel too much
is important.
"In pushing hands, when you touch your opponent, you should unsettle him.
Do not use too much force, just let him feel that he must do something to solve
the problem. Then he will give you a reaction. From his reaction, you can
determine how you should respond. If you cannot make a chance, keep doing Nian,
that means follow him, keep touching and giving him a little bit more trouble,
and wait for him to give you more reaction. So Nian is also used to sound the
opponent out. That means to give him questions and await his answers. The
questions should hit his weakness point continually. If you have question for
him one by one and he cannot give you the right answer on time, you are
controlling him. The important things are to never let the opponent get away
and to sense the right time and direction to make your next move. Be careful,
do not use extra force, because if you use too much force, you will be
difficult to relax, and it will cause your sensitivity to be sluggish.
DB:
“’Adhering’
means making the opponent stay in contact with you so that you can uproot him
and make him stay in contact with your technique.” [Combined with the first DB
response, which is from the same comment, it might be worth considering he has
the two meanings reversed; but since both are covered, he’s not wrong insofar
as the two are closely related]
“Nian - follow to make trouble - Use stillness to
control motion. This is to make the opponent feel uncomfortable. Make them feel
they must do something to solve the problem. You give questions and await
answers in stillness. Your questions address his weakness continually. [this
too is under the heading ‘Creating problems for your opponent’]”
“This involves putting some of yourself into every move
of the opponent, so that you can always add the 10 percent in the wrong place
that frustrates his purposes…. Where the opponent seeks pressure, you gladly
offer it, but perhaps 10 percent less then what he needs. This way, the
opponent always tries for more, and you can make him follow you to his
disadvantage.”
[You can begin to see how this also sounds like “sticking” and where all these definitions begin to become entangled]
連 (Lian, “Connecting”)
YBH: “Connecting means to let go of
yourself and not separate from the opponent.”
ZY: “The original
meaning of Lian is continue or link. There are two meanings of Lian in Taiji
Quan practice. They are continually follow and change. The first one means that
you maintain continually contact by following your opponent and never let him
leaving. Most time when people say Lian, they mean this. Basically Taiji Quan
skills depend on your sensitivity. If you lose contact with your opponent (not
just means physical, but mind and Shen), you cannot feel him anymore, so that
you cannot apply your Taiji Quan skills.
“The other way of Lian means continually change as you are following, that
means each of your techniques are joined together like the links in a chain,
never breaking your mind and movements, and never giving your opponent any
chance to change. Link all changes one by one continually, smoothly, and never
stop.”
DB:
“Lian
- follow like chasing - launching later but arrive first. You continually
change and follow the opponent to know him [Under the heading ‘Solving Problems
Made For You’]”
“According to my understanding, ‘Giving up yourself and following the
other’ has nothing to do with surrender, giving up your root, being passive, or
even being empty. It has to do with putting your faith in the fact that no
initiative you take based on yourself is safe. Instead, you want your opponent
to take the initiative and reveal his empty and full. If he completely reveals
his empty and full to you and you have the requisite knowledge, he cannot
protect himself from your attack. If he defends the left, the right is exposed.
If he defends the right, the left is exposed, etc. If you use the opponent’s
initiative for your purposes, he cannot use it for his.”
“Yang
Chengfu also put this in context in his discussion of Rollback in the Push
Hands section of his Essence and Applications book: ‘One who is being rolled back must “give up
the self and follow the other, yet must also know where to “give up the other
and follow yourself.” If the one being rolled back senses an increase of
pressure from the opponent’s hand, he can then take advantage and apply kao
(Shoulder technique). Or if he senses a sudden break in the continuity in the
other’s Roll Back energy (lujin), then he can swiftly let that side go, so that
it is possible to attack using ji (Press).’
The phrase, ‘give up the self and follow the other,’ or ‘yield to the
initiative of the other’ is a well-established phrase going back to the Warring
States period. Yang Chengfu’s use of the alternate phase, ‘give up the other
and follow yourself’ has an ironic twist to it. I’ve never encountered that
anywhere else, but it illustrates very well the objective you mention. In my
experience, it is more difficult to learn how to “give up the self and follow
the other,” but it is, according to the Taijiquan Treatise, ‘the foundation’: ‘The
foundation is to yield to the initiative of the other. Many mistakenly forsake the near in
pursuit of what is far away.’” [emphasis added]
[I boldened the last sentence because I want to spend time on it. To me, it gives the clue to the essence of “Connecting.” Stay with my class long enough and you’ll hear the admonition “Stop thinking about what you want to do – you won’t be able to feel what your partner is already doing.” The skills of Sticking, Adhering, Connecting and Following, combined with what we learn in the solo form, give us the tools to respond to our partner no matter what they do. It takes a LOT of practice, however, to “get outside of one’s own skull” and, counterintuitively, control another person by letting them call the shots! But with this practice, it gives us the ability to respond appropriately to our partner faster than either of us can think about it. It’s a lot like driving a car and realizing you’ve swerved to avoid a hazard only after you’d already done so. Same exact thing.]
隨 (Sui, “Following”)
YBH: “Following means to follow him
wherever he goes”
ZY: “The original meaning of Sui is follow or obey. In Taiji Quan practice that
means to follow your opponent's movement or mind. According to Taiji Quan
principle, you should avoid [going] against the opponent by your force
directly. You should make the opponent feel that he can get you but do not
really let him get you. You should make him use some techniques that cannot
really work on your body. If you can keep relax, you can do Sui well and from
Sui you can feel and know your opponent well.”
DB:“Sui -
follow like going away - Forget self to follow opponent. Sui requires that you relax your body, follow
the timing and direction of the opponents force – so that he cannot find a
point to use his force on your body. Follow and then find a chance to make a
change, the smaller the better. [Under ‘Solving Problems Made For You’]”
Wrapping
Up:
Earlier I said the four skills start to become entangled. Zhang Yun acknowledges as much: “The meanings of Zhan, Nian, Lian, and Sui are similar at some points, or
we can say there are some parts mixing or overlap…. Although they are different skills, in fact,
they cannot be really used separately. They are always mixed and used together.” Collectively, they are all “enabling skills”
for the “terminal objective” of push-hands, as described in the Classics:
“If my opponent does not move, I do not move. The instant my opponent moves, I am already there.”
"If he tries to find me above, he has to keep reaching higher, or if he tries to find me
below, he has to keep reaching lower. When he advances, he cannot get to me, but once
he retreats, he cannot get away from me."
