Follow and borrow
by Shang Lee
Out of the 100 rounds of push hands I did, I “felt” 2 follows and 0 borrows. And realised the distinction between them.
When pushing hands, the message is always to “listen” to the intent of the force, but feeling it with your hands. If you know the intent of the force, you will know where it is going and how can you make that information work to your advantage. The marketing lingo got this right – you have to always listen to your customers.
After listening to your customers, of course, you’ll have to follow through with action. This is I believe the next step when you’re able to listen, that is to follow. A customer comes to you, you listen to the customer, let the customer say what he has to say to you. Let him finish his words until he finally feels understood. When true understanding happens, only then a true follow up action can be executed based on the customer.
Similarly in push hands, a hand comes to you, you listen to the hand, let it go where it has to go until it can go no further, then it’ll retreat on its own. This is when you follow the hand, and it normally leads you to find out the weak point of your opponent, providing you a true insight into the balance of your opponent. You find out where his balance lies, and you know where you can unbalance him and to what extent.
This is – follow.
To amplify the imbalance you’re trying to cause to your opponent, you’ll need slightly more strength. You can use brute force, which will make yourself unbalanced, or you can connect with the strength of your opponent, and use his strength to assist you in causing his imbalance.
This is – borrow.
To follow and to borrow. If only I realise this sooner, but then again, I wouldn’t know what I know now if I hadn’t been through what I didn’t know! I guess, even in practice, I have to follow through all those movements, before I could borrow that understanding to use it in application.
p/s: I need to improve this “2 nil” score to gain a better understanding of this rather than more words, so back to more practice!
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