As mentioned previously in the Hand Form and in the Push Hands section most people including teachers know nothing of practising TJQ as a practical and effective martial art. Even today in some places the myth that practising form alone is enough to develop martial skill persist.

The first thing that should be understood is that the form is derived from martial technique, not the other way around. But in addition to that it should be appreciated that the technique that is in the slow hand form is not usually a literal copy of the intended application. The techniques in the fast form are more specific.

When the slow form was created it was built upon the principles contained within techniques, not the actual manifestation of a specific technique. Because of this it is possible to demonstrate various martial techniques, which often look quite different, but are built around the same underlying mechanical principles.

The first phase of practice is to practice a posture or short sequence. Next learn the application and drill it solo or with a partner.

The next phase is establishing skill in Pushing Hands. This is a prerequisite to developing martial skill. Read about the various types of pushing hands drills here.

The next stage is to refine the applications contained within the hand form by utilising Pushing Hand skills including stepping skills. As most of the postures within the slow form can be interpreted in several different ways it would not be realistic to try and learn them all immediately, so priority should be given to learning the most obvious and those that most clearly demonstrate TJQ's theories.

As stated previously merely understanding the applications within the form is not sufficient to turn your TJQ practice into a martial art.

In order to really practice a martial art it is important to include various supplementary training methods. This is looked at in more detail in the following section.

Below is a brief extract from the Yang family 32 Chapters on Taijiquan.

Butting, insufficiency, separation, and resistance are shortcomings in sparring. The reason we call them errors is because having failed to stick, adhere, connect, and follow, how can you achieve conscious movement?

If you do not understand yourself, how can you understand others? What we mean by sparring is that you do not use butting, insufficiency, separation, and resistance in relation to your opponent, but rather use sticking, adhering, connecting, and following. If you can accomplish this, you will not only be without errors in your sparring, but naturally achieve conscious movement and advance to the level of interpreting energy.

Butting means leading with the head; insufficiency means falling short; separation means losing contact; and resistance means excessive force.

If you want to understand the errors represented by these four words, it is not only a failure of sticking, adhering, connecting, and following, but a total lack of appreciation for conscious movement.

When beginning to study sparring, it is essential to understand this, and even more important to eliminate those errors. What is difficult is sticking, adhering, connecting, and following without butting, insufficiency, separation, or resistance. This is truly not easy.

The above clearly indicates the importance of achieving good Pushing Hands skills if you wish to develop effective martial skills. But again I emphasise that Pushing Hands skill in itself is not martial skill.

The first paragraph mentions four specific skills that whilst not unique to TJQ are fundamental to martial practice.

Connect; is the the first phase of the process. This requires that the practitioner makes contact with their opponent. This skill is difficult to obtain for several reasons, firstly you have to be in the right place this requires good control of distance and deft footwork to maintain a good position. Secondly your connecting hand or arm (or any other body part) must be relaxed and stay relaxed, staying relaxed when someone is attacking you is one of TJQs major challenges!

Adhere; this is the skill of staying connected to your opponent with relaxed and spontaneous movement, this is reactive rather than proactive.

Sticking; this is the more proactive phase where you take a degree of control over your opponent. This control phase should then enable you to land a powerful strike that the opponent is unable to effectively defend against because of the control you have.

It should be understood that this whole process will normally only take fractions of a second. This causes some confusion because some people have formed the opinion that fighting with TJQ should be like pushing hands with punches! This is not the case. pushing hands is a drill to develop certain skills it is not in any way a type of fighting.

Following; describes a state of mind whereby you voluntarily give yourself over to the actions of your opponent. Again as stated above this is momentary, but essential if you are going to act in a spontaneous way. It is the ability to react spontaneously that illustrates that a good level of skill has been achieved. This skill is honed in pushing hands practice.