7 Principles of Tai Chi Push Hands 

This was from day one of a week-long training, the very first thing. It's always so cool to see how he lays out the whole deal in the first 7 minutes, then spends the next 7 days explaining, exploring, and evolving these core concepts.

Twist is a circular movement. Spherical is circular. Its important to understand and see its the same thing. As you get more advanced you learn to make the movement smaller and you can use the shape in a circular fashion in more than one direction. You can make the shape smaller and tigther and the direction can be forward.

I met Bruce in the early 90's. 20 years later. Wow. He looks great. Something to be said for that Taoism stuff. :)

This is how I was taught, it takes a lot of patience and hard work. After a couple of hours of practising push hands in this way (usually changing partners every 20 mins or so), it's amazing how it affects you.

Excellent insights....well said.

This was very helpful and interesting. I have only tried this briefly and had real trouble feeling the intention of my partner to where I even tried soft focus of the eye and seeing if I could see better tactically and not visually. Kinesic awareness was not that easy and I would have to put a lot more time into it. I think I tend to focus more on how I feel after Tai Chi internally and if I get that warm glow inside I am winning.

LOVE THIS! So interesting... So wise!

I found this really helpful

spherical

"then it goes spherical"

What Draeger did with Indonesia , Kumar did with Kung Fu

Teaching tai chi in a way that puts humans on a pedestal of awareness above other creatures will deteriorate the health of one's body, not strengthen it. Mental energy in excess is blinding to a practitioner. It means that we perceive the body as dumb and the mind as the supreme ruler. The mind can only respond to things as it jerks around from point to point. The body, when nourished, will respond spontaneously to force by itself, without the mind as the dictator. I was astonished that Bruce, who seems to understand tai chi principles very well, would say that animals "tense up" in difficult situations. This is a purely human condition. We are taught to act stiffly and react to force in a mental way. The mind is what locks up the body in the first place. Almost all animals biologically respond to force at the highest level. Why would an animal in the wild ever develop an evolutionary tendency to retract themeselves in an mental way from their environment? We humans seem to be the only ones who actually need to send the awareness out at any point, and only if something is interesting or relevant to the minds' pondering. What practitioners should be trying to cultivate is not mental energy (we have enough of that feeding on itself). If I ever need any proof of this I just look around at the world, and see how brilliant minds have successfully been able to maim the planet (the very core of natural intelligence) to such an incredible degree with the continued advancement of our superior race.