Taichi Push Hands and Yang 9 Duel - A Hands On Experience!

A powerful and skill-enhancing experience!

On 25 May 2025, Professor Lily welcomed students from across Greater Melbourne for our first special workshop for 2025 — a sold-out encore of our most popular event to date - Push Hands and Yang 9 Duel.

Professor Lily focused her teaching on the martial arts techniques of tai chi Push Hands (Tui Shou) and the Yang 9 Duel Routine, helping students to deepen their understanding of tai chi martial applications, increase coordination especially hand eye coordination, reaction and response time, and connect mind and body.

Push Hands: Feeling, Flow, and Foundation

Push Hands two-person training links theory to practical application. Participants explored the dynamic interaction between attack and defense, learning to sense transitions and respond with relaxed alertness.

As Professor Lily explained:

“Push hands is a powerful method for tai chi students to increase their understanding of the martial applications of tai chi.

You can get a new feeling for your tai chi practice. Really understand what it means for interaction with an opponent. Feeling and responding to the direction and strength of a partner's action brings greater alertness, concentration and mindfulness to your practice.

Continued practice of push hands has benefits for core strength, balance, flexibility, cardiovascular health and energy circulation.”

Yang 9 Duel Routine: From Solo to Synergy

The Yang 9 Duel Routine brings new depth and vitality to the solo routine taught in class. Learning and practising push hands and the duel routine is an important opportunity for enhancing your tai chi practice.

Partner work introduces an opponent for improving martial application. For sensing and feeling an opponent’s. intention. For understanding the coordination, timing and suitable application needed to respond to an opponent’s actions.

As always, Professor Lily’s teaching emphasized correct technique, martial application, and personal growth. Her warm and generous instruction was supported by Candice and Kathy, whose demonstrations and assistance were invaluable throughout the day.

Professor Lily was impressed by the dedication and enthusiasm of all participants. Photos and highlights from the workshop will be shared soon. Be sure to follow us on social media and check our website for updates on future events.

Please enjoy photos of the day.

Push Hands - Our biggest Wulong Workshop ever!!!

Wow! What a powerful and skill enhancing experience! Wulong’s biggest workshop yet was fully booked almost immediately by participants from across Melbourne, regional Victoria, and interstate - one passionate student coming from as far as Western Australia to learn from Professor Lily.

Thank you Professor Lily! for teaching workshop particpants the martial arts techniques of tai chi Push Hands or tui zhou, and the corresponding Yang 9 Duel Routine.

Two-person push hands is a thought provoking training method practiced to raise tai chi students’ understanding of facing an opponent, and the interaction between attack and defence. Push hands helps us sense our partner’s movements and intention, the transition between attack and defence.

“Push hands is very important for tai chi students to increase their understanding of the martial applications of tai chi.” says Professor Lily,

"Push hands practice will improve your tai chi foundation and practice through increasing reflex, reaction, coordination, strength, and balance. Energy flows throughout the whole body, with benefits for cardiovascular health and circulation.”

Professor Lily also introduced chai zhao into the practical application of tai chi, bridging the gap between theory and practice, and improving combat skills. Chai zhao is the process of breaking down, analyzing, and training response techniques for specific movements. It involves specific offensive and defensive techniques, methods to neutralize our opponent’s force, change the angle of their attack, and pick the right timing for a counterattack.

These experiences created the foundation skills for the Yang 9 Duel routine. The integrated movements of the duel are an enlightening uplift of the solo routine learnt in class. Feeling and responding to the direction and strength of a partner's intention brings greater alertness, concentration and mindfulness to our practice. The Yang 9 Duel brought us a new beauty and flow as we practiced.

As always, Professor Lily’s training included correct foundation and technique - the martial applications of each movement were fully demonstrated, and errors corrected in the workshop. Special thanks to Candice and Helen for demonstrations and assistance.

Professor Lily was very impressed with our dedication and enthusiasm for more Push Hands and Duel routine training. So we are busy planning another push hands workshop for early 2025. Please follow our social media and website to keep up to date with the details as they are released.