Worldstar Push Hands Tournament - Applied Tai Chi

Scenes from the Tai Chi Push Hands division of the 2022 Worldstar Chinese Martial Arts Competition. The event was held April 2022 in Houston, TX.
Following standard "fixed step" rules: a point is awarded when the opponent lifts their foot or falls over. Striking is not allowed. Contact to the head, neck or legs, is not allowed.
Which was your favorite score? Add a timecode in your comment.
00:00 Intro
00:17 Part 1
04:28 Part 2
06:36 Part 3

[@blockmasterscott]

2:58 These two were my favorite pair, was a joy to watch them go at it, good use of body centering.

[@housellama]

Those hands always moving and seeking, it was beautiful.

[@Tanulis]

Awesome!

[@ianoji]

That one guy in green who seemed to pull over a few opponents as he fell ... then no point was scored -- was that a legal "defensive" move to avoid losing a point?

[@ShorelineTaiChi]

Using two hands to pull one is disallowed by the written rules. But the head judge announced, immediately before competition started, that we would not be following the written rules! So... unclear.

[@ianoji]

@@ShorelineTaiChi thank you! may i suggest also finding a camera angle that shows the score as it goes? sometimes it's hard in these videos to understand what really scored :) cheers!

[@fallingleaveskungfu]

@@ianoji I think the fact is tough to tell who scored says pretty much everything. 😜

[@ShorelineTaiChi]

I will include the final scores in my next upload.

[@tc47101]

Rất hay 😄😊😄👍

[@ShredST]

1:28 Did she just pull with two hands?

[@ShorelineTaiChi]

Yes.

[@KingoftheJiangl]

1:53 that was yang Chengdu as hell

[@CraigHocker]

giving a point to physical shoving at 0:37 yep, this isn't taichi push hands. silly

[@ShorelineTaiChi]

Hope you will enter the next competition.

[@blockmasterscott]

But isn't that exact same move with the two hands in most Yang forms? Looks totally legit to me.

[@BobJohnson992]

The reason push hands is not taught to village youths in Chen Village, not until their teacher is satisfied that they have jin and dantian in their movements, is that push hands done with normal movement is not really Taijiquan push hands. Almost everything you see in western "tournament push hands" is not really jin-based push hands but is really just strategic close-wrestling and pushing/shoving. In my experiences in tournament push hands it was non-Taijiquan and the rules were made up by people who themselves did not really understand Taijiquan. The people involved in tournament push hands should be the ones turning to more serious investigation; it is not the responsibility of outsiders to convince them.