One of the greatest lessons I have harvested from Taijiquan is learning to listen. 

Listening from a Taijiquan perspective has little to do with the ears or sound waves. Instead it is a participatory skill that is elicited when in relationship with another. This skill is known and developed as Ting Jin.

Ting Jin is an awareness. It is both intuitive and responsive. To paraphrase the classics “the player will respond to the landing of a fly” and “I know my opponent, but he can never know me.” This means that ones awareness and responsiveness can be trained to such an acute level that whenever someone tries to “attack,” they never meet with resistance and can never “find” you.

This skill is so foreign to the western way of life, where everyone tries to engage and “win,” that it is very difficult to articulate the nuances of Ting Jin properly and thus the training of push hands shows it’s true value when deciphered and transmitted correctly by the teacher to the student.

I always try to relate the lessons to the student’s daily life in hopes that, what is learned in training will be practiced in life.

Such as, when a student learns how to “listen” on a particular push hands attack, I’ll relate that to a story about how maybe their spouse or boss likes to verbally “yip” at them. I’ll show the student that by skilfully using Ting Jin they’ll intuitively know that the “attack” is coming and s/he can instantaneously join and neutralize the situation, resulting in a calm silence rather than a confrontation.

Skilfully using Ting Jin is like intercepting the pebble before it hits the pond and corresponds to the saying “a true Master never has to fight” and that, my friends, is what Taijiquan is all about.

Peace

Rod