Huajin, Absorbing, Power Partner Practice
Partners stand facing each other in turned mabu, with wrists or forearms connected. Push towards the face, or chuanzhang towards the eyes. Extend and release the shoulder. Defend by turning away and sitting back. Use the body to control, not the arms, turn the whole body to get the deflection. Set down into the stance, and push from the legs, but keep the power in the front leg. Keep the body vertical. Keep the non-connected hand at your elbow, ready for chuanzhang or defense.
This can also be done with the leading feet place on the outside of each other. This trains the more specific bagua way of doing things more sideways than straight on.
The legs should get tired before the shoulders or arms. You should be pushing from the legs.
The practice may look similar to Taijiquan’s push hands in a photo, but you can see that it uses considerably more force when seen live. If the weaker person can manage more than five repetitions then you are not using enough force.
(Takeuchi is helping Andrea here, probably 2007)
Anzhang, Absorbing Partner Practice
Partners sit in turned mabu or mabu with the same side forward, palm to palm. They take turns doing yazhang on each other, putting enough force to make the partner need to find the right lines of power and direction.
Do not put too much power into your yazhang. If you lock out (which is entirely possible and great fun), your partner cannot lift your arm. Put enough power to make him/her work very hard. Remember that you partner can also lock you down if you go too hard.
Don’t fight too hard, use enough power to help your partner find the right line for this specific technique. If you really couldn’t lift someone, you would change your technique – do a shoulder strike, for example. When you lift your partner’s arm, keep as close to a vertical circle as you can. You cannot possibly lift something up far away from your body. Use your legs, but do not fool around in them ‘searching for power’.
(Takeuchi is helping Andrea here)