Wu Style Push Hands for Beginners: Eight Methods and Five Steps

“The form is the body; push hands is the use.” Every school of tai chi repeats this sentence, but it was Wu Chien Chuan who gave it a particular character. When he reworked the family art for public teaching — the story is told in our guide to the 108-form — he gave equal attention to its partner discipline. His push hands became famous for an upright, quiet body, fine and continuous softness, stillness without rash movement, tight methodical technique, and abundant applications. That legacy is what a beginner meets in Wu Style push hands today.

Key Facts

Thirteen postures = eight methods + five steps; the tradition also calls them Eight Gates, Five Steps (Ba Men Wu Bu)
Methods are jin, not hand shapes: in the Wu family reading, the eight methods run outward as form and inward as force quality — eight kinds of energy, eight positions
Four cardinal hands (Peng, Lu, Ji, An) are the foundation of all push hands; the four corner hands (Cai, Lie, Zhou, Kao) are their advanced extension
Central equilibrium is the mother: all stepping issues from Zhong Ding, and all technique returns to it
Wu Style’s signature is hua — neutralizing. Yield and transform first; issue only when the moment is exact
A four-stage beginner path: fixed single hands → fixed four-cardinal hands → moving step → corners, Great Rollback, free hands

1. What the Eight Methods and Five Steps Actually Are

Open any treatise and you meet the number thirteen: thirteen postures, eight gates and five steps. They are not thirteen techniques to collect but one complete grammar of tai chi combat:

Eight methods (Ba Fa) — Peng, Lu, Ji, An, Cai, Lie, Zhou, Kao. They correspond to the eight trigram positions of the bagua: four cardinal hands on the four cardinal directions, four corner hands on the four diagonals
Five steps (Wu Bu) — Advance, Retreat, Left Gaze, Right Gaze, Central Equilibrium. They correspond to the five phases: fire, water, wood, metal, earth

The Wu family reading adds one emphasis: jin matters more than shape. A posture named Peng is worthless without the buoyant quality of Peng jin; the eight methods are eight qualities of force that can appear in any limb. Learning push hands means learning to produce these qualities on contact — not to imitate arm positions.

A note to avoid confusion: in 2018 China’s General Administration of Sport promoted a standardized “Taiji Eight Methods Five Steps” routine. It shares the vocabulary but is a simplified entry set for mass practice — same root, different stream. The traditional eight methods and five steps taught in Wu Style push hands are a system of jin training for paired work, not a solo routine.

The Wu push hands curriculum itself is rich and layered:

Level	Practice	What it trains
Fixed step — single hands	5 patterns	sticking, adhering, connecting, following
Fixed step — double hands	13 patterns	the four cardinal energies in rotation
Moving step	four cardinal, four corner, advance-retreat, diagonal, continuous, nine-palace stepping	stepping while keeping contact
Great Rollback (Da Lü)	four-corner pulling set	the corner energies at range
Random Plucking Flowers (Luan Cai Hua)	free-form	the summit: unrehearsed listening

2. The Four Cardinal Hands: Peng, Lu, Ji, An

These four are the foundation of all push hands. Every fixed-step cycle runs through them in order.

Peng (Ward-off) — the buoyant base

Direction: forward and upward
Classic image: “like water bearing a boat” — the force that floats weight rather than blocking it
Wu Style points: Peng is the mother of the eight methods — every other technique contains it. The classics say: first fill the dantian, next suspend the crown, and the whole body becomes a spring. Wu Style seeks “extreme softness that turns into extreme hardness”: Peng is the elastic support inside softness, an inflated ball that answers every touch — never bracing, never collapsing
Martial meaning: receive the incoming force, open it upward and outward, and store the potential to issue
Health value: opens the chest and shoulders, wakes the large-intestine channel

Lu (Roll-back) — the yielding art

Direction: backward and upward, drawing to either rear side
Classic image: “guide him to come forward; follow his incoming force”
Wu Style points: Wu Style is celebrated for its neutralizing, and Lu is where it lives. “Light and nimble, neither dropping nor opposing” — lead the partner’s force lightly, staying connected without resisting. The key is rotation in the waist and hips, never a pull with the hands. The extended study of Lu is the Great Rollback (Da Lü), the basis of four-corner push hands
Martial meaning: follow the incoming line until it runs out of target — the partner arrives at emptiness
Health value: rotates the spine, eases the liver and gallbladder channels

Ji (Press) — the closing wedge

Direction: forward and downward, pressing with two hands joined
Classic image: “like a ball striking a wall and returning; like a coin thrown on a drum”
Wu Style points: Ji works directly (a plain forward press) or indirectly (off the rebound of the partner’s force). It lives on the back of the wrist, issued from the spine. Wu Style stresses joining: two hands as one, whole body as one, “meeting and fitting within a single movement” — the timing must be exact
Martial meaning: break across the partner’s line — when their Lu has begun but not finished, press into the gap
Health value: trains the opening and closing of chest and back, steadies heart and lungs

An (Push) — the sinking wave

Direction: downward and sinking, then out to the sides or rear
Classic image: “move like flowing water — soft outside, strong within”
Wu Style points: An is a waist skill. Force leaves the waist, travels the spine, arrives at the heel of the palm. It is not dead pushing: like water meeting the shore, it swells over what is high and sinks beneath what is low. In Wu Style push hands An often joins the seizing methods (Na Fa), controlling wrist or elbow
Martial meaning: sink the partner’s incoming jin downward, empty it, then issue along the seam
Health value: settles qi to the dantian, supports spleen and stomach

3. The Four Corner Hands: Cai, Lie, Zhou, Kao

Once the cardinal hands are stable, the corners open the second door. Each corresponds to a diagonal trigram position.

Cai (Pluck) — the scale-beam pull

Direction: press down and lift up in one motion
Classic image: “like the weight of a steelyard” — a small counterweight moving a large body
Wu Style points: also called the lift-and-pull energy. Like snapping a flower branch: first press, then lift. Cai heads the corner hands and belongs to the trigram Qian, the northwest. It is the plainest demonstration of “four ounces moving a thousand pounds”
Martial meaning: pluck the partner’s wrist or elbow so their centre is lifted and lost
Health value: livens fingers and wrists, threads the hand channels

Lie (Split) — the flywheel turn

Direction: sideways, rotating apart
Classic image: “turn like a flywheel; what is thrown upon it is flung far away”
Wu Style points: Lie is the tai chi expression of spiral force — waist as the driver, shoulders and hips joined so the whole body turns as one wheel. If the partner grips both your arms, one rotation of the waist splits and throws them. It belongs to the trigram Kun, the southwest. The contrast between this spiralling jin and the Wu family’s softening is drawn in our Chen–Wu comparison
Martial meaning: answer frontal pushes with horizontal rotation; the partner’s own force twists them off balance
Health value: turns waist and spine, regulates the belt channel

Zhou (Elbow) — the hidden short bridge

Direction: folded-elbow strike forward or sinking down
Classic image: “its methods follow the five phases; yin and yang divide above and below”
Wu Style points: “far, the fist; near, the elbow; touching, the shoulder.” The Wu elbow repertoire includes the piercing-heart elbow, under-arm elbow, behind-the-head elbow, sinking elbow and rolling elbow. It belongs to the trigram Gen, the northeast. In push hands the elbow is usually concealed inside An and Ji — felt only when too late
Martial meaning: at close range, the elbow tip reaches ribs, chest or jaw where longer weapons fail
Health value: strengthens the elbow joint, opens the lung channel

Kao (Shoulder) — the whole-body battering ram

Direction: shoulder, back or hip striking as one unit
Classic image: “once the moment is seized, it falls like a pounding pestle”
Wu Style points: Kao divides into shoulder, back, hip and hip-seat strikes; it belongs to the trigram Xun, the southeast. Wu Style’s Slant Flying posture shoulders its way in — “inside the shoulder there is still the back.” The warning is built into the method: watch the centre of gravity; once you lose it, the strike is empty. This is where the Wu body method of slant-inclined uprightness shows most clearly
Martial meaning: at extreme close range, the whole integrated body issues as one piece
Health value: vibrates shoulders and back, wakes the governing and bladder channels

4. The Five Steps: Advance, Retreat, Left, Right, Centre

Step	Phase	Direction	Core image
Advance (Jin Bu)	fire	forward	“step like a cat walking”
Retreat (Tui Bu)	water	backward	leading into emptiness
Left Gaze (Zuo Gu)	wood	left	waist turning, sides covered
Right Gaze (You Pan)	metal	right	seven places watched in one glance
Central Equilibrium (Zhong Ding)	earth	none — the axis	the mother of the thirteen

Advance — cat-stepping forward

The heel lands first and rolls to the whole foot; a shoulder’s width is kept between the feet, never a tightrope line. The full leg sends the empty one, joint by joint. The old rule of moving-step push hands — three steps forward, three back, changing at the third — keeps both players honest. Advance seizes the centre line and sets up issuing.

Retreat — the art of giving ground

In Wu Style the toes land first on the retreat. Wu Chien Chuan’s line was long on softening and long on moving backward, and its retreat is a craft of its own: not flight, but the active strategy of “leading the opponent in until he falls on emptiness.” The arms keep turning as the body gives ground — defence that is already counterattack.

Left and Right Gaze — the side doors

“Gaze” means more than the eyes: it covers body and footwork. Left Gaze turns the waist and covers the three fronts — what is before the eyes, the hands, the feet. Right Gaze watches the seven places — shoulder, elbow, knee, hip, head, hand, foot — in one turn. The parallel Chuan Zi Bu footwork keeps these side shifts level and stable.

Central Equilibrium — the mother of them all

Everything in tai chi stands or falls here. The ballad of the thirteen postures names it: “tailbone upright, spirit reaching the crown; the whole body light and nimble, head suspended.” The old push hands manual warns: “retreating from the circle is easy, entering is hard; keep to the waist and legs, before and behind. The difficulty is that the central earth never leaves its place — study closely: retreat is easy, advance is hard.”

Wu Style expresses Zhong Ding in its own body method — outwardly inclined, inwardly upright, with Baihui, Huiyin and the rear heel on one line. Wang Peisheng, the northern school’s great theorist, put the goal plainly: “Xingyi masters straight jin; bagua masters changing jin; tai chi masters empty jin.” Emptiness is only possible from a centre that cannot be moved. The whole game of push hands, in the end, is this: keep your centre, disturb theirs.

5. What Makes Wu Style Push Hands Different

Yielding first — hua over fa

Wu Chien Chuan was called “skilled at neutralizing, not at issuing.” The novelist and practitioner Xiang Kuiran, who knew both men, wrote: “Yang Cheng Fu was good at issuing and not at neutralizing; Wu Chien Chuan was good at neutralizing and not at issuing… issuing and neutralizing seem two things but are one: one who cannot issue cannot neutralize, and one who cannot neutralize cannot issue.” The truth is that Wu chose restraint: issuing strangers across a courtyard wins enemies, not students. Wu Style push hands keeps the hint of force alive — “lead in but do not yet release” — and lets the partner feel softness rather than shock.

Fine, supple, methodical

The Wu Chien Chuan refinements — upright and quiet, fine and continuous, tight and complete — produced a push hands with unusual variety. Beyond the fixed and moving cycles already listed, the tradition preserves paired sets with names like rolling elbows, the unyielding ox tendon, riding the wave. Compact outside, expansive inside: the frame is small, but its foundations are the full reach of the large frame.

The body method underneath

Three Wu signatures carry the whole practice: the loosening method (song) that makes listening possible; the parallel Chuan Zi Bu stance that keeps transitions level; and slant-inclined uprightness that lets a lean forward stay rooted. All three are explained with mechanics and drills in Song, Chuan Zi Bu, and Xie Zhong Yu Zheng: Wu Style Basics.

The five-character formula

Stillness, Lightness, Slowness, Precision, Perseverance — the training creed of the northern master Yang Yu Ting — applies to push hands as much as to the form. Stillness gives listening its silence; lightness keeps contact honest; slowness reveals what speed hides; precision makes the eight methods real; perseverance is what turns all of it into skill.

6. A Beginner’s Path in Four Stages

Stage 1 — Fixed-step single hands. One arm, one circle. Nothing to memorize, everything to feel. The only study is the four-character root: stick, adhere, connect, follow (Zhan Nian Lian Sui), held together by the rule of neither dropping nor opposing (Bu Liu Bu Ding). Li Yiyu’s five-character formula says it best: “Keep the mind on the very spot where contact happens; seek the message within neither dropping nor opposing — this is entirely using the mind, not using force.”

Stage 2 — Fixed-step four-cardinal hands. The classic Peng–Lu–Ji–An cycle with both hands and both sides. This is where the four cardinal energies stop being diagrams and become feelings: where Peng is tested by the partner’s An, Lu by their Ji. Train until the cycle turns without thinking.

Stage 3 — Moving-step push hands. Add the five steps: advance and retreat in threes, the four directions, the centre held. Stepping while keeping contact is the first real exam — most students discover their song was only standing song.

Stage 4 — Corners, Great Rollback, free hands. Cai, Lie, Zhou, Kao enter through the four-corner sets and Da Lü; free hands (Luan Cai Hua) removes the script entirely. The old saying maps the full sequence: hua, na, fa — neutralize, seize, issue — and then, as the Wu family maxim runs, na, fa, hua; fa, hua, na — each dissolving into the next until there is no order at all.

7. Conclusion: Push Hands Is Not a Fight

The treatise says: “to adhere is to yield, to yield is to adhere; if he moves quickly, answer quickly; if he moves slowly, follow slowly.” Read as combat advice this is clever; read as a study of temperament it is deeper. Push hands is a conversation conducted through touch, in which the student learns to yield without collapsing, to receive without hardening — “extreme softness that turns into extreme hardness.” The highest principle, yield yourself and follow the other (She Ji Cong Ren), is less a tactic than a philosophy of dealing with people.

If the 108-form is how Wu Style writes its sentences, push hands is how it listens. Train both, and the art begins to speak.