The First Pushing Hands Victory
By
Sifu Alan Hubbard
中 文 按 此
In the summer of 1978, Grandmaster Doc-Fai Wong was taking his
senior-advanced instructor’s tai chi lesson in Hong Kong with his
teacher, Great-Grandmaster Hu Yuen Chou. On one Saturday afternoon at
the Dung Wah Hospital, Chinese herbal clinic of the Sheung Wan district
in Hong Kong, the clinic was closed in the afternoon after lunchtime.
Grandmaster’s teacher was having his class for the co-workers. One
visitor Mr. Yam was there, but Grandmaster Wong didn’t know who he was.
After the introduction from his teacher Dr. Hu Yuen Chou, resident of
the clinic, Grandmaster Wong learned that Mr. Yam was a student of his
teacher’s Wudong sword’s classmate. Mr. Yam studied Wudang sword from
Lee Ying Ngong. Master Lee Ying Ngong immigrated to Venezuela; therefore
Mr. Yam had no more teachers to work with him.
Mr. Yam had over 25 years of kung fu and Tai Chi training. He practiced
Wu style of tai chi and was an expert in pushing hands. In the past, the
students of Dr. Hu called him “Pushing Hand King”. He had been observing
Grandmaster Wong and his teacher practicing pushing hands for over an
hour. He respected Grandmaster’s teacher as an expert in Wudang sword,
but he didn’t know his teacher Dr. Hu was also a tai chi master and
expert in pushing hand. He wanted to try Grandmaster Wong’s teacher out.
Dr. Hu faced Grandmaster and asked, “Doc-Fai, you have been practicing
pushing hands training from me for one year already, I would like to see
what level are you up too, how about a match with Mr. Yam?” Doc-Fai Wong
eagerly said “sure!” Mr. Yam was in middle aged, and Grandmaster was
almost 30. Yam was taller and weighed more than Grandmaster Wong and had
more years of training in pushing hands. As matter of fact, he was a
“pushing hand king”. Grandmaster felt that he had nothing to lose in
pushing with him but he might gain some valuable experience with him.
Therefore he was happy to workout with him. Grandmaster Wong’s only
partners that he could practice on were his students in America. Of
course his American students were also tall and big and Grandmaster
practiced his teacher’s instruction for a year already with his
students. At that point none of Grandmaster Wong’s students had ever
beaten him!
After a couple of minutes of warming up using the double pushing hands
pattern with him, Yam was trying to push Grandmaster Wong over, he tried
for more than couple of minutes and still couldn’t get him off balance.
Grandmaster was not thinking of pushing him at all. After all, he had a
title called “pushing hand king”. Grandmaster didn’t want to embarrass
him. Dr. Hu said, “Doc-Fai, your rooting is very good, how about you try
to get brother Yam off balance?” All of a sudden Grandmaster became
excited; he just got permission from his teacher to push this guy over.
Grandmaster began to do some offensive moves. Mr. Yam was getting
rougher; all the students and co-workers of Grandmaster’s teacher were
cheering for Doc-Fai Wong. “Get him. Push him over!” “Don’t be nice to
him”. Grandmaster Wong quickly realized that it was okay for him to push
the “pushing hand king” over without getting in trouble from his
teacher. Grandmaster Wong finally felt Mr. Yam in a moment that Yam was
trying too hard to push him over and Yam’s arms were stiff. Using Tai
Chi principles Grandmaster Wong neutralized Yam’s force by getting his
arms pressed downward slightly and continued forward to push him up and
then straight out. Immediately Yam flew back more than three meters and
fell to the floor. All of Grandmaster Wong’s classmates and his
teacher’s co-workers were applauding for Him. Mr. Yam stood up and shook
hands and said to him, “very good pushing, your internal jing is well
developed; nice young man, I am getting old now.”
Doc-Fai Wong’s teacher Great-Grandmaster Hu Yuen Chou spoke to all the
students and said,” you guys have to practice harder like your Dai
Si-Hing Doc-Fai. I didn’t waste my time to teach him.” All the students
applauded for him again with excitement.