Grandmaster Wong and Luis of Shaolin Wahnam Portugal demonstrating striking attacks and defences using Taijiquan techniques

"Pushing Hands" or "Tui Shou" is a very important aspect of Taijiquan, as it develops basic combat skills. But many Taiji practitioners today neglect this training because they do not realize its significance. They often employ wrestling instead of Taijiquan skills and techniques in Tui Shou competitions. Also, the fact that weight divisions are often used in such competitions reveal that many Taiji practitioners, including some masters, do not apprecitate that weight and size are unimportant in genuine Taijiquan.

Another important fact many Taiji practitioners do not realize is that Tui Shou by itself is insufficient to enable them to be combat efficient. They also need to practice "Da Shou" or "Striking Hands", which unfortunately is not normally practiced in most Taiji schools today.

"Striking Hands" is not confined only to strikes but also include the other categories of attacks, namely kicks, felling attacks and chin-na. Chinese is a concise language. The "da" in "Da Shou" refers not just to "da", which means "striking", but to the four categories of "da ti die na", which means "striking, kicking, felling and chin-na".

Nevertheless, kicking, felling and chin-na are shown in subsequent series. This series shows striking attacks, which form the first of our four abridged Taijiquan combat sequences.