KINEMATICS OF PUSH-HAND STRUGGLE IN TAI CHI CHUAN

Abstract

The push hand in Tai Chi Chuan is a practice of tactile sense to make the opponents lost their own balance. The interaction of Tai Chi masters and their opponents during performing push hands is still unknown. The purpose of this study was to investigate the kinematics of both participants during fixed-steps push-hand struggle in Tai Chi Chuan. Six male subjects, divided into three couples, were involved in this study. Three dimensional kinematic data during push hand were collected by VICON motion analysis system and were analyzed by Visual3D software. The results showed that the winner made the opponent lost his balance to move step in the attacked mode and the defensive mode. In summary, the winner in the push hand competition had less movement of center of mass in vertical direction and rotated the waist to prevent the balance lost.