• “Push Hands” or “pushing hands”.

He [Chen Fa-ke] said, “Pushing hands is the foundation for sparring. It can only be taught if the students already know, from practicing the forms, what peng, lu, ji, an, cai, lie, zhou and kao are. The functions of those eight basic techniques cannot be taught if the students don’t know them from the forms. When students try to push hands with one another too early, they don’t know how to neutralize the oncoming force [for example], so they use strength in their attempts of counter-attack. Human tendency of fearing to lose causes this. When the opponent feels a resisting force, he will exert more force to counterattack it and, in the end, the one who is stronger wins the round. This is contrary to the Taiji principle of “not losing and not fighting back”. This is dangerous because it reinforces what is wrong and students will never even begin to understand what Taijiquan is.“ (Post by twocircles13 on Fri Jun 02, 2023 5:10 pm)

From twocircles13, from Hong's 1986 memoir:

In Beijing at the time, most taiji teachers would teach pushing hands as soon as the students finish learning the first set. Supposedly, they claim, that pushing hands will help students hear and understand the strength. But my master [Chen Fa-ke] insisted that students had to practice the first set for six months upon completion before the second set was taught. It is only upon finishing the second set that he would teach pushing hands.

He [Chen Fa-ke] said, “Pushing hands is the foundation for sparring. It can only be taught if the students already know, from practicing the forms, what peng, lu, ji, an, cai, lie, zhou and kao are. The functions of those eight basic techniques cannot be taught if the students don’t know them from the forms. When students try to push hands with one another too early, they don’t know how to neutralize the oncoming force, so they use strength in their attempts of counter-attack. Human tendency of fearing to lose causes this. When the opponent feels a resisting force, he will exert more force to counterattack it and, in the end, the one who is stronger wins the round. This is contrary to the Taiji principle of “not losing and not fighting back. This is dangerous because it reinforces what is wrong and students will never even begin to understand what Taijiquan is.” [Hong added] At present, most Taijiquan pushing hands are done according to who has more strength. There is no Taijiquan in this kind of Taijiquan pushing hands!”