Channeling / redirecting

We practice push hands to improve on sensing the direction of forces, to learn how to absorb forces and to redirect it into something to our advantage. Whether you start to realize it yet or not, there are lots of parallels between physical and mental forces / energies and therefore the principles of channeling and redirecting can apply. Some examples:

• emotion is a mental force that can completely takeover any sense of logic or training and therefore can be negative. If we apply what we learn via ‘push hands’, we should not try to ‘brute force’ to suppress / control emotions but need learn to recognize and redirect the energy into something useful.
• Champions of many sports say if they don’t feel some nervous energy, they are probably not at their best. Some newbies get overwhelmed by that nervous energy yet champions learn to harness it to their advantage.
• Politicians are slippery and seldom take responsibility. While this attribute doesn’t usually win any respect, nonetheless, it is an example of how the principle of redirection can work.

Exercise:

• Give me more examples of how the channeling / redirecting principles is effective beyond physical fights.
• Do you see the advantage of finding parallels between physical to mental? What is it?