It is much harder to submerge a floating Ping Pong ball with the tip of one finger than it is to push a person. However, some parallels do exist.
Its buoyancy is due to the fact that it contains air, (Chi). The sphere contains more, relative to its surface, than any other shape.
Its ability to move quickly is due to its lightness (relaxation), and its ability to seek the surface so directly is due to its roundness (alignment).
The pushing finger must go in a straight line towards the ball's center, as with the Tai Chi push, and the ball rotates towards the direction of least resistance like a good neutralization.
The
Cup Returns
If you have ever tried to blow the dust out of a cup, you will recall that you were unpleasantly surprised to find that the dust blew right back in your face.
The cup borrowed your energy and returned it to you.
If you blew into the right side of the cup, the air went to the bottom, picked up the dust and returned from the left side. If you blew into the top, it returned from the lower side, etc. If you were advanced enough to blow into the very center of the cup, the cup would become as advanced and return t you from all sides at once.
—“The flywheel turns, but the mind does not turn” In defense, the waist turns to neutralize the push of the opponent, but the mind stays still and continues to address the opponent, center to center.
The feeling you get when you push someone, and they neutralize it with a simultaneous return, would be as if you threw a medicine ball, and the instant it left your fingers, it hit you in the back.
“Differentiate between the substantial and the insubstantial”. Feel the root, the support, in the full leg along with the opposite hand,...and feel the emptiness, the relaxation in the empty leg along with the opposite hand.
