It is also played as an international sport akin to judo, sumo and wrestling, such as in Taiwan, where the biannual Tai Chi World Cup is held.

[1] Pushing hands is said to be the gateway for students to experientially understand the aspects of the internal martial arts: leverage, reflex, sensitivity, timing, coordination and positioning.

In that sense pushing hands is a contract between students to train in the defensive and offensive movement principles of their martial art: learning to generate, coordinate and deliver power to another and also how to effectively neutralize incoming forces in a safe environment.

The three primary principles of movement cultivated by push hands practice are:[2] The Eight Gates (Chinese: 八門; pinyin: bā mén): The Five Steps (Chinese: 五步; pinyin: wǔ bù): The Eight Gates are said to be associated with the eight trigrams (bagua) of the I Ching, the Five Steps with the five "phases" (Wuxing) of Taoist philosophy; metal, water, wood, fire, and earth.

Traditional internal teachers say that just training solo forms isn't enough to learn a martial art; that without the pushing hands, reflex and sensitivity to another's movements and intent are lost.

At a certain point, pushing hands begins to take on aspects of qigong (chi kung), as the students learn to coordinate their movements in attack and defense with their breathing.