Watch a couple of students practicing formal three-step or one-step fight sometime. Just sit and watch and pay particular attention to the rhythm of the exercise. I can guarantee that it'll be nice and even. It's easier to notice in three-step fight than one-step, but if you watch closely you'll notice it in one-step exercises, too.

That is, the rhythm is almost always even .

If you watch them as they practice freestyle sparring you'll likely notice that the participants adhere to a nice, even rhythm just as they do when they practice basic fighting drills. You may be guilty of this yourself. That is, you'll tend to match your rhythm to the rhythm of your opponent…almost as if you’re dancing.

It's a natural human tendency to do this, whether it's in practice or real fighting. We tend to allow ourselves to fall into a sort of "trap" by unwittingly matching our rhythm, movements, and timing to those of the opponent. This can be a serious mistake, especially if your opponent is sharp enough to notice it. This “matching of rhythms” is sometimes referred to as interval and there’s a particular feature about interval that you might want to keep in mind.

Whoever controls the interval controls the fight. And will probably win.

It really does have a close relationship to dancing. As the melody (although in modern music, if you can call it that, there isn't much of a melody) starts and the beat begins, you will dance and even walk in accordance with it. You almost can't help yourself. This isn't necessarily the case with traditional Chinese or Japanese music because, unlike Western music, they're not necessarily based on a nice, even, four-beat rhythm.

People who regularly practice forms of push-hands fall into the same trap and, in fact, this is (in my opinion) one of the greatest dangers of practicing push-hands ; almost everyone, including long-time, highly-skilled practitioners, tends to match their rhythm to that of their practice partner. To be sure, this is a necessary thing when you're first learning how to perform this exercise but once it's been thoroughly learned, measures must be taken to break out of the "trap." If this isn't done you will teach yourself to consistently match the rhythm of your opponent. You'll learn to dance.

However, you can run into problems if you partner decides to take the lead. If he suddenly changes his rhythm (what we call "break one's rhythm) you're caught off-guard and you'll be absolutely helpless, unable to protect yourself at all.

This pitfall is usually reinforced through the practice of forms. Now, you must understand that I am a hardcore advocate of forms training…if they’re done properly.

If you pay attention you’ll notice that when most people practice their forms, they use a nice three or four-beat rhythm. You may very well find that you do the very same thing. After all, when you first learned a given form you probably followed the cadence which was set by your teacher as he counted through the movements of the form. One!...."Two!...."Three..." And so on. Right? Sure, we all did it. And he was absolutely right to do that because that's how you learn and memorize the movements of the form.

But once a form has been committed to memory and you can execute the various movements and techniques correctly, you need to study the "rhythm" of it. Each form has its own rhythms which vary from one part of the set to another. The whole form is never , ever done in the same monotonous rhythm. The metre changes in different spots, depending on what you're doing to or with the imaginary enemy.

This pitfall; the tendency to do the whole form in the same even rhythm is especially prominent in the neijia (internal kung-fu systems) of Tai Chi Chuan, Baguazhang, and Xingyichuan. Watch a Tai Chi form and you'll notice, usually 100% of the time, that the rhythm doesn't change. It tends to remain the same throughout the form. While this is nice for those whose sole interest is in Tai Chi for health, it's a death-trap for those who want to learn the martial art of Tai Chi. If you belong to the latter group, try doing the form (ALL of it) at combat speed. You'll be surprised at what you learn.

So our form practice usually reinforces what we do in push-hands, three-step, one-step, and freestyle sparring, and vice-versa. You need to break out of this self-made mold and learn to break/change the rhythm of your movement(s). Do NOT match your rhythm to that of the opponent. At first, you'll have to watch yourself closely because you'll tend to slide back into your old habit but with regular practice you'll begin to take more and more control of yourself and move according to what you want to do...not in accordance with the "dance."

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