I think push hands is completely flawed as a competitive sport, which is why it ends up as a shoving match, but somebody (Jet Li?) is trying to change the rules to make it work better as an Olympic sport…. So here it is! It’s essentially more like wrestling, which is probably a good thing as it means you can move your foot.
And it’s got takedowns, but I think the question is then always … why not just compete at Shuai Jiao?
The Tai Chi Notebook 
My first competent martial taiji teacher [thank you Allan] taught only free-style push-hands and a variety of applications; my second competent taiji teacher [thank you Erle and R.I.P.] taught structured single and double push-hands as well as Da-Lu. Both were useful training tools over the years that I practised and taught them. With the luxury of hindsight now that I am old and don’t teach… I would have to say that structured anything is good for teaching “style” more than it is for teaching functional fighting competence.
As to the sample shown of the new approach… might be fun if you were young and competitive but just as likely to develop little that might be useful if you think it is preparing you for a brawl with someone who wants to get you for real.
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