Trying to use skill in push hands and getting your ass kicked

Once a year in August and we have an entire month dedicated to Tai-Chi push hands in Black belt class. Where you get to try and gain internal skill by facing off against other students. It is essentially trying to put the tai-chi form and other internal arts into practice. We also do this once a week during tai-chi class but

It would seem that when you are moving really slowly and have your eyes closed it shouldn't be that hard to do but whenever I try to do it correctly, I seem to get mauled by other students.

First there is the problem of trying to keep the tai-chi principles when doing push hands: Keeping the posture straight and relaxed, no double weighting, using softness and yielding instead of brute strength. The other problem is trying to use fajing or internal power. Which seems to be the most challenging. The idea is to not use brute strength and push your opponent but to use your internal energy to strike. It is like trying to hit someone while not using your muscles, it seems impossible.

So the variety of students run the gamut, there are tall, short, male and female. It helps because you are not just doing push hands with similar opponents so you have to adjust to each individual. Being fairly tall, I have a hard time with students who are a lot shorter than me. I have to bend my legs more while keeping good posture and I don't really have much of a reach advantage since for push hands you are so close that it is negligible.

I start off fairly well with students who are more skilled at it than I am. We are going at a good pace, not using brute strength , keeping our elbows in and generally having good rounds. Sometimes I get killed because I forget to yield after the first technique is thrown and then comes elbows and other strikes and I end up on the floor.

Generally I enjoy push hands with the female students because they seem to genuinely grasp the principle of softness that is essential to push hands. They don't try to muscle through a technique if they see an opening and just use brute force. The problem for me is when I engage in push hands with someone who is new to push hands or hasn't had much practice. I am trying to use softness but I am not good enough to deflect their attacks because they are using strength while I am trying to yield. Then they end up trying to go really fast, which in turn makes me go faster as I am reacting to the pace they are setting.

I always tell myself to not worry about 'losing' matches as long as I am keeping in line with the principles of push hands. The skill will improve to the point where it will not matter. In the mean time I have to tell myself to let go while I get manhandled a bit. It is a good excercise in controlling the ego because it is extremely frustrating.