Gone Away? Gone the right way

Today's push hands practice was terrible! At first I still had it but I seem to have lost it half way through the session.
At the first part of the session, I could still feel opportunities within the push hand practise and was still sticking quite well to the opponent's hand but half way through the practise, I kept getting locked down by my seniors! After reviewing my practise, I have these conclusions:

1. Was I daydreaming, not responding to the incoming force?
2. Was I using the wrong techniques?
3. Or was it simply because I have been sick this whole week??

One of my seniors even said that i kept using my elbow in practice! However if he has pushed my right hand across my chest to my left side, doesn't my elbow naturally come up in front of him??? It's in the physiology of man!

He was also saying how unethical it is and how this could injure people in push hands practice. But I remember reading that the Dong family used to train with people flying all about the house!

Nevertheless, I still learnt something today. Today i was pushing hands with Poet Saint/Cissyn of http://taijistudent.blogspot.com/ fame. His push hands was slow;my teacher always tells us to push slowly, first time someone in class did it!

He taught me how to feel when someone is using the elbow in single hands push hands and how to keep it in check in the single hands push hands. Which is by pushing out with your palm on the forearm of the opponent. Doing so, his elbow is immediately checked in position.