| chapter 1 - Relaxation chapter 2 - Purpose of practising taijiquan chapter 3 - Use of force of gravity chapter 4 - How to prepare yourself to practice taijiquan chapter 5 - More details to prepare yourself to practice taijiquan chapter 6 - More to prepare yourself to practice taijiquan chapter 7 - How to move your arms and body chapter 8 - The principles of Yin and Yang chapter 9 - How to move your arms upwards when chapter 10 - How to ‘sink’ without moving downwards chapter 11 - How to link up different parts of the body and limbs chapter 12 - Joining the different parts of the body and limbs into one entity chapter 13 - Borrowing the force of gravity to fight in the taijiquan way chapter 14 - How to rotate your arms chapter 15 - Let the water in the body flow chapter 16 - How to obtain the force of gravity and to maximise its effect chapter 17 - Other essential details to watch when practising taijiquan chapter 18 - Power derived from ‘ba men jin’ chapter 19 - Principles behind the ‘ba men jin’ chapter 20 - Power derived from ‘wu bu' chapter 21 - Why is taijiquan so called ? chapter 22 - ‘Yi’ and ‘Qi’ chapter 23 - More about YIN YANG THE END |
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CHAPTER 1 - RELAXATION
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I have heard many people say that playing taijiquan (taiji means universe and quan
means fist or martial art form), which is a form of martial arts developed by the
Chinese, is an excellent way to relax.
Nothing can be further from the truth, especially if you believe that to relax is just to
lie down and let go of the body and the brain.
If this is the kind of relaxation that you want, you may as well flop on the sofa and
watch the box. There is no need to learn taijiquan at all.
Great taijiquan masters believe that in order to relax or to loosen the body, we
should first of all use our mind to let every single cell of the body 'swell' and to
increase the distance of the cells so that all the blood vessels, internal organs and
the whole body become swollen. Note that I have not used the word 'expand' which
may lead people to think that power is required to expand their bodies and limbs.
For the purpose of playing taijiquan, no muscular power should be employed to
make any part of the body 'swell'. This requires 100% concentration because
when trying to loosen every single inch of the body, we should only use our mind to
control this process and should NOT use any muscular power to force the body to
'expand'.
If we stretch a rubber band, the rubber band will become elongated and elastic.
However, when we examine the molecules in the rubber band, we can see that they
are further apart from one another than when the rubber band is in a 'non-extended'
or loose state.
We can develop our muscles and internal organs to resemble the stretched state
of a rubber band. The only difference is that we should let all our cells 'swell' with
our mind, whereas the rubber band is stretched with muscular power.
This is a very important point to bear in mind. DO NOT use any muscular power to
expand your body and limbs. You should imagine that you are filling up every part
of our body with water or air gently. You should imagine that there is a bubble at
every joint and the bubbles are getting bigger and bigger. This is all controlled by
your mind and no external force should be used.
If every part of your body swells so that all the cells are like the molecules in a
stretched rubber band, your blood will circulate faster and all the muscles which
have been tightened through constant use will be able to rest and recover from
fatigue. After a while, you will feel that your skin becomes stretched and springy,
giving you a more youthful look.
This is a basic but very important step to practise taijiquan.
While you are concentrating on this exercise, you can forget about your work in
the office, board meetings or your household chores. This is genuine relaxation.
The cardinal principle of practising taijiquan is to use your mind to control your
movements and under no circumstances may muscular power be used.
CHAPTER 2 - Purpose of practising taijiquan
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Is relaxation the end or the means of taijiquan?
It depends on what you are looking for?
If you wish to treat taijiquan as a form of martial arts for self-defence purpose,
relaxation is the means. Without relaxing or loosening up the different parts of the
body, you cannot dispatch our opponent efficiently and effectively because any
stiff parts of the body will block the smooth flow of energy, thus reducing the
effect of the dispatch either in the form of a blow or a push.
On the other hand, if we wish to seek relaxation from taijiquan, the high level of
concentration required to play taijiquan and the resultant ‘loosening up’ of every
part of the body will give you what you want. Once again, it must be emphasized
that relaxation is not equivalent to letting the body collapse flatly without any life
and spirits. Many people relax by having work-outs and other forms of strenuous
physical exercises; to them, relaxation is not equivalent to doing nothing and gazing
at the ceiling.
Whatever your purpose of playing taijiquan, the method is the same and the result
is the same.
What result? You will be able to ease off the tension in all parts of your body, to
recover from tiredness quickly, to increase your ability to concentrate on what you
have to concentrate on, to have a peaceful state of mind, to enjoy sound sleep, to
feel happy and confident and most important of all, to enjoy good health. With
proper training and regular practice, you can also defend yourself.
CHAPTER 3 - Use of force of gravity
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Contrary to the practice of some authors of taijiquan publications, I am not
discussing the meaning and origin of the term 'taiji' at this stage. For beginners,
knowing why this school of martial arts is called taijiquan is useful but does not
necessarily facilitate the learning process. This should be left to a later stage
otherwise we will get confused easily and find the whole concept too mystified.
Now, let us get back to how to learn and practise taijiquan. I am not going to teach
you how to play a taijiquan sequence or the various forms in the different taijiquans
styles because people can easily learn this from taijiquan masters or from some
taijiquan books. This book will focus on the WAY to play taijiquan and not the forms
and sequence. I will talk about WHAT MAKES YOU AND THE DIFFERENT PARTS
OF YOUR BODY MOVE instead of the sequences and strokes.
As I have said in the first chapter, you should concentrate on the process of trying
to make your whole body ‘swell’, that is, to ‘expand’ every single muscle and every
single organ, including every hair on your skin. While you are doing this, you should
be standing upright, with your head floating up in the air like a balloon. However, do
not try to stick your head upwards with muscular power as this will render both
your head and your neck stiff.
Apart from your head which should be light and floating upwards in the air, the rest
of your body should be allowed to have direct contact with the force of gravity.
What does this mean?
Since birth, you have been acting against the force of gravity. For example, when
you raise your arms, you are acting against the force of gravity. When you walk,
you are also acting against the force of gravity. When you play taijiquan, whether
it be for the purpose of combat or relaxation, you should make use of the force of
gravity which can be translated to mean your weight. By using your body weight or
the force of gravity, you will be able to engage your opponent in combat without
having to use muscular power.
CHAPTER 4 - How to prepare yourself to practise taijiquan
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When you are preparing yourself to practise taijiquan, you should be standing with
your feet apart, the distance between the inner parts of the feet being the same as
the external width of your shoulders. As I have said in the last chapter, you should
feel that your head is gently floating in the air. As there is now tension between the
scalp and the chest, it is necessary for you to relax the chest at this point. How?
You can relax your chest by exhaling and also feel that all the muscles around your
chest is swelling. You should also make your shoulders swell; note that I have
again used the term 'swell' because 'swell' sounds more passive as you should
cause the swelling to happen without using any muscular power at all. While you
make the shoulders swell which really means that you are relaxing your shoulders,
you should feel that your arms are more or less detached from the shoulders.
Your arms and elbows have thus become heavier and you should allow this feeling
to reach the tips of your thumbs and fingers.
If you do not have this feeling on the first few days of practice, do not worry and
be patient. If you persist, the feeling as described above will come and will get
stronger by the day.
While you are relaxing your shoulders, the next step is to let your ribs drop, again
by making all the muscles around your chest and on your back swell.
While you are doing this, you should at the same time keep your head floating
gently upwards. You should also feel that the skin on this part of the body is stretched.
According to ancient taijiquan teachings, one should suck in the chest and raise
the back when practising taijiquan. My experience is that we should not do this on
purpose with our muscular power and make the chest appear to be concave and
pluck up the back. If you relax your shoulders and let the ribs drop, in other words,
if you let the force of gravity pull the shoulders and ribs downwards and do not use
any muscular power to hold them back, your chest will automatically appear to be
concave and your back will become full and round as if it protrudes upwards and
outwards. And do not forget to continue to keep your head floating upwards so
that the whole body does not collapse while you relax your shoulders and the rest
of the body.
What comes next is to relax your lower torso, the part of the body between the
chest and hip. In order to enable this part of the body to loosen up, you should
first of all feel that there is space or indeed air bubbles in the hip joints, that is,
the joints between the thigh bones (femurs) and the pelvis. You should also feel that
the muscles surrounding the joints are swelling. This feeling enables the joints and the
muscles in the lower torso to loosen up, thus allowing the torso to extend
downwards, carried by its weight. Beginners tend to withhold the lower torso back
because they cannot loosen the muscles at the small of the back. Your mind
should try to counteract this and try to concentrate on relaxing every muscle by
thinking that every muscle is swelling.
After you have practised this posture for some time, you will feel that all the
internal organs inside your body are pulled downwards by the force of gravity.
You will feel that the abdomen is round and full, and there is a warm feeling in the
dantian, the area which is about three inches below the navel inside your body.
At this stage, both thigh bones should have been wedged open by the weight of
the torso, the spine and the pelvis. You should flex slightly your legs which should
curve also slightly outwards as if they form a circle. When doing so, again, you
should never use any muscular power to achieve this. The mindset should be that
let the weight of the body mass do the work.
If there is real relaxation at this part of the body, the bottom of the spine, that is,
the coccyx, will turn upwards slightly as if it is supporting the dantian. This posture
will provide more sturdy support and balance for the entire body.
Beginners will at this point feel that their knees are under a lot of pressure
because much weight has been placed on them. What they should do is to relax
the knees and use the mind to develop the feeling that the knees are light and are
also floating upwards. They should try to transfer the weight of the body to the feet
by simply placing the feet on the ground. They should NOT under any circumstances
use the muscular power of the legs to press their feet hard against the ground. It
should be remembered all the time that the use of muscular power in any part of the
body, including the limbs, will nullify whatever relaxation that they may achieve in
other parts of the body.
CHAPTER 5 - More details to prepare yourself to practise taijiquan
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The kind of relaxation or loosening up described by me cannot be achieved within a
short period of time. Furthermore, as there are so many things to remember and to
watch out for, we tend to overlook certain things when playing taijiquan.
However, even if we cannot have a high degree of relaxation, which can only be
acquired with devotion and prolonged practice, we can still reap the benefit of the
exercise. We can 'accumulate' or increase relaxation gradually.
And not to discourage you from taking up taijiquan as a hobby, may I add that what
I have said in the previous chapter is just the outline. There are even more things
concerning the mind and the body that we should observe than those I have
mentioned.
When you start playing taijiquan, you should adopt a tranquil mind but at the same
time, you should maintain high spirits and a cheerful mood which facilitate the
floating up of the head. You should also concentrate on what you are doing. Apart
from the tip of the head which appears to be floating upwards gently, we should
also feel that the upper tips of both ears are floating upwards as well. This is
necessary to enable the whole body mass to be maintained in an upright position.
This is also necessary because taijiquan is based on the concept of YIN and YANG
(and of course there is the CENTRE in YIN and YANG which many people are not
aware of) which I will explain in detail at a later stage.
We believe that everything has roots. A taijiquan player should imagine that his root
is at the head and not the feet. Many people have mixed up the words "root" and
"heel" which have the same pronunciation in Chinese, which is "gen". The Chinese
character "root" has the character "wood" as a radical and that is why this
character means the root of a plant. On the other hand, the Chinese character
"heel" has another Chinese character "foot" as a radical and it means heel. If the
taijiquan player's root is at the top, it is not easy to upset his balance and to make
him fall. On the other hand, if his root is at the feet, he may easily lose his balance
if he is pushed.
Although I have said that the root is at the head, it is important to remember that
there should NOT be any root at all. Can you tell me whether a ball can fall after
you have pushed it? It just does not fall because it has no root. When there is no
root, there is in fact root everywhere.
CHAPTER 6 - More to prepare yourself to practise taijiquan
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I appear to have been contradicting myself by saying that a taijiquan player’s root
should be at the head on the one hand and then saying that there should not be any
root at all on the other. The 'root' stage is where you should start from. After you
have played taijiquan for some time, your body and mind will become one and the
whole body mass will become so relaxed (relaxed in the taijiquan sense) that all the
cells will be linked together like the particles in a slightly stretched rubber band.
When one end of the rubber band is pulled, the force does not only affect the
particles at that end, but it will also affect the entire band. When you reach that
stage, the finger tips of your right hand will be linked to the finger tips of your left
hand through all the cells along both arms and the chest. They are also linked up
with the rest of the body, including your toes. The whole body will just be like a
balloon filled up with water. You can feel as heavy as we like or as light as we would
wish.
Let me come back to the way you should prepare ourselves before we actually
start playing taijiquan. While you are following the steps mentioned in the previous
chapters, you should be breathing naturally. You should also be watching the
internal working of the body; 30% of your sight should be following the movement
of the index finger that is further away from the body, while the remaining 70% of
your sight should be 'looking internally'. This means that you should be watching or
controlling with your mind the inside of your body and the rest of the body and the
limbs. This is important because whenever you move, you should move (by this, I
mean internal movement and not physical movement, which I will explain later) all
the different parts of the body at the same time so that all the energy (again, not
muscular power) can be summonsed to attack the enemy. I will talk about this
when I come to discussing the playing of taijiquan, which involves the internal
movement of all the different parts of our body.
Although only 30% of your attention is paid to the movement of our hands, you
should be looking with focus.
We should also pay particular attention to hearing. You should use 30% of your
hearing sensation to listen to the outside world while the remaining 70% should be
used to listen to the inside of the body. Here, to make life simpler for you, just
interpret the word 'listening' as 'feeling'.
The tip of your tongue should be touching the part between the palate and the
upper front teeth so as to facilitate the secretion of saliva.
I will discuss how you should move the different parts of your body to play taijiquan,
starting with the arms, in the next chapter.
CHAPTER 7 - How to move your arms and your body
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Before I talk about the way in which the arms and the other parts of the body
should be moved, it would be remiss of me not to mention my teacher, Master
Zhuanghong WANG. Master Wang is an exceptionally intelligent person; he has
profound knowledge not only of taijiquan, but also of classical Chinese, especially
the Yi Jing, Dao De Jing and also the teachings of Buddhism, although he himself is
not a Buddhist. He is also an expert in the appraisal and evaluation of old prints of
Chinese calligraphy stone rubbings and a seasoned Chinese calligrapher. He is able
to apply Chinese philosophy to taijiquan, the principles of which are based entirely
on Chinese philosophical teachings. The style of taijiquan that he teaches is called
the WANG style, which is not named after himself but after Master Zongyue WANG,
who is the author of the Taijiquan Treatise. This treatise is short and concise, I
suppose so concise that many sentences and phrases are subject to different
interpretations. Because of his deep appreciation of classical Chinese, especially
Chinese philosophy, and his mastery of taijiquan, Master Zhuanghong WANG is able
to apply every single character in the Taijiquan Treatise to the practice of taijiquan.
As I have emphasized before, the most important and basic principle of practising
taijiquan is not to use muscular power to move the body and arms. Instead we
should use our mind to control all the movements. This is not easy for beginners
who ‘may be allowed’ to use muscular power to assist the movement of the body
and limbs to begin with. However, they are expected to reduce the use of muscular
power gradually and to use the mind to control all the movements as they make
progress.
The natural question to ask is how to use the mind. As a start, you have to use
imagination and external images to assist you in moving your body and limbs.
Let us start with moving your arms and hands. After you have prepared your mind,
head, body and legs as discussed in the previous chapters, imagine that there are
ten balloons each of which is tied to the tips of your thumbs and fingers. Imagine
that they are lifting your hands in a curve to the front until both arms form a circle
in front of your chest. Since you are not using any muscular power to lift your arms,
every single cell in both hands and arms
is in direct contact with the force of gravity; therefore, you will feel the weight of
both arms and hands. The less muscular power you use to float your arms upwards,
the heavier your arms will become.
Another way to assist you in moving your arms and hands to form a circle in front
of your chest is to imagine that there is a magnetic force attracting your hands
upwards and to the front until both arms form a circle in front of your chest.
However, these are very preliminary ways of moving your arms and are not really
the taiji way of moving the different parts of your body. You should use the YIN and
YANG principles which I will discuss in the next chapter.
CHAPTER 8 - The principles of YIN and YANG
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Many people have said that YIN YANG represent the two opposing ends or
properties of an idea or a substance. For example, YIN represents void or emptiness
and YANG represents solidness; YIN left and YANG right; YIN women
and YANG men; YIN soft and YANG hard, YIN up and YANG down etc. However, let
us take a look at the taiji diagram below:
In terms of the area within the diagram, both YIN and YANG occupy exactly half of
the diagram. However, the diagram is not separated into two halves by a straight line
but by an 'S' shape curve. Within the YIN half of the taiji diagram, there is a
YANG radical and vice versa. Therefore YIN YANG does not simply represent two
opposing or different properties but represents the constant change of two opposing
or different properties in a continuum. The principles of YIN YANG
were propounded in the 'Yi Jing' or the ‘Book of Changes’ in which divinatory symbols
are used to predict the changes in response to questions on the future. Therefore YIN
YANG does not represent static matters like black and white.
As YIN YANG is in a continuum, YIN cannot exist on its own, neither can YANG.
There is YIN in YANG and there is YANG in YIN. Without YANG, YIN cannot survive
and without YIN, YANG will perish. They cannot be separated from each other. The
ebbs and surges change and when YANG predominates to the full, YIN will
automatically appear and vice versa. YIN and YANG alternate and eventually, YIN is
YANG and YANG is YIN. YIN and YANG complement one another and also oppose
and counteract one another.
YIN YANG is the product of taiji (universe). Since the principles of YIN YANG are
employed as the theoretical backbone of this style of martial art, this style is therefore
named taijiquan (quan means fist or martial art form). Having briefly explained the
principles of YIN YANG, we will discuss how to use these principles to practise
taijiquan in the next chapter.
CHAPTER 9 - How to move your arms upwards when practising taijiquan
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I have avoided using the words 'lift' or 'raise' in the title of this chapter because these
two words may mislead you to think that you should use your muscular power to move
your arms upwards when practising taijiquan. Let me repeat here: using muscular
power to do anything when practising taijiquan is against the taijiquan principle. You
should use the concept of YIN YANG and the force of gravity to move the different
parts of your body.
Let us take a look at a see-saw. When one side falls, the other side rises. And when
the higher side falls, the lower side rises. The see-saw is the best example to
demonstrate the principles of YIN YANG. We can say that the higher side of a see-
saw is YIN and the lower side is YANG. When some weight is added to the higher
side, it gently falls. The higher side becomes the lower side and vice versa. As YIN
falls, YANG rises and therefore YIN becomes YANG and YANG becomes YIN.
While the ultimate aim is to turn your arms to ribbons or to make them move or flow
like water, let us as a start treat your right forearm and your right upper arm as two
separate entities. Divide the forearm into two halves so that the middle of the forearm
becomes the fulcrum of a lever or the support of a see-saw. Let the weight of the
wrist bring the forearm downwards so that the elbow rises. The important thing to
remember here is that the position of the middle of the right forearm should be fixed,
just like the support of a see-saw which is also fixed. Still fixing the position of the
middle of the right forearm, this time let the right elbow drop by not acting against the
force of gravity, resulting in the wrist rising up.
I have asked you to let the weight of one end of your forearm move your forearm.
When you are doing this, you are making use of the force of gravity to do the work for
you, instead of labouring yourself away.
While we are doing this, try to concentrate on the following:
a. keep all the fingers, the palm and the wrist relaxed, with the feeling that they swell
like the rest of the body.
b. relax the shoulder. Many people have mistaken this to mean the shoulder joint. Of
course we ought to relax the shoulder joint, but it is equally, if not more, important to
relax the shoulder, that is, the part between the joint and the neck.
c. most important of all, remember all the essential points that you have to watch out
for to prepare yourselves for practising taijiquan, that is, float your head upwards,
relax your chest so that it caves in, let your ribs drop as much as possible, relax your
hip joints, relax your knees and rest your feet on the ground.
I am repeating myself many times because it is so easy to overlook some of the
essential points.
After you have practised the movement of the right forearm in this manner,
a. try your right palm, using the middle of your right palm as the centre; then
b. your right upper arm, using the middle of your right upper arm as the centre;
c. after you have tried all three parts, try to do this procedure starting with your right
upper arm, then right forearm and then downwards to your right palm; and
d. while you are performing this continuous movement, try to relax the remaining parts
of the arm and shoulder, and of course the whole body.
You should repeat the whole procedure with your left arm and then do both arms at
the same time.
Important to note: Whenever you move your arms, do not move the upper arm,
forearm and palm at the same time. Move the three joints linking the three parts in
sequence; either shoulder, elbow and then wrist; or wrist, elbow and then shoulder.
This is how a whip is moved. Further details will be provided in Chapter 11.
You may find it difficult to follow the above procedure in the beginning but if you
persist and concentrate, you will be able to move your arms without using any
muscular power at all.
We will discuss how you can cause your arms to rise in the next chapter. Note I have
again avoided using the word 'lift' here. Indeed the best 'verb' for this movement is
'float', that is, you float your arms upwards. The crux is to let the fulcrum or the centre
move instead of fixing its position. This is different from what I have said before and
we will discuss this later.
CHAPTER 10 - How to ‘sink’ without moving downwards
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What I have said is the way beginners may move their arms. This is not the
ultimate way. One important thing that you have to bear in mind is that when you
wish to move a certain part of your body, you do not move that specific part of the
body directly because if you do, you will have to use muscular power. What you
should do is to move other parts of the body with the assistance of the force of
gravity so that the part of the body which you wish to move will be moved as a
result. For example, if you wish to raise your right arm, you do not actually raise
your right arm. What you should be doing is to further relax the left side of your
body and your left arm and feel that the left side of your body and your left arm are
heavier than the right side of your body and your right arm. By so doing, your right
arm will move and with more practice, your right arm will rise. In the whole process,
you cannot move the position of your spine which should act as the fulcrum of a
lever, although the spine itself may turn. Note the difference between the spine
itself and its position.
While the Chinese character ‘chen’ is normally used to describe one’s feeling of
the left side of one’s body in the process described above, this character, which
means ‘sink’, is most misleading and has caused problems not only to myself when
I was a novice but also many of my fellow learners. The word ‘sink’ in the context
of playing taijiquan really means that while you are relaxing one side of your body,
say the left side, you can feel that the left side becomes heavier but at the same
time you should imagine that your head is still floating upwards thus maintaining the
left side of your body in more or less the same position. Since the left side is
heavier, it raises the right side of your body. The right side of your body thus floats
upwards without any muscular power being used. The spine remains in the same
position to act as the fulcrum. If the process is tampered with by any muscular
power, you will not be able to bring about the desired effect of causing the
opposite side of the body to rise. For example, if you try to assist the upward
movement of the right side by lifting it, you will lose the floating effect. This is what
we call ‘move internally’.
If you combine the movement described in the previous two paragraphs with the
movement of the right arm and right hand described in the previous chapter, you
should be able to float your right arm and right hand without using any muscular
power at all. Of course, this requires a lot of practice and coordination of the
different parts of the body and of course this requires the use of the mind. I have
bolded the word rise in the first paragraph above because ultimately, you should
feel that the right arm should float upwards without its weight being reduced by any
muscular power at all. The target you should be aiming at is to float your arms.
CHAPTER 11 - How to link up different parts of the body and limbs
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I have said that you should link every part of your body and limbs together. By
linking, I mean that every part of your body should be able to communicate with
its neighbouring parts. For example, when the weight of the outer side of the
forearm at the elbow end causes the elbow end of the forearm to ‘sink’, the inner
side of the same forearm at the wrist end will roll upwards and rise. In this case,
the middle part of the forearm acts as the centre the position of which should not
move. As soon as the wrist reaches its highest point, its weight will bring it down,
thus raising the elbow.
As long as you do not use any muscular power to cause any movements of your
body, the different parts of your body will move automatically because of the force
of gravity.
If you use muscular power in certain parts of the body, those parts will become
stiff. If you let go of the control in other parts of the body, they will become loose
or too relaxed. When some parts of the body are stiff and the others too loose,
you will not be able to link the different parts of the body together. On the other
hand, if you use your mind to avoid using muscular power throughout the entire
body and imagine that all the cells in your body are swelling, all the cells will be
linked together automatically and form themselves into a chain. When you join the
cells of the different parts of your body, all the parts of your body will be converted
into a whip. When the handle of a whip is waved, the rest of the whip will follow the
direction of the movement of the handle.
Let me introduce a concept here to enable you to move a certain part of your body
without using muscular power.
“Do not move in order to move; move in order to remain stationary”.
The earth rotates in an anti-clockwise direction (if viewed from the North Pole) and
takes 24 hours to complete one rotation. If we do not move, we will move at the
same speed as the movement of the earth. On the other hand, if we wish to remain
in the same spot on the surface of the earth,, we will have to run in a clockwise
direction at the same speed as the earth rotates.
The same applies to say your arms which are constantly being attracted
downwards by the force of gravity. If you do not move them and let them follow
the direction of the force of gravity, they should fall downwards. If you use your
muscular power to raise them and put them in front of your chest and keep them
still, you are in fact constantly counteracting the force of gravity and are moving
your arms upwards although the arms look as if they are motionless. Therefore, if
you wish to move your arms, do not move them. Let other parts of your body do the
job by making use of the force of gravity.
We will discuss an efficient way to join the different parts of your body and convert
them into several whips. However, at this stage, let me reiterate the importance of
relaxing every part of your body and observing all the points that I have described in
the previous chapters.
CHAPTER 12 - Joining the different parts of the body and limbs into one entity
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After you have prepared yourself to practise taijiquan, that is, with your head
floating upwards and your body and limbs swelling and weighing down as if your
whole self is a rubber balloon filled up with water, try to imagine that the tips of
your thumbs and fingers are very heavy. Then transfer or move the weight of your
thumbs and fingers along the outer side of your palms to your wrists. While you
may feel that your wrists are now heavy, you should not ‘abandon’ the thumbs,
fingers and palms but continue to feel their weight although the feeling is that the
thumbs and fingers are not as heavy as the wrists. When I say not to ‘abandon’, I
mean let the parts in question continue to be attracted by the force of gravity.
You should then continue to move the ‘weight’ from the wrists upwards towards
the elbow along the forearms. While you are doing this, you do not ‘abandon’ the
wrists and the parts of the forearms where the ‘weight’ has just passed.
At this stage, the heaviest points of your forearms are at the elbows, but you
should continue to feel that your fingers, your thumbs, your palms, and your wrists
are also heavy although they are not as heavy as your elbows. In other words, do
not relax your fingers, your wrists and your forearms while you are transferring the
‘weight’ upwards towards your elbows.
Am I contradicting myself by saying ‘do not relax your fingers, your wrists and your
forearms’? Remember, to relax is NOT to relax. Relaxation can be in the form of
working out, jogging, etc. When I say ‘do not relax your fingers, your wrists and
your forearms’, I mean do not let go of them, but you should at the same time
avoid making them stiff.
You should then continue the same process and move the weight or ‘centre’
upwards towards your shoulder joints, and then your shoulders and then down
your spine. At this point, it is of utmost importance that you keep your head floating
upwards while relaxing your body. When the weight moves downwards along your
spine and reaches the dantian (the middle of the abdomen about three inches
below the navel), you will feel that your lower abdomen becomes swollen as if it is
filled up with water or air.
The weight at the dantian continues to pass through the joints at the pelvis and
then downwards along the inside legs. You should have flexed your knees as I
have said before and try to imagine that the knees are floating upwards so as to
reduce the pressure from the body weight.
While the weight is being transferred from your arms through your body to your
feet, both your arms should be floating upwards because of the seesaw effect. If
you imagine that you are linking up your whole body from your finger tips to your
toes so that the whole body becomes a level, when the ‘leg’ end of the level
becomes heavier, the ‘arm’ end will rise.
While both arms are floating up, you should use your mind to bring both arms in
front of your chest so that both arms plus your chest form a circle, with both palms
facing outwards and the finger tips of your middle fingers touching one another.
While doing this, you should not employ any muscular power at all. Although the
weight or the centre of your movement has travelled along the spine down to the
dantian and then your legs and feet, you should continue to feel that both your
arms remain heavy.
You should imagine that there is a centre within the circle in front of your chest.
From the centre of the circle there is pressure radiating outwards so that the circle
keeps expanding outwards. While feeling the outward pressure from the centre of
the circle, keep the finger tips touching one another without using muscular power.
Do not break the circle but at the same time, you should imagine that the circle
keeps expanding outwards as if there is no limit to the expansion.
Since the imaginary pressure coming from the centre of the circle is equal in all
directions, the circle should be round internally; at least, try to make it as round as
possible.
When the weight reaches your feet, you will feel that your feet, legs and body
bounce upwards as if you are a ball. When I say ‘bounce upwards’, I do not mean
that your feet will be lifted off the ground. Your feet will still be in contact with the
ground but you will feel that there is pressure rising from your feet through your
legs and then upwards through your spine to your head and your arms and then the
finger tips. The pressure rising from down below will make you feel that your whole
body is expanding and your limbs become elongated. Do not try to help the bounce
or try to increase the bouncing effect by slightly straightening your legs or by lifting
your body with muscular power. Once you use muscular power to lift your body,
you will impede the bounce because the parts of your body where muscular power
is exercised will become stiff and block the flow of the bounce.
While the pressure from the feet rises through the body after the bounce, your
arms will fall gently back to the sides of your body, following the path of their
upward movement.
All the movements described above are effected according to the principle of YIN
and YANG.. When one part of the body becomes heavier and ‘sinks’ (Let me
reiterate that this part of the body does not really move downwards), the opposite
side rises, and vice versa, thus resulting in movements of the different parts of the
body according to your wishes.
Please note that I have use the term ‘centre’ in the fifth paragraph as synonymous
with ‘weight’. Transferring the centre of our body is one of the most essential
techniques in playing taijiquan. Here, by the term ‘body’, I mean the body as a
whole after it has been linked up as I have described above and not ‘different parts
of the body’. When I explained the movement of the weight, I have to separate the
body into different parts. There is of course a centre in each part of the body, but
when I link up two parts into one, the two centres of the two different parts of the
body should form into one centre. How the two centres can be formed depends on
the direction of the movement of the weight.
When we have linked up the different parts of the body into one entity, there should
be only one centre and that is where the imaginary weight of our body lies. Since
we keep moving the different parts of our body, the position of the centre of our
body likewise keeps changing.
The crux here is that we should maintain only one centre in your body. If you feel
that there are more than one centres in your body, this will mean that you have yet
to link up all the different parts of your body into one body mass. Try to examine
your body to identify the parts which are stiff and try to make them swell.
CHAPTER 13 - Borrowing the force of gravity to fight in the taijiquan way
_____________________________________________________________________
After you have practised the basic movements (or should I say internal movements)
of your body and arms, you should try to refine the movement by exploiting the
force of gravity even more.
When you ‘sink’ the left side of your body, the right side of your body will rise and
at the same time, the weight of the left side of your body will reach the left pelvis
joint. In the beginning, your pelvis joints may be very tight and stiff and cannot
move freely. After some practice, your left pelvis joint will allow the weight of the
left side of your body to wedge it open and your body will turn by 90 degrees to
the left hand side without the use of any muscular power. On the other hand, if you
do not wish your body to turn, you just allow the weight of the left side of your body
to be transferred downwards through your left leg to your left foot. When the
weight reaches the sole of your left foot, and if you are adequately relaxed and can
remove all the stiffness from your body and legs and arms, you will feel a bouncing
sensation from the ground (See previous chapter). This bounce will generate a lot
of energy and have a rippling effect causing the knee, the pelvis, the waist, the
torso, the shoulder, the elbow, the wrist and at last the palm to move by turn like a
whip. This movement will also have the effect of expanding the different parts of
the body in the same sequence as the direction of the bounce.
You can and indeed should apply the same internal movement in combat. If your
opponent pushes your right arm, and assuming that you do not (and should not)
use any muscular power to oppose the push, his force will be transmitted through
your right arm to your right shoulder, your chest, down the spine, to the left pelvis
joint, down your left leg and then the sole of your left foot. Your opponent’s force
plus the weight of your body will enable you to ‘borrow’ the force of gravity which
will bounce you upwards. The bounce is in the form of pressure emitted from the
ground and it passes through your left leg, your left pelvis joint, your spine, then
across the body to your right shoulder and then your right arm. The upward
bouncing effect plus the elongation of different parts of your body will enable you
to extend your right arm to push your opponent without using any muscular power.
What is important is also the weight of your right arm which is
constantly placed on your opponent's arms. This will become a burden on the
opponent. Since the right arm is maintained in its position by your mind and the
weight of the other parts of your body, and not by the muscular power of the right
arm, not only is the right arm not stiff, but it is also elastic. Since the arm is not
stiff, it does not have any point against which your opponent can exert his/her
power. Furthermore, it does not oppose or act against any attack from the
opponent but instead, it follows the direction of the opponent’s attack as if it is
glued to the opponent’s arms until the opponent loses his/her balance. When your
opponent loses his/her balance, you can strike him/her.
CHAPTER 14 - How to rotate your arms?
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I have described how we should move your arms upwards without using your
muscular power. Instead you should make use of the force of gravity and also
change the centres of the different parts of your body in sequence. In order not to
make the explanation too complicated, I have only described the movements in a
longitudinal manner. The proper way in which the arms and indeed the torso should
move is rotation.
Let us use the forearm as an example. When the wrist end of the forearm sinks,
the elbow end of the forearm floats up automatically. In the process, you have to
keep the position of the centre of the forearm fixed. However, at the same time,
you should also allow the inner side of the wrist end of the forearm to sink, thus
raising the outer side of the elbow end of the forearm. If you take the centre of the
forearm as if it is the centre of a sphere and the centre is only one small point
around which the sphere rotates, then the forearm should be able to rotate like a
ball. Likewise, when the outer side of the
elbow end of the forearm reaches the highest point, its weight will bring it down. If
we keep the position of the centre of the forearm unchanged, the inner side of the
wrist end of the forearm will rise.
It is important to bear in mind that when the forearm moves in the manner
described above, in addition to moving either end of the forearm upwards and
downwards, the forearm should at the same time rotate in the same direction as
its upward or downward movements.
The rotation movements described above in fact follow the principle of YIN and
YANG which I have explained in Chapter 9.
Let me repeat here what has been taught by Master Zongyue WANG who says
that when you wish to move one part of your body, you have to move every part
of your body. I have explained this in detail in previous chapters. Therefore when I
describe just now how the forearm should be moved, I do not mean that the
forearm should be moved in isolation in the manner I describe. It has to be moved
in conjunction and in unison with the rest of your body.
Using the same principle, all the other parts of the body should rotate while they
move in one direction. Because of the rotation effect, your arms do not move
forward or backward in a straight line. They always move in a circle and while
they move, the arms themselves rotate.
It is important to practise such rotation movements because when your arms are
in contact with your opponent's arms, any force from your opponent can be
deflected by the rotation movements of your own arms. Of course, rotation is only
one of several ways to deal with attacks from the opponent. I will talk about other
methods in later chapters.
CHAPTER 15 - Let the water in the body flow
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When I write this book, I do not expect readers to read it as a novel. I have tried to
describe how to learn taijiquan first from the basics, advancing slowly to more
demanding and complicated techniques, based on taiji principles. For the novices,
they should practise the techniques taught in one chapter thoroughly before they
proceed to the next chapter.
If they do follow the guidance in this book chapter by chapter, they should be ready
to embark on the next stage which is to convert their whole body mass into fluid.
I have mentioned in Chapters 6 and 9 that you should develop the feeing that your
body is full of water. However, the water inside your body is not stagnant but
instead it flows in the direction as dictated by your mind. Just imagine that there is
water flowing from your head down through your neck, the chest, the abdomen,
and then through the two legs. When the water reaches the feet, you should feel
that the water evaporates and becomes steam which rises through your body and
causes the body to expand. The steam is in fact the bounce from the ground of the
weight of your body.
The reasons why you have to think of other substances to replace your body and
your arms are:
a. if you wish to raise your arms, you cannot help moving your arms upwards
because you are used to using your muscular power to do this. On the other hand,
if you imagine that your arms are two long rubber tubes filled with water, your arms
will immediately become very heavy. This is because while your brain can control
your arms, it cannot control two rubber tubes attached to your body. Your inability
to move the two rubber tubes attached to your body will strengthen your use of
your mind to control the different parts of your body. Therefore in order to move or
‘float’ the two rubber tubes, your have to try very hard to ‘sink’ your body; this
means that you have to concentrate and move the weight of your body through
your spine down to your feet.
b. Many of the muscles that you have to move are involuntary muscles. You
can only control them at will after a long period of practice. If by imagination you
replace some of your body parts with some other substances, eg, water, you will
be able to feel and manipulate such substances more easily with your mind than
the involuntary muscles in your body. This in turn helps the control of the different
parts of your body.
There is another and more important reason why you should imagine that your
body is filled up with water.
When water drains from a basin, there is a swirl at the plughole (not because of
the coriolis force as many people mistakenly believe). Just imagine that the ‘water’
inside your body flows through your feet onto the ground with a swirl, like the
water that is draining through a plughole in a bathtub. This would result in your
body weight being directed from your body onto the ground without actually moving
any part of your body. This would bring about the bouncing effect as I have
described in detail in Chapter 13. If you can imagine that the weight of your body
comes into contact with the ground in a swirl just like the water draining from a
basin, the bouncing effect from the ground up to your feet and then your legs
through your body up to your head will also have a swirling effect.
The swirl of the bouncing effect, coupled with the rotation of your body and arms
as described in the previous chapter, will strengthen your attack against your
opponent.
It is not easy to master what I have described in this chapter. However, with
practice and persistence, you will be able to feel the downward swirl when you
place the weight of your body on the ground as well as the upward swirl when the
weight of your body bounces back from the ground.
Master WANG, my teacher, says that substances can be either in a state of being
or in a state of non-being. However, taijiquan is in a state between being and non-
being. You may not believe that the weight of your body can flow downwards on
the ground in a spiralling manner, but after some practice, the feeling will come.
However, you cannot find or see it as it is only a feeling – BUT the effect of this
feeling is great as it increases your fighting capability by several times.
Apart from using imaginary water to assist you in removing all the stiffness in your
body and to render your body relaxed and elastic, you can also use water to assist
you in playing taijiquan so that your movements resemble waves. I will talk about
this later.
CHAPTER 16 - How to obtain the force of gravity and to maximize its effect
_____________________________________________________________________
As I have said before, taijiquan experts rely on the force from the attack of the
opponent and more importantly, the force of gravity to defend themselves and to
strike the opponent in a combat. They do not use any of their own muscular power.
Furthermore, they should be able to make use of these two forces in a way that the
more forceful the opponent’s attack is, the more forceful will be the counter-attack,
and that if they can maximize the use of the force of gravity, they would be more
powerful in their attack.
The force of gravity enables the weight of the body to bounce back to the body and
arms after the weight has come into contact with the ground. But how can the use
of the force of gravity be maximized and how can the bouncing effect be also
maximized so as to make the attack more effective and more powerful?
First of all, the force of gravity is constant no matter where you are. You cannot
ask for more, neither can you produce more. All you can do is maximize its effect
so as to make your attack more powerful. The most important technique is to let
every cell in your body swell so that you can feel that you are taller and bigger.
You should also feel that every cell is farther apart from one another and that all
the cells are very heavy. You are held upright by your head floating upwards. In
order to let every cell in your body come into contact with the force of gravity, no
part of your body should be stiff. You should use your mind to make every part of
your body elastic as if your whole body is like a balloon filled up with water. After
you have developed this feeling, then imagine that there is water flowing from your
head through the body down the pelvis bone and then through the legs until the
water reaches the feet. The weight of every cell is carried by the water
downwards. In order to obtain the best bouncing effect, you should imagine that
the water flows through the feet onto a hole in the ground with a downward swirl
(see previous chapter).
Some people mistakenly believe that the bouncing effect is obtained by pressing
the feet on the ground. While to a certain extent this can be achieved, the bouncing
effect thus obtained is greatly discounted and may not be fully elastic. As you have
been imagining using water to aid you to release the body weight onto the ground,
you should keep on using water to obtain the bouncing effect.
Therefore instead of trying to obtain the bouncing effect by pressing the feet on
the ground, you should, after the feet has come into contact with the ground, let
the water continue to flow through the feet into a hole in the ground and there
should be a swirl in the flow. No sooner has the water “flowed into the hole” than
your body weight bounces upwards, also in a swirl but in the opposite direction.
The bouncing effect does not actually push your feet above and off the ground like
a ball bouncing from the ground. The bouncing effect is just like a kind of upward
pressure from the ground that expands our legs, our body and arms. What is
important is that you should direct the pressure with your mind to reach your head
so that your head and your upper body become lighter and float even higher up.
While you feel that your head and upper body become lighter, your feet, your legs
and your abdomen become heavier.
When you try to develop the bouncing effect in practice, you should try to alternate
the use of both legs. For example, you may first let the water, carrying your weight,
flow from the head, through the shoulder down the body and left leg and then
through the left foot in an anti-clockwise downward swirl. When the water reaches
the ground and splashes back, you should have a feeling that there is ‘steam’
pressure rising from the ground in a clockwise upward swirl. The upward spiralling
pressure rises through the left leg up the body and reaches your arms and head,
thus making your whole body swell. You should then let the water flow from your
head through the body down the right leg to the right foot. When the water flows
downwards through the right foot and reaches the ground in a clockwise swirl, you
again feel that there is ‘steam’ pressure rising from the ground in an anti-clock
direction up the right leg through the body to your head. You then repeat the whole
process in the practice.
My experience is that if you can time the flow of the water from the head to reach
the ground at the same time as your foot touches the ground, you will achieve the
optimal bouncing effect.
Do NOT assist the bouncing effect by either raising your body or by stretching your
legs. You will only destroy the upward flow of the bouncing effect.
I make no apology for repeating some of the points already made in previous
chapters. This is necessary because there are so many things we should do even
in one single movement and I need to put emphasis on different points separately
so that readers can concentrate on different issues at different times.
CHAPTER 17 - Other essential details to watch when practising taijiquan
____________________________________________________________________
While you are following the instructions as set out in the previous chapters, you
may not be able to acquire the feeling as described immediately or within a short
time of your practice. It does take time for people to develop the skills and
gradually the feeling will come naturally. It is important to remember not to try to
chase the feeling and forget about the method, which should be followed stage
by stage. What is more important is that do not interfere with the force of gravity.
There is no shortcut to it – the only shortcut is to increase the dose of your
practice. While I try to find time to practise taijiquan for at least one hour every
day, my teacher, Master WANG, used to spend several hours every day to
practise not only taijiquan but also several other schools of ‘internal forms of
martial arts’
I have said in previous chapters that while you are doing taijiquan, you should
convert your whole body mass to a soft rubber or vinyl bag filled up with water
so that you feel that you are bouncy and elastic. Apart from imagining that the
water inside your body is flowing in a direction of your choice, you should also
imagine that your body and limbs are moving like water. For example, when you
move your arms forward to push your opponent, you should imagine that the
water near you is flowing from your chest to the front and that your arms are
just like a ridge of water surging to the front. Treat your body and your arms as
part of the wave. After your arms have reached the limit in the front, you should
imagine that the wave in front of you has hit the shore and either flows sideways
or is being bounced back.
As I have said many times before, you should not use muscular power to play
taijiquan. Therefore when you cannot push your opponent away with your arms
because he stands very firmly, you should not continue the push but instead you
should:
a. sink the weight of your body thus floating up your arms which should then
be placed on your opponent’s body; at the same time, imagine that the water
surrounding you is flowing towards and then behind your opponent, bringing along
your arms and water pressure with it. Your opponent will find it difficult to resist
this kind of pressure and will be moved by you. OR
b. make use of the resistance from your opponent and transfer the
resistance through your arms, shoulders, body, pelvis joints, legs and then to
your feet. In the course of the transition, the resistance can be combined with
your body weight so that when your body weight reaches the ground, it bounces
back to your legs and through your body and shoulders to your arms. When this
flow of weight reaches your opponent, he will be pushed back.
To reiterate what has just been said, when practising taijiquan, all your
movements should resemble the tidal waves of water which is on the one hand
one of the weakest substances in the world but on the other one of the most
unyielding and strongest substances. The use of water as an imaginary substitute
for your body and limbs will both increase your flexibility and also enhance your
power.
When playing taijiquan, it is also important that you should feel tall and high
spirited, and that there is momentum in all your movements. The momentum is
generated by the force of gravity which bounces your body weight upwards
whenever you place your body weight on the ground. Old taijiquan masters have
said that our movements should be just like the flow of a river which never ends.
When you play taijiquan, you should float your head upwards and at the same
time, sink your body weight to your dantian, that is, the pressure point three
inches below your navel. In your taijiquan movements, you sometimes extend
your arms outwards to cover a wider area and sometimes bring your arms
close to your body. The taijiquan term for the former movement is ‘open’ and that
for the latter movement is ‘enclose’. When you ‘open’, you should feel that the
lifting force from the floating of your head upwards is stronger than the sinking
force of your body weight. On the other hand, when you ‘enclose’, you should
feel that the sinking effect of your body weight is stronger than the floating effect
of your head. This in fact is very logical because when you try to sink your body
weight to your dantian and then to your feet in order to ‘enclose’, the bouncing
effect of the force of gravity will enable you to expand your body and therefore
‘open’, making you feel that your head is ‘lighter’.
When you ‘open’ or ‘enclose’, you are bound to move your legs and arms. In
doing so, you should circle your joints to produce a reeling or rotating effect on
your arms and legs. When you move your arms, you should start circling your
shoulders first, and then elbows and then wrists. When doing the circles, you
should bear in mind the following:
a. do not use any muscular power to do the circles, and
b. you should circle your shoulders, elbows and wrists or wrists, elbows
and then shoulders in these orders. Do not move the whole arms at the
same time.
c. when you move the three joints, you should imagine that you are circling
the joints in the opposite direction first before you actually circle them in the
direction you want. For example, if you wish to circle your shoulder joints
outwards, that is, your right shoulder joint in a clockwise direction and your left
shoulder joint in an anti-clockwise direction, you should imagine that you are
circling your right shoulder joint in an anti-clockwise direction first and similarly
your left shoulder joint in a clockwise direction first before you actually circle
them in the direction you want. The same applied to your elbows and wrists,
and of course your pelvis joints, your knees and your ankles.
CHAPTER 18 - Power derived from ‘ba men jin’
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The difference between taijiguan or other internal styles martial arts such as ‘xing yi’
nd ba gua’, external styles martial arts is that taijiquan deploys ‘jin’ to strike the
opponent whereas direct power is used for the strike when one fights with external
styles martial arts. ‘Jin’ is power that is generated indirectly by the force of gravity
which bounces the weight of the body from the feet through the legs, the body and
then the arms and hands. It should be noted that what is bounced back by the force of
gravity from the ground is not the actual feet and leg etc but the weight of the body
mass. In other words, even if you feel that something is moving internally within your
body, the movement can hardly be observed externally. Such internal movement is
traditionally called ‘qi’ in Chinese.
When you use brute force to strike your opponent, your fist travels to the front in one
direction. The punch will produce the desired effect only if it hits an obstacle.
However, if the opponent ducks or turns sideways, your punch will miss the opponent.
On the other hand, if you strike your opponent by using a force that is called ‘ba men
jin’, which means indirect power expanding to eight directions, your opponent may not
find it easy to ward off the attack because the force so derived does not aim at only
one direction. Such a force is from an expanding ball moving towards the opponent;
any counteracting power from the opponent will be just like a tangent and get
deflected whereas the ball of force will continue to move towards your opponent and
attack him.
How do we obtain this ball of force or ‘ba men jin’?
First of all, let us take a look at the taiji diagram which is a circle. However, it should
be a sphere but simply because of the lack of knowledge to represent it in a three-
dimensional manner in the past, it is drawn like a flat circle. You should superimpose
this sphere onto your body when playing taijiquan. When you put your arms in front of
your chest, they should form a round circle. There should not be any sharp angles at
your arm pits, and elbows. As I have said in previous chapters, you should imagine
that there is a centre in the circle and imaginary pressure is radiating from the centre
towards your arms and at the same time, you should try to maintain the roundness of
your arms not by using your muscular power but by an imaginary link between your
finger tips.
In addition to forming a circle in front of your chest, you should at the same time
imagine that there is a semi-circular line in front of you linking your head, your hands
and your feet so that your whole body plus the space in front of you forms an oval
mass. This oval mass is kept inflated by the pressure radiating from the centre in front
of your chest so that your arms, your back, and your legs are part of this supposedly
bouncy mass.
When you are ‘pushing hands’ (tui shou) with your opponent, you should ‘zhan, nian,
lian, and sui’. These four characters mean ‘touch, adhere, connect and follow’
respectively. When you are pushing hands, no doubt, your hands or arms should be
touching your opponent’s arms or hands. As the cardinal principle for practising
taijiquan is not to use muscular power and instead both arms and the rest of the body
and legs should be ‘inflated’ by your mind or intention, you should be able to adhere
your arms to your opponent’s arms or his body. Any use of muscular power will
reduce the weight and therefore ‘viscosity’ of your arms. At the same time, you should
imagine that your arms are connected to your opponent’s arms or body so that when
your opponent moves his arms, your arms just follow your opponent’s arms.
These are just the basic concepts of practising pushing hands. Of course you should
also follow the other essential points that I have discussed. For example, when your
opponent pushes you, the pressure from the push should be transferred to your body
and then feet; such pressure coupled with your own body weight would provide you
with a bounce from the ground, which in turn gives you a feeling of taking off or
soaring. The power from this bouncing effect should be used to produce a swirling
effect through your body to counter attack your opponent.
I have mentioned previously that whenever you move one part of your body, every
part of your body and limbs should also move and/or be moved. Therefore when you
wish to deflect your opponent’s push, you should not just let your hands move. The
force from your opponent should move not only your arms and hands; you should relax
your shoulders and pelvis joints and let your opponent’s force move your torso. By so
doing, your line of contact with your opponent will be increased tremendously and he
may lose balance if he enters your sphere.
Now, let us discuss ‘ba men jin’’. The eight directions from which power comes are
front and rear, left and right, up and down, and inward and outward. As I have said
before, there is a centre of your weight which moves within your limbs and body. It
also acts as an imaginary fulcrum around which your limbs and our body turn.
Whenever your arms come into contact with your opponent’s arms, your intention
should direct the focus of the weight of your arms somewhere near to but not directly
opposite to the point of contact with the opponent. Since the focus of the weight acts
as a fulcrum, any force from the push of your opponent will turn the part of the body
round. For example, if the focus of the weight of your right arm is in the centre of your
right arm and if your opponent pushes your right wrist, your right elbow will
automatically be moved towards your opponent. Furthermore, since the force of the
push from your opponent may also have an upward direction, your elbow will as a
consequence move in an downward direction towards your opponent. This would also
bring about a rotating effect, turning your right forearm round under your opponent’s
forearm, and your right elbow will be in an attacking posture.
The whole idea of acquiring the ‘ba men jin’ is to enable yourself to redirect your
opponent’s attacking power to attack your opponent. If one part of the body or the
arm is moved back, a neighbouring part will automatically move forward striking your
opponent. If one part is moved to the right, a neighbouring part is moved automatically
to the left, also striking your opponent.
If a part of your body or arm is pushed backwards and to the right at the same time,
then the neighbouring part will be moved to the front and to the left, striking your
opponent.
To conclude, there is no yielding to the opponent whose power is always directed
against the opponent himself or herself.
CHAPTER 19 - Principles behind the ‘ba men jin’
____________________________________________________________________
According to an ancient taijiquan treatise, the ‘ba men jin’, or ‘indirect power expanding
to eight directions’, refers to the following:
a. peng (to ward off attacks with a spiralling movement of the arms or hands),
b. lu (to roll back attacks with a spiralling movement of the arms or hands),
c. ji (to press with the back of both palms or forearms to the front with body
moving backwards at equal distance),
d. an (to connect opponent’s attack with both hands and follow it as it
approaches you; if necessary, you can counter-attack when your opponent comes to
the end of his/her reach),
e. cai (to pluck opponent’s forearm or hand in a circular movement of the plucking
arm as if you are gently holding and then plucking an apple from a branch),
f. lie (to separate one part of the opponent from another part which has been
immobilized as if you are splitting his/her body),
g. zhou (to strike with an elbow, either forward, backward or sideways), and
h. kao (to strike or push with shoulder or upper back, using the weight of your
body).
However, this is only one aspect of the ‘ba men jin’ which describes the different
sources of ‘jin’ and the different ways of attacking your opponent. However, the above-
mentioned taijiquan treatise goes on to say that ‘ba men jin’ requires that your power
should cover the four directions and the four corners or oblique directions, ie, east.
west, south, and north as well as south-east, south-west, north-east and north-west.
This requirement follows the principles of the eight trigrams as laid down in the I Jing
(The book of Change). The eight trigrams, each of which is formed by three parallel
lines (the lines are either continuous (whole) or broken (open)), represent the four
directions and the four corners as follows:
a. kan, li, zhen and dui (these are the names of trigrams) represent the four
cardinal directions, and
b. qian, kun, gen and sun (these are the names of trigrams) represent the four
corners or oblique directions.
In order to find out the workings of the trigrams, it is important to have an
understanding of YIN YANG which I have explained briefly in previous chapters. YIN
Yang represents two opposing ends of a continuum. It is postulated in The Book of
Change that taiji is the state before a matter develops into YIN YANG. When the YIN
YANG of a point extends at both ends, it becomes a line; when the YIN YANG of a
line extends sideways, it becomes a plane and when the YIN YANG of a plane
extends upwards and downwards, it becomes a three-dimensional body. You should
then try to transfer this three-dimensional ‘ba men jin’ to your taijiquan practice.
What is important in this concept is that when we practise taijiquan, not only should
we move our arms, body, legs and feet along ‘the imaginary surface of the mass of
air in front of our body’, we should also imagine that there is a centre within the mass
of air so that we should always extend our limbs outwards as if we are embracing an
inflated balloon. This is the only way to enable us to reduce the use of muscular
power and to develop elasticity, viscosity, and resilience in every part of our body and
limbs.
CHAPTER 20 - Power derived from ‘wu bu’
_____________________________________________________________________
In addition to ‘ba men jin’, there is another concept in taijiquan that makes it very
different from other styles of martial arts. This is ‘wu bu’ which means five steps in
English. This concept is derived from an ancient Chinese philosophical concept of ‘wu
xing’ which means five elements. The five elements are metal, wood, water, fire and
earth. They represent all the substances in the universe and ancient Chinese sought to
explain the natural phenomena with ‘wu xing’. It is postulated that these five elements
mutually promote one another but also restraint one another. Metal is supposed to
restraint wood, wood restraints water, water restraints fire, fire restraints earth and
finally earth restraints metal. They are also supposed to promote one another and
earth is believed to promote metal which in turn promotes water, water promotes
wood which promotes fire, and finally fire promotes earth which in turn promotes
metal.
This concept is applied to Chinese medicine and other practices and theories. The five
elements also have directional connotation. Wood stands for East, fire stands for
South, earth Centre, metal West and water North. When you apply the concept of ‘wu
bu’ or five steps in the practice of taijiquan, you should follow the order of ‘earth,
wood, fire, metal and water’. When you start practising, you should employ the
‘mutual promotion’ principle which allows you to expand your sphere of control. Since
you are starting the movement from the centre, you should turn (use the principle of
‘sink and float’ instead of using your muscular power to turn) your body and arms
towards the east in a clockwise direction, and then south, west and then north.
As I have said in previous chapters, you should start your movement from your feet
(remember the whole process of allowing your body weight to drop to the ground and
then bounce back), then your legs, pelvis joints, body, shoulders and then your arms,
wrists and hands. While the pressure rises from the ground, your legs, body and arms
should expand gradually from below like a spiral from the centre to the east, then
south and west and then north.
While you are turning your body and limbs, there should be revolving movements in
your limbs which are not caused by muscular power but by your intention of expanding
your sphere of control, that is, the imaginary mass of air in front of your body.
When you are attacked by your opponent, you should decrease your sphere of control
by reversing the directions of your movements while your arms are still in contact with
those of your opponent. The order of your circular movements when trying to
withdraw (but not to give way) your arms should be water, metal, fire, wood, and then
earth. The direction of your movement should be anti-clockwise, with a downward
spiralling effect. There should also be revolving movements in your legs and arms
when reducing your sphere of control.
While you are reducing the sphere of your control, you should still keep the imaginary
mass of air expanding outwards, so that your legs and arms are kept elastic but not
stiff or too soft.
When the force of your opponent’s attack is transferred through your arms, body, legs
and then feet, it will bounce back from the ground. This, plus the bouncing back of
your body weight, will produce an upwards pressure which makes your whole body
‘swell’, causing your body and arms to extend outwards in the directions described in
paragraphs 3 and 4 above. The force which is thus deployed to strike your opponent
is called ‘jin’, which does not have any directions, and more powerful than brute force
produced from muscular power.
The ‘wu bu’ and ‘ba men jin’, that is five steps and indirect force from eight directions,
are called the ‘shi san shi’ or ‘thirteen postures’. Whenever we practise taijiquan, we
have to apply the thirteen postures in our movements.
CHAPTER 21 - Why is taijiquan so called?
_____________________________________________________________________
After you have learned taijiquan’s basics and practised taijiquan for some time, you
should feel the internal energy generated by (1) your mind and (2) by the force of
gravity. The internal energy is to be deployed to move your arms and body. To assist
you in taking your taijquan to a higher level, it would be appropriate for me at this
stage to explain what taiji means and why this term has been used as the name of this
form of internal martial art.
The Chinese postulate that before the universe came into being, it was in a nebulous
state and completely chaotic. This state is called ‘wuji’, which means ‘no limits’.
Gradually, this state evolved itself to become an orderly being which is called ‘taiji’,
meaning ‘ultimate limits’. This sets the boundaries of this universe and from this state
was ‘born’ the ‘liang yi’, meaning two opposing forces - heaven and earth or YIN
YANG. I have briefly explained YIN YANG in Chapter 8 and for the purpose of
studying taijiquan, I will not elaborate the concept here. As a result of the interaction
between YIN YANG, the four seasons, (spring, summer, autumn and winter) or four
elements (metal, wood, water, and fire) were formed. Because of the seasonal
changes and the ‘promotion and restraint’ amongst the four elements, we can observe
eight natural phenomena which are heaven, earth, thunder, wind, water, fire,
mountain, and lakes. These eight phenomena are represented by the eight trigrams
which I mention in Chapter 19.
There are other definitions and explanations of the term ‘taiji’ advocated by the
philosophers in the Han, Song and Ming Dynasties in China. For example, one school
of thought in the West Han Dynasty is that taiji is ‘yuan qi’, meaning ‘original energy’.
Before the ‘original energy’ was divided, it comprised three elements, viz, heaven,
earth and human beings which together formed one entity.
In the Song Dynasty, a scholar by the name of Dunyi Zhou invented the taiji diagram
and hypothesized that when taiji moves, YANG is generated but when taiji is
stationary, YIN is created. When YIN YANG interchanges and interacts, there
produced the five elements, that is, water, fire, wood, metal and earth. When these
five elements interact, all the beings including human beings in the universe were born.
I have been stressing the importance of using contradictory but complementary
forces, that is YIN YANG, to practise taijiquan. For example, to sink and to float (a
different part of the body) at the same time, to open (the internal side of the arms
when they form a circle in front of the chest) and to enclose (the external side of the
arms) at the same time. The concept of the eight trigrams is also used to develop
taijiquan to make it more powerful as described in Chapter 19.
CHAPTER 22 ‘Yi’ and ‘Qi’
_____________________________________________________________________
The concept of YIN YANG does not only apply to activities and matters which we can
observe physically, eg, floating up of the arms, moon and sun, or even winter (YIN)
and summer (YANG), but it is also used to represent or even describe the relationship
between two abstract phenomena. For example, YIN is used to represent the state of
being calm, stationary or still and YANG the state of being active, or moving; YIN
abstract, imaginary or virtual and YANG tangible, real, or solid.
The skills that I describe in Chapter 16 are also based on the principle of YIN YANG.
The body weight that you transfer to your feet and then the ground is YIN and the
bouncing effect, ie, the pressure that your feel through your feet and legs from the
ground is YANG. Without the body weight, you cannot generate the bouncing effect.
That is, without YIN, you cannot develop YANG. When the bouncing effect reaches
the highest level, you will feel that your upper body is light and also tends to float
upwards. Therefore, when YANG (the bouncing effect) increases, your body weight
(YIN) decreases. And when the bouncing effect is exhausted, you will feel that your
body is heavy again, supporting the principle that when YANG disappears, YIN will
start to grow and vice versa. Of course, YIN and YANG complement one another.
This leads me to introduce two terms in Chinese for which no exact English equivalent
can be found but which are very important to taijiquan practitioners. These are ‘yi’ and
‘qi’.
I have not mentioned these two terms in previous chapters because I would like
beginners to understand the basics of taijiquan first before they attempt skills of a
higher level. It is important that people learning taijiquan should develop and cultivate
their skills stage by stage just as children should not be taught how to use a calculator
before they learn the times table.
Many people have translated ‘yi’ to mean ‘mind’ or ‘intention’. I believe that ‘yi’ is more
than just mind or intention because the use of ‘yi’ to control the internal and external
movements of the fingers, palms, arms, shoulders, body, legs, feet, and of course all
the cells and joints inside the body, involves first of all your consciousness. After you
realize and are conscious of the possibility of using ‘yi’ to achieve a certain movement,
you should then have the desire to do that. Desire of course is not enough because
you must have determination and then the will power to achieve the movement. And
last and but not the least, you must have determination again. One of the key taijiquan
principles is that when moving your body or your arms and hands, no muscular power
may be used and this I have mentioned and indeed stressed many times in previous
chapters. Instead, you should use ‘yi’ to control all the movements. The information
that I have given in previous chapters is to make you aware of the possibility and
indeed the beauty of moving the different parts of your body without using your
muscular power. Now that you have trained yourself to so move your arms and body,
you should now try to use the ‘yi’, that is, your intention or desire, your determination
and will power to move your arms and body.
Why should you use ‘yi’ to move your arms and body? You should realize that many of
the muscles inside your body are involuntary muscles; they do not move and cannot
easily be moved by other voluntary muscles in your body. The most efficient and
effective way is to use your ‘yi’ to move them. Furthermore, as the use of muscular
power to move your arms and body would render the parts in question inflexible and
impede the flow of the ‘qi’ (see following paragraphs) inside your body, you should
therefore use ‘yi’ to move both your voluntary and involuntary muscles.
The term ‘yi’ has a further meaning. In the context of the phrase ‘yi shou dan tian’,
(meaning that you maintain (shou) your ‘yi’ in your dan tian, ‘yi’ means ‘attention’. In
other words, ‘yi shou dan tian’ really means that you pay attention to your dan tian and
keep it full, round, hollow and relaxed.
‘Yi’ is always used together with ‘qi’. ‘Qi’ is such an abstract character in the Chinese
language that you can easily find several interpretations of this term. Ordinarily, it
means air. However, in the context of Chinese medicine and Chinese martial arts, it
has nothing to do with air. Many people have used the term ‘internal energy’ to explain
‘qi’. I do not consider this to be wrong but from my knowledge and experience, I think
‘qi’ is the sensation you obtain after you have deployed ‘yi’. The best example is the
feeling that you will get after you have used your ‘yi’ to sink your body weight to your
feet; once the weight reaches your feet, the weight bounces upwards, giving you a
sensation of upward pressure through your legs to your hip and then your spine. The
feeling of the pressure is ‘qi’. Another example is to use your ‘yi’ to push or move the
cells in your arms from your shoulders to your finger tips. Initially, you may not have
much feeling but after you have practised this for some time, you will feel that
something is flowing inside your arms in the direction of your ‘yi’. This feeling is ‘qi’.
From ‘qi’ your will be able to develop your internal energy.
This is the reason why taijiquan practitioners always use the phrase ‘yi qi’ because we
believe that ‘qi’ is mobilized by ‘yi’.
Now that you have an understanding of these two terms, you should start using ‘yi’
and ‘qi’, or indeed ‘yi qi’ to practise taijiquan. For example, when you try to float your
arms upwards, you should have the ‘yi’ (knowledge) that your arms comprise three
parts, the muscle above the bone, the bone itself, and then the muscle underneath the
bone. On the one hand, the bone weighs heavily and is dragged down by the force of
gravity. However, you should have the ‘yi’ that the muscle above it is light and flies or
floats upwards whereas the muscle underneath the bone has the tendency to fill up
the gap left behind by the floating up of the arms. You should use your ‘yi’ (desire,
determination, will power and again determination) to control all such movements and
refrain from using your muscles to move your arms. The ideas of letting all your cells
swell, maintaining an air bubble in each of your joints, floating your head upwards,
shifting the weight of the different parts of your arms and body are all accomplished
by the use of ‘yi’.
The use of ‘yi’ to float your arms upwards or to transfer your body weight is to
supplement your effort to shift the weight of your arms and body so that you will find it
much easier to mobilize the weight of your arms and the different parts of your body.
After prolonged practice, you will be able to use purely ‘yi’ to relax and to move your
arms and body without thinking.
CHAPTER 23 More about YIN YANG
___________________________________________________________________
In previous chapters I used a see-saw to illustrate the principle of YIN YANG. Of
course, the philosophy of YIN YANG is much more complex than what I have
explained but what I have said so far is adequate for the purpose of learning and
practising taijiquan. Now that readers must have been practising taijiquan for some
months by following this book, it would be opportune for me to expound more about
YIN YANG in relation to taijiquan.
Apart from using the complex concept of YIN YANG to enable us to move the arms
and body without using muscular power, we also employ it as the guiding principle for
virtually all aspects of taijiquan.
When you stand, it is important that you avoid having both legs sharing equally the
weight of your body. This is described as ‘double heavy’ (shuang zhong) and may
affect your agility and ability to react to attacks from your opponent. What you should
do is have one leg that is ‘solid’ and the other one ‘light’. ‘Solid’ is YIN and ‘light’ is
YANG and this will facilitate your movement and you can easily change your position
by shifting YIN to YANG and YANG toYIN. By ‘light’, it does not mean that you should
relax the leg completely and let it hang there loosely. You should still maintain your ‘yi’
at the ‘light’ leg and imagine that it is floating up. The ‘solid’ leg, which stands firmly on
the ground, is YIN and is balanced by the ‘light’ or YANG leg. Although the YIN leg is
solid, you should develop the skill that the foot and the ankle are both relaxed and the
foot is just placed on the ground. To make it even more complicated, you should train
yourself to divide you ‘solid’ leg into YIN part and YANG part so that you can respond
to attacks instantly.
The YIN YANG concept also applies to your body and arms. For example, when your
right arm is ‘solid’, your left arm should be ‘light’. When a spot of your solid arm is in
contact with your opponent, the spot is divided into YIN and YANG; between the YIN
side and YANG side, there should be a centre as I have said in previous chapters.
Maintaining the position of the centre unchanged, you should let the YANG side of the
spot that is in contact with the opponent follow the direction of the attack and, using
the power from the opponent, you will be able to let the YIN side move towards and
attack the opponent. However, if we convert the two-dimensional taiji diagram into a
three-dimensional global mass, when your ‘solid’ arm is in contact with your opponent,
your whole arm should be able to roll like a ball - one side of the ball will deflect the
attack and the other side will attack the opponent.
You should apply the same principle and divide every part of your body into YIN and
YANG so that you can respond to any external stimulation internally even if you do not
move your body and arms.
Another important point to remember when practising taijiquan is to maintain a high
spirit and a bright mood. The high spirit will facilitate the development of an aura which
increases your fighting power, enhances your mental health, alertness, and
confidence, and improves your agility and reflex. Externally, you will present yourself
with an imposing posture. The high spirit is YIN and the aura is YANG. The high spirit
supports the aura and the aura embraces the high spirit. In other words, the YIN
supports the YANG which in turn embraces the YIN. They complement one another
and they cannot be separated from one another.
The importance of the YIN YANG concept to taijiquan cannot be over-emphasized. I
talk about ‘yi’ in the previous chapter. You employ ‘yi’ to control the movements of the
body, arms and legs instead of using muscular power. ‘Yi’ is YIN and your physical
body is YANG. When you use the ‘yi’ to float your head upwards, the rest of your
body is still attracted downwards by the force of gravity. Therefore YIN and YANG
act against one another and they also complement one another because if YIN does
not exist, YANG will fall which means that your body cannot be held upright. On the
other hand, if YANG is not there, there is nothing for ‘yi’ or YIN to hinge on.
THE END
The secrets of TAIJIQUAN
by Kamsang Law
All copy rights are reserved for the author. The use of any
part of this publication reproduced, transmitted in any form
or by any means, electronic, mechanical, recording or
otherwise, or stored in a retrieval system, without the prior
consent of the publisher or writer is an infringement of the
copyright law.
For questions, click "contact us"
by Kamsang Law
All copy rights are reserved for the author. The use of any
part of this publication reproduced, transmitted in any form
or by any means, electronic, mechanical, recording or
otherwise, or stored in a retrieval system, without the prior
consent of the publisher or writer is an infringement of the
copyright law.
For questions, click "contact us"
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Martial art fiction
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Link to
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Chinese beauties
Home cooking recipes
Chinese legends
Female emperor
Chinese threatening myths
A remarkable woman
A lustful woman
"Thunderstorm"
Chinese music
Panda in motion
Fairylands in China
Chinese opera
Link to
orientalwomentalk.net