Archive for the “Tai Chi” Category

Hey All,

I just came back from the Can-Fit Pro Annual Conference. It was a wonderful time, and met some wonderful people. While I was there I said to myself, ‘Why don’t I check out the Tai Chi Short Form class and see how they are teaching it from a fitness perspective.’ So I went. As many of you already know, I do the Yang Short form, practice my Bagua Circle walk that was given to my by Sifu Liu and I’m trying (slowly and not so focused to learn Wu Style 108).

I found the class interesting as I could tell for many this was an introduction to Tai Chi (Taiji) and many had a Yoga background. I enjoyed the simplicity of it. I find that sometimes we want to do the most complicated things when we’ve been training a long time, and we forget to go back and enjoy the simplest of movements.

After the class, a wonderful woman came up to me and asked, ‘Have you done this before?’ I said, ‘Yes, I also practice and teach it.’ She seemed excited to hear this, and asked me a question I haven’t heard in a long, long time, ‘What should I feel when I do Tai Chi? The instructor kept asking that question.’

Is I pondered this question, it brought me right back to when I began studing Wing Chun and Tai Chi. It was the same question that I asked my Sifu.

To sum up our wonderful conversation, I came to a few key points.

As a beginner:

1. Feel the coordination of your body, working as one unit, not a blob of disconnected joints. This includes the coordination of the kinetic chain in the body. The hands and feet should work in time with each other, supporting each other in the movement.
2. Feel your body balance, know where your weight is at all times as you move. In life we complete disconnect ourselves from where I balance is, we take it for granted.
3. Feel your Center of Gravity sinking, from your original point, down into the hips, then the knees, to the feet then finally into the earth.
4. Feel the energy(chi / qi) as you move coming from the ground and through your limbs. This energy can be a ‘resistance’ as you pass positive and negative energy in a movement.

The last two (#3 & #4) can be very difficult for someone new to Taiji, and even for people that have been training for a long time, it can be frustrating as the feeling is sometimes a kin to a light switch. Sometimes the light is on, and sometimes it’s off, sometimes it flicks on and off quickly, and sometimes you can control it, and other times you can not. But with continual practice you can learn to keep it on. But the key word is ‘continual’.

These very same concepts are also found in Wing Chun & in Chi sau. The more you try and understand the above four items and how they play out in your training, the more you can get out of it.

Keep Training! Keep Learning!

Hey All,

As some of you know, I also do some Taiji (or Tai Chi) push hands. While some may know of ‘structured’ pushhands, I’m referring to a more free-form or dynamic type. This has no set pattern or structure. I like to refer to this type of pushhands as ‘free-form pushhands’.

In ‘free-form pushhands’, it is still in a constructive and playful manner. The goal from an intellectual standpoint is to understand how your body takes on imposed forces (caused by pushing and pulling), and how to apply forces on your partner at the same time. From a physical standpoint, your objective is to take your partner off balance or control your partner.

As you ‘play’, you start to find that there is no truly ‘fixed positions’ and that the positions found in various taiji forms are merely reference points. You also start to understand (sometimes subconsciously first) that there are ‘preferred’ body mechanics. These ‘preferred’ mechanics, allow you to redirect or neutralize imposed forces, and help you to general forces with less effort.

But one of the most amazing things you will find is that during a 5 minute ’round’ of pushhands, you must control your breathing and your mind. If you don’t relax your breathing and calm your mind, you quickly exhaust yourself before the round is finished.

When pushhands are done properly, it’s more than about ‘shoving’ it’s about sticking to your partner, playing with control points, and understanding your weaknesses. To make pushhands truly work for you, you must remove your ego. Both you and your partner must become ‘students’, because you will always learn something from each session, regardless of how long you’ve played at pushhands.

If you ever get the chance, try it, you might find that you like it.

Until Next time,
Keep Training, Keep Praying, Keep Learning,
Chuck