Tai Chi: июня 2016

пятница, 10 июня 2016 г.

The Thirteen Tai Chi Postures

The thirteen postures were the original postures of the first attempts to put together a single set in H'ao Ch'uan which later became known as Taijiquan. Those thirteen postures remain today and in fact they remain more so in advanced push hands and they are...

Tai Chi Posture No. 1 (P'eng: Yin defence)

Using P'eng jing, you are able to ward off any kind of attack using a 'yin' method. This also acts as a sensor, which can then be turned into an attacking yang hand. It is said that if you only learn about one kind of jing, then this should be it. On a physical sense, the arm is held as if holding a tree, slantingly upwards. In push hands this gives one the idea of how to use the posture of P'eng. Most people make the mistake of holding the arm in the correct position but then lifting the whole arm upward. The elbow should stay where it is while the wrist is lifted upwards slantingly. This 'lift' the attacker's Qi causing him to feel like he is 'floating' making it easy for you to then attack to vital points.

Tai Chi Posture No. 2 (Lu: Or to Rollback)

This is also a yin, however it is an attack. Both of your hands attach to the attacker's arm or any part of his body. Your own body then moves from the centre (very important) activating the lower tantien area. Using the 'no-mind' state, this will have the effect of joining with his Qi and causing him to topple forward past you. As he does this, your yin hand, that which is turned upward, immediately turns into a yang striking hand and strikes with great force using his own falling power against him.

Tai Chi Posture No. 3 (Chee)

A Yang attacking motion, means to 'Squeeze'. Most people get this translation wrong and call it 'press'. However the Chinese character means to squeeze. Again, the power comes from the centre at lower tantien. The elbows are squeezed inward as the lower tantien also squeezes. Just like when you squeeze a tube of toothpaste. One hand is placed inside of the other's wrist and is yin while the other is yang.

As both hands attack, they change shape and thus state forcing great adverse Qi into the attacker's vital points. This must be a whole body movement however and not only an arm movement.

Tai Chi Posture No. 4 (Arn)

This posture is normally called to push. However this is also incorrect as it means to 'press'. This is again a yang attacking movement coming from the whole body issuing yin and yang Qi into the attacker's vital points on his chest. Many make the mistake of looking after their legs when they hear about not being 'double weighted' but neglect their hands. Never in Taijiquan is there a two-handed strike or attack using the same power in each hand at the same time. There is a 'fa-jing' shake of the waist causing one hand to strike just before the other. The hands are firstly yin, then yang thus releasing yang Qi into the attacker.

The above methods are the four primary methods. As a general rule, P'eng jing is the major jing used in all of the others. P'eng is moving Qi while Lu is 'collecting Qi', Chee is receiving Qi while Arn is striking Qi. Although both are used to strike.

If your technique is not good and any of your four main methods have been defeated, then you must use one of the four corner methods, as the form main methods are the four primary directions.

Tai Chi Posture No. 5 (Tsai)

Sometimes called 'inch energy'. Like picking fruit off a tree with a snap of the wrist. Often on hand will be placed right on top of the other wrist to assist in the power of this jerking motion. It is not a pull of his wrist but rather a violent jerking fa-jing movement that can knock him out by its violent action upon his head jerking backwards and kinking his brain stem. Again, the power must come from the centre and not only from the arms and hands, and a follow up attack is also necessary.

Tai Chi Posture No. 6 (Lieh)

Sometimes called 'split'. This one has a physical meaning and an internal meaning. The physical meaning is when your "Lu" has been defeated; you can turn it into (from a corner position) Lieh. You break his energy between his elbow and his shoulder and his wrist, thus forcing his own Qi back onto him via his shoulder, which physically is torn out of its socket. On an internal level, this is often called 'the small strike Qi' as a strike is issued from very close to the opponent.

You split his power up into two by measuring the space taken by his body and that of between yourself and his body. This is a very advanced method as if you get the distance wrong, then you will be defeated. You can then issue great attacking force with only one hand from a very short distance.

Tai Chi Posture No. 7 (Chou)

This is often called 'elbow': This is where we use the very devastating elbow strike. Many say that it is a second line of defence/attack in that it can only be used when you are quite close to the attacker, perhaps after your initial hand strike has been defeated.

However, I like to use elbow strike as a primary strike by using one of the many 'opening up' methods first.

Tai Chi Posture No. 8 (K'ao)

Often called 'Shoulder strike: This method is used as a third line of defence and can be quite lethal used at the correct distance. The power must again come from the centre using the power of the legs and waist together. Shoulder can be used from the front or from the back depending upon the type of attack the your are receiving. If for instance is it a pull down where you right shoulder is being pulled to your right, then you would use the front part of the shoulder. If however, the attack pulled you to your left and there was no time to use the front part, you would turn right around so that the scapular part of your right shoulder could then slam into his chest using fa-jing.

The Five other tai chi postures.

The last five postures are really not postures but rather directions. So during push hands we have move forward, move backward, look right , gaze left and central equilibrium. We use move forward in order to not only attack using a Yang movement such as press or elbow, but also in defense when he attacks our centre so that we can avoid his full force and re-attack as he goes past. Move backward, is also an attacking movement such as when we attack his arm using 'choy'; or roll back or arm break and it is obviously a defensive movement when we are moving backwards in order to lessen his attack. loo right and gaze left are also defensive and attacking postures in that we move the body so that our eyes can look right and gaze left during the use of p'eng. The last one of central equilibrium means 'earth power' and although it can mean that we simply have the necessary balance, it also means the power that we gain from the ground.

Original article and pictures take www.taijiworld.com site

понедельник, 6 июня 2016 г.

The Taipei Tai Chi Experience

If you’ve spent any time at all in Taiwan or China, you’ve probably seen Tai Chi being practiced in parks, usually in the early morning by anything from single practitioners to large, semi-choreographed groups. For the past month or so I’ve been practicing Tai Chi myself three mornings a week, and I thought I’d use this week’s column to share my experience.

As I’m not an expert (indeed, after four weeks of practice I feel as if I know less about the subject than I did before I’d started), I’ll clip a quick paragraph from

Wikipeida’s Tai Chi page before getting into my own humbling (and yeah, sometimes humiliating) insight about Tai Chi.

Tai chi (taiji), short for t’ai chi ch’üan (taijiquan; 太极拳), is an internal Chinese martial art practiced for both its defense training and its health benefits. The term taiji refers to a philosophy of the forces of yin and yang, related to the moves. Though originally conceived as a martial art, it is also typically practiced for a variety of other personal reasons: competitive wrestling in the format of pushing hands (tui shou), demonstration competitions, and achieving greater longevity.”

Here’s how I started the practice:

A few months back I moved into an apartment located next to a fairly lively temple in the wilds of Muzha, not too far from Maokong. Within the first few days of living there, my partner and I both noticed a gentle music wafting up from the temple courtyard on weekdays. One morning I brought my coffee down to investigate, and saw a group of about three dozen people in a grid formation beneath the temple’s awning all doing what to the uninitiated eye might appear to be a slow waltz. One of the practitioners invited me to join them, and I told them I’d come for the next day’s class.

It’s here that I should point out a few things.

1) I am dyslexic in any language, and have trouble keeping left and right and 左 and 右 straight for any length of time,

2) Two, I’m not generally a fan of waking up early, and

3) I suck at group activities.

Still, I decided I’d not just go to the next days class, but make a commitment to myself to go at least three times a week for the next month. Part of the reason was because I’d already heard a great deal about the health benefits of Tai Chi. Years ago I’d had a friend in Colorado who was a daily practitioner and spoke glowingly about the beneficial effects on mind, body and spirit. (Then again, he also spoke glowingly about the beneficial effects of chi retention, something I’d actively avoided since hitting puberty. But I digress.) Another reason is that I felt that practicing this most quintessential of Chinese activities would be beneficial in my own quest to better integrate into the Chinese-speaking world in general.

I showed up bright and early on the first day, joining my fellow practitioners in a series of coordinated exercises, all to the sounds of a melodic taped recording rattling off instructions.

Inhale….left leg out….exhale…left leg in…

Inhale….roll head forward….exhale….roll head backwards….

I was surprised that I was actually doing the exercises more or less in sync with the rest of the students.

Only when the Shifu arrived, clad in his white jumpsuit bearing the logo of his school, did I realize that we’d just been doing the pre-class warm-up.

As the Shifu made his way to the front of the group, each member straightened up, hands behind back. One of the students yelled out. “Shifu is here. Class will begin!”

At that, my new classmates greeted first the Shifu and then their fellow classmates in the traditional greeting, grasping fist in open palm and shouting “Good Morning Teacher” and “Good Morning Classmates.”

My first lesson had begun in earnest. One of the students pressed play on the tape recorder, and the gentle music I had been hearing over the past several months began.

“We begin with the 13 poses,” our Shifu said, and I did my level best to follow along with the rest of the class as they went through the graceful and interconnected series of moves that taken in their entirety make up the 13 poses exercise. Though my movements were neither graceful nor interconnected, from my position way in the back of the class and next to the temple’s massive incense brazier I was able to basically copy the movements of the students in front of me. But the 13 poses exercise requires circular movement, and once the group had moved past the first sequence and turned, I found my position suddenly not behind the group and looking forward but before the group with nobody to copy, making it clear to myself and all involved that the basics of the 13 poses was something I’d need before any level of mastery might be gained.

I realized that I was 一竅不通 (yīqiàobùtōng), or out of my depth. But I wasn’t alone. Shortly thereafter, I, along with (thankfully) a number of other newcomers, was brought out of the main group to the far side of the temple plaza to join the beginners group, which I immediately dubbed yo yo ban (nursery school). There, under the patient tutelage of one of the Shifu’s older students, we spent the next hour running through the basics of the 13 poses. While running through the basics, I watched from the corner of my eye the main group engaging in the graceful partner exercises known as tuishou (“pushing hands”), which clearly offered useful martial applications.

This was merely the first class, and since then I’ve spent three mornings a week with the group, beginning each class with the warm up exercises before retreating to the safety of Yo Yo Ban to continue getting down the basics of the 13 poses. Though I’ve joined the main group for the daily 13 poses sequence, once the class progresses to tuishou I still feel out of my depth, and apparently Shifu feels the same way since I’ve yet to be forced to graduate into the main group.

While I find some of the moves fairly easy to grasp, other parts of the sequence (specifically those involving changing direction) still seems to confound my overall dyslexic sensibility.

“Left foot forward, right foot back” The teacher’s assistant of the day will say in Chinese, and by the time the direction has run through my internal translator I’ve done the opposite. And honestly, I’m not sure whether or not I’ll ever be ready to leave the safety of tai chi nursery school and begin practicing tuishou with the main group anytime soon.

But the study of Tai Chi is giving me great general insights into Chinese culture, a few of which I’d like to share.

Tai Chi is full of contradictions

Tai Chi, like so many other aspects of Chinese culture, is simultaneously incredibly simple and infinitely complex. The exercises are simple, but must be done precisely. The movements are peaceful, but can, if called upon, be used for martial purposes. “You’re doing great” (according to one of my student teachers) and also “You should continue in Tai Chi Nursery School before joining the main group” (the same teacher in the same breath).

Togetherness is key

While the class is made up of a small core group of regulars who’ve clearly been studying for years, most of my fellow students seem to fall somewhere between awkward beginners just slightly less beginner-y than myself and beginner-intermediate level. Outside of the core group, everyone seems to be looking at everyone else for guidance and affirmation that their own movements aren’t too far off the mark. This concept, rendered in Chinese as 同心協力其利斷金 (Tóngxīn xiélì qí lì duàn jīn, or “working together is where the greatest profit lies”) is a key concept in Chinese culture.

The rules are consistent, except when they aren’t, and it’s fine if you didn’t know that but really, it would be better if you did.

During the first two weeks of our class we worked on the 13 poses, which I was just starting to get when all of a sudden we switched to another set called I think the 19 poses or 39 poses or something, which really I should have gotten because the music suddenly changed.

This is just for fun and health, so don’t worry if you suck at it. Also, there will be a performance coming soon, and we expect you to participate.

This last bit was sprung on me during Tuesday’s class. Also, I was told that I should try to make it to class more often, and that I’d be expected to buy a fan to train for “the fan dance” portion of the performance.

It’s OK that you can only commit to 3 mornings a week and also, you really should come five mornings a week.

Because I really need to progress past the Tai Chi Kindergarten phase. Also, apparently I’ll be asked to purchase a fan on Monday.

So I’m committed to keep with the Tai Chi lessons, not just because I hope to both improve myself and delve deeper into the mysteries of Chinese culture, but also because I have to pass by the group on my way to work and wouldn’t want them to think I’m a quitter.

Also, I paid for three months of classes in advance, and will be expected to shell out NT150 for the aforementioned fan next Monday.

Below, a short film made by the incredible Will Tang at Going Awesome Places Blog. Will, along with his wife Chantelle, were my guests on a tour of Wulai this Thursday. They took tons of photos of the class (including the two on this page), and wound up learning more in 90 minutes than I’ve managed to learn in the past month, further cementing my inferiority complex.

Until next week, keep practicing.

Joshua Samuel Brown

Editor in Chief My Taiwan Tour Journal

Looking to experience traditional martial arts in Taiwan? Let MyTaiwanTour custom design your travel itinerary to include visits to the temples and parks in which the ancient arts are still practiced.