In contemporary wushu, when someone says get into a cat stance, this means you basically get into a stance in which the rear leg handles the grunt of the weight and only the tip toe of the forward leg touches the ground. The true test of this is to then be able to easily lift your front leg without shifting side-to-side or adjusting the height. Quite a difficult feat to maintain such a stance with stability on the rear leg.

What about in taiji? Is the same held true for taiji? One of the things I got drilled into me while training in chen is that when you do a “cat stance” or a “toe stance” aka “Empty Stance”, it really means that, you put all your weight onto the bearing leg and then put the tip toe of the other leg to the ground. The tip toe, not the area from the ball of the feet to the toe (what I had done in the past).  This type of stance is commonly found in chen forms at the end of the the 6 Sealings 4 Closings posture in which you do a “push” and the weight is on the right leg and only the tip toe of the left foot touches the ground.

Since I used to keep the left leg settled on the area between the ball of the foot and the toe, I was cheating. I’d say that I could have easily had 20% of my weight on that leg even though it was supposed to be an empty stance. So, what happened after I made this switch to being on the tip toe? I often found that my hip jutted out beyond the frame of my body, that is, the plane of my outer hip extended beyond the plane created by the outer edge of my foot.

Is this necessarily a bad thing? I think so, b/c over time I started to realize the weight was getting locked in my hip and not being able to fully transfer to the ground.  After the slight adjustment, I felt the burn in my thigh and knew the weight was now being transferred into the “weight bearing” leg and not being stuck in my hip.

[tags]taiji, training, tips, hip, stance[/tags]

I’ve spent the last couple training sessions focusing on material from the Hong Jun Sheng Practical Chen Taijiquan Method. First of all, I must admit doing “the circles” is quite an enlightening exercise.

As a brief comparison, when I do Hong’s Circles, I can definitely feel a much better connection between my rear leg and my forward hand. It often feels as if the foot is “pushing” the hand, proving support for the hand. Why??? Personally, I think it has a lot to do with the stance and structure of the form. The circles are pretty much done in a forward bow stance which allows for an easier connection to the ground from the forward hand. Not necessarily maintaining a strict forward bow stance, but the action is generally done “in front” as opposed to “on the side” as with traditional chen sets.

Anyhoo.. back to the one that really hit me, this is with the 6 Sealings 4 Closings posture. In traditional sets, it’s done after the lazy tie coat posture in conjunction with a “roll back”. The conjunction with the roll back often results in a complete weight transfer back before moving forward, however I’ve often considered the scenario of being overpowered during the rollback. Hong’s method directly addresses this concern by slightly changing the execution of roll back to 6 Sealings 4 Closings.

In the Hong Method, after the lazy tie coat is completed, the weight is on forward leg. In the execution of the rollback, is achieved via a conjunction of 2 splitting energies and seems very martially sound. For example, check out this excerpt of Chen Zhonghua explaining the 6 Sealings 4 Closings posture on his Yilu Detailed Instructions DVD.

URL: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ik-g-HwLbP0

As an aside, I just found out you can contact fellow taiji blogger, InternalArtsIA, for purchasing information.

The first split is a horizontal split between the left and right hands. As the right hand moves forward, the left hand moves backward, resulting in a split. By using the torso and the movements of the kua this split feels very solid and structurally sound. It’s almost like the energy found in wringing a wet towel. The twisting in conjunction with the split/stretching results in a power effect with very little movement.

The second split is a vertical split between the right hand and right hip. As the right hand moves up, the right hips goes down. Note, both of these splits are executed AT THE SAME TIME and not sequentially. If this is not the harmony between yin-yang, forward-back, up-down, I don’t know what is! It’s like the body is keeping itself balanced and in check. It’s also feels like an expansion of the body, only to be following by a contraction of the body (The push component of the 6 Sealings 4 Closings posture).

I’m pretty sure my explanations are kinda confusing as I’m just getting exposed to the Hong Material for the first time. Luckily, InternalArtsIA just wrote a post to some of my questions that delves deeper into principles behind the Hong Method.

Why the opposing energies? Chen Zhonghua speaks of an issue where “Body parts will always like to follow”. Often times in traditional chen sets, when the rollback is done via the xinjia method (not the loajia method in which the rollback is a downward deflection), the body tends to move up with the hands. This is one of those key points of concern for me. If I were to really try this move and my opponent were stronger than me, I’d be easily overtaken. Taiji is not about power (IMO), but about skill. The skill to use the body in the most efficient manner that results in the maximum gain.

Huh… What?? What does mayonnaise have to do with taiji? Is it b/c mayonnaise is kinda like water so therefore have that water flowing nature found in taiji? Not really. In fact, I don’t think mayonnaise really has anything to do with taiji at an very artificial level, however if you probe a bit deeper and look at it from another perspective, perhaps it may.

Have you heard of a story called The Mayonnaise Jar? If you haven’t, I suggest you read it now and then come back to this post.

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Good, now that we’re on the same page, what does the tale of the Mayonnaise jar have to do with taiji? I think the crux of the tale is summed up in the following line:

If you spend all your time and energy on the small stuff, you will never have room for the things that are important

So, what is the *important* stuff in taiji? Are we spending time on what’s important? I remember when I first started taiji it was after taking a break from wushu due to all my knee pains from years of snapping, jumping and just doing stances that were not so good for me.

So why did I start taiji? The main reason was not b/c it was the “ultimate fist” boxing or that it’s goal is to counter the hard styles, the main was b/c I wanted to feel healthier. I wanted to nurture my body and strengthen my knees so that in the old age, I could enjoy my health and life. I knew doing taiji was “good for you” and I wanted to be good to myself.

Now fast forward about 8 years. Does taiji still make me feel healthy? Is taiji still good for me? Looking back, I fondly recall memories of doing the form and feeling so relaxed and energized after completing the set. I felt so good that I wanted to do more. My mind was calm, my body was relaxed, it was something I did so I could cope with the daily grind. Is that still the case?

I have to admit, the answer is no. Do I feel relaxed when I do the form? Not really. Do I feel energized after completing the set? Kinda. Why? What’s different now? Before I wasn’t thinking about trying to connect the rear leg with the front hand, nor was I trying to do any dantien rotations during movements. I wasn’t trying to break the movements down into their core silk reeling components, I was just doing the form, enjoying the movement and the way it made me feel. I wasn’t concerned with the martial applications b/c I was focusing on the mental application, the “moving meditation” that kept me grounded.

So which one is better? Then or now? I like the effects of then, but I enjoy the qualities of now. There’s more going on that I’m trying to keep track of that’s “cool” and interesting to think about but is this the right path? What are the Golf Balls and what are the Pebbles in Taiji? For me, the golf balls would be health, meditation, and well-being.

[tags]taiji,health,goals,focus,mayonnaise,meditation[/tags]