Come on in, pull up a chair, have some tea, relax for a while. Let me tell you a story…. Ahh, this idea stirs of images of children sitting around a fireplace listening to ‘days of old’ as told by grandpa. But what does this have to do with martial arts and taiji?

I remember back in one of my old taiji schools, a fellow classmate had taken some private lessons with the head instructor. I asked him how the lesson went and what did they cover. He told me they did some application work and qinna and then spent about 20 mins listening to stories. Huh??? You’re paying someone $50/hour and you spend almost half of it listening to stories???? I really didn’t see value in this, especially during a private lesson where time is of the essence.

But then, I thought back to my days of wushu training. We would be drilling sets when all of a sudden the teacher would call everyone around him for a bit. He’d ask a student to demonstrate a bit of their form. Afterwards, he’d tell a little story that tied a moral to the teachings. At this time, he was telling a story of an army general and how he would lead his troops with various colors of flags. Based on the color, the troops would know what to do. He then asked us to think of our mind as the general and the flags like our intentions.  Only through precise coordination can all the troops work as one to win the battle.

Over the weekend, I came across a new blog that’s basically an online b00k Chen Zhonghua is putting together.  The topics of the blog will eventually be published in print form as well as any commentary or discussion that stems from the post! How cool is that! The blog is titled, Pull Up A Chair.  I was pleasantly surprised to see stories about the trials and tribulations of Hong Junsheng and training accounts from students!

After reading some of the stories in the online-book, I couldn’t help but link some of the morals to my own training. I thought about the stories I would tell my son about my training. I thought about how important it is to share those things that make us who we are. In retrospect, if we spend too much time searching for techniques and secrets, we may miss the forest for the trees..

A couple of days ago, I went over to my in-laws house and they were telling me how great the taiji demo was on the 2007 Chinese New Year’s special. I asked them what style it was and they didn’t know, but I assumed it was some wushu-taiji variant.

When I got home, I popped the DVD into my player and scanned until I found the demo. I believe they were demoing a section of the Chen form with a mix of yang and others. They had some high flying kicks and nuttily crazy balance moves and was a good show with lots of oohs and aahhs..

URL: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=diFe52FLHy0

My wife watched it on her own so the next day I asked her what she thought. She said it was ‘OK’ but something was wrong with their shoulders and they appeared to be lacking something. Plus, they didn’t follow through on a lot of their movements. They had a lot of flashy movements, she said, but it just didn’t *feel* like taiji.. I smiled and said, “I am proud to call you my wife.. ”

What does a camera tripod have to do with Taiji? The most obvious answer would be to equate the three legs of the tripod forming a triangle. I’ve spoken about the optimal structure of a stance in relation to triangles before, but to reiterate, consider the vertices to be made of each foot and the centerline of our torso. But what about the not-so-obvious association between the contact points of the tripod and the ground?

In a blog post by a student of Chen Zhonghua, the following was noted:

When Shifu [Chen Zhonghua] and I were in an audio-visual store in Edmonton they had an old-timey camera tripod set up. The legs of the tripod came to a sharp point so that the contact points with the ground were very small. He said these older tripods were more stable than the new ones with larger rubber feet that have more contact with the ground. Shifu said this is how we should stand in Taiji. The foot should not be flat on the ground, but must balance on only one point (eg. the outside of the heel, the big toe, etc.).

When a round ball is sitting on the floor there is only one point that contacts the floor. If able to do this it will allow one to move from place to place with much more agility and grace. It will also allow the knee more freedom to move with the adjustment of the foot.

– Source: http://hunyuantaiji.livejournal.com/986.html

You know, I’ve never thought about the idea of the foot balancing on one point. But looking back, I’ve often heard stories of Feng Zhiqiang shifting weight from leg to leg AND front-to-rear foot while appearing to be standing normally.  Also, Fong Ha is a strong advocate of the taiji ruler exercise in which the weight is not only transferred from foot to foot, but also rolled along the whole foot, rear-to-front.

The thing that really caught my attention was the relation between this type of training and agility. Chen style is supposed to be very “rooted”, hence a lot of emphasis placed on low stances. In my own training, at times I’ve felt this to be rather restrictive and confining in movement. How spontaneously and quickly can I react in a low stance? I believe in a recent issue of Tai Chi Magazine, William CC Chen mentioned something not lowering more than 20 degrees. In Chen, we often hear of ‘thighs parallel to the ground’, but at what sacrifice? Perhaps this idea of balance or root focused on one point of the foot can address this issue. Not quite sure, but something I will definitely explore, especially notions of balancing on the outside heel and BIG TOE???  

From Cook Ding’s Kitchen:

The challenge is this: from Ash Wednesday (tomorrow) until Easter (April 8), train every day, without fail, no excuses. It’s not as easy as it sounds. Some days, you might only be able to get a few minutes of training in; but the point is to do it everyday, no matter what.

Count me in!! Who else is in? Proclaim it on your blog or post a comment on Cook Ding’s Post. Let the fun begin!!