Category: Philosophy

On January 22, 2022, one of the most influential Zen Buddhist monks, Thich Nhat Hanh passed away.  I recently listened to an interview he did with NPR’s Terry Gross.  In the interview it is mentioned that Thich Nhat Hanh started a movement called “Engaged Buddhism”.  This movement combines the practice of meditation with anti-war work.  Gross mentioned the juxtaposition of the concept of “stillness” associated with meditation with the concept of fleeing in wartime.  She asked “Were those two things compatible?  Were you able to practice stillness and the ability to run for your life when you needed to?”

In response to this, he said, “That is a matter of training.  The practice is in the practice of mindfulness.  Mindfulness is the energy that helps you to be aware of what is going on.  Like, when you walk, you can walk mindfully.  When you drink, you can drink mindfully.  And when you run, you can run mindfully.”  He also said, “The essential is that you are mindful why you do things, whether you do it slowly or quickly.”  It is this quote that caused me to think about my tai chi practice.

Whenever I practice with students who are just starting their journey into tai chi, they are shocked when I refer to the martial arts history of tai chi.  Many will wonder how can one use tai chi as a form of self-defense?  I have spoken to (and written) at length about the stereotypical view of tai chi: slow movements, graceful motions, dance-like rhythms, etc.  Many tai chi teachers I have come across have spoken about the health, moving meditation, and martial arts principles behind taijiquan.  Many have told me that they have come across this perception many times.

It is at this point that I think about the words of Thich Nhat Hanh and his notion of “mindfulness.”  I feel that when we practice tai chi slowly, we are mindful of our movements.  We practice to be aware of each bend, twist, and step.  We can turn our mind off and allow our bodies to “feel” the movements (thereby being a form of moving meditation).  We can focus on the ward off, fa jin, or strike (thereby focusing on the martial application).  No matter what you are looking for, it is important to practice mindfulness.  Be aware of your rooting.  Can you stay connected with the earth?  How do you time your breathing with the movements of your form?

A tai chi practitioner can will practice their forms slow as well as fast.  Many may only see the forms done slowly.  Using wide/large sweeping movements and moving slow and with great control, may make the form look beautiful.  However, with faster expression, whipping movements, and great power, one can see the martial applications in the same form.  To watch a great master such as Chen Bing perform a Chen form has both beauty and power.

So, whether one is practicing for meditation purposes, internal health/wellness purposes, or martial arts purposes (or all of the above), it is quite important to be aware of the purpose(s) for your training.  Each time I train I may focus on one or two principles that I wish to exercise (or improve upon).  No matter if you are moving fast, or moving slow, keep aware of your movements and be in the moment.  Train mindfully, friends.

Don’t forget to check out our great training articles!

Taijiquan (太極拳) practitioners sometimes view yin (阴) and Yang (阳) as two sides of the same coin, and this can seem like an appropriate analogy for yin and yang united as one whole. But an important principle in Taijiquan is to clearly differentiate yin from yang. A coin’s head and tail sides do not really have the ability to differentiate yin from yang. One could designate one side of a coin as heads and the other side as tails based on different markings, but that coin would behave the same as a two headed coin would. If a coin is behaving the same regardless of whether heads or tails is up (or forward…), then yin and yang are not differentiated.

Slide a quarter and a dime across a tabletop so that they collide, and it would not matter which sides (heads or tails) were facing up. The force of the collision merely depends on mass times acceleration (F=ma), the ordinary qualities of the coins.

Taijiquan does not rely, or focus its training philosophy or methods, on strength or speed. Coins only have mass (size or “strength”) and acceleration (speed) when they collide, despite having two differently designated sides (e.g., heads/yang and tails/yin). Because coins cannot have their yin and yang sides behave differently from each other, coins cannot use their different faces in a way that differentiates yin from yang.

To illustrate the separation of yin and yang, a circular disk can be used, but it is easier to use a bicycle gear rather than a coin. The teeth of the bicycle gear engages the chain to transmit the power from the pedals to the rear wheel. If one only pushes down on the pedals, then they are alternating which foot is providing the power by pushing down on first one pedal and then the other. Each foot/leg would be alternating the yang (pushing the pedal down) and yin (relaxing as the pedal continues up), and this would be differentiating yin from yang.

If, however, one is wearing toe clips (attaching the shoes to the pedals), then both the down-stroke and the upstroke can be used to power the bicycle. This would not only be differentiating yin from yang, but would also represent yang (hard) and yin (soft) mutually helping each other (刚柔相济 gang rou xiang ji). Because of the nature of the circular gear, and the cycle that is produced by its rotation, it is both capable of differentiating yin from yang and having them mutually help each other. This cyclical expression of power is desirable for Taijiquan.

While alternating between yin and yang is necessary to propel a bicycle, it is less clear what is required when practicing Taijiquan. For example, how does one clearly differentiate yin from yang while standing with both feet on the ground? Can one have yin and yang mutually helping each other in one’s legs rather than just alternating between yin and yang when one shifts their weight?

Since there are considered to be five bows (五弓 wu gong) in the body capable of producing power, the two legs, the torso/spine, and the two arms, I will address yin and yang clearly differentiating, and mutually helping each other, in these body segments individually.

A drawn bow has potential energy stored until the string is released to shoot the arrow. This potential energy is obtained somewhat differently than in one’s body since the material on the outer side of the bow is stretched, and the inner surface material is compressed and, when the string is released, they attempt to regain their original (inherent) shape. So one side of the bow is yang (expanding or pushing) while the other is yin (contracting or pulling). In the legs, the extensor (yang) muscles are on the front of the leg and pull on the bones to extend the leg, whereas the flexor (yin) muscles are on the back of the leg and pull on the bones to bend the leg. But we can still have both yin and yang muscles primed for action simultaneously but without isometric tension (where both flexor and extensor muscles are tensed, and the joint angle is “locked” into an unchanging angle).

The legs push against the ground in order to keep our body from collapsing in response to the force of gravity. This is yang. In order to avoid having just yang in the legs, we are taught to maintain some bend in the knees and avoid locking the legs straight. Additionally, the image of pulling the torso downward, like when lowering oneself into a chair, aids in establishing the potential for having yin (pulling downward energy) in the legs. We want the legs to have a springiness like we have when we jump from standing on a chair and landing on the floor. Landing with the legs just pushing into the floor makes the landing very stiff and could even lead to injury. This is landing with the legs just yang. Likewise, we do not want our legs to be just yin since relaxed legs would not catch us and we would fall to the floor. The way that we naturally learn to land from a jump is the same quality that we want to maintain in our legs while standing.

Having both the extensor muscles primed for projecting force (or pushing), and the flexor muscles primed for receiving force (or pulling), simultaneously, is a condition that we want both of our legs to maintain in order to have both yin and yang simultaneously. This can be accomplished by the nature of the stretch reflex. The stretch reflex is an automatic recruitment reflexive action (without the need for conscious commands) that attempts to maintain joint angles. If the joint angle is suddenly changed without the person intending to do so, muscle fibers are automatically recruited to counter that unintended change. This reaction is reflexive and therefore is extremely fast [this is what is seen when a doctor taps the tendon below the knee when checking a patient’s reflexes, resulting in the foot kicking]. The resilience of muscles is also enhanced by their viscoelasticity [viscoelasticity is demonstrated by the classic children’s toy, silly putty, where relatively slow changes allows the material to stretch or act like a “viscous fluid,” whereas sudden changes makes the material bounce or behave like an “elastic solid”].

But humans habitually fail to maintain this yin+yang balance. This can be seen in beginners who alternate between legs when shifting their weight forward or backward, causing them to raise up when straightening (yang) one leg before dropping down when bending (yin) the other leg. To counter this tendency, students are often taught to maintain a constant height (except for a few specific movements) when practicing their forms. Some view the situation where the body is raised because both legs are extended as being “double weighted.” Here the weight is also evenly distributed between the legs, and both are expressing yang (minimal yin) and could correctly be called double weighted. But double weighting can also be viewed as a broader concept and can be applied to what is occurring in a single leg, regardless of one’s weight distribution.

Even experienced practitioners often fail to maintain the yin+yang quality in their legs when engaged in push-hands (推手 tui shou) practice. One often sees them bracing the extended back leg against the ground and exhibiting the undesirable quality like butting cows (顶牛 ding niu). The quality like butting cows is yang+yang and is typically seen in animals where the two back legs push forcefully against the ground in order to propel the body forward to butt against a rival. The back leg(s) then become yang rather than maintaining yang+yin (or yin+yang). If there is no quality of receiving energy (or pulling), then there is minimal yin. Not only are the animals using yang+yang (or double weighting), they are also using force against force, both undesirable qualities in Taijiquan practice.

In the torso we want the energy of the back to be yang and expand upwards to the crown of the head. Simultaneously, we want the energy of the front to sink to the pelvic floor. This creates a cycle around the body (matching the “microcosmic orbit” of energy). To illustrate this, one can hold their hands with the palms together (like praying) and push one hand slightly upward to represent the energy of the back rising/expanding (yang) while the other hand sinks down to represent the front of the body sinking (yin). The result is that the “back” lifts simultaneously with the “front” becoming concave, as directed for in Taijiquan literature. This produces the complementary yin+yang cycle in the torso, and this should be maintained in one’s posture whether issuing, or receiving, energy/force.

We also want to maintain a cycle of energy around our arms. The outer surfaces, with the extensor muscles, are yang while the inner surfaces, with the flexor muscles, are yin. An analogy that illustrates this cyclical quality is how the arms are used when hugging someone. When hugging, one uses their arms to extend (project/yang) around the partner while simultaneously drawing them close (absorbing/yin).

When our arms are maintained in a rounded shape (like in embracing a ball), then we can maintain a cycle of yin+yang around the arms when interacting with an opponent. A properly inflated ball has a spherical shape that maintains a contact point on its periphery with anything that touches it. Additionally, when it rotates in response to the force that impacts it, one side of the ball turns away from the contact point while the opposite side simultaneously moves towards it. Therefore, on one side of the contact point with the ball is yin (turning away) while the opposite side is yang (rotating towards), and therefore the ball maintains yin+yang. We try to maintain this same quality in our rounded arms. If the arms become too angular, then we typically loose this yin+yang quality.

The yin+yang quality in the arms is also facilitated in movement by smoothly transitioning through arcs (partial circles) rather than by reversing directions. Reversals indicate abrupt changes from yin to yang (or yang to yin) and an alternation of the two energies rather than a cycle of the two energies helping each other. Arcs cycle yin and yang energies in a manner similar to pedaling a bicycle while using toe clips. The cycle never stops and never reverses, it just switches from emphasizing yin to yang to yin to yang… as appropriate.

The analogy of the hand stroking a beard addresses this same principle in the hands as was just described for the arms. Contrast this motion with how lobster claws open and close, which is more of an alternation of yin and yang rather than a cycle; claws require a reversal of direction to express different energies. Claws are “double weighted” since both sides are either yin+yin (opening/releasing) or yang+yang (closing/grasping), and are incapable of having yin+yang in how they operate. While this is differentiating yin from yang, claws are incapable of “stroking the beard” cyclical actions.

Throughout our body, we want to have yin and yang clearly differentiated, but it is even better when we can have yang (hard) and yin (soft) mutually helping each other as is done when the energies are maintained cyclically. We seek to eliminate abrupt reversals when changing from one expression of energy to the other. We want to avoid the duality of “fight or flight” and maintain the potential for both yin and yang continuously, while still clearly differentiating yin from yang.

The article “Internals” is reprinted on Slanted Flying website with the permission of the author Sam Langley from his personal Blog.

What makes Tai Chi an internal art? Most books on the subject will tell you it’s something to do with energy and the mind. Whilst there may be some truth to this it doesn’t help a beginner very much.

Tai Chi is internal in a very physical sense. When you align your skeleton in a specific way and relax your muscles your internal connective tissue or fascia will activate. In most people, this internal strengthening is initially hard work as you’re exercising deeper parts of your anatomy that are probably quite weak.

I’ve heard fascia referred to as postural muscles which is a helpful definition because the fascia is what allows you to stand. It is the connective tissue that joins your muscles to your bones and runs throughout your body. It is very important to keep your fascia healthy but most forms of exercise don’t. You can only strengthen it by relaxing. Lifting weights and doing press ups may serve some purpose but these types of external exercises will hinder any kind of internal work.

The reason relaxation is emphasised above all else in Tai Chi is for this reason. Most people are quite tense and those that go to the gym regularly are likely to be even tenser. It seems that when you over exercise your big muscle groups you are doing so at the expense of internal strength.

Tai Chi is a martial art that seeks to train in whole body strength. Eventually, you also want to strengthen your muscles but to place too much emphasis on that kind of training, in the beginning, would severely impede progress.

Tai Chi develops a deep internal body connection. When I move I can feel the connection between my hand and my foot. This starts as an idea, becomes a faint sensation and eventually becomes a deep physical reality. When you start to develop this feeling Tai Chi practice becomes very satisfying indeed.

Wu Yuxiang’s (武禹襄) Taijiquan (太極拳) classic states “You must act according to your opponent, not try to do things from yourself, for if you go along with your opponent, you can act spontaneously, but if you act from yourself, you will get bogged down.” and “If he takes no action, I take no action, but once he takes even the slightest action, I have already acted.” The Taijiquan classic attributed to Yang Banhou (楊班侯) says “The basic of basics is to forget about your plans and simply respond to the opponent.”

These sayings (all as translated by Paul Brennan) emphasize the predominately counter-attacking approach of Taijiquan. But does this mean that practitioners cannot initiate actions against an opponent, and that they must wait until the opponent attacks?

In many conflicts the aggressor has an advantage since the opponent needs to be able to understand the attack and then respond. The aggressor already knows their intent, but there is a delay for the recipient since they usually cannot determine what the aggressor intends until after the aggressor initiates their attack. This delay is what Taijiquan trains to eliminate.

We want to know what the opponent intends, but not let them know our plans. By allowing the opponent to initiate the action, we can gain information about their intent. By “forgetting about your plans” the opponent cannot read or understand our intent.

“Borrowing force” is commonly practiced in Taijiquan. We want to use the opponent’s actions to defeat them, emphasizing responding to the opponent rather than initiating actions ourselves. This is accomplished through “sticking.” In order to use Taijiquan’s principle of stick and adhere, connect and follow (zhan nian lian sui 粘黏連隨) we typically want to be in contact with the opponent. Can we induce contact, or must we await an advance from the opponent before we can touch them?

What about when we are using weapons where contact is often broken? In the weapons sparring that I learned, in choreographed sparring sets, drills and free sparring, we are often separated, and we frequently attack openings even when we are not in contact with the opponent’s weapon. How then does this remain compatible with Taijiquan strategy?

There are several ways to approach these questions.

My understanding is that there are ways to interact with an opponent that do not require the opponent to initiate the actions. For example, there are sayings that refer to having simultaneously true and false attacks. We want an attack to be real, yet be able to change it into a feint, depending on the opponent’s response. This means that we attack an opening or weak area of the opponent, but when they change to respond, we can abandon our attack and change to respond to their new actions. Initiating an attack in this way can be used to connect with the opponent when they respond.

Some schools refer to the interactions of push-hands (推手 tui shou) training as being like a question and answer conversation. You supply energy (an attack or feint) towards your partner (the “question”), and listen for their response (their “answer”). Your follow-up action would depend on theirs, continuing the attack if their response is wrong or, if their response is correct, changing your action in order to “ask” another question or to respond to their counter (their “question”). The person that “asks” is initiating the interaction, but what happens afterwards depends on the partner’s response (“answer”).

This type of interplay reflects the simultaneous true and false attack because the follow-up depends on how the opponent responds to the initial attack. However, it does not require that one only respond (“answer”) without ever initiating (“asking”).

Some schools train to continually flow towards the opponent’s spine when attacking, like a river flowing to the ocean. Using this approach, the goal is to control the opponent’s spine as a way of controlling their stability and movements. Any blocking by the opponent is like an obstacle in the way of the water’s movement, and should be flowed around, over washed, undercut, or worn away. This is another way of maintaining a responsive initiative during an interaction.

Another quote from Wu Yuxiang (Brennan translation) is “If an opportunity comes from yourself, go ahead and shoot, but when force comes from your opponent, borrow it.” Here “shoot” likely refers to the Taijiquan principle of storing energy like drawing a bow, and then releasing the energy like shooting the arrow, and probably means, in general, to attack. This quote seems to indicate that, though it may be desirable to have the opponent move first in order to have them commit to some action that is then used against them (borrowing their force), it is not a requirement; we can still attack on our own initiative.

Those who have faced a quality modern boxing jab know how difficult it is to stick and adhere, connect and follow when the jab and the return to the guard position are both so fast. But boxing blocks are relatively stationary, especially when they are of the covering type. This means that when they initiate their attacks using a jab, they are very difficult to connect and adhere to, but when we initiate an attack from non-contact, their defense often allows us to connect with them. Once we contact the opponent, we can employ the skills that are typically trained in push-hands practice, for as long as we maintain the contact.

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(A New Commentary on Wang Zongyue’s Treatise)

The sweet spot in Taijiquan (太極拳), as I understand it, is the fine line between yin (阴) and yang (阳) [traditional characters 陰 and 陽 respectively], i.e., between excess and deficiency, between resisting and collapsing, etc.; or visually, being on the “s-curve” line separating the yin from the yang in the taiji diagram (taijitu 太極圖).

“EXPLAINING TAIJI PRINCIPLES” (太極法說), a book attributed to Yang Banhou (楊班侯) and written circa 1875, contains a section (“TAIJI’S REDUCING MEASUREMENTS”) describing finer and finer levels of precision – from gross movements, through a foot (10 Chinese inches), an inch, a tenth of an inch, and finally to the width of a hair. To me, this describes the increasing level of precision towards the ideal balance between yin and yang.

Taijiquan literature contains many references that can be understood as relating to the concept of the fine line between yin and yang energies. This article offers my understanding of yin and yang through my commentary on “THE TAIJI BOXING TREATISE OF WANG ZONGYUE OF SHANXI” (山右王宗岳太極拳論) as presented in Li Yiyu’s (李亦畬) 1881 manual and translated by Paul Brennan (translations are presented in bold type). [Note: For the full translation, see the following link.]:

https://brennantranslation.wordpress.com/2013/05/25/the-taiji-classics/

Taiji [“grand polarity”] is born of wuji [“nonpolarity”], and is the mother of yin and yang [the passive and active aspects]. When there is movement, they [passive and active] become distinct from each other. When there is stillness, they return to being indistinguishable.

The treatise starts by linking the martial art with its philosophical namesake (Taiji). But even without moving, yin and yang are established in one’s body due to Earth’s gravity, the body’s Micro- and Macrocosmic orbits of energy, inherent yin and yang surfaces of the body (e.g., defining our front and back, respectively), etc. Even standing prior to beginning the form, or in zhan zhuang (站樁 standing like a post) stationary postures, we already have up/down, front/back and left/right (i.e., differentiation of yin and yang).

We want to already have six-direction force like a properly inflated ball that expands in all directions. The “movement” that differentiates yin and yang (passive and active) is, therefore, likely referring to interaction with an opponent. With contact, like a ball floating on water that reacts instantly, there should be instant differentiation into yin and yang in a Taijiquan practitioner’s body.

As soon as we are touched, we want to have the sensitivity to be able to move in response, and this movement dictates where yin and yang are in relation to the point(s) of contact (the part that moves away = yin, and the part that moves toward = yang) and the energy from the opponent. However, before contact, we maintain the potential to move in every direction, without the opponent being able to predetermine which way we may go, thus being “indistinguishable” when in “stillness.”

Neither going too far nor not far enough, comply and bend then engage and extend.

This sentence points out that, once yin and yang are distinct, practitioners must pay attention to neither having too much nor too little of either energy. It also presents Taijiquan’s approach to interaction. “Comply and bend” is first yielding in response to the opponent, which then creates the condition where we have the opportunity to attack (“then engage and extend”).

Since yin and yang are determined by the movement in response to the energy at the point(s) of contact, Taijiquan’s strategy becomes one of the opponent committing energy first, and our response creating both defense (yin) and opportunities for offense (yang). Unlike the idea that the best defense is provided by a strong offense, Taijiquan strategy comes more from counterattacking, getting the opponent to commit, and thus reduce their changeability, while we maintain our ability to change and adapt to whatever situation is present; they become yang, while we become yin + yang.

He is hard while I am soft…
Although there is an endless variety of possible scenarios, there is only this single principle [of yielding and sticking] throughout.

This section continues explaining the Taijiquan strategy by contrast with the opponent. It also introduces the concepts of “yielding” and “sticking” which are made possible by the yin + yang energy at the point(s) of contact with the opponent. Regardless of the conditions (e.g., whether fast or slow), the strategy of Taijiquan is to respond to, rather than act in opposition to, or independent of, the energy of the opponent.

Note that “soft” here should probably not be confused with being yin + yin since the first sentence in this section warns against both excess and deficiency when it states “neither going too far nor not far enough.” Thus “soft” is likely referring to the condition of yin + yang as opposed to the more instinctual yang + yang (i.e., fight) or yin + yin (i.e., flight). Yin + yang allows for yielding and sticking rather than fight or flight, since being too yin would prevent sticking, while being too yang would prevent yielding.

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