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As a student of martial arts, I have been very fascinated with the internal arts as well as the external arts. Cross training in other arts has been a way for me to learn how I move naturally in a martial art and if it is an art for me. My first foray into the “internal” arts was when I took up Taijiquan around five years ago. Learning Tai Chi has taught me how to move from the inside out, something that has helped me in ways that I cannot explain.

However, when I would train in my other arts, I found myself to be the butt of several jokes. “What’s it like learning to sway to other old people in the park?” I am sure that if you are reading this, you know that which I speak. I remember that one of the first conversations I have ever had with my teacher was the perception of Tai Chi. Also, if you are a reader and practitioner of the art, you know that this is quite far from the reality.

From the training that I have had in Tai Chi, I have done pushing hands and chin na applications. I have left the school with many bumps and bruises over the years, all of which have helped to cultivate my training in such a rich art as Taijiquan. During that time, I have studied and trained in Yang form Tai Chi, sword form, and am getting through Chen form. I have worked on silk reeling, qi gong, brick stability training during those years. During this time, the notion of tai chi being an art where the practitioners move slowly in a serene park becomes a cliché that is further and further from my mind.

I belong to a small, close knit group of Tai Chi practitioners, all of whom are serious about our training (we have the bruises to prove it). One of the ways our Sifu instructs us on our form is to explain the “martial application” of the movement. With movements such as “Snake Creeps Down”, in order to understand the movement, one has to understand how it can be applied in a defensive/offensive manner. While it may be true that some instructors may try to minimize the martial application, our Sifu is quick to explore how it can be used as a way to defend one’s self.

As I continued to explore Tai Chi, my Sifu gave me the opportunity to help teach a class. As is the case in many of my martial arts classes, I make a good person to demonstrate on. As I became the resident “tackling dummy” for several of the classes, the new students he trained, learned that Tai Chi is not an art that is merely “old people in the park”. It is a powerful and legitimate art of self-defense. However, the more that I trained with the new students, the more I started to see the beauty of the art to those who may have health limitations and conditions. I have seen many students come into a Tai Chi class to get a good workout, yet improve their balance, regulate breathing, and work out weakened knees. While I have had friends and fellow students of other martial arts go to the hospital or take time off because of the physical stress that comes along with training in heavy external combat arts, the students who studied Tai Chi would continue to come to class day after day and train in a martial art that did not create as much stress.

To this day, I am constantly picked on for studying an “internal” or “soft” art. However, I see the students (of all ages) who come into the school to learn Tai Chi and am proud to count myself among their numbers. Yes, we may be in the park doing our diligence to express ourselves in the form that we are moving to, but you would do well to treat us with the same respect you would to those doing the external arts such as tae kwon do, karate, judo, etc.

First the bad news: research indicates that humans are not really capable of multitasking (actively thinking about multiple things simultaneously). However, if some task is routine, then we can focus on another task simultaneously.

When trying to focus on more than one task, we rapidly switch our attention from one task to another. Although it seems instantaneous, switching from one task to another is neither fast nor smooth. There is a significant lag of up to 40% longer than when focusing on a single task, especially when the tasks are complex, or when they use the same type of brain processing.

Research indicates that we may be able to switch focus between two tasks, since our brains are accustomed to either-or (binary) choices. The two frontal lobes of the brain apparently can serial task. One lobe’s task is on hold while the other task is being executed, and this pattern switches back and forth rapidly. But a third task is too much to focus on, and the brain will prefer to drop one task rather than switching between the three.

This system allows us to ignore distractions when we desire to focus on something that we judge to be important. Of course, some people are better at ignoring distractions than others are. People often benefit from meditation to clear the clutter from their minds that distracts them from focusing on current tasks.

Slight of hand magicians use our one-track-mind nature to distract us from what they do not want us to see. They use gestures, choreographed movements, eye contact and facial expressions, a distracting patter of speech – multiple things to catch our eyes and ears and keep our minds off balance. Their success is an indication of how poorly humans focus on multiple things.

When young, many of us have experienced the difficulty of patting our head while simultaneously rubbing our belly, and those people who are especially clumsy are teased with the exaggeration that they cannot walk and chew gum at the same time.

Of course, walking and eating are routine for most people, so we should be able to do these activities simultaneously. But what about martial arts, where the opponent presents us with variable stimuli when interacting with us? Even in controlled freestyle push-hands interactions, we typically need to be aware of what both of their hands are doing, even if the legs are not also allowed to attack us.

Training does help to make tasks familiar enough to focus on other aspects of an interaction. For example, a drummer in an improvisational music group can use both arms and both legs to produce different rhythmic patterns, all while tracking the progressions of the musical piece, as well as listening to what the other musicians are doing, and modifying their drumming to complement the other musicians. Some drummers can even sing while playing (adding melody to their focus on rhythm).

Taijiquan (太極拳) practitioners often start by learning the choreography of a solo form. This is motor learning (“muscle memory”) or learning specific movements through repetition. Eventually, the moves will become familiar enough that less attention needs to be devoted to them, and eventually they can be performed without conscious effort (the movements are stored in the brain as memories). But even after learning the form, practitioners can usually only focus on one or two aspects for refinement during each practice.

Taijiquan solo training is not so different than the following description for dancers:

“Most dancers share a relatively similar path, first learning the choreography and then adding layers of detail and color. Finally, they absorb the work so completely that its elements literally become automatic, leaving the dancer’s brain free to focus on the moment-by-moment nuances of the performance” (Diane Soloway, 5/28/2007).

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

If you want to learn Tai Chi you need to have a teacher, hopefully a good one.

You can’t simply copy the movements from a video or read about the principles in a book and expect to gain any skill whatsoever. Once you have found a teacher however, you need to practice what you’ve been shown on your own and this is the only way to learn Tai Chi.

Through regular solo practice you learn how to teach yourself. Students who go to classes regularly but don’t practice on their own make little real progress. This is because real Tai Chi is a very difficult art to understand. You can only penetrate it’s mystery on your own.

When you practice on your own you are learning how to feel what’s going on in your body. In Tai Chi we want to move the whole body together as one, how can you learn to do that. Well, go and find out in your own time.

Although regular time with a good teacher is vital, you may find that more and more you are able to answer your own questions.

If you are enthusiastic about Tai Chi it’s fun to talk about and I used to take every opportunity to bombard my teacher with questions. I think it’s good to have an inquiring mind and I could happily chat all night to my teacher or anyone else who has wisdom to impart. These days I ask less questions and practice more. I feel confident enough to figure things out on my own. If I have a question about some aspect of Tai Chi I’d rather see if I can work it out myself. If I do ask about something it’s often to check that what I’ve discovered is correct.

Too many questions and too much talk about Tai Chi can actually impair your ability to listen. As your mind becomes quieter, your intuition gets stronger and the solutions come to you unhindered. That happens in two ways, firstly you discover things yourself and secondly you are more open and receptive to advice.

As a teacher I am aware of how difficult it is to communicate the principles verbally. It’s all very well telling someone to relax, to sink the weight into the legs and the move the whole body, they need to find out how to do that themselves.

Even when a highly skilled teacher physically corrects you, it’s still you that’s doing the feeling and the learning yourself. You could be training with Chen Xiaowang every week and unless you’re making an effort to understand what’s happening in your own body it would be a waste of time.

So in summary, whatever your reasons for doing Tai Chi… go and practice and learn how to teach yourself!

Six-direction force includes the balance of opposing directions for up/down, forward/backward and right/left (阳 yang and 阴 yin pairs), which will be presented in this article. These pairs of directions represent XYZ coordinates, which together represent three dimensional force, the goal being to have energy in all directions like a properly inflated ball.

Zhang Yun wrote an excellent article that includes an explanation of six-direction force in Xingyiquan (形意拳): http://www.ycgf.org/Articles/XY_SanTiShi/XY_SanTiShi.html

While much of what Zhang writes in his article is similar to, or compatible with, Taijiquan (e.g. see “Upward Force” and “Downward Force”), this article will attempt to explain additional aspects of six-direction force in Taijiquan (太極拳) practice.

In action, when one direction of the pair(s) is emphasized, one does not want to lose the counterbalancing opposite direction. Practitioners should maintain some yin in a predominantly yang move, and vise versa. Over-commitment to one direction inhibits the ability to change. When committing to one direction, practitioners should retain the ability to change to any other direction, including the opposite.

LEGS – Up/Down: There are several ways that Taijiquan addresses this principle. One is the rooting into the feet (extending into the earth), while also having the body lifted as if the crown of the head is suspended by a string from above.

If we are standing, then we are producing upward energy (“resisting” the pull of gravity), and this is balanced, in some traditions, by the image that we are pulling ourselves downward as if we are lowering ourselves to sit on a chair.

It is desirable to always have the ability to jump upward and also to suddenly drop downward regardless of where a practitioner is in their form(s). No matter how their weight is distributed in their legs, a practitioner should be able to suddenly raise or lower their body. This action is like a spring. As long as the spring is not fully compressed or fully expanded, it maintains the ability to either compress more or to spring back, depending on the changes in the force acting on the spring.

It is also addressed in some traditions by having the head stay on one level, rather than raising and lowering, while shifting from one leg to the other. By practicing staying level, we are practicing to maintain an up/down balance between the leg muscles that could otherwise be used to raise (using only the extensor muscles) and lower (using only the flexor muscles) our bodies.

LEGS – Forward/Backward: The practice of remaining at a level height when shifting the weight also addresses the forward/backward balance by having us always using one leg to “push” while the other leg “pulls” (rather than pushing with one leg to the apex when both legs are relatively straight, and then collapsing the other leg to continue the movement in that direction).

The balance of forward/backward in the forward advancing leg is addressed by the principle that one should not advance beyond the point where returning/backward energy can be felt. Some address this principle by prohibiting the knee from advancing beyond vertically above the toes. Others are more conservative with the advance restricted to no farther that the center of the foot, or the Bubbling Well (涌泉 yongquan, KD1 acupuncture point). Some even advise going no farther than a vertical shin.

Some practitioners also practice not having the knee extend too far forward when bending the leg by practicing squats facing a wall with the toes touching the base of the wall. In this practice, the thighs should be lowered to horizontal while the knees are restricted from going beyond the toes.

The energy in the rear leg, when retreating, should maintain the ability to spring forward, like a compressing spring. The yin/yang balance of the rear leg, when advancing, is addressed by the requirement to not lock the knee. A locked knee, in any posture, would produce yang without yin, and could make it difficult to change quickly or smoothly.

Practitioners used to viewing the legs as being two of the five “bows” (the other three being the two arms and the torso) will have forward/backward (and to some degree up/down) balance similar to a drawn bow. When drawn, a bow will be expanded on the outward (forward, yang) surface while compressing on the inner (backward, yin) surface; the bow being bent by pulling the string is balanced by the energy of the bow trying to straighten.

LEGS – Right/Left: The rounding of the crotch produces an outward energy that is balanced by the instructions to keep the knees pointing towards the toes (or the big toe in some traditions), which maintains an inward counterbalance to the rounding of the crotch.

Sometimes the outward/inward (right/left) balance is compared to the energy of the legs when riding a horse. When riding a horse, one’s thighs are pressed outward by the animal’s body, but the rider’s knees should maintain inward energy against the horse’s flanks.

LEGS – Horizontal Plane: Since the knee’s mobility is limited when the weight is partially in the corresponding leg, the movement of the knee is often restricted to just forward/backward and right/left, thus producing the horizontal plane. The forward/backward and right/left balances in the legs are also addressed, at least in Chen style, by the partner practice of knee against knee circles (掤 peng, 捋 lu, 挤 ji and 按 an with the knee).

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How the Circle/Sphere Generates and Differentiates Yin and Yang in Taijiquan

An image that I find very useful when teaching interactive Taijiquan (太極拳) is that of a properly inflated ball floating on water.

A ball is an ideal shape since it is spherical and thus responds with circular movements, and the ball floating on water responds instantly to incoming energy. It is balanced and centered, always maintaining a perfect structure with neither protrusions (excesses) nor depressions (deficiencies). It acts only when acted upon, and does not act in opposition to anything, but rather moves with the conditions present in the interaction.

When a ball rotates in response to incoming energy, one side of the point of contact moves away from, while the opposite side moves toward, the point of contact. This generates yin (阴) going away from, and yang (阳) going toward, the point of contact.

The ball is passive, yet practitioners can benefit from emulating the ball when practicing Taijiquan. By actively rotating like the ball, we can create a cycle of energy at the point(s) of contact with an opponent. One side will be yin (retreating, pulling, absorbing, yielding…) while the other side simultaneously is yang (advancing, pushing, projecting, attacking…).

If there is yin on one side of the point(s) of contact with an opponent, and simultaneously there is yang on the other side, then we can avoid the error of “double weighting” (or double pressure). While some schools may have their own preferred way of talking about double weighting, for this article I will define double weighting as having either yin on both sides of the point of contact, or having yang on both sides of the point of contact (i.e., having equal pressure on both sides).

Yin/yin double weighting is collapsing (or running away, limp, etc.) while yang/yang double weighting is resisting (or fighting, tense, etc.). Instead, we want to maintain a condition at the point(s) of contact with an opponent that maintains both yin and yang simultaneously. One can view this as keeping a point of contact on the “s-curve” dividing the yin side from the yang side of the taiji diagram (taijitu 太極圖).

Some schools also use the ancient version of the taiji diagram to illustrate Taijiquan principles. Using this diagram, the point of contact with an opponent would be like the clear center that has the yin and yang cycling around it.

If practitioners clearly differentiate yin from yang around the point of contact, then the amount of contact force can vary from extremely soft to extremely hard, and every level in-between, and the yin/yang balance, interaction and transformations can be maintained.

Many Yang style practitioners train as softly as possible, whereas many Chen style schools practice using significant force. These differences in training are compatible with Taijiquan principles if practitioners understand the separation of yin and yang at the point of contact, and thus realize that both versions can operate somewhere on the “s-curve” of the Taiji diagram.

All practitioners should be able to use Taijiquan against whatever level of force their opponent uses; ideally, using the full spectrum represented by the entire “s-curve” line. The ball floating on water will respond appropriately regardless of whether the contact with it is very light or very forceful.

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