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If you have practiced Tàijíquán (太極拳) for any length of time, you are sure to have heard a teacher command you to “relax.”

Sometimes they pick on a certain body part by saying things like, “Relax your shoulders!” Other times, they just tell you to relax your whole body.

Why do they do that?

From a martial arts perspective relaxation is essential in the development of proper power. When extending your arm, you have a set of muscles responsible for the “pushing” motion of that arm. You also have a set of muscles responsible for the “pulling” or opposite motion of your arm. In exercise science, these opposing muscle groups are called agonists and antagonists.

It’s important to realize that a strong punch only uses the “pushing” muscles. Because we are extending our arm for the punch, these “pushing” muscles are called the agonists. In order for that punch to be truly powerful, the “pulling” or antagonist muscles must be in a relaxed state.
During martial arts practice a major problem arises because many students mistakenly associate muscular contraction with strength, and think that if they tighten all the muscles (both the agonist and antagonist muscles) of their arm, their punch will be very strong.

When they do that, however, their antagonist or “pulling” muscles are acting against their “pushing” muscles. The result is that heir punch is slower and significantly less powerful.

So when you train your form in slow motion, if you relax all the muscles, except for only the muscles you need to move your arm, your movement will achieve maximum efficiency. Then, when you repeat that movement quickly, you will maintain the quality of your movement and your punch will be very powerful.

The development of power, sometimes called Fā Lì (發力) or Fā Jìn (發勁) in Tàijíquán requires a very specific type of movement which begins in the legs, is given direction by the waist, and then finally expressed in the hands. This, too, requires a certain amount of relaxation to perpetuate the wave of motion.

When watching someone who is very good at Tàijíquán, the Chinese say that the performer’s movements are “liu shuǐ (流水)” or “like flowing water.” This is a direct reference to the wave of movement used in the development of Fā Jìn. Unnatural tension at any point in the chain of muscles used to create this wave will disrupt it, and further inhibit the development of power in Tàijíquán. Thus, a person practicing Tàijíquán for martial arts should relax, or they will not be able to fully realize their power.

In fact, there is actually a risk of practicing Fā Jìn while tense. When this special coordination is trained, the body moves in sequence. The interesting thing is, however, that the muscles involved in this sequence go from large to small. The leg muscles engage to begin the movement. Then the wave of activity transfers from the legs to the large postural muscles of the torso and back, and the legs are allowed to relax a bit. From there, the movement is transmitted to the smaller shoulder and arm muscles. Finally, the movement is handed off to the fingers where it is expressed.

When using Tàijíquán as a martial art, the development of Jìn is an essential part of training. Because these attacks are developed as a kind of wave, from the ground up to the hand, the power moves from the body’s larger muscle groups to the body’s smaller ones. The physics of this is similar to the use of a whip.

Figure 1

Figure 2

As you see in Figures 1 and 2, when cracking a whip, the power is first developed in the thicker portion, near the handle, and then flows as a wave down the whip to finally be expressed by the tip. The narrowing of the whip actually focuses the power of the strike into a more compact and exponentially more powerful impact.

Figure 3

It takes far more power to swing a bat than to crack a whip. In fact, if you moved a bat up and down with the force necessary to crack a whip and struck something with it, you would barely damage the surface, while the whip’s power is continually focused towards its tip, giving it a deeply penetrating strike.

Tàijíquán is performed slowly and while relaxed—even when studied as a martial art—to help the practitioner develop the proper coordination and timing as well as to keep them form injuring themselves. Once a Tàijí strike is speed up if there is any tension in the body, the energy projected from the wave motion will stop suddenly at the location of tension. Think what would happen if a person braided a stick into the middle of a whip and then cracked it with all his might (see Figure 4). The stick would most likely crack under the pressure of the whip’s motion. The same would happen to whatever structure in the body was tense, which usually constitutes of muscles, ligaments, and tendons.

Figure 4

Now we know why a person practicing Tàijíquán as a martial art should relax, but what about those who practice Tàijíquán for health? Why should they also relax?

For that, we’re going to briefly talk about the process by which Qì (氣) moves through the body. Then, we will examine how Tàijíquán specifically affects this Qì movement, and then we will examine how tension affects that.

Continue to page 2…

Diǎnxué (點穴, sometimes called Dianmai or even Dim Mak) is known as pressing or sealing the cavity and it is one of the most misunderstood techniques of Chinese martial arts. Most students of Chinese martial arts don’t bother memorizing cavities for striking for innumerable reasons. Knowledgeable teachers are hard to come by, the instruction is boring, precise, tedious, surrounded by myth, mysticism, and obscurity. Not only is finding a teacher difficult, but also finding one who is willing to part with his information is even more challenging.

Before coming to Chinese martial arts, I studied a variety of Korean and Japanese arts. It was in one of these classes that I had my first introduction to the concept of the cavity press. After looking at a poster, which outlined cavities for striking, where it hung in my teacher’s studio, I asked the teacher why he didn’t teach these techniques.

“You need a really strong grip for that,” My teacher replied.

Confused, I asked him to elaborate.

“In a fight, if you’ve grabbed an opponent, you might be able to press a cavity, but you have to be very strong or even that will not work.”

“What about hitting them?” I asked.

“You can’t,” My teacher said simply.

When I asked why you couldn’t hit them, my teacher responded by saying, “Those points are very small. You will never be able to aim with such accuracy. Missing by even a few centimeters means that you have failed to strike the cavity and your attack will be wasted. It’s better to employ more reliable techniques.”

So, from that moment on and for years afterwards, I studied martial arts confident in the knowledge that striking cavities is not a reliable method of fighting. Later, I took up Tàijíquán (太極拳) and about a decade after that, I began to study Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM). While in school, learning about acupuncture I suddenly realized that cavity striking one of the greatest weapons in a Tàijíquán practitioner’s arsenal.

So, why is it that someone practicing Tàijíquán can strike a cavity with accuracy while a hard-stylist could not?

The answer is simple: external martial arts do not generate power in the same way internal arts do.

One of the most unique aspects of the internal arts is the development of explosive force (Bàofālì 爆發力) known as Fājìn (發勁). The whip-like explosion of movement often seen in Chen-style’s Cannon Fist and New Frame forms are a fine example of this Fājìn power. In pushing hands, a master can apply Fājìn and with a small jerk of his body, the master can send his opponent flying. It bodes the question: how can such a small movement send someone so very far?
Aside from the massive effect of this explosive energy, a Fājìn strike is very penetrative, sending the energy of the strike deep into the body, while an external martial arts strike which uses muscular power or Lì (力), spreads damage out on the surface. Furthermore, a person who has mastered the techniques known as Inch Jìn (Cùnjìn or 寸勁) or Centimeter Jìn (Fēnjìn or 分勁) can strike an opponent with no windup, and the damage done from striking with the fist only an inch or centimeter away from the opponent is just as devastating as punching with a windup. Probably the most famous example of this concept is Bruce Lee’s “one-inch punch,” but in the case of inch and Centimeter Jìn, the fighter will ideally be using Phoenix-eye Fist, focusing all that explosive Fājìn power into a tiny point.
This is Tàijíquán’s secret weapon.

Fājìn actually allows a Tàijí practitioner to find a cavity through touch, and then, without withdrawing one’s hand, the Tàijí practitioner can use Inch or Centimeter Jìn to strike the cavity with amazing force.
As soon as I discovered cavity striking is a viable technique, and I began to examine the recommended striking points found in Chinese martial arts. I quickly discovered that these were the same points I was studying in TCM school.

Of course, not all acupuncture points can be struck effectively, but all the Diǎnxué points were acupuncture points. At that point, I began seeking out colleagues who practiced both Tàijí and TCM with whom I could compare notes. I did this in hopes of finding a way to de-mystify Diǎnxué and to discover why this knowledge was couched in such secrecy.

I found myself asking questions like: “What happens when I strike a cavity? How does that affect the Qì of the human body?”

In order to understand this, we must first understand some basic concepts of TCM. First, it’s important to realize that Qì (氣) is not some mystical and unexplainable energy that wisps around like magic inside the Human body.
The word Qì itself offers a fantastic understanding into its meaning. The character for Qì, 氣, is actually made up of two different Chinese characters. The upper portion of the character, 气 means “air” or “gas.” And there is also the word mǐ (米) meaning “rice.” A saying in Chinese Medicine helps us to further unlock the meaning behind the idea of Qì.

Continue to page 2…

If you train Tàijíquán (太極拳) as a martial art, you will, at some point, come across Tui Shou (推手). Also known as Pushing Hands, (Pushands, Push Hands), this type of training is an incremental step in the direction of Tàijí sparring. This training usually progresses from fixed-step training drills, to fixed-step pushing, to moving step training drills, to moving-step pushing, and then finally to Tàijí sparring drills, two-person fighting set, and Tàijí sparring.

The problem is that many of us who train in Pushing Hands find ourselves focused on the wrong things, leading to bad training habits that can stunt our growth along the path from fixed-step drills to Tàijí sparring. To develop true skill in this training, we must always measure techniques we use now against how well they will help later in training. Some of the most common mistakes I see in both beginners and advances Pushing Hands students are:

• Using techniques not common to Pushing Hands

  Have you ever been Pushing Hands and suddenly your training partner put into a painful joint lock, or actually attempted an eye-jab or throat strike? I have. As a beginner to Pushing Hands, I had no idea what to do to counter these techniques. When I complained to my partner that these were not the point or focus of this training, his response was, “You’re learning self-defense. These are the kinds of things that people will try to use on you on the street.”

  The problem with this is that for the rest of that Pushing Hands session, the aggressor stoked his ego, while I flailed around uselessly because he was training fixed-step Tàijí sparring, while I was still trying to do fixed-step Pushing hands. Training in Pushing Hands happens between partners. This means that ultimately you should be working with your friend to bring both your skill levels higher. Tearing your training partner down may make you feel good in the short run, but it makes you a bad partner. Eventually nobody’s going to work with you!

• Relying on speed, not skill, to get out of a jam

  I have lost count of the hundreds of times I’ve seen this happen. I will be training with a partner and we start slowly, pushing and neutralizing until suddenly my training partner finds him or herself in a bad position. They are about to fall, so suddenly they speed up, effectively countering the push that would have toppled them.

  This works great when you’re training slowly, but what happens after you speed up and find yourself in the same jam? Once you are going as fast as you can go, you can’t go any faster. Then what? Usually you will fall, and it’s much harder to undo a bad habit when you’ve already graduated to moving swiftly. So my advice is, if you’re about to get pushed over . . . let it happen. It sucks, but you will learn from it.

• Using a technique that works well for only one type/style of Pushing Hands training 

  In intermediate and advanced stationery (fixed-step) Pushing Hands, I will often see students who are pu
  lled off balance throw their bodyweight into their opponent as they fall. The unexpected movement knocks their training partner off balance while simultaneously propping himself or herself up.

  It’s a great technique to save you from falling, but it only works in fixed-step Pushing Hands. The moment you add stepping into the mix and try that technique, you are likely to find yourself doing a face-plant on the floor. Once again, if you’re about to fall, check your ego, and let yourself fall. Relying on this or other, similar, techniques to get you out of trouble just develops a bad habit you’ll have to contend with when you graduate to moving-step Pushing Hands.

• Only training with competition in mind

  Sometimes when training in class, you might find yourself paired with a partner who is much better than you are. It’s not fun—and often not helpful to your training—when this person pushes you down repeatedly just because they can.

  Training in class is different from training for competition (or pushing in actual competition for that matter). Once again, you are partners. Pushing someone down feels like a sense of accomplishment, but it’s no good if they aren’t learning something from it. It’s not always helpful to a training partner if you take advantage of every opening they offer you. It’s sometimes more helpful in training to let your partner to get in close, past your defenses, testing one another’s ability to get out of a precarious situation.

  It’s different if you’re training for a competition, at that point, you don’t ever let them in, and you take advantage of any opening they leave you, but your partner should know before you start your practice session that this is what you have in mind. This ensures you both get something out of the training session.

At this point, you can easily see that ego comes into play in every one of these instances. That’s a trap, however, which will lead to bad training habits. Being good in Pushing Hands isn’t the ability to push someone else over whenever you want. It’s the ability to keep yourself from falling! The only way to get there, though, is by getting pushed over. The famous master, Jou Tsung Hwa, was once asked how he got so good at Pushing Hands. His answer was, “I fell a lot.”