The important contribution of the Zheng Manqing style to taijiquan was that his style softened up the large-frame postures of his teacher’s style by taking away the emphasis on stretching out the empty leg and pushing out the palms.  The forgoing of structure allowed the arms and legs to be closer to the body, so that it is easier to relax more of the body’s weight onto the single standing leg.  For this reason, Zheng’s style had a clear advantage in the building of root compared to it’s parent Yang style.

My teacher and Zheng’s student, Liu Xiheng, further streamlined the process of achieving root by practicing a weight shifting routine separate from the form yet incorporated hand movements similar to those used in the from.  We called these the  “bitter exercises” because the repetitive drilling into the ground with the legs was quite taxing.   Mr. Liu however, understood that the skills learned in his basic exercises were not representative of the complete set of skills that embody taijiquan.  He therefore modified his basic routine to incorporate elements of Yang style longer structural moves pair with more spiral moves normally associated with the Chen style.  Practicing this way helped Mr. Liu’s more advanced students to appreciate the benefits of different styles movement in other styles of taijiquan.

Having taught Mr. Liu’s routine for few years now, I now see it as somewhat problematic for beginners.  As soon as one starts adding complexity one loses the focus on the original intent of the exercises which was to build a root.  Let me be clear about what I mean by a beginner:  A beginning taijiquan student is someone who has not comprehended root i.e. they are still double weighted or pushing against the ground with their legs such their movements are off balance.    Root pertains to the Earth element which I definitely believe should come before the other five when practicing taijiquan. Yet the complexity of Mr. Liu’s routine adds other elements into the mix: the Wood element or extended structure of the Yang style and the Water element or curving nature of the Chen style.   Adding these other skills before the first one is mastered is not a good idea.  One thing I’ve noticed about many practitioners of the Yang and Chen styles is that their body’s connection to ground was not as firm as their Zheng style counterparts.

In order to help people achieve root in the most streamlined fashion, I’ve taken a hatchet to Mr. Liu’s routine.  Rather than trying to master the hand movements of Brush Knee and Push or Bend Bow Shoot Tiger, now I have students keep their arms down with their hands guiding the waist or reaching down to the knees.  In order to touch the knee while keeping the body upright you really have to get in a low posture by bending both knees.  Sinking down in that way while shifting from one leg to the other is a more focused (and bitter?) way to achieve a root.  The emphasis is NOT on trying to get the power of the legs to support the motion of the hands (which it eventually should be) but rather on the conditioning the legs and establishing that all-important connection to the ground in the first place.

Earth: Taijiquan

Water: Baguazhang

Wood: Xingyiquan

Metal: Xinyiliuhequan

Fire: Tongbeiquan

All of these systems also have at least some of the applications derived from the other part of the 13 postures-the 8 gates (trigrams) theory.  If one wanted to be thorough, they could practice each of the trigram applications  5 different ways according to the style or structure they were trying to emulate; that would be 40 different techniques.  However, the 8 gates are only a bit less general than the 5 steps, in that there could be many ways to perform them even with the same structure, so it might be better not to limit one’s practice too much.  It would be interesting to explore how the structure taken would effect each of the trigram techniques.

This is only an outline; the book will come later.

To review, the number 13 refers to the 5 Steps or Stances and the 8 Gates.

The 5 Steps: step forward, step back, look left, look right, and central equilibrium, relate to the 5 elements fire, water, wood, metal, and earth respectively.  To me the elements are different ways the body as a whole can move without regard to specific techniques.   So ,

Fire: Explosive power, like a tongbei extended strike

Water:Soft/Mobile, like baguazhang stepping or a yielding push hands

Wood: Structural, like Yang style big frame, or 5 fist Xingyiquan

Metal:Hard, bludgeoning often with elbows/knees-Xinyiliuhe or Thai boxing

Earth: Stable, absorbing force, like heavy wrestling  or fixed-step push hands

The 8 gates are martial art techniques rather than postures, but they are still not fixed applications but general ideas.  They are peng, lu, ji, an, cai, lie, zhou, kao. The 1st four are “regular” or structured the 2nd four are “irregular” or folding moves.

Regular:

Peng: ward off, or keeping enemy at safe distance without retreating

Lu: Flanking, or attacking from in the middle as opponent over-extends

Ji: Focused attack on a small area

An: Two (or more) sided attack to control or stop opponents momentum

Folding:

Cai: A pull taking advantage of over-extension

Lie: Quick strike taking advantage of an structural opening

Zhou: An elbow (or knee) strike taking advantage of forceful block.

Kao: A Shoulder (or hip) strike taking advantage of a forceful grab.

Most martial arts have at least some of these techniques.  Taijiquan nicely categorizes them to be of use to martial artists not even interested in practicing a Tai Chi form.

The second and IMO more meaningful way to look at Tai Chi is a philosophical paradigm for practicing and categorizing martial arts as a whole.  This framework is know as the 13 postures.  Each of the 13 postures are what librarians might call metadata in that they describe general ways of moving in a martial arts context.  I will talk about this more later, but the point is that martial artists of different styles can use the 13 postures as a way to further develop their training without actually having to learn a Tai Chi form.

Yang's 'Play the Pipa' (flipped)

Practicing this way builds a different kind of strength in the back leg as well as builds the muscles of the front shin.  Mr. Liu’s posture allows the waist to relax a bit easier.  I demonstrate my teacher’s modified posture below:

Me performing Liu's Pipa

This posture is a bit more directly useful in push hands practice as it matches a position which occurs frequently.  The opponents each have one hand on their partner’s  chest and the other hand on their partner’s elbow.    Shown here:

Play the Pipa in Push Hands

We practice this simple push hands method because there is little room to maneuver or block with the hands,  so both partners have to focus on having a root in their feet or they will get pushed out quickly.   It is also easy to control a tense elbow in this position as well.  Practicing the solo modified ‘Play the Pipa’ posture will certainly help in the two man exercise.

This came up because I often tell my students to not push away from the ground with their legs and out of their root.  One student asked which of the principles this applied to, and I was unable to name it off hand.  Upon reviewing these points, however,  point # 3 Relax (Sung) the waist (yao), is the most related to my correction.   What we translate as the waist (yao) in Chinese actually encompasses the lower back, lower abdomen, and the hip flexors at the hip joint.  When your legs push away from the ground the hip joint becomes tense and thus the waist cannot be relaxed and loosely mobile.  

Remember that these Ten Points are only guidelines and not necessarily fixed rules.     As noted before the sine qua non of taijiquan are the 13 postures;  all taiji forms and writings are attempts at realizing their original meaning.


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Hope to see everyone there!

Let me start with a rather odd and cryptic quote from Cheng Tzu’s Thirteen Treatises (p. 80):

“If the opponent’s ch’i originates from the ligaments and is normal, then it means he is defensive. If his ch’i is in the vessels, then you know he is concealing it, and it will change. If his ch’i is in his membranes and surges up to the surface, it means he is ready to attack. If his ch’i is in the diaphragm, he is gathering the ch’i and preparing to attack.”

This is a rather difficult passage to make sense of even if you believe ch’i exists (a whole other conversation). I don’t think Cheng was deliberately trying to be misleading, so perhaps I can try my best to interpret his meaning for the modern reader.

When practicing push hands it is often clear to me from the very first moment of contact what kind of person I am dealing with. The reaction to that first touch could be resisting, collapsing, stagnant, agitated, forceful, yielding, stiff etc. The best is to be precisely responsive to whatever energy your opponent gives you, even before contact is made. Yet, all of these adjectives could be descriptions of movement viewed from the outside, whereas Cheng is clearly talking about something going on internally apart from how the body appears to be moving. In push hands practice I have also noticed particular kinds of tensions which don’t give me foreknowledge about the direction of another’s intended movement but does tell me something about their disposition. In other words, whether they are on the defensive, collecting themselves in preparation to attack, or ready to attack at any moment. It’s not a direction of movement but something in their skin which give away what is going on deeper in the body.

These are things which really have to be felt over a long period of conscientious practice. But having Cheng’s words in the back of my mind all these years perhaps helped me to stay open to the possibilities of much more subtle types of sensitivity and responsiveness, so it is wise not to dismiss such strange passages out of hand.

Last thought for today: if one can be still without being stagnant and move without being dispersed, that is at least a foundation for tai chi practice.

I will try to post things here daily from my phone.

More on this later . . .