Balance is not a result, it is an action, and balance is continually in question.             ––Edwin Frank

Balance is a vital health concern and the effects of falls and fractures are devastating:

Every year 30% of people over the age of 65 in the United States will sustain a fall. Half are repeat fallers. This equals 13.4 million falls a year with 2.5 million emergency room visits, an increase of almost 50% in one decade. 55-70% of these result in physical injury, about half of them serious­–hip fractures, traumatic brain injury, or other head trauma–that reduce mobility and independence and increase the likelihood of premature death.

90% of hip fractures are associated with a fall. People over the age of 85 are 10-15 times more likely to experience a hip fracture than are people aged 60-65 years. Half of those who suffer a hip facture never return home or live independently. 80% are no longer able to walk a block. Only 25% ever fully recover; the same number who will die within the first year due to complications.

In 2012, more than 24,000 people over the age of 65 died as a result of a fall, over double the amount just a decade earlier and the leading cause of death in that age group. Men are 34% more likely to die from a fall than women but hip fracture rates in women is triple that of men. 67% of fall fatalities are among people aged 75 years or older. Over 60% of nursing home residents will fall each year.

Half of all accidental deaths in the home are caused by a fall. Most fall injuries in the home happen at ground level, from slipping, tripping, or stumbling, not from an elevation.

In 2010, the cost attributed to falls in the USA was $30 billion.

73 million Americans are “baby boomers,” born between 1946 and 1964. By 2040, there will be 77 million over 65 years of age. This means that 25 million are likely to fall and incur 8 million injuries, with 25,000 fall-related deaths each year.

Balance problems and fear of falling can also result in prolonged inactivity, even further reducing one’s ability to deal with a balance disorder and, in turn, contribute to other problems, including loss of bone and muscle mass, heart disease, and obesity. The emotional pain of social isolation and the loss of formerly enjoyed activities can be no less profound.

The good news is that most balance problems are fixable and falls preventable, beginning with modifications of the living environment. Most importantly, exercise and specific training of balance and/or strength, that focuses on postural orientation (positioning the trunk and head in alignment to each other as well as to the ground and to the visual field) and postural equilibrium (coordinating movement strategies to center and stabilize the body) help recalibrate the complex interaction of sensory and motor functions. Based on systematic reviews of varying approaches, Tai Chi is one of the better exercise choices for this purpose. Several randomized clinical trials have found a 45% reduction in the number of falls with 4-6 months of Tai Chi training. The four body systems effecting balance are: musculoskeletal, sensory, neuromuscular, and cognitive. Tai Chi addresses all of these simultaneously and, because of its gentleness, is accessible for people of all ages and levels of fitness. Here’s how Tai Chi affects these four systems:

Musculoskeletal: Tai Chi is weight bearing and the constant shifting from one leg to another increases leg strength. The time spent on each leg during this weight shifting is much greater than during walking. Tai Chi also improves torso and limb range of motion and flexibility, core strength, and vertical alignment to gravity, all essential for a stable, grounded, and less top-heavy posture.

Sensory: The slow, continuous tempo of Tai Chi coupled with the emphasis on moving the body as a unit enhances awareness of the speed, trajectory, and force of executing movements as well as the external environment. In one long-term study, Tai Chi improved joint proprioception (awareness of position in space) of the knees and ankles better than swimming or running. The Tai Chi group was also more sensitive to small movements in their joints, suggesting quicker, more accurate feedback for balance and posture. Those in the Tai Chi group could lean further in any direction before losing their balance.

Decreased sensation in the feet due to peripheral neuropathy from diabetes and other conditions obviously impacts balance. A six-month program of Tai Chi with such subjects at Louisiana State University resulted in increased sensitivity in the soles of the feet, improved balance and a faster walking speed. Another 12-week study reported increased nerve conduction velocity in the peripheral nerves to the feet in a group of diabetics practicing Tai Chi. The hands and fingers, not just the feet, become more sensitive with Tai Chi practice. A comparison study of fingertip sensitivity in older subjects showed an increase in the Tai Chi group equivalent to blind people who read Braille.

A Harvard study of vestibular (inner ear) balance problems compared 10 weeks of Tai Chi versus traditional rehabilitation exercises. Both groups improved their dynamic balance control but, overall, Tai Chi was more effective. While the non-Tai Chi group did better with improved “eye gaze stability,” other studies show Tai Chi practitioners are better equipped to maintain balance if the vestibular, visual, or proprioceptive inputs are purposely reduced or made confusing; equivalent, in fact, to healthy, young subjects during these experimental challenges. Since most falls occur in a difficult or challenging situation, this finding is extremely noteworthy.

Neuromuscular: We move in patterns of action, not by isolated muscular contraction. Muscles, joints, ligaments, etc. must work in coordination with each other to accomplish even the simplest of movements. The slow, purposeful movements of Tai Chi and the sequencing and timing of different muscle groups under close attention by the practitioner is ideal training of neuromuscular patterns and greatly improves balance. Several studies involving induced slips during walking have shown Tai Chi effective in improving muscular coordination, ankle reactive time, gait initiation, and lower extremity synergies, all resulting in a faster, more stable gait.

Even Parkinson’s disease, a neuromuscular disorder, responds to Tai Chi training. A study in the New England Journal of Medicine, showed improvements in balance and movement control in people with mild-to-moderate Parkinson’s after just six months of twice weekly training. In fact, their balance improvement was four times that of the stretching group and twice the conventional muscle-strengthening group.

Cognitive: Fear of falling is one of the biggest predictors of falling. Those with a history of falls or impaired balance walk in a tentative, rigid, guarded and top-heavy manner because they are more fearful and “in their heads” because of that anxiety. They are less aware of their connection to the earth. The “grounding” training central to Tai Chi increases one’s connection to the earth, creating a more stable feeling when weight-bearing. This “rooted,” relaxed, sinking feeling is called “sung” (pronounced soong) in Chinese and being “sung” increases connectedness to the earth and balance confidence. One study found that Tai Chi training significantly reduced the fear of falling, even compared with computerized balance training, reducing the fall rate by half.

Tai Chi’s emphasis on integrated, continuous, and simultaneous movements of the arms, legs and waist, controlled directional changes, memorization of sequences, coupled with a heightened awareness of breathing, posture, and inner sensations of weight shifts all contribute to its efficacy in improving dynamic balance. But it has also been shown to improve bone density, obviously an important factor in fall outcomes. Studies have found that high-intensity resistance and strength training is not an absolute necessity to increase bone health. Low-impact exercises like Tai Chi may reduce bone loss as well, especially in women with osteopenia or osteoporosis, a group less likely to do other, more demanding, high-impact exercises. Several studies have compared people who had been doing Tai Chi for at least seven years to the same age individuals in the same community who had not. The Tai Chi groups have greater bone density of the spine and hips, and the rate of decline in bone density at increasing age is slower. These improvements in bone density were also seen in other studies after only 6-9 months of Tai Chi practice.

Conclusion: Tai Chi is an effective and accessible method for the improvement of dynamic balance and reduction of the incidence and disabling consequences of falls and their financial impact on the sufferer and the healthcare system as a whole.

References for all the statistics and studies noted above and further information can be found at the following:

Falls Among Older Adults: An Overview by The Centers forDisease Control and Prevention

Broken Hips: Preventing A Fall Can Save Your Life by Lauren Silverman, NPR

Improving Balance with Tai Chi by Gaye Cronin, OTD, OTR

The Harvard Medical School Guide to Tai Chi by Peter Wayne, PhD

Translation of an Effective Tai Chi Intervention Into a Community-Based Falls-Prevention Program

Steps to Avoid an Accident by Katie Hafner (NY Times)

Bracing for the Falls of an Aging Nation by Katie Hafner (NY Times)

Tai Ji Quan: Moving for Better Balance

Transforming traditional Tai Ji Quan techniques into integrative movement therapy

Preventing Falls: What Works

Tai Chi and fall reductions in older adults: a randomized controlled trial

Balance by Scott McCredie

Sifu Greg Brodsky is the founder of Santa Cruz Tai Chi. He wrote this in 2006

Most of the new students who come to our classes declare less interest in becoming martial artists than in gaining inner balance, a sense of peace, and improved health. They want a practice that will make them feel better and manage their lives better. Some seek healing for long standing medical problems. If they are 40 or older, they commonly report histories of physically limiting injury, surgery, or illness. These folks hope that t’ai chi can provide a sustainable, productive method for dealing with the residuals of harm to their bodies, and for cultivating well-being as the aging process becomes increasingly part of their consciousness. At the age of 64, and with considerable damage to my body, I can declare that daily t’ai chi practice helps. This article explores one aspect of t’ai chi’s method: presence of mind.

A New Language

Any effective approach to cultivating well-being must include outer work (physical, functional, interactive training and development) and inner work (mental, emotional, energetic, and spiritual discovery, attunement, training and development). T’ai chi provides all of these.

Whatever their age or level of wellness, engaging in self-cultivation requires students to learn how to use their bodies in new ways. They eventually realize that intrinsic strength is different from extrinsic strength, for example, that qi moving through the body has a unique feel to it, and that stepping with gravity relaxes them more than stepping against it. Assimilating new principles, new mechanics, and a new state of mind, it’s like learning a foreign language with ones whole body.

To make the t’ai chi learning process easier, practitioners historically have organized its components into addressable categories, such as: presence of mind, physical structure, mechanics of movement, breathing methods, and energetic experiences that can lead to physical healing and even spiritual transformation. The mind provides the foundational component.

It’s All In Your Mind

Human beings are habitual multitaskers. We like to do several things at once. We evolved this way for good reason, and our ability to do several things at once makes us capable of navigating the increasing complexities of the world in which we live. At the same time, life-threatening events like automobile accidents occur regularly because people fiddle with their radios, phones, hair, food, passengers, and abstract thoughts while steering one-ton vehicles through racing traffic. They arrive at t’ai chi class dragging the argument they had with their boss along with them, or the unfinished projects, frustrations, fears, and resentments of their professional lives and personal relationships. They stand there expectantly, ready to start, still sorting through the mental debris of their day, trying to calm themselves down and perk themselves up, hoping to get some peace of mind and much needed energy from practicing t’ai chi. For them, as for the rest of us, the first step in this practice is to show up. Physically showing up turns out to be the easy part. Mentally showing up—being present—proves more difficult.

Difficulties acknowledged, those who invest in presence find that the result can be supremely rewarding. Paying extraordinary attention to the immediate present frees us from the psychological burdens of our past traumas and imagined future dilemmas. Rather than regretting the past and worrying about the future, we bring ourselves into the moment. Being in the moment, our personal resources engage the real situation before us. We deal with what is there, rather than what we fear is there. Not acting on fear, we function more in accordance with our true nature and best capabilities. We also have more fun.

“All well and good,” you say, “But how does one ‘be’ in the moment?” Can a person focus the mind on what is happening both inside and outside and keep it Right Here, Right Now? There must be many simple ways to accomplish this.

What was I talking about? Oh, of course, presence. T’ai chi literature instructs the practitioner to gain presence by being intensely focused like a cat after a mouse, letting the body become loose, relaxed, and poised to move in new directions with the slightest input, and cultivating a light and agile inner spirit. This spirit manifests as serious on the outside and quietly playful on the inside. The loose, attentive state, while seemingly natural for cats and small children, typically takes years for most adults to cultivate, years that unfold one moment at a time. Being undistracted—present—for a growing number of those moments indicates something good about ones t’ai chi practice.

As a person who has struggled with his own level of presence, in my practice and life in general, I find that as an ever-useful starting point, simple sensory awareness works well. “Sensory awareness” means noticing what your senses are recording: what you see and hear right now; the temperature of the air on your skin; the moisture and warmth of your exhalations; the feeling of your body’s weight; the sensations in your back and chest and shoulders; tension and the relief of relaxing as you let gravity ground you. When we look, listen, and feel, our senses provide a doorway to presence.

Usually, I start classes with a minute or two of sensory awareness guidance, intermeshed with some reminders about alignment and looseness—gently ease the top of your head up toward the ceiling; release the kua (hip joint), knees, and ankles; loosen your shoulders, elbows, wrists and fingers; think “long spine, wide frame”—followed by some gentle warm-up breathing and movement. With a sense-heightening and self- tuning preparation, the rest of the practice becomes more satisfying. This simple opening makes it easier to become present.

Form Practice While Present

Once the form begins, ones internal awareness expands to include more of the external world. When practicing alone, this means sensing the fields in which you operate: the thick air that presses on your body to the tune of 14.5 pounds per square inch; gravity that brings you to earth and determines the meaning of “vertical alignment;” perhaps even the Earth’s electromagnetic field or the universal qi (energy) that makes the cosmos a unified thing (Only about four percent of the universe is matter, not enough for gravity to provide an explanation, yet something holds it together in a cohesive way; t’ai chi philosophy considers this “something” to be qi). T’ai chi teaches you to sense all of these. How? Pay attention. Quiet your random-access thinking and attend to your real-time experience. The quieter you are within yourself, the more you can sense.

When participating in a t’ai chi class, this is also time to pay exquisite attention to your teacher. People learn martial arts most effectively and efficiently when they treat their learning like a “monkey see; monkey do” process. The student’s job is to visually capture what the teacher demonstrates, supported perhaps by the teacher’s words, but more reliant on sight than language. A clear picture of your teacher’s movements is worth a thousand words and a dozen years.

To add context to this idea, ask yourself how your teacher will transmit what he or she has to teach you; will it be in words or deeds or simply his or her own state of being? How must you calibrate to your teacher in order to receive such a transmission?

Seeing, and later through physical contact, feeling what another person is doing enables you to calibrate to them, to tune in on their wavelength so that any kind of interpersonal transmission (communication) becomes easier. Once you align your mind with your teacher’s movement—seeing it, sensing the tempo, rhythm, quality, and specifics of your teacher’s actions, feeling the totality of his or her whole body analog (how one expresses one’s body/mind)—you can reproduce in some part what your teacher is doing. You might have only a few hours per week with a teacher, but having calibrated, captured, and learned how to recall this analog, you can have a mental representation of your teacher with you all the time.

An accurate mental snapshot of what you are doing at any moment also holds high value. Most people, in the beginning of the t’ai chi experience, don’t quite know where their body parts are in space. Are your feet parallel to each other or splayed outward? Where is your weight? You feel vertical, so why does your teacher say you are leaning? At what angle is your head? Competent placement of one’s arms, legs, and spine becomes more possible when our mind’s eye sees what we are doing.

You become better at the “monkey see; monkey do” learning process when you can jump back and forth between these two pictures frequently, quickly, and easily, using the inconsistencies between the pictures as triggers for self-correction. As your eyes go from your teacher to yourself and back to the teacher in rapid bursts, you can continually make adjustments in your position, mechanics, timing, and quality of movement. Once this becomes a habit, you find yourself continuously calibrating to your teacher through your peripheral vision. You could almost do it with your eyes closed. Almost; the key is to keep looking.

When practicing form alone, much of the looking turns inward. One can have a great deal to think about: alignment, breathing, mechanics, substantial, insubstantial, rising, sinking, opening, closing, the specifics of the movements themselves. Too much attention to detail and we can overwhelm our wonderful multi-tasking abilities; too little focus on the Now, and we can start daydreaming. Having a method to keep oneself present can prove useful. I find that sometimes a single word can provide that method.

To keep my mind from wandering, I sometimes focus exclusively on one element of the practice. Most often, the dantian (lower abdomen) holds my attention, but sometimes I “play” the top of my head, or soles of my feet, or spine, or some new sensation that I want to explore. Playing an entire round of form while never taking your mind off of single point of concentration provides quite an exercise!

When realizing that my mind has wandered, I bring myself back by silently thinking “this,” and I focus on my point of concentration. “This” is what I am doing, nothing else, no random thoughts, no conjectures, no sloppiness. Every breath, shift, and change of posture provide the opportunity to think about other things, and such wandering of thought usually occurs through an internal conversation (“…cool breeze; it might rain…how can I do this move better…wonder what’s for dinner….”). The gentle mental reminder, “This,” interrupts that conversation, bringing me back to simply paying attention to what I am doing…I am doing This.

Such attentiveness doesn’t occur exclusively through visual and verbal dimensions, though. Our attentiveness becomes more complete when we experience it as feeling as well. Whatever we perceive, and whatever ideas or principles we use to organize our actions, feeling makes it all real. Feeling enables us to experience dimensions of reality that don’t otherwise become available.

You know whether or not your t’ai chi works for you by how it feels. If the human animal within you gains well-being through your practice, you feel it. If your more primitive inner animal becomes secure enough to let you evolve sociologically, you feel that. If, through your practice, your ego gets worked in a healthy way, being calmed, tempered, and matured, your emotions tell you. When you discover a part of the path that was hidden to you before, and noticing its ramifications in your body, feel more connected to yourself and your peers, to the venerable masters who mapped the t’ai chi path, and to the universe at large, it could be that you are.

Western thinkers since the time of Descartes (“I think, therefore I am;” circa early 1600s) have considered the body and mind to be separate, but modern science challenges that separation. And, while we distinguish so-called “objective” thought from “subjective” emotions, both ancient Chinese concepts (e.g., heart-mind) and current cognitive theory recognize the unity of thought and emotions. Feeling turns out to be more than the body’s response to thought. Emotions shape the meaning and importance of what we think; moreover, they determine what we do about what we think.

When learning t’ai chi, there is no way into some aspects of the art other than feeling. Jin (internal strength), qi, stillness, alignment, sinking, rooting, emptying, and releasing, to mention a few examples, can only be experienced as feeling. You can’t explain your way into becoming quiet.

During, and at the end of your workout session, you might ask yourself what you feel. By answering this question simply and sensitively, and using the answers to adjust your routine, you can discover how to tune yourself in ways that concepts can’t achieve for you. Using your multitasking abilities to recognize your experience on more levels, ironically, you awaken a significant dimension of your presence.

Be clear about what feeling is and is not. Feeling is not analyzing. When I ask students what they feel (not how they feel), many of them want to provide an explanation or analysis of their experience: “I feel that I am less tense than yesterday,” or “I feel that I am doing a good job of remembering the moves, but that I don’t have them down yet” and so on. Rather than recognizing what they feel, they express what they think about what they feel. These opinions can be useful, perhaps, but not as a substitute for feeling.

If one pays attention to what one sees, hears, and feels, long-term practice leads to exquisite sensitivity in ones ability to feel subtle energies in ones own body, tensions and intensions in other people’s bodies, and the forces that surround us. Martial arts skills can be fun to develop and do a lot of good, but in a moment of danger, just as in a moment of learning, your presence can enable you to do the right thing.

The Harvard Medical School Guide to Tai Chi by Peter Wayne (2013) outlines eight active ingredients of TCC. These are summarized here:

1) Breathing: “Qi” is often translated simply as “breath.” In TCC it should be slow, regular, steady, and directed to the belly/lower dan tien. Some of the many health effects of simply breathing properly are: increased oxygen exchange, emotional regulation/calming via the autonomic nervous system (dampened sympathetic and enhanced parasympathetic response), an increased awareness of the inter-relationship between outer and inner/self and environment, internal organ “massage” via pressure changes from the contraction/relaxation of the diaphragm, enhanced flexibility of the ribcage and thoracic spine, and a mental quieting/meditative state from increased focus on the dynamics of the breath, encouraging the experience and enjoyment of “present moment consciousness.” The breath should be simply observed, without attempts to change the pattern or speed. Attention to the suspended, upright head posture improves the quality and depth of the breath.

2) Active Relaxation: The modern ethos in modern Western culture is “give it your all” and “push the envelope.” TCC counsels us to seek balance and avoid extremes of “doing” (yang) and non-doing (yin). All creation is a continuum of forces, not an opposition. This characterizes the idea of “song” or loosened/unbound. The joints of the body are always “song”– the “gates” are open but never collapsed. This respects individual physical limitations and lessens kinesiophobia or nervous guarding by never exceeding the body’s ability to embrace change out of pain or apprehension. The body is like a buoy floating on water.

3) Awareness: Focused attention or awareness is “ting.” It must be constant and ever-present during practice. It is “ting” that transforms the breath, slow movements, body positions and transitions of TCC into a movement meditation and “present moment consciousness.”

4) Intention: The directed focus of intention (yi) through mental imaging and visualization, commitment, and passion enhances the manifestation of internal energy.

5) Strength/Flexibility: TCC has been called (like yoga) a “metarobic” exercise. It compares to moderately-paced walking (3 mph) in its aerobicity. Unlike traditional aerobic exercise, however, the increased blood flow and oxygen exchange is appreciated in all body tissues, including the internal organs, not just the musculoskeletal system. TCC enhances muscular leg strength, dynamic tissue stretching, core stabilization, joint opening, and more efficient and coordinated whole body movement.

6) Structural Integration: TCC’s emphasis on the body as a unified energy field rather than a mechanical conglomeration of various “parts,” on vertical postural alignment and the elongation/expansion of all joints, on movement from the center of gravity (lower dan tien), on the consistency of the pace of movement and constancy of attention to the dynamics of physical postural changes and weight transfers, is the foundation of the integration of the psych-physical structure of the body.

7) Networking: The social and communal nature of a TCC practice in classes, parks, etc. and the regular exchange of concepts and skills common in these settings as well as during two-person “push hands” practice and drills, contribute a valuable psycho-social and anti-isolation component to the benefits of TCC.

8) Spirituality: All of the above factors are inherent in the unification of mind/body/spirit that is the essential nature and lesson of TCC: the fostering of mental and physical “balance,” the appreciation of the constancy of change, the adaptability and resilience from the non-opposition practices of yielding and redirecting energy forces, the enhancement of cellular health/homeostasis, the emphasis on individual responsibility and self-cultivation leading to a sense of self-efficacy and confidence as a pro-active participant in personal health through more conscious lifestyle choices, the effect of the meditative and ritualistic aspects of TCC on psychoneuroimmunology, all of which may ultimately lead to an examination of the question “What IS the self?” or Self-realization.

by Linda Myoki Lehrhaupt (an excerpt )

“Almost everyone who practices t’ai chi for a period of time will tell you that what began as a weekly class in a movement exercise became a study in living and personal growth. T’ai chi is a path of wisdom meditation, but it is also a path with heart–to ourselves first and, then like ripples spreading in a still pond, to everything and everyone around us…When we begin learning the t’ai chi form one of the first things we come up against is our desire to learn quickly, effortlessly, and perfectly. As every beginning student finds out, however, it takes time, effort, and patience to learn t’ai chi. It asks us to dedicate a part of our day to ourselves even when we don’t want to. It asks us to keep going, even when it looks like we’re going nowhere…In fact, learning t’ai chi is really a process of learning how to learn. This process is based on the understanding that what we discover about ourselves is just as important as simply performing a t’ai chi move correctly, if not more so. Learning how to learn includes developing the capacity to become intimate with our frustration and self-doubt. We see that what seemed like an obstacle can become an opportunity and, though small, can change our life entirely…

One of the central points of t’ai chi as a path of wisdom is finding our way to being at home with who we are. In the beginning we often approach learning t’ai chi with a self-critical attitude that does not allow us to be either patient or comfortable with ourselves. We apply the competitive spirit that is so valued in our world, leading us to judge ourselves constantly, to set up standards of discipline that are difficult to attain, or to undermine ourselves with harsh critical comments. But as Pema Chodron, a Tibetan Buddhist teacher, writes so beautifully in The Wisdom of No Escape, ‘Meditation practice isn’t about trying to throw ourselves away and become something better. It’s about befriending who we are already.’

If we practice t’ai chi as a path of wisdom, we will see that it continually asks us to open ourselves and to let go of those destructive ideas and acts that weaken our spirit and undermine our intention. It will lead us through the process of acknowledging our strengths without pride and recognizing our weaknesses without scorn. To work with ourselves in this way feels exactly the same as when we help a baby stand up after she has fallen down. We take her by the hand and wait patiently for her to stabilize on her own two feet. Then we give her a big kiss, let go of her hands, and say, ‘Go ahead, sweetie, Try again!’ That is the heart of practice…

If we can think of our t’ai chi practice as an invitation to someone dear to us, it will help us to take care of ourselves as we would a good friend. If a friend is tired or hungry, we help him or give her something to eat. If he feels low, we try to be there for him. If her muscles are tight, we get out the body oil and clear the dining table to serve as a massage table. It all happens, it all unfolds, because we naturally want to support a friend.

When you stand up to do the form you are being there for yourself as you would be for a friend if she or he needed you. It is extremely helpful to think in these terms because it encourages us to be kind to ourselves. It helps to counter a tendency to want to run away from practicing because we are afraid of failing or because it’s too lonely to train by ourselves. When we treat our t’ai chi practice as an opportunity to dance all aspects of our life, we embrace it all…”

Although T’ai Chi Ch’uan has been called the perfect example of Taoist principles expressed in the human domain, one does not need to know anything about Taoism or its principles and precepts to practice, enjoy, and benefit from the practice of T’ai Chi since our practice is unconcerned with the world of thoughts, concepts, or any other “things.” What we practice (The Form) is an ever-changing, ever-transforming series of movements or shapes without fixity or stasis. There is only change, only transformation: the transition between yin and yang. Every spiritual tradition has a defined or implied cosmology: a story about the origin of the universe–about how the world as we perceive it comes into existence. Although it is not necessary to know about Taoist cosmogony, it is constructive to ponder its principles, and to appreciate that creation is ongoing still in every moment and that it is this realm we are exploring when we practice T’ai Chi Ch’uan. In traditional Taoism, this cosmogony is uniquely devoid of symbolic deities, focusing instead on energetic and elemental principles. The basics are as follows:

1: In the beginning, there was an endless void, known as Wu Chi, or Tao. The Tao is a universal energy, from which all things emanate.

2: From this vast cosmic universe, from Tao, the One emerges.

3: As the One manifests in the world, it divides in two: the Yin and the Yang, complementary conditions of action (Yang) and inaction (Yin). This stage is called T’ai Chi (without the ch’uan) and represents the emergence of duality/polarity out of the Unity of Tao. The “dance”­– the continual transformations of Yin and Yang­–fuels the flow of qi (chi). In Taoist cosmology, Qi is in constant transformation between its condensed material state (particle) and its dilute energetic state (wave).

4: From this dance of Yin and Yang emerges the five elements: wood (lesser yang), fire (greater yang), metal (lesser yin), water (greater yin), and earth (central phase). Also produced here are the eight trigrams (Bagua) that form the 64 hexagrams of the I Ching. This stage represents the formation, out of the initial Yin/Yang duality, of the elemental constituents of the phenomenal world.

5: From the five constituent elements comes the “world of 10,000 things,” all of manifest existence–all of the objects, inhabitants, and phenomena of the world we experience. Human beings, in the Taoist cosmology, are among the Ten Thousand Things—a variety of combinations of the Five Elements. Spiritual growth and change, for Taoists, is a matter of balancing the Five Elements within the person. Unlike many religious systems, human beings are not regarded as something separate from the natural world, but another manifestation of it.

Another way of describing this process is to say that these stages represent the descent of energetic consciousness into physical form. Taoist mystics, using various Inner Alchemy techniques, are said to be able to reverse this sequence of events and return to the energetic, blissful realm of Tao, or “enlightenment.” The practice of Taoism, in general, is an attempt to perceive the presence and workings of the universal Tao in the Ten Thousand Things and live in balanced accord with it.

Although “T’ai Chi Ch’uan” is often translated as “supreme, ultimate fist,” a more useful translation is: an exercise or movement in “the realm where Yin and Yang play.” Through this practice we learn how to move and interact in the “world of 10,000 things” (thoughts, emotions, other people, life experiences, etc.–all of manifest existence) without being drawn away from our essential nature. We can participate in the realm of “doing” while consciously remaining in the realm of “being.”

While I was walking around watching and helping the beginning students with the postures last week I was struck by how hard you all are working and how focused everyone is. I also reflected on my first days and months in class and the frustration, puzzlement, and wonder of beginning practice. In the four years I have been a student of Greg and Ching’s, I’ve seen many people come and go through their classes. After class last week I began to think, “What can I do to help these particular people continue to practice?” I thought it just might be helpful for you to hear from someone other than your teachers (like maybe a fellow student) about his experience learning and practicing Tai Chi.

There are many reasons why someone might be interested in Tai Chi—improved health, balance, relaxation, curiosity. For me it was curiosity. I had done Tai Chi very briefly twenty years ago and enjoyed it but, for one reason or another, never kept it up. It always intrigued me—“What are those millions of Chinese doing in those parks?” My younger son had stopped doing karate when he was 13 (he got his black belt) and, when I saw Greg’s ad in the paper, I thought “Maybe that’s something we could do together” (karate was never my thing). But Tai Chi is definitely not for everybody–he lasted a month (too boring). I remained intrigued.

For me, beginning practice pushed a lot of buttons and raised a lot of questions: “It looks so easy—you’re not doing hardly anything—why is it so hard for me to learn and remember it—am I that dumb?” “I‘ve been walking all my life…. why can’t I do this?” “OK you put your foot here and then your hand goes like this…or was it like THIS?” (Look at the book/rewind the tape yet again). “What AM I doing—am I supposed to be feeling something—what?” Then there’s all the directions: sink into the three nails (what does THAT mean?), let your shoulders drop, let your hands “float,” move from the hips, suspend your head from the ceiling, sit down, let your clavicles “smile,” inhale when you “energize” (again, whatever THAT means), and while you’re trying to do all that…RELAX. Sure. Then in class there’s the confusion and the fear of doing it “wrong,” or “Jeez, Greg’s watching me…why didn’t I practice more this week…screwed up…AGAIN!” (Just so you know, my practice still raises a lot of questions, just different ones, but now I have more confidence that the answers will reveal themselves).

So, one word of advice: Relax. (Yeah, I know). But, really, relax. Because you’re not going anywhere. You aren’t in a tunnel and there’s no light at the end. As convenient as it is to compare Tai Chi to learning a musical instrument or learning the alphabet so you can write poetry, the truth is: no musician plays only one tune over and over and over and no poet writes the same poem twice. So what is it about Tai Chi that people are willing to do apparently the same movements ad infinitum? My advice is to practice and you will see. The reason is that no matter how long you practice, no two 10-minute sessions of form are ever the same. Not tomorrow. Not in four or 24 years. We have all heard the phrase “You can never step in the same river twice.” That exactly describes your practice. Greg and Ching are giving you some navigational skills they have acquired, but it’s your river. As you travel up/down this river, there are many twists and turns, eddies and backwaters, but no rapids to be concerned about. And many pleasurable experiences await you. You just have to watch for them. Generally you won’t see them coming. But in order to continue you have to get in the river regularly; you have to practice. My advice is: at least 20 minutes a day. If you can’t do that, try 3 days a week. The important thing is to keep doing it. Your practice is a gift you give yourself: the gift of feeling, not thinking, of experiencing without judgment. I know it doesn’t seem that way when you’re beginning and trying to remember all that stuff I mentioned. I will admit: I didn’t feel anything like “energy,” or whatever, for over a year of daily practice, so…. relax. It will come. Do the steps and attend to the details. The basics will always be the foundation of your practice and the source of all expansion and discovery. That’s why I keep coming to the “beginning” class—I get a fresh insight every single time. You’ll never get it all completely RIGHT!–the river’s too deep.

And don’t just practice Tai Chi when you are doing the form. Practice the principles (rooting, letting go, directing/focusing your mind, and synchronous movement) when you are bending to pick up a pencil, walking down the street, cooking, talking on the phone, standing in line, driving a car, climbing stairs, or doing some other exercise—I’ve discovered a lot of things about Tai Chi while swimming. I find that visualizing doing the form when I’m lying in bed is a great way to put myself to sleep—I rarely get past White Crane before I’m out. The more you think about it in your daily life, the more you will be changed by it. And that is what will happen—you will change. Tai Chi is movement alchemy. You will begin to feel different when you walk, sit, or stand. More profoundly, you will begin to see your self and others and situations that arise differently.

An interesting thing to remember about Tai Chi is that it is a hologram. Each moment of the form contains the entire form. Every moment requires the same skill set. There is no difference between Snake Creeps Down and Ward off Right except where your body parts appear to be. Inside, the same basic principles are at play. You really can’t do it “wrong.” You simply either do it or you don’t (more often the latter at the beginning). Just like trying to sing a specific note. If you don’t sing it, it’s just a different note. So go on to the next note. Self-judgment will only get in the way, because judgment creates tension through comparison and expectation and to DO Tai Chi, there must be no tension and no expectation or comparison, only listening and action. Be open and observant; that is when things will begin to be revealed. When you feel you’ve screwed up something, just keep going and try to observe what happens in the next moment. Or repeat the same few movements over and over and skip the rest of the form. Or don’t and come back to them the next day. When you feel a “sweet” sensation, notice/enjoy THAT and keep going. Just let go of it…whatever IT is. Stop holding on to it. At least while you’re doing the form. Then pick it back up if you need/want to when you’re done.

And be sure to ask questions in class—there really are no dumb ones. The longer you do the form, you will continue to find new moments to savor, and postures that seemed either like throwaways or bears to learn will suddenly become the flavor of the month. You will continually think “Oh, THAT’S what that position is supposed to feel like in my body” And the very next round you may discover something else entirely about that very same moment in the form because you have stepped into a new river. Finally there’s the paradox thing. “You go down…the energy comes up.” “Less effort equals more power.” “The more you surrender to gravity, the lighter you become.” It’s crazy, but true. Get used to it.

So, I hope you will continue on the river. Enjoy the scenery. You never know what’s going to wander up to the shoreline. But it’s all friendly.

Keep paddling,

Mark

 by Greg Brodsky

This article first appeared in T’ai Chi Magazine in October, 2005.

“In the three years that I’ve been teaching in the U. S., I’ve learned more than I did in the last 15 years in China,” the master said candidly. “That’s because you Americans are not afraid to ask questions.”

It was a steamy New Orleans Saturday, and I had joined 30 other people in this impressive gentleman’s workshop. He had over a dozen generations of t’ai chi masters in his family, and trained under the guidance of his grandfather, father, aunts and uncles since early childhood. I enjoyed his approach and pleasant manner, but this statement made the biggest impression on me.

“And,” he added, “you ask hard questions.”

His insight matched his candor. Genuinely curious questions from unindoctrinated people often enrich a teacher’s thinking better than educated challenges from within one’s own school of thought. We sometimes learn more by taking these questions to heart than we do when staying within the traditional boundaries of our specialties. Such moments enable us to try previously unexplored and unimagined ideas. We see things we couldn’t see before, move deeper into our art, and possibly advance the art itself.

Vertical internal movement presents such a question. In addressing it, we explore what happens when gravity itself becomes our teacher.

What if all t’ai chi movements are actually vertical?

T’ai chi students know that we must practice our solo forms without bobbing up and down. We move like people carrying pots of brewing tea in our bellies, gently letting the tea leaves settle to the bottom. Using images like this to stay on the same horizontal plane—not rising or descending in height as we shift our weight from foot to foot—we expect our qi (life force) to sink into the dantian (lower abdomen) as it is supposed to do.

But, what is actually going on inside of us? Does our energy travel horizontally as we shift our weight, or step forward or back, or when we issue jin? (intrinsic strength) What if it looks like horizontal movement when seen from the outside, but in every action, our internal energy actually rises or falls, flowing in a sine wave as we move through the form? What if all t’ai chi movements are actually vertical?

Such an idea, if it has merit, might transform one’s practice by opening doors to new skills and experiences. To explore it, let’s look at some universal moves: Beginning, stepping, withdrawing, and issuing.

Once you get this idea of stepping down, letting yourself experience a gently guided fall in all of your foot placements, your form becomes easier, quieter, and more relaxed. Being more relaxed, your root can become more reliable. Gravity, rather than your idea of style, becomes your guide. You avoid the flaw of keeping excess tension in the stepping leg, or a worse flaw, which I call “stepping over the invisible box.”

In the invisible box case, you raise the stepping foot as if you had to step over a box that isn’t there. This might seem like a good idea, as foot-sweep avoidance for example, but when practiced as a constant habit, it creates unnecessary tension. Further, if you study what is happening as you raise that leg, you will find that you tend to rise a little before actually stepping into place. This creates a self-inflicted uprooting, and a “noisy” telegraphing of your steps. By contrast, if you watch t’ai chi masters move, their feet slip silently into place before their opponents have a clue.

Conclusion: The more quiet and direct the step the more competent it is. Stepping with gravity—vertically downward—teaches you how to cultivate such a step.

Withdrawing

Withdrawing, or the act of shifting from your front foot to your rear foot, presents another opportunity to discover vertical internal movement. When you withdraw, you don’t shift backward; you shift downward into your rear foot. This corrects the flaw of pushing yourself off with your front leg when withdrawing, which causes you to rise a little, then settle a little as your weight arrives over the rear foot. I call this flaw the “convex shift.”

When your shift is convex, despite the fact that you are trying to remain rooted, you float slightly as you start to shift backwards. Instead of sinking—falling—into your rear foot, your habit of pushing yourself away from your front foot causes you to rise. This is the moment during push hands in which a skilled partner adheres to you and continues your backward and upward action, uprooting you. Trying to move horizontally instead of vertically promotes this flaw. Moving vertically, you would immediately sink down into your rear foot, not shift over to it then drop down.

Try this: Play your entire form with the idea that you are continually falling straight down into your feet. Because of gravity, we are all falling toward the earth all the time. Your sensitivity to this process enables you to feel the natural sinking occurring in your body when you let go. You will discover that sung (relaxing and becoming loose so you can sink) is a passive, natural act of release that you can achieve in any position. Sinking is letting your weight fall to the bottom, not some kind of hunkering down into a stance.

With each withdrawal in your form—every time you shift from the front foot to the rear foot—let yourself relax and fall straight down into your rear foot. Externally, you don’t have to drop closer to the ground, nor should you try to. A casual observer will not see any appreciable height change in you, for example. But internally, you will feel yourself dropping with gravity, relaxing into your feet, moving vertically into a deepening sense of rootedness. Don’t shift back; shift down.

Issuing

In the fourth example of vertical internal movement, let’s look at issuing: the delivery of power into the body of an opponent. Most people insist that jin issues from the rear leg and moves diagonally through the body. With the utmost respect, I suggest that in an uprooting forward push, as an example, jin issues from the front foot and moves straight up. Since in this movement you displace your opponent’s center, the upward movement becomes converted into forward movement as the opponent’s mass compresses your arms, dantian, and substantial front leg.

Some rest-of-the-world physics supports this idea of forward-moving energy issuing from the front foot. Ask yourself, which foot provides the root for a punch or the pitch of a baseball? Is it the forward foot or the rear foot? I’ve asked dozens of martial artists and athletes about this, and they all immediately answer “the rear foot.” But, after some consideration, almost all of them concede the fact that it is the leading foot: the front foot when moving forward and the rear foot when you are moving backward.

Punching employs the same mechanics; you throw a punch, after all, releasing it like an arrow from a bow. The difference between the ball-throwing analogy and the bow-and-arrow analogy is that your physical tension is greatest just before releasing the arrow and concentrates in the upper body, while you seek absolute hardness (aka physical tension) just as you penetrate the target of your punch, and this hardness concentrates along the vector line from your leading foot to your fist while everything else relaxes.

In theory, a sufficiently skilled boxer can deliver a hard shot from either foot to either hand while going in any direction. But in general, when a boxer steps into a jab, the jab is more powerful than when he or she backs up. This is because the root of the jab resides in the front foot onto which he has just stepped. When throwing a hook or a cross, the rear foot sends the boxer’s body into place for the punch, but the leading foot—the front foot—provides the base from which to actually throw the punch.

Once you realize that throwing a ball or a punch engage nearly the same mechanics (e.g., the elbow follows the hand in a punch while it leads the hand in a throw, but the rooting mechanism is the same) you can more readily look into what happens when you issue energy in any t’ai chi movement. I became intrigued about this when watching William Chen’s fluid action, and later while studying videos of Cheng Man-Ching demonstrating his uproots.

It just might be a sine wave.

How does this all play out in your form? Having looked at Beginning, stepping, punching, and issuing in the light of verticality, the idea of the entire form being a repeating sine wave begins to make sense. Energy moves down the curve as you either step, shift, or sink into place—which are all falling actions—and moves up the curve—up through your body—as you energize or “apply” each move. While you don’t bob up and down, the energy passing through your body rises and falls in a smooth rhythm. As you let your mind quietly settle into your dantian, you can feel the relaxation of each fall and the release of each issuing. This now leads to “internal throwing.”

What if playing form is just falling and throwing?

Most of us start learning t’ai chi through a series of postures that we repeat thousands of times according to a consistent set of principles. Slowly moving through these postures, we learn qualities of movement and thought that gradually change how we move and think. The martial arts usefulness of this practice depends on how much it trains us to move the way we want to move at our fastest and most effective; the more our slow, relaxed form employs the mechanics of fast, applied action the better. We can measure our form’s usefulness as an inner cultivation tool by the internal states it evokes in us, and the availability of those states in our daily lives.

While we work with postures, we are not posing. By posing, I mean holding fixed positions. Even when we practice standing meditations like the Universal Post or remaining in a particular posture, we don’t freeze in our stillness. A rich, dynamic process occurs within: relaxing and sinking, circulating and settling qi into the dantian, feeling the spirit of vitality rise to the tops of our heads, softening our breathing, expanding a little.

The T’ai Chi Classics state that when one part of the body moves, the whole body moves, and when one part of the body stops, the whole body stops. Having just acknowledged the internal movement that occurs when we are still, what does this mean about stillness when we are in motion? It means that our minds discover a place of stillness, not that some body parts stop while other parts keep moving. At no time do we hold any part of ourselves in rigid positions; nothing is locked. That would be posing.

When, for example, you extend your arm with the hand curved into the characteristic hook of a Single Whip, do you hold it there? For how long? Why? When you shift into your back foot following your Push, do your arms remain fixed at the elbows and shoulders? Are you isolating parts of your body from the whole-body fluid circulation of qi? Through such questions, you can realize that holding your arms in place—locking your joints—at any time creates a flaw in your practice. The idea of falling sheds light on this flaw and its remedy.

Bouncing Up

Another of Cheng Man-Ching’s favorite aphorisms is: “T’ai chi ch’uan has no arms; if it has arms, it is not t’ai chi ch’uan.” Since t’ai chi seems to be about moving your arms a whole lot, this statement can cause a blank stare to spread across your face—until you think of falling and throwing. If you had no arms, or maybe easier to imagine, flaccid arms and lead weights as hands, and you wanted to send these heavy hands to specific places, you would have to line up your bones and throw your hands by pushing your foot into the ground, turning your hips and torso, and thinking about where you want your hands to go. Practicing form this way, you have “no arms.”

With no arms, you don’t put your hands in place; you throw them to the place that matches your picture of each posture. To accomplish this, you have to relax. You will also wind up by turning the opposite way a little before you turn into your throw. This produces a swing to the right in preparation for a move to the left. Cheng Man-Ching’s translator called this “momentating:” the momentum (wind up) created by the previous move provides the impetus for the next move. In Cheng’s words: “The entire solo form is nothing but move and swing, swing and move; that’s all.”

The “swing and move” pattern is also swing and release. You release your hands as if you were throwing them.

How do you get a released throw to occur while practicing slow form? You find the answer when you relax. Where speed enables a pitcher or boxer to release a throw, deep relaxation creates your ability to throw slowly. Relax enough, and you can launch your hand in a specific direction, release your control of the arm, and notice your hand moving to where you threw it while your whole body quietly drives the action like a well geared machine.

This requires patience. The move will “ripen,” or come to its natural conclusion. Hurrying, arbitrarily slowing yourself down, squeezing the movement into a stylistic ideal, or tightening up will interrupt the throw. You simply need to push your foot, turn your waist, launch your hand, relax, and wait. To your delight, your movement will reach its natural “apex,” the completion of the throw, which is the fulfillment of the posture. Like the tennis ball in our earlier example, having bounced to the peak of its wave, it will start to fall. You can then fall into your root and prepare for the next bounce to come.

From Confusion to Continuity

The T’ai Chi Classics state: ”Let the postures be without breaks or holes, hollows or projections, or discontinuities and continuities of form.” Falling and throwing eliminate the flaws that this passage describes. Once in motion, the wave of falling and throwing keeps you fluid throughout your form. You hold nothing, stop nothing, and ride a wave of your vital energy and intrinsic strength that rise and fall with your breath, intention, and relationship with gravity. Your interplay of substantial and insubstantial takes on a rhythm that makes playing form like playing a beautiful piece of music.

There will be some confusing moments, though, during which you “fall upward.” When you return to an upright position after playing Yang style Needle at Sea Bottom, for example, you are falling. Since you threw your hand downward as you bent at the hip and “applied” the move, the next action in your repeating sine wave causes you to fall. This becomes easy once you think of sinking—falling—into your right foot as you straighten up and slip your left foot into its bow stance position for Fan Through the Back, which comes next. Then falling into your left foot, you reach bottom and fire off your hands, throwing the left one forward like a spear, and the blade edge of the right one upward as it flies into place to protect your head.

Another confusing moment occurs as you set up your Press, which follows Roll Away in the Sparrow’s Tail sequence. Roll Away, being an applied, energized, thrown move, coincides with the rising portion of our sine wave. Once Roll Away is complete, you can fall again before the next throw, which will be Press.

1. Needle at Sea Bottom: Energy rises through you as you throw your right hand downward.

2. Transition: Falling into your rear foot as you return to an upright position.

3. Set up: Falling further as you step into place for the next move.

4. Fan Through the Back: Energy rises through you as you throw both hands.

But your hands rise as you fall into your front foot. Do your hands “fall up?” Your confusion resolves once you realize that this business of falling describes your subjective, internal experience, so you can feel the sensation of falling anywhere in your body at almost any time. Just follow gravity. Further, your whole body is not slumping when you fall; the rest of you can fall under your rising hands. Let yourself relax while you shift from the rear foot you had rooted for Roll Away so you can fall into your front foot, which becomes the root of your Press.

Your ability to let your arms rise while you drop downward produces a sense of weightlessness. Chang San-Feng said: “In motion the whole body should be light and agile, with all parts of the body linked as if threaded together.” This interplay of falling and throwing promotes such lightness, agility, and connectedness. It helps make a distinction between relaxing and collapsing, about which I was confused for many years. Even as you relax while playing your form and get “heavier than your virtual opponents,” you should not feel heavy. Play with a sense of lightness.

You can achieve this rooted lightness by feeling the sine wave and the passively compressive core that enables you to bounce out of each fall. Inwardly, your energy will be firm and direct, and outwardly your body will be soft and pliant. The sine wave model also makes silk reeling more accessible. Silk reeling enables you to find continuity within the seeming discontinuity between separate moves. When you perceive the falling and throwing that occur in each movement’s birth and maturation, the natural acceleration downward and bounce of internal strength, the movements will link together so that the end of each movement creates the beginning of the next.

Would you like some tea?

In all this discussion of vertical internal movement, you might ask, “What about the center?” So much of t’ai chi is based on the dantian as center. In fact, if falling and throwing are all you do, your practice will be, well, without a center. Let’s address that from the real-world-physics point of view we have been using.

Try this: Find a gently sloping hill with an uneven surface. A little path would be a bonus. Walk down that hill with the idea of falling into your feet as much as your safety allows, while loosely throwing your arms so you advance as easily as possible. Your task is to walk down this hill in the most economical way with respect to gravity and your energy expenditure. Get loose.

The exercise will quickly teach you that it is best to avoid a lot of bobbing up and down. You will find that if you land hard when stepping down you have to work harder to set your footing than if you landed softly; you are hitting the ground instead of joining with it. You will also find that pushing off more than forward motion requires creates extra work.

The most economical, efficient, and effective way to descend this hill is to relax into your belly and let your legs join the ground in its rising and falling. Like a skier on a downhill mogul run, you “sit” with your center gliding in the smallest possible range of vertical movement while your legs adjust —filling and emptying—with the terrain. You find yourself moving just like the teapot model mentioned at the beginning of this article teaches, but not because you are trying to move horizontally; you are, in this case, really descending a hill. Your sense of gravity teaches you how to best navigate this movement and your sense of experimental curiosity teaches you things that would otherwise take years to discover.

At bottom of the hill, ask yourself this question: Once you go back to practicing t’ai chi on a horizontal floor, why would this change?

What if it doesn’t?

In the Daoist tradition that forms the foundation of the traditional Oriental healing and health-promoting arts, there are said to be Three Treasures that constitute our life. These are Jing, Qi (pronounced “chee”) and Shen. The ultimate goal of all of the Oriental healing and health-promoting arts is to cultivate, balance and expand the Three Treasures. At the highest level of the Oriental healing arts, the practitioner is attempting to harmonize all aspects of one’s being. This is accomplished by focusing one’s attention on the Three Treasures. Although there are no exact English translations for Jing, Qi and Shen, they are generally translated as essence, vitality and spirit. Jing means the essence of the body and is associated with body fluids, the hormonal system, the food we eat, and our physical strength. Daoists believe that the air we breathe, when combined with Jing, is the source of Qi. This is a natural occurrence but can be magnified through physical exercise and internal practices such as Qigong and Taijiquan. Adequate Qi can be further refined into Shen—mental energy and spirituality. While all people naturally complete this process, Daoists seek to open and maintain channels of energy circulation (meridians), empower dormant centers in the body, and store energy.

The Daoist master Sung Jin Park compared the Three Treasures to a burning candle: “Jing is like the wax and wick, which are the substantial parts of the candle. They are made of material, which is essentially condensed energy. The flame of the lit candle is likened to Qi, for this is the energetic activity of the candle, which eventually results in the burning out of the candle. The radiance given off by the flaming candle is Shen. The larger the candle and the better the quality of the wax and wick, the steadier will be its flame and the longer the candle will last. The steadier the flame, the steadier the emitted light; the greater the flame, the greater the light.”

“Of the Three Treasures, only Qi has received some recognition in the West so far, but the other two are equally wondrous. Jing has been called the “superior ultimate” treasure, even though in a healthy, glowing body, the quantity is small. Jing existed before the body existed, and enters the body tissues and becomes the root of our body. When we keep Jing within our body, our body can be vigorous. If a person cares for the cavity of Jing, and does not hurt it recklessly, it is very easy to enjoy a life of great longevity. Without Jing energy, we cannot live.

Qi is the invisible life force that enables the body to think and perform voluntary movement. It can be seen in the movement of energy in the cosmos and in all other movements and changes. Coming from heaven into the body through the nose (yang gate) and mouth (yin gate), it circulates through the 12 meridians to nourish and preserve the inner organs.

Shen energy is similar to the English meaning of the words ‘mind’ and ‘spirit.’ It is developed by the combination of Jing and Qi. When these two treasures are in balance, the mind is strong, the spirit is great, the emotions are under control and the body is strong and healthy. But it is very difficult to expect a sound mind to be cultivated without sound Jing and Qi. A sound mind lives in a sound body. When cultivated, Shen will bring peace of mind. When we develop Jing, we get a large amount of Qi automatically. When we have a large amount of Qi, we will also have strong Shen, and we will become bright and glowing as a holy man.”

The Daoist master Sung Jin Park compared the Three Treasures to a burning candle. Jing is like the wax and wick, which are the substantial parts of the candle. They are made of material, which is essentially condensed energy. The flame of the lit candle is likened to qi, for this is the energetic activity of the candle, which eventually results in the burning out of the candle. The radiance given off by the flaming candle is shen. The larger the candle and the better the quality of the wax and wick, the steadier will be its flame and the longer the candle will last. The steadier the flame, the steadier the emitted light; the greater the flame, the greater the light.

“There are three treasures in the human body. These are known as jing, qi and shen. Of these three, only qi has received some recognition in the West so far. Qi is but one of the Three Treasures–the other two are equally wondrous. Jing has been called the “superior ultimate” treasure, even though even in a healthy, glowing body, the quantity is small. Jing existed before the body existed, and this jing enters the body tissues and becomes the root of our body. When we keep jing within our body, our body can be vigorous. If a person cares for the cavity of jing, and does not hurt it recklessly, it is very easy to enjoy a life of great longevity. Without jing energy, we cannot live.

Qi is the invisible life force that enables the body to think and perform voluntary movement. The power of qi can be seen in the power that enables a person to move and live. It can be seen in the movement of energy in the cosmos and in all other movements and changes. Coming from heaven into the body through the nose (yang gate) and mouth (yin gate), it circulates through the 12 meridians to nourish and preserve the inner organs.

Shen energy is similar to the English meaning of the words “mind” and “spirit.” It is developed by the combination of jing and qi energy. When these two treasures are in balance, the mind is strong, the spirit is great, the emotions are under control and the body is strong and healthy. But it is very difficult to expect a sound mind to be cultivated without sound jing and qi. An old proverb says that “a sound mind lives in a sound body.” When cultivated, shen will bring peace of mind. When we develop jing, we get a large amount of qi automatically. When we have a large amount of qi, we will also have strong shen, and we will become bright and glowing as a holy man.”

In the work of t’ai chi ch’uan there are certain key aspects or qualities that should be trained to allow a fuller understanding of how the art works, both as a health exercise and more essentially, as an effective martial art.

The starting point for learning t’ai chi ch’uan is the Hand Form, the series of carefully choreographed movements which have their origins in the original 13 postures, reputedly created by Chang San Feng in Wudang Mountain nearly 500 years ago. The tai chi Hand Form consists of a series of postures, linked together in a smooth, flowing manner. These sequences, whatever the style (Chen, Yang, Wu, Sun and Li being the main styles), train the body and mind to be rooted, relaxed, centered, focused, and flexible.

Tai chi Push Hands (Tui Shou) is a partner exercise which is considered to be a training exercise that is a bridge between the Hand Form and free-fighting (San Shou). The basic elements of Push Hands is connecting, through hands and arms, to your partner in a soft, gentle manner to train listening energy (Ting Jing), sensitivity, awareness, grounding while retraining the body’s natural reflexes to relax and flow with oncoming energy, rather than stiffening up, resisting or opposing the attack.

While Push Hands ultimately requires spontaneity, it is essential to train the key aspects in a structured, systematic manner to fully comprehend the effective techniques of the art. The key aspects are the Eight Gates (Bamen) or Principles: Peng, Lui, Ji, An, Tsai, Lieh, Chou, and Kao. Each of these aspects relate to particular Hand Form postures:   Peng – Ward Off
   Lui – Roll Back
   Ji – Press
   An – Push
   Tsai – Pluck or Grasp
   Lieh – Split
   Chou – Elbow Stroke
   Kao – Shoulder Stroke

Peng is an expanding opening quality, likened to a filling balloon. Rather than exercising raw physical strength, Peng trains a connection from the ground, through the body with the mental intention of opening and expanding through the arms ultimately uprooting the opponent.

Lui is a yielding absorbing quality where one is connecting to the opponent’s oncoming force, and moving in the direction of the force while ‘sticking’ or ‘adhering’ and ultimately leading that force into the ‘void’ or emptiness.

Ji is a pressing quality somewhat like that of squeezing into the center of a sponge. The palm of one hand is connected to the inside of the wrist of the other hand while being connected to the opponent, ultimately connecting to their ‘center’ and disturbing their equilibrium.

An is a pushing quality which is executed by placing the palms on the body of the opponent and connecting to the ground, through the feet, pushing from the feet, into the palms and uprooting the opponent.

Tsai is a plucking quality similar to pulling a plant from the ground. When pressing or pushing the opponent towards the ground there comes a point where they will respond to the downward force by trying to rise upwards, this is the point when one would connect to that upcoming force and ‘pluck’ the opponent upwards and off their feet.

Lieh is an opening, splitting movement which separates the parts of the opponent’s body in two directions such as can be seen in movements like ‘Diagonal Flying’ where one would place their leg behind the opponent’s while connecting the arm across their chest and turning from the center, causing the opponent to fall backwards with the opposing forces being applied to the upper and lower parts of their body.

Chou is ‘Elbow Stroke’ where the opponent is struck with the elbow, which is light and free, with the impulse of the force coming from the center or waist and propelled by ground force from the feet.

Kao or ‘Shoulder Strike’ is when one’s shoulder is connected to the opponent’s body and the impulse of the force again comes from the ground, through the feet, through the body, propelling the connection through the shoulder forward, into the opponent’s center.