T'ai Chi Essentials

[alexander lake]

T'ai Chi is many things to many people. It's important to have a sense
for why you come to T'ai Chi so that you can focus your efforts and
get what you need. You'll get out of T'ai Chi what you put into it.
I teach the Yang Style Short Form as adapted and taught by Professor
Cheng Man-Ch'ing. Professor Cheng brought this form to the United
States in the 1960s. He condensed this form from the Yang Style Long
Form by eliminating some repetition and a few postures in order to
make it more accessible to the lifestyle of the Western world. As
anyone knows who has studied this form, it is challenging enough in
its length and complexity.
T'ai Chi Ch'uan is an "internal" art which seeks to develop and
harmonize the human energy system in the context of a martial arts
form. In my teaching, I emphasize the energetic or health and self-
development aspects of T'ai Chi.
As a beginning, T'ai Chi enables us to recognize and actively release
tension. This opens the way for us to develop balanced, free-flowing
energy which creates the conditions for optimum health and well-being.
T'ai Chi has been called moving meditation since its practice quiets
the mind by centering us into body awareness (and, later, energetic
awareness). The deepening of awareness integrates body, emotions,
mind, and spirit.
Ultimately, T'ai Chi can be practiced as a comprehensive system of
self-development. When you are proficient at T'ai Chi you can use it
as a tool to shift your state of being. During T'ai Chi practice you
become relaxed, present, energized, and aware. You shift into what I
call a Core Energy State in which you experience yourself as a part of
the Oneness of life and you feel the flow of universal qi ("chee":life
energy) throughout your body.
In addition to these profound effects, T'ai Chi just plain feels good.
We often lose this sense when we try too hard to excel or to get
something out of it. Practice T'ai Chi with awareness and pure
enjoyment and the rest will take care of itself. Of course, to enjoy
T'ai Chi you've got to do it. The good feeling one gets in T'ai Chi is
developed through daily practice.
To guide you on the path towards embodying the essence of T'ai Chi,
focus on five principles:
THE FIVE PRINCIPLES:
1) RELAX DOWN: release tension around all joints so they become open
and free moving. Drop your shoulders; let your elbows hang heavily;
release tension in the low back and hips so the buttocks and hip
flexors are soft. Sink your energy. Feel as if your lower body is
filled with water or as if there is a heavy weight attached to your
tailbone. This is balanced by
2) STAND UPRIGHT: raise the crown point of your head (Bai Hui point)
as if it's suspended on a string from above; let your spine rises
straight from the coccyx to this point. Tuck your chin slightly and
raise your back. Feel as if your upper body is filled with helium.
Allow your elbows and wrists to rise slightly.
3) BREATHE FROM THE LOWER DANTIAN: focus your awareness inward and
downward to the center of your body, the lower dantian ("dahn-tee-en":
an energy center approximately three finger-widths below the navel and
one third of the way from the front to the back of the body). Imagine
this energy center as a heavy sphere in your lower abdomen. Its weight
spirals down into your legs and feet. All movement is guided by the
waist around this center.
In T'ai Chi, we keep awareness "centered" in the lower dantian.
Whenever your mind wanders to any other thoughts, feelings, or
sensations, let those go and gently return your attention to breathing
from the lower dantian. As you inhale, feel as if the lower dantian
expands and fills up. When you exhale, feel as if the lower dantian
relaxes inward and empties out.
Awareness expands from the lower dantian to fill the body as a whole.
Feel the connection from the lower dantian to the top of your head
(Bai Hui point). Feel the connection from the lower dantian to the
soles of your feet (Bubbling Well points in the center of your feet).
Besides unifying body movement, the lower dantian is the storehouse
for universal energy or "qi." By focusing on this energy center we
accumulate qi. The movements of T'ai Chi help to circulate qi
throughout the body.
4) SOFTEN YOUR HANDS: release tension from your hands: they are soft,
light, flexible, and sensitive. Don't curl your fingers or overextend
them. Maintain a neutral wrist position. "Soft hands" relaxes tension,
enhances the flow of qi, and opens the way for sensing life-energy.
Feel the connection of your hands to your lower dantian. The rotation
of the lower dantian spirals out through the arms. Allow your hands to
be like cotton which can feel the air like thick clouds around you.
5) SINK INTO YOUR ROOT & SEPARATE YOUR WEIGHT: feel your feet
contacting the ground; your weight distributes evenly across the
entire surface of each foot. Maintain a slight knee bend. Sink your
weight into the Bubbling Well points, your roots (in the middle of
your feet, just behind the balls of your feet). Except at the start
and finish of the form (when your weight is 50% in each leg), separate
your weight distribution between your feet, either 70%/30% or 100%/0%.
Being rooted comes from the weighted rotation of the dantian that
"screws" your legs into the ground. Another sensory image for "root
and separate" is to feel as if your lower body is full of water.
Gradually pour the water 100% into one leg while emptying the other
leg, then vice-versa.
At first, practice the five principles as a checklist. In time, they
will blend into one feeling that you can shift into with a moment's
attention.
Beyond the five principles, the following cues are also essential to
T'ai Chi practice:
*Roll the tip of your tongue up to touch the roof of your mouth.
*Center your chin with the center line of your body.
*Square your shoulders and hips to one of the eight directions.
*Movement is slow, continuous, flowing, soft, and circular.
*Movements initiate from the ground, move up through the legs, are
directed by the lower dantian, and released at the fingertips.
*Sense inwardly: the eyes maintain a "soft focus" to the outer
environment.
*Find balance by harmonizing opposites: sinking with rising, forward
with backward, left with right, expansion with relaxation.
To progress in T'ai Chi, practice daily. Even ten minutes a day will
grow your ability. If you become frustrated in what seems complex,
remember the five principles; these are the heart of T'ai Chi.
After going through the five principles at the beginning of each
session, a fruitful method for practice is to focus on one principle
at a time. In the first stages of learning T'ai Chi, focus on the
fifth principle, root & separate, and on feeling solid contact
with the ground. This principle forms a solid base for the other four.
In time, the five principles become one sensation, a feeling of
rooted, relaxed, upright, soft, centered, energetic presence which is
maintained by focusing on the lower dantian.
At the finish of your daily practice, stay in the last posture and
hold it. Breathe into your body as a whole. Go through the five
posture principles. Take a few moments to record the feeling of
relaxation and energy in every cell. This experience then becomes a
reference point that you can return to when you feel rushed, tense, or
overwhelmed, at other times of the day.
BEYOND THE MOVEMENTS:
After learning the movements of the form, become aware of how your
breathing is coordinated with the postures. Breathing further
integrates, informs, and energizes the movements while giving them a
natural ebb and flow.
You may also want to work with Push Hands, or two person T'ai Chi.
Push Hands develops your ability to follow T'ai Chi principles while
interacting with another. We increase our internal and external
sensitivity and learn to feel and respond to another's energy while
maintaining our own energetic core. In Push Hands the connection
between T'ai Chi and everyday interactions becomes apparent.
As you see in this brief summary, there are many levels to T'ai Chi
practice. One of my T'ai Chi teachers says: "T'ai Chi is simple, but
it isn't easy." In China, to learn T'ai Chi is considered a life-long
study. To maintain such a study, remember the desire that brought you
to T'ai Chi. Find the pleasure in practice. Enjoy.
Copyright 2006 by Kevin Schoeninger