Confusion between sinking into the DAN TIEM vs ROOTING the FEET

From what I understand about Tai Chi (I've been taking 'online' lessons, to see if I enjoy it).
Here are the basic "steps'' needed before you can properly go into a 'form':
1) Awareness that your muscles are 'alive'.
2) With that awareness, relax your muscles from inside themselves: layer by layer, relax your skin - bones - muscles - nerves - joints - tendons too (is that even possible?)
3) Now that your body is relaxed, you can start 'sinking' them into your DAN TIEN.
And that's where it gets confusing for me. Some teachers teach that the goal of Tai Chi is to drop / sink everything / all the energy FROM your Upper Burner of the Body down into your DAN TIEM (the DAN TIEM is 'located' between the smaller and bigger intestines, in your Center of Gravity). The DAN TIEM acts as a battery, a central source of enegry, that will THEN disperse the energy (of the upper burner) stored in it, throughout your body: either upwards in the body (ABOVE the DAN TIEM area) or downwards in the body (BELOW the DAN TIEM area).
Some teachers teach that the goal of Tai Chi is to 'root' / 'sink your feet' into the ground -- this means that the energy in the DAN TIEM itself should 'drop' down into your hips, thighs all the way into your feet -- but won't this mean that now it's the FEET (and NOT the Dan Tiem) that will act as a battery, because it has absorbed the energy of the Dan Tiem (which has absorbed the energy of the upper burner of the body, in the first place)?
I thought the energy of the body should be focused in the belly / Dan Tiem area, not anywhere else. I understand that all chi flows FROM the belly / Dan Tiem, or flows TO the belly / Dan Tiem (depending in the movement). So what do the FEET have to do with that? And technically speaking, how can the Lower Burner of the Body 'sink' into the DAN TIEM -- doesn't 'sinking' mean that something has to go down, NOT up?

And what do people mean by upper DAN TIEM, middle DAN TIEM, lower DAN TIEM?

THANKS FOR CLEARING THINGS UP.

By the way, step # 4) would be to "LENGTHEN" the energy in your body -- but I'm not there yet : )

:bang:

Another post, regarding the DAN TIEM, from another MAP user:

Without turning this into a major thesis, it is due to the physical attributes of the intestinal tract and it's center of gravity, it's ability to act like a huge conductive battery, that this point is the logical heart of the Dan Tien; it is a giant battery for bio electricity. So we see that with the triple heater Qigong that we do ( if you do this ) you are actually developing and storing Qi. Cultivating it in the lower, storing it in the middle physical Dan Tien, and then circulating it via the upper Dan Tien . The brain is the upper Dan Tien, the middle Dan Tien is the true physical Dan Tien and the lower Dan Tien is the Dan Tien of mind or the lower heater.

You can get into absurdly deep discussions on a scientific level and begin using chemistry to show results with all this. Essentially the answer is yes and no and it depends on the Dan Tien your are discussing and the context within which you are referring to it.

 

"Online" lessons is your first mistake - you simply cannot learn properly that way

Get to a decent class, practice dilligently and most of these questions will answer themselves

 

I can't -- I don't have the money or time -- I am trying to learn CERTAIN Tai Chi concepts to integrate them for other sports, and for my general health. I am the kind of person who learns by really UNDERSTANDING a concept, not by FEELING a concept-- I can't feel it if I don't understand the 'hows and whys' of a concept. That concept has to make logical sense, before I can integrate it into movement. I would just be asking my poor instructor all these questions, which he or she would have no time to answer -- I tend to learn differently than most people : )

 

And that comes with proper training.

There really are no short-cuts.

 

If its important you find a way...if not you find an excuse

Online lessson arent free and with the money spent on that you could have had a month of lessons and actually learned something substantial

Online is not the way...especially with an art like tai chi

 

Online and/or DVD of a conventional art is difficult enough - and serve as little more than reference point material - where you basically know what is what.

TaiJiQuan and associated arts are way too complex to learn without very, very good instruction. Even with good instruction, such arts are damm difficult - and often down to fairly threadbare inter-generational oral transmission and interpretation.

Without serious teaching, it is likely to be a waste of time. I can see that some top performance Gymnasts <<might>> be able to grasp some concepts of TaiJiQuan with minimal instruction - regarding whole body movement, rhythm, timing; but even there, I think they would struggle with basic footwork, understanding what the postures meant and how to interpret them martially and thus for Forms.

 

I've known a few people starting out with this way of thinking.

There's no two ways about it - it is wrong.

There are concepts that are impossible to understand and apply until you have developed the sensitivity to feel what's going on, and this can only be achieved through guidance by an instructor. Otherwise, you are merely feeling around in the dark with little hope of success.

You say that you don't have time to find instruction. Well, an instructor will cut down the amount of time it takes to get this stuff by a huge factor.

 

Absolutely look at the online ninjutsu learning, laughable stuff, a teenager could knock em out with no training

 

Unless your neo

 

Are you?

 

I can't agree with this enough! Students who don't ask questions I actually give "you need to have at least one question about what I taught today during next class" as a homework assignment.

 

Very much agree.

I used to also ask my students questions, and gave them a homework assignment to get some answers. And although when they had returned, some of the answers were incorrect, the answers were very thought-out and intelligent deductive reasoning was used. The idea of that drill (wasn't done on a continuous basis ) was to have my students "think", not just get involved with the physical of punching and kicking-for example

One of my teachers used to tell me "Don't blindly believe me (him), try to go out and obtain more information

I also had given my students homework assignments requesting a small "thesis"

On a few rare occasions, a student returned with something "I did not know"

 

A very good piece of western contextualization of the literal meaning of Air Sink to the lower abdomen which is simply diaphragmatic breathing with the chest and pubic floor muscles relaxed to generate impact on the lower abdomen while moving.

 

Sorry, pubic floor muscles should be pelvic floor muscles.

 

I like pubic better