Hello, everyone! I'm new to Tai Chi... I know very little about this art and so I've decided to document my experiences in my Tai Chi class in the hopes that I will better retain the things I learned. I also hope, by documenting this among fellow Tai Chi practicioners (read: in this part of the forum), I may gain more insight from you all and apply them to my training. Tai Chi class occurs every Monday and Wednesday. As time allows I will update on these days. May the learning begin! -- DAY ONE: in which I am left confused and perhaps had a supernatural experience. So.... I got to class 5 minutes late because the room changed and I didn't bother to check this morning before I left the apartment. I got to my class just as we were jumping into some forms. Let me tell you the things I learned first: 1. Tai Chi requires a LOT of concentration. 2. Forcing movement HURTS. 3. I really need to stretch my limbs before class so that my joints and neck won't be popping during class. As we began our movements, I discovered that we generally pivot on our heels, which has been difficult for me to do since my ankle injury last year. I told my teacher about my ankle and my issue with pivoting on my heel and his simple solution was "don't force it; go as far as your body can go, then stop". I also learned that there is an acupuncture point called "bubbling spring" just behind the ball of the foot. He said we shouldn't rotate on the ball of our foot simply because unpleasant things would occur (he was a bit vague about what those would be). I find this interesting, simply because in Hapkido and Tae Kwon Do, rotating on the ball of the foot was ESSENTIAL to most class activities (with exception to forms, in which we would lean back on the heel). I believe I may have to break myself of those old habits. He also explained that he once asked his teacher to teach him "Iron Fist"... his teacher's response was to learn things slowly... that teacher then broke a rock with his fist and said, "see, nothing wrong with the hand". It was simply a matter of training slowly and carefully to help the body develop so that it could perform the technique properly. We did "cloud hands" and "catching the swallow's tail"... which I am utterly lost on both. We then talked briefly about pressure points. REALLY briefly. "I do not want to talk much about pressure points because the tendency is for people to go out and try them on their friends. You don't realize how much it hurts unless it has been demonstrated on you." He then told us how his Shaolin teacher manipulated the points on EACH of his students so that they would know what it feels like to be on the receiving end, so that they would not want to inflict harm on others. I understood this concept because Master Yoon would have us practice on each other various techniques (that would manipulate both joints and pressure points) and BOY did it hurt! My Tai Chi instructor also said, "I am clueless about 'chi'. 'Chi' is whatever you want to define it as." So... so that answers that. He said, "Tai Chi is about developing sensitivity over speed. Other martial arts are about moving quickly, developing speed. I used to try and fool my Shaolin instructor with fast movements, thinking he would never see me doing the form wrong, but one day he put one hand on me as I was doing the form and easily pushed me over. In Tai Chi, one must stay balanced. If you develop far enough into Tai Chi, you will be able to lay one hand on a person and say 'this person is not balanced' or 'this person has too much weight on the left'"... which I thought was very interesting! He also said "I will not talk much of philosophically". Which he stayed true to. He said mostly that others could go into detail about the flow of which chi to what through what limb, but he seemed to skim over that and went back to teaching the movements. We went over 4 basic movements (which names escape me)... and we did various foot movements: 'T-step' 'L-step' and 'reverse step'.... so that was interesting... After class, I reviewed with the assistant instructor proper posture for "push hands".... which I am also clueless about. It would seem that I am not lifting or lowering myself from my legs, rather, I am pushing down from my back and hollowing myself over a ball shape... which made a little sense. Also, I told my instructor about my experience with Master Yoon and his teachings of pressure points... I casually mentioned one point behind the ear that we used in Hapkido... he sort of stopped, thought for a minute and said, "there's also one here". He laid a finger on the front part of my left temple (right around my eyebrow) and I felt this SHOCK just jump through my body at that moment. It was WEIRD! And as he pulled away, whether the light was playing tricks or not, the finger that he held to my temple had a white string attached to my temple that broke off and disappeared and his fingertips had small, white and gold sparks shooting from them as he held his palm open to me. He looked at me rather funny, as if he were asking, "what are you looking at?" It was only for an instant and he walked away with his assistant then, leaving me behind and not saying another word. So.... that was really, really quite odd and sort of threw me for a loop. I do not know what it was that I saw, but it was really, really quite odd. Confusion abounds. Thoughts? Comments? Write away below.
You ever thought about writing a blog, like at blogger.com? It'd be interesting to read regular updates on your progress. Great to hear you're getting back into martial arts.
Taiji taught properly isn't as easy as you'd think, is it? It's GREAT physical therapy, though; I used it to help heal my knee and I'm currently using it for a lumbar spine problem. Works wonders. The rotating on the heel is hard to get used to. My instructors always explained it as not having a ton of martial value, but helping keep absolutely perfect joint alignment (important when you're moving slowly through low stances).
What does "forcing movement" mean? I figured out what unpleasant things occur from pivoting on the ball of the foot.Western boxers do it all the time.Western boxers get knocked out,ergo... Just kidding.Total guess here but he may mean if you pivot on the ball to rotate your heel out/back to attain the final foot position you'll be lengthening your stance in a backwards direction,not the best way to issue power and you may be overextended in your final position. Sparks,eh?I know of one lineage that has some members who produce sparks with a shock.A friend once related a similar experience at the hands of one of them.No idea how they do it,none have ever done it in a challenge to my knowledge.So I guess the martial applicability has never manifested.Never heard of the line's founder using it in a confrontation.Good for promoting awe in a student,I guess.I really wouldn't concern myself with it.Where's your teacher's TC from?Just curious if he belongs to that lineage. Do lots and lots and lots of good push hands training and you'll develop the ability to catch/sense people's balance,as in their weak angles and the exploitation thereof. Happy training.
Pivoting on the ball is in some tai chi forms and p/h drills, but it is much more common to turn on the heels in forms. El Medico explained one drawback in terms of form movement. But there are forms that actually do this, purposely one might conclude.. There are some turns in Wu fast form that have you pivot on one heel and one ball simultaniously. This is the quickest and nimblest way to turn 90 degrees on the spot that I've come across. Chen Pan Lings form has you pivot on the rear ball when shifting into bow stance for single whip. Wu style has a ball of the foot pivot in its slow form cloud hands. Pretty much though the Yang styles and derivetives like CMC commonly taught today have you pivoting on heels all the time.
Nah; I'm great at networking in person but I'm lost on how to network my way around the blogging world. I feel like my left leg up to my knee locks up, though. I'm anchored solid, but it's like my own weight is ripping apart my knee and ankle. Forcing movement= ie, forcing my body to move in ways it has not moved ever or in a long time. I think that may be it. I may have to simply ask... What does TC stand for? I'm clueless on acronyms. So.... are Push Hands pretty much the bread of Tai Chi in general? Haha no, he didn't poke me in the eye. I WANT TO TRY THAT.
Ask your instructor about the knee/ankle thing.If you turn your leg in a sequence of first upper leg,then lower,then foot you can be twisting the joints,which may not be a good idea when at beginner level.It's not the same as when you pivot on the ball w/a raised heel,which allows freer motion. TC=T'ai Chi-easier than spelling it out every time. In a nutshell,ph (push hands) is where you develop tactile sensitivity,learn how to deal w/incoming force,learn to issue force.Very important training practice.Not a substitute for sparring.
My Tung form has you pivot on the ball to turn the heel in to attain the final foot angle in most instances.Very different from any of the other forms I was taught over the years.The Chen I learned has a couple of the fast issuing moves where you pivot on the balls of both feet simutaneously. Pivoting on the ball in clouds can make sense as you're moving sideways rather than into a frontal stance.Also allows for opening and/or closing of hip kua laterally. "Pivot on Ball in Clouds"-there's a new name! Which part to pivot on is generally dictated by where you started from and what the final relationship between the feet are.Pivoting on both to turn 90 degrees will keep the relationship between the feet from widening. There are methods to pivot on the ball to move the heel out while issuing. And then we have follow steps....
play around with it from parallel stance. You'll notice that one way of doing it, you'll shorten your stance, which you're not really after. The other way it will remain the same. The heel in the direction you are turning pivots, what becomes the rear turns on the ball. Do it the other way and the stance shortens. Watch how Ma yueh Liang turns into brush knee after the Wu fast form crane spreads wings. That's the turn I'm on about. Interesting about the Tung form, that's always been one of my favourites Yang styles..
.... is there a video of some sort to demonstrate heel pivoting and the like? I'm a very visual person and I'm a bit lost on just words. Sorry to be a nuisance. Also, I do not know which form of Yang we are practicing... for whatever reason I do not have a syllabus for the class...?
Again, the lack of a syllabus leaves me without answers. I suspect we're covering 24 movements, though. I'll have to ask my professor on Monday before class.
You're not a nuisance.You're asking questions.But your teacher should be able to show and explain heel pivots,tell him you need some help,it's pretty basic stuff.Also let him know you need to see more so than hear,that's not uncommon. Cloudz-sorry,I should have written "pivoting on both the ball and heel to turn 90 degrees...",as you mentioned.I was agreeing it was the way to go. My Tung form is different in that heel in thing than I'd seen in Tung's line before.It has some other ways of doing things I'd never seen Tung people do.My teacher was one of a very small group of indoor students/disciples he taught in Malaysia towards the end of his life.There's 3 ways of doing the form,too.I only taught it to serious martial students.
Sounds like a pretty good first class. Don't worry if it hasn't all sunk in straight away - it will soon enough! I'd also like to say, that this has been the best thread on the Tai Chi forum for a long time.
DAY TWO: In which back spasms occur and more Tai Chi ensues. I got up this morning feeling really cheerful and contented, despite the 'chi' of my bedroom being utterly thrown off by the amount of laundry I will have to do later tonight after work. (I can only do so much housework when I have to spend at least 12 hours on homework for one class--yikes!) I packed my backpack and eagerly set foot out my door-- only to realize it was COLD. A pleasant 48 degrees F, I believe. I donned a sweater and headed out to Tai Chi. Once to campus I stopped by the MMA room (since I was about 20 minutes early) and got to view some new kickboxing students trying to get their basic footwork. It was pretty cool to watch their style of training compared to my experiences. :hat: Anywho, on to Tai Chi! It seemed everyone was late due to traffic on the freeway, so the assistant instructor started doing Qi Gong exercises while Paul Kawakami came in... we were mostly focusing on breathing and a little more 'push hands' with Robert, the assistant guy. Robert advised against keeping our eyes closed while doing Qi Gong exercises. "I've seen people do Qi Gong with their eyes closed only to open them and have them completely bloodshot. 'Bad chi' escapes out of the eyes. Keep your eyes open." Which..... which kinda scared me just a bit. Seriously, one must have a LOT of bad chi to wind up with bloodshot eyes. I cannot describe all of the Qi Gong movements we did, but at one point Robert stops us and says, "if you look at your hands now, you will see the circulation of your blood, with the thin blood rising to the top. People usually get this when they have been running hard." And sure enough, I looked at my hands and they were pink (and somewhat polka-dotted white under the skin??) and felt really hot, like I had been working out for a long time. We had only been doing that for five minutes Paul arrived( apparently there was a bad accident on the freeway that backed traffic up for 40 minutes). So we start in on finishing up Qi Gong with Paul... at one point we went over a movement that requires you to lift your arms from the sides and up.... "let your hands become heavy.... let your blood just rain into your hands" And I will tell you, I felt like, at that moment, I was holding 30 lb. dumbbells in my hands. And then we had to breathe and lift and I seriously thought my arms were going to fall off. It was really quite the bizarre sensation! We then pushed our hands flat together to "stretch out the shoulderblades". Paul said, "if your wrists hurt, you can make fists [and push them together]". Which I did, because my left wrist was hurting after my dumbbell experience.... We also did more twisting work with our hands. "My teacher told me much like you wring a dishtowel to get water out, when you rotate your hand one direction, you will feel your upper arm rotate the other direction." He demonstrated, we followed suit and sure enough, my muscles really do feel like they're rotating the other direction!! I've never noticed this before, even when I'd rotate my hands to punch in Tae Kwon Do or Hapkido. Then, Paul started teaching us a little bit of Chun, "only so that you may learn what power your body has". He told us to pick up one foot, put one hand out, palm up, raise the other hand. With the uppermost hand, make a fist and drop that hand into the open palm and drop your raised foot at the same time with a relaxed motion. This drives POWER into the floor. Which... was pretty cool. "We saw a demonstration once of a Chun school that opened their exercises on the floor with this move and it seriously felt like the building was going to come down on top of us!" He went on... so then once the hands are together, rotate from your waist with the hands still clasped into a sort of circle from one side of the pelvis to the other, then push out. "Don't do this too many times" Paul said. "Or you will have a spasm in your back." We did this three times. And my back spasmed. We then went back to doing Yang Tai Chi (while I restrained myself from writhing on the floor in pain). More push hands. Paul then said something along the lines of, "put your hands here on either side of your ribs. Now, I'm not there yet, but you will be able to feel the ribcage expand. It is mystical, but that is where the energy wells from." I put my hand on my ribcage and did some deep breathing and felt my diaphragm expand. It was nothing truly special, until I did push hands again. At one point while moving my hands, felt in my fingers as if the bone itself was becoming cold. At first I thought it was some sort of circulation issue, but I clearly had perfectly fine circulation from earlier.... MORE WEIRDNESS. And perhaps "chi". I'll reserve calling it that for now only because I do not know for sure. Paul asked us if we remembered Bruce Lee's "one inch punch". Some of us laughed and Paul said, "it's really a three-foot punch, because energy is coming up through your leg." Which makes total sense. Paul also told us about "Iron shirt" in which people train for many years so that if they are punched in the chest, they are completely protected by their 'chi'... pretty cool. Paul also explained something about return or reverse energy. When we pull in and curve the top part of our spine as we bring our arms together, we are taking energy in, then releasing it as we open back up. Small movements must become large and large becomes small. "Much like the universe... theoretically." Also, when I was pulling energy in, I felt as if I was going to suffocate, even while still breathing, but when I released the energy the pressure was gone. WEIRD INNIT?!? Class felt particularly short today... I stopped Paul after class and told him about my back spasm. He laughed at me. And then said something along the lines of "don't push too hard, be gentle; relaxed. Your body is very powerful because while you are moving on the outside, you are pulling everything inside." Hmmm.... perhaps I may take him up on that. After I take some painkillers and ice my back, that is. Also! For those of you wondering about the lineage of Paul.... Paul Kawakami --> T.Y. Pang ---> Dong Yingjie ---> Yang Chengfu :hat: So that was class today. Weeee!!!
So Paul and I are "cousins".Dong Yingjie= Tung,Ying-ch'ieh.That's the Tung I spoke of above.Answered my question about the sparks,that's the line I mentioned in regards to some practitioners doing that. Blood flow and heat in certain areas is often increased in ch'i gung/nei gung practices. I'd think your hands felt heavy due to relaxation.Good work!You're paying very close attention to things you haven't before so a lot of unfamiliar sensations occur.Just enjoy the ride.Don't think something's wrong when such sensations diminish to a greater or lesser degree,it just means you're getting familiar w/them and they don't take up so much room in your concious awareness. That's Chen.If you write Chun folks will think you mean Wing Chun.That move you described is the final move in "Buddha's Warrior Attendant Pounds the Mortar" in Chen system.Nice,but a little wordy.The power winds up rebounding from the floor as you continue,by the way.But don't concern yourself, he's trying to get you to just relaxedly sink it at this time. I confess I don't know why your back would spasm from what seems to be a basic Chen type reeling exercise. Mystical?Ummm...well,don't worry about it.Oh yeah,you can get that cold sensation too.Fun,huh? Your suffocating feeling when pulling in is most likely from various muscles in the throat/chest etc tightening a little even if you don't feel it w/out focusing strict attention to those areas.You released them when you stopped pulling in.Not unknown,it'll pass. If your teach knows you belong to a MA forum please send respects from Doc, a student of one of Tung's disciples from Tung's time in Malaysia.
Hi, @ around 0.42 watch old Master Ma's feet as he turns to his left. His left foot turns on his heel, his right turns on the ball. [ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TrEgivmDaM8&feature=related"]YouTube- Wu Taiji Fast Form Ma Yue Liang[/ame]
