Yesterday I was pushing hands with taiji brothers and felt distinctly different from before. I could feel that I was doing taiji with the lower body now. The form is starting to change my body structure. It is changing me. Please tell me what I should pay attention to at this stage.
Power in the lower body
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Zhidong,
What you are experiencing is good. Next step you need to do this:
1. Push with someone. Use one fixed move, like pushing a wall.
2. Try to feel where on your body you are pushing from. Don’t consider where you should push from. Just to try to tell where.
3. Once you find the place. That is your point. From there, don’t use power with any body parts above that point. All body parts above that point are used to redirect, change direction, like a steering wheel.
4. Starting from that point, all body parts below must push down to the ground.
5. This way you can separate yin from yang.
6. Without this, you don’t have taiji jin (strength).
Example, without taiji training, beginners cannot navigate their own power passed their wrists. They only push forward. This does not make them strong. They don’t have strength. You can try this first.
Shifu,
I understand a bit now. When I touch hands with people, assuming that point is on my back or waist, that point does not move. Of course no part should really move. Then the waist moves down as in “Fetch Water”, or we can say the strength goes down, not the physical body. The reaction of the foot and ground is redirected back in a line to the front hand. It is issued towards the opponent in a spiral shape. This is the fatal power. Am I right?
The upper body should only turn left or right without activating any power.
The center line can not bend. It is at 90 degrees to the ground.
Your understanding is correct. If it does not work on your opponent using this method, it is because of the distance between you and your opponent. It is not a problem with the move. Distance can be modified by stepping up or stepping back.
My Ride at Space Mountain at Disney yesterday gave me a testimony of how my body had changed over the years of Taiji. The ride isn’t a full out monstrous roller coaster; it was still full of dips and turns, and it was really dark in there, hence it was very difficult to anticipate what comes up next. While my friends were all screaming during the ride, I remained calm, and didn’t have to tense up or clutch on to anything. It felt as though my mid section took over and was rolling along with the curves. It was not until closer to the end of the ride where there was a big drop that I needed to tense up my legs to wedge myself in. Arguably, I wouldn’t need to do that, it was me still a bit startled by the sudden drop.
I got out of the ride, and concluded that master’s move had always put us down with more inertia, force, or acceleration than Space Mountain could muster up. I was easily able to match the power of Space Mountain without breaking a sweat.