Juggling and Taiji

To start off I thank Master Chen for inviting me to write this an article comparing juggling and Taiji.

I am both a juggler and a taijiquan practitioner.  This doesn’t mean that I am good at either of these activities, rather that I persist in doing them.  I have noticed several common points between juggling and taiji, though even in they differ even in these commonalities.

Form
As in Taiji, there are many ways for a beginning juggler to go wrong, and only one way that will work well.   Learning that basic pattern (called a cascade) involves a lot of time practicing exactly the same throw first with one hand, and then with the other.  All variances need to be removed until the beginning juggler can toss the ball consistently with either hand.

Why all the practice?  When the transition is made to more than one ball, and suddenly the beginning juggler has to pay attention to both hands and the ball at the same time, all sorts of weird things start to happen.  The hands will go to the wrong spot, the throws will be off, and timing will be non-existant.  This is normal, but needs to be corrected.  All unnecessary movements need to be removed from the act of throwing the ball correctly.  Juggling cannot occur until the juggler can consistently throw each ball accurately, yet without paying attention to  the ball as its thrown.  Michael Moschen, a juggler whose work I admire said,”You must learn to feel with your eyes, and see with your hands”.

In the Practical Method Chen style Tajiquan, we practice Yilu again, and again, and again, removing (or subtracting) any inconsistencies with the known form, until we can do each movement in the form repeatably, consistently, and correctly.  Each move needs to be done exactly right (footwork angles, hand position, without transition).  Why?  Because when we transition to using the form (push hands, Erlu, or zhan shou) all sorts of strange things will occur: timing will be off, or the wrong movement or angle will come out.  This is normal, and should be expected, but needs to be corrected.  All incorrect or additional movements need to be subtracted from the Yilu form so that taiji can occur.  Taiji cannot occur until the practitioner can consistently perform each movement without paying attention to the required actions as the movement occurs.

Timing
Object fall if the timing is off while juggling.  This is Mill’s mess (http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=Bc8f6mPry6A#t=25s).  If the timing’s off in any way, it will certainly be a mess, but it won’t be Mill’s mess.

Similarly movements won”t work if the timing is off in taiji.  Take the steps of the circle (http://practicalmethod.com/lang/en/2012/02/the-circle/).  Not only will the circle not work if these steps are done out of order, but it could cause other issues (http://practicalmethod.com/lang/en/2012/01/stacking-the-joints/#more-17117) .

Master Chen shared an interesting concept in the recent Phoenix workshop.  Imagine that there are three actions that need to occur.  They may well start and end together, but the beats at which each action occurs are different within that time.

This has also been explained with dotted lines.  To the observer, there are no missing spaces, even though no single action covers the whole length of the line.

Observer