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Real quick… think about awareness and attention.

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Awareness and Attention in Taiji and Beyond

Ha. You thought Tai Chi was some silly, gentle art about peace ‘n stuff…

We’ll see. It sure sounds silly.

I searched for some appropriate links and I found lots of garbage. What happened to the internet?

I try to be tactful with ads on RealTaiji.com, and I steer toward no ads at all (if you see some on top of the sidebar, you probably came from a search engine).

But dang! too many ads and many are offensive… that I reluctantly dug through internet articles to find a decent link to Steven Chow’s Tai Chi Movie.

I was struck by the fun news and thought I’d share it. Enjoy the idea of Jack Black in Tai Chi as much as I do… Kung Fu Panda will make a good Chuck Norris.

Jack Black is Kung Fu Panda

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Bruce Lee Fights Chuck Norris in Way of the Dragon

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Tai Chi: the Way of the Dragon

“Maintain a physical and psychological sense of equilibrium in relation to the Earth (i.e., a sense of being ‘grounded’); never commit yourself fully — always have in mind the possibility of retreating if you advance or of advancing if you retreat.”

—Power Taiji

No doubt: one should strive for Earthy equilibrium in daily life, not just in Taijiquan. Stand, sit, lie down: you ought to always know where that darned Earth is. And I think we can fully commit to sinking weight into the Earth. The trick is not over committing by avoiding plunking or falling forward.

An easy way to think of it in Taijiquan: reach your leg forward, place it gently, then pull your weight in to your foot. This makes it easy to change direction. You can use gravity instead of being victim or subject to it.

Once you get it in Taiji, do the same in daily life.

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Maintain a Sense of Equilibrium with the Earth

There’s a whole lot of great eye exercises that can make your Taiji, your martial arts, and your life better. But you may already practice some.

If you practice an articulate Taijiquan Form, you do these eye motions:

1. Gaze far away.
2. Soft focus.
3. Look left while seeing right, or look right while seeing left.
4. Allow your eyes lead your body.
5. Let your body lead your eyes.

If you wear corrective lenses in your everyday life, take them off for Taijiquan. Whether you have eye difficulties or you have perfect vision, an articulate Taiji Form uses various subtle eye motions that stimulate relaxation, develop attention, and expand awareness. Plus, you get a great shot at improving your vision.

To see what I mean… watch the little movie.

5 Taiji Eye Exercises

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Each eye is a round ball of water, with muscle straps attached at all sort of angles. The muscles surrounding each eye guide gross and fine motor controls. When eye muscles get tired or, worse, when they go to extremes of either atrophying or hyper-flexing, the muscles distort the shape of the whole eye. That kind of distortion makes vision not crystal clear. Relax.

Relaxing your eyes is critical. Face and jaw muscles affect the eyes too, so relax those for better clarity and greater ease.

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5 Taiji Eye Exercises to Help You See

“Never have equal strength in your palms, as this is also a variation of being double-weighted.”

—Power Taiji

It’s little and simple.

To a normal observer, one’s palms may appear to press (or push) together, but watch close. Notice that one leads the other, arriving slightly ahead of the other.

In my practice of Grasp Bird’s Tail, my right hand presses on the imaginary enemy’s pressure points, just a bit before my left hand. If you were watching really close, you’d see it.

Just a little.

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Never Have Equal Strength in Your Palms

“In lifting up or pulling back, inhale; in pushing forward or stepping downward, exhale.”

—Power Taiji

It’s a natural and instinctive way to move. Even something as simple as standing from sitting: use an inhale to inflate your body and standing up is easy… likewise, exhale to sit down in your chair. Flavor every movement with Taiji.

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In Lifting Up or Pulling Back, Inhale

“Your head should be held as if suspended from above by a string. This will pull your backbone up and sink the qi to the lower tan-tien.”

—Power Taiji

It’s a tricky mind trick to feel the pull-up. There’s nothing to cling to, after all. But it’s possible. It works to feel that Lightness on top of the head… and then draw the backbone into that emtpy lightness.

How do you do it? Feel it?

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Pull Your Backbone Up

Who is Yang Chen Fu?

Yang Chen Fu, grandson of Yang Style founder Yang Lu-chan, receives great credit for popularizing the Supreme-Ultimate Fist Form. He emphasized health components of the system. Check out Yang Chen Fu’s oral instructions in Yang Family Secret Transmissions (aff link) or in The Essence and Applications of Taijiquan (aff link) to glimpse the source of the following 10 reflections.

1. Lighten Up!

Stop thinking, scheming, believing, strategizing so much. Stop it. Chen Fu’s bit about “the energy at the top of the head should be light and sensitive” recommends lightening up. So relax; lighten up. Your head is built with highly sophisticated sensory equipment. Too much thinking, scheming, believing,  and strategizing is a way of filtering, filtering, filtering, and filtering all your sensory information. Instead: enjoy sights, sounds, smells, and tastes. Lighten up.

2. Hear Your Heart

Relax your chest and shoulders enough so that you can hear and feel your heart pulsing inside. Let this sensation expand, slowly, throughout your body. Allow your heart, pulsing, to guide your movements, your decisions, and your mind. Listen.

3. Find Your Waist

Tense and relax your belly; wring your air out and allow it back it. Coordinate with your lower back… flex (while exhaling) and extend (with an easy inhale) your lower back. Then add a twist. Twist your waist while exhaling; find center with inhale. While the goal is to “Relax The Waist” tensing it is part of discovering it: so put a little tension on the exhale and then go deeper into relaxing while inhaling. Once you feel your waist winding and unwinding then relax more. Allow your breath to release and return naturally.

4. Find Your Roots

Learn to sink into your heels. Actually, sink into the front of your heel. While sinking, grip the floor a little bit with your toes (or squeeze the Earth or the insides of your shoes). Then learn to rest on one leg, gripping and sinking. Then learn to lift the other leg. You can “distinguish full [weight] and empty [no weight]” now. This simple physical sensation is the beginning. Get this (it’s critical) and then look for energies.

5. Hang Your Shoulders & Elbows

Your shoulders hang from your head & neck, your elbows hang from your shoulders. From your head and spine they hang, by your trapezium and rhomboid musculature and attending tensile structures. When the shoulders & elbows hang, they can be driven by the lower muscles (like latissimus dorsi) and thereby develop great power.

6. Use Tensile Strength, Not Compressive Strength

The architecture of your body uses tensegrity: continuous tensile membranes wrapping discontinuous compressive members… in other words: your bones, the discontinuous compressive members, are wrapped in fascia—continuous, interwoven web-like membranes (each and every physiological structure is wrapped in this). Fascia provides tensile strength. Explore this concept to flex and develop a mature idea about strength.

7. Coordinate Your Upper & Lower Body

Move them together, and then move them separately. At first, T’ai-chi Chüan instructors teach you to move as one whole unit, do that well. (Some teachers end their teachings with whole-body-moving.) When you’re ready, move on. Begin exploring waving motions: power driven by the feet & legs, churned in the waist, and slung out the hands. Like a wave rolling from toes to fingers…

8. Discover the Inner and Outer Layers of Your Body

Stand Still. Breathe. Feel, deep down, into the layers of your body.

9. Continuity Doesn’t Exist, But Strive For It

Searching and searching for continuity helps us create it, but, like dream fragments, the more unified we become, the more we discover the whirling chaos mumbling around the smooth edge of awareness.

10. Go Slow To Go Fast

Going slow lets us get to all the important parts of our task, never needing to retrace one’s actions. This concept is embedded in the warrior’s mind. Under the effects of adrenaline or other kinds of duress, time shifts: it slows. When we practice slowly, we prepare for smooth continuity that allow impressive speed and power without the hindrance of regret, forethought, or hindsight and without the barriers of ideas, beliefs, and ego structures.

Deep, whole stillness is immense.

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Reflecting on Yang Chen Fu’s 10 Important Points of T’ai-chi Chuan

Taiji offers a good amount of relaxation-talk. Depending on who you talk to it can be the end or it can be the means. Physically, relaxation is the means towards efficient movement. Efficient movement is movement that uses only the necessary amount of tension required. The idea of relaxation is simple, but the execution takes ongoing awareness and care.

An interesting thing happens when we try too hard to relax—we create tension. We get the exact opposite of what we wanted. I touched on this phenomenon in my article Pistol Qigong is a Blast. Here, mental tensions create excess physical tensions. In general, the more we try to get our bodies to do something, the more tension is created. And that, in turn, negatively impacts performance.

In terms of relaxation, The Loop goes: mentally strain to relax–>create physical tensions–>poor performance–>mentally strain more to relax–>more tensions–>poorer performance–>…etc.  This is what I refer to as the Negative Relaxation Loop. We’ve all be there and hopefully through experience we found ways out.

The following 6 methods interrupt The Loop in my practice.

6 Ways to Circumvent the Negative Relaxation Loop

1. Shake it off. Use this one in the context of solo forms. A nicely placed “Pah!” is like hitting the reset button. Sure, a vigorous shake might not be in its rightful place according to the teachings, but that’s okay, you need it.
2. Breath. Attend to your breathe. Belly-breath into the tensions you want to release. Fill tensions with breath and empty them while expiring.
3. Slow Down. Use this one in partner work where a violent shake could be dangerous. As tensions created by the Negative Relaxation Loop escalate, you put yourself and partners at risk. The pace quickens with mounting tensions whereby mistakes can be costly. Take time to slow down and breathe.
4. Indulge. Instead of fighting your tension, indulge in it. Deliberately create tension where you’re trying to relinquish it. Find it and bare down on it. Hold it for a bit. What does it feel like? Release it. Again, what does it feel like? If we can figure out how to create certain tensions deliberately, then we should be able to figure out how to alleviate them.
5. Take a note. Mentally note how you’re talking to yourself when you’re in The Loop. Be nice. Understand. You’re learning and you’ll always be learning. Forgive yourself for not being perfect (an unrealistic ideal anyway). You may even notice more pervasive mental themes that aren’t exclusive to your Taiji practice. As opposed to the previous methods, the interruption of The Loop isn’t as immediate.
6. Get out of the way! Chances are your body knows how to do what you want it to do. It’s probably done it before. Let it do it again. Instead of thinking about doing it, do it. Better yet, don’t do it, let your body do it or let it happen.

If you have other ways to circumvent The Loop, please share them here. [This article was first published 01 February 2009.]

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6 Surefire Ways to Circumvent the Loop

Fa-Jing (or Fa-Jin) means explosive energy. Chuan: Boxing. T’ai Chi Chuan teaches Fa-Jing, slowly and surely, as long as we practice accurately and consistently.

Robin, over at Obey My Blog, spent two years studying T’ai Chi to get it:

“…that beautiful squishy center o’ mine generated a PA-PA-PA-POW! And totally surprised me.”

—In Yo Face!

We gain Fa-Jing by practicing the System of Taijiquan.

Systems include many parts. Reviving Taiji reveals 5 distinct aspects that martial arts systems should include: moving naturally, striking things, practicing forms, interacting with people, and knowing acu-points and crazy applications.

And Taijiquan Systems include many specific tools…

• Qigong
• Long Forms
• Single Pushing Hands
• Double Pushing Hands
• Corner Pushing Hands
• Weapons Forms

What To Do Now?

When available, you can learn Old Yang Style Forms right here.

Take a peek at this following clip where Master Erle Montaigue demonstrates how to use Single Pushing Hands to gain Fajing.

Fa-Jing Explosive Push Hands

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Other supplements exist to get your Fa-Jing going.

• Wudang Hand Weapons, for example, offer repetitive partner punching to get it.
• Baguazhang weaves another complete, systematic, circular layer of learning around your Fa-Jing progress.
• And one of my favorites: Dragon Boxing.

Try them all.

Get good at a couple.

And let me know what works for you…

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Fa-Jing Chuan—Explosive Energy Boxing

[From 31 July 2008]

“No pistol shooter, no matter how expert, can hold a pistol in firing positions without some motion.  This is called the arc of movement.  The very best that any shooter can do is to keep the arc of movement at a minimum—it cannot be eliminated” The N.R.A.’s Basics of Pistol Shooting (57).

Minimizing the Arc of Movement With Qigong

For humans, perfect stillness does not exist in the living. Our bodies constantly make adjustments, large and small, to maintain even simple postures. In marksmanship, constant adjustments add up to what is called the arc of movement. The arc of movement is the amount that the firearm moves as a result of a body’s natural inability to maintain perfect stillness. The greater the arc of movement, the more difficult it is to maintain proper site alignment which leads to inconsistent marksmanship.

At first we might think that to minimize the arc of movement we need to force our arm into stillness. This severe willing of stillness inevitably leads to muscles contracting, causing tension as well as motion. Anyone who has tried showing off their bicep could tell you that intense muscle contractions cause trembling in surrounding muscles. We can conclude that forcing our arms into stillness leads to a greater arc of movement, the exact opposite of what we want.

Now we may conclude that, since willing our bodies into stillness causes an increase in arc of movement, then perhaps relaxing our bodies has the opposite effect. This would be correct, but it overlooks the fact that if we were completely relaxed we would collapse to the ground under gravity’s pull. The arc of movement decreases dramatically, but we couldn’t stand to shoot a firearm.

The answer is, you guessed it, somewhere between these extremes, but where? And how do we find it? Muscle tension is required to stand, hold the firearm up, and squeeze the trigger. We must figure out what tension is necessary and what tension is superfluous. To figure out this challenge, we will examine Qi-gong.

The ancient art of Qigong brings insight into minimizing the arc of movement.

In Power Taiji, Erle Montaigue explains that “Qigong literally means ‘internal work’…any physical and/or mental actions combined with certain breathing methods that cause an internal flow of energy” (1). Qigong is practiced as a meditative, relaxing exercise to increase health, and it’s used to cultivate physical and mental power and awareness. It’s practiced as a moving exercise or as a static, standing one. To explore minimizing the arc of movement, we will concentrate on standing Qigong.

In static or standing Qigong, the practitioner holds a particular pose. This practice usually focuses on experiencing relaxing while still maintaining proper posture. In other words, practitioners aim to learn to use only the necessary amount of muscular tension to hold the pose. This is difficult because, as the practitioner starts to tire, more muscles crave participating to compensate.

Relaxing into the pose, teaches practitioners to tap more into Type I Muscle Fibers. According to Gerard J. Tortora and Mark Nielsen, in Principles of Human Anatomy, Type I fibers “are very resistant to fatigue and are capable of prolonged, sustained contractions for many hours…[and are]…adapted for maintaining posture….” (298).  Once we teach these muscle fibers the posture, we need to get out of their way and let them do their job. Keep in mind it isn’t black and white.  Through experience, we learn which other muscles besides Type I are necessary and which are just excess.  In addition, by relaxing, practitioners may begin to feel the tensile strength of their connective tissues and the supporting role they play.

Through regular practice of Qi-gong, we discover deeper awareness of our bodies and tissues. Our awareness can be applied to the stance and body structure needed for the practice of marksmanship. Instead of relying on muscular tension to position ourselves in front of a target, with our new found awareness, we work to relax all those muscles that unnecessary. By minimizing the amount of muscles doing work we will minimize bodily tremors that accompany excess tension, and we, in turn, minimize our arc of movement.

Quiet down and allow your body to do what it knows how to do.

We examined physical awareness. Let’s turn our sights to the mind and its relationship to the arc of movement. In the Inner Game of Tennis, Timothy Gallwey tells us that “if the conscious mind thinks it…knows which muscles are actually needed…and tries to control those muscles, it will inevitably use muscles that aren’t needed.  When more than necessary are used, not only is there a waste of energy, but certain tightened muscles interfere with the need of other muscles to relax…which will actually impede…[the outcome]” (35).

In other words, when we use more muscle energy than we need, we end with an outcome opposite of what we seek. Moshe Feldenkrais describes this phenomenon in his classic book Awareness Through Movement: “People who know how to operate effectively do so without great preparation and without much fuss.  Men of great will power…who often have poor ability…tend to apply too much force instead of using moderate forces more effectively” (58).  In terms of ability vs. will-power, someone who owns ability and trusts that ability will be much more effective than someone who lacks ability or who does not trust that ability.  In the latter, the person compensates by using will power which translates to using excess force.

Both Gallwey and Feldenkrais emphasize the effects our thoughts have on our actions. If we’ve competently performed a particular skill in the past then our body can do it again. However, by focusing too hard upon a desired outcome, we encourage tensions beyond what we require for proper performance. Even if we have never competently performed an action before, by desperately willing or forcing it, we create excessive tension and poor performance. In relation to the arc of movement, if we focus too-intently on decreasing the arc of movement, our bodies will respond to our brains’ desires by forcing extra tension.

Qigong, in addition to helping us become aware of necessary and unnecessary tension, also aids us in managing self-defeating thoughts. While practicing, our awareness can bounce back and forth between our bodies and our breathing. Inevitably, thoughts will arise, but, as we practice returning to our attention to body and breath, we learn to manage and minimize self-defeating thoughts. The more we become comfortable with this practice, the easier we achieve stillness while practicing marksmanship (or any activity for that matter). Instead of getting caught up in thinking, really hard, about how much we must keep our arm from moving, we return our awareness to our body, to our breathing, without engaging in the thought. Once that thought is gone we can allow our body to do what it knows how to do.

Physically, to minimize the arc of movement, one balances tension and relaxation. The difficulty is finding the balance. Qigong is one way we explore and experience this balance. Once we experience it, we can apply it to our shooting. Mentally, once we know how to minimize the chatter in our minds, we can also reduce unnecessary tensions in our bodies that arise from our thoughts.

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Pistol Qigong Is A Blast

“Try not to stop at the end of each posture once you start feeling comfortable with them. The movements should flow together in a slow and even rhythm.”

—Power Taiji

It’s clear instruction, and it’s good advice.

One preemptive way of getting smooth moves, especially between postures, is to learn larger chunks of form before digging into the details.

Like framing a house before putting up sheet rock and paint, or like examining a book’s contents and skimming it before reading the text, getting an overarching view of a form provides a great structure before going deeper.

(We tackle Old Yang Form that way in the Old Yang Taijiquan Course. First an overview, then dig into details…)

Power Taiji (yep: this is an affiliating link) is one of my favorites. Erle Montaigue and Michael Babin spend 184 pages detailing:

1. Qigong Theory and Practice
2. Taiji Long Form
3. Basics of Push-Hands and Related Methods
4. Advanced Concepts: the Four Levels of Taiji
5. Form Applications and Self-Defense

Back in the mid-90’s, I learned the details of the Long Yang Chen Fu Taijiquan Form from this book. The written details match the pictures…and it’s loaded. For some, the level of detail may be overwhelming. But if you’re into lots of precise text about where to put your hands & feet and how to breathe for every single Taiji posture, you’ll dig this book.

Power Taiji is a Classic Taiji Text.

Check out Power Taiji.

This series — Taijiquan Quote of the Week — pulls a quote from a Taijiquan book and wonders about it briefly. This series intends to offer quick insights and brief glimpses into Taiji Treasures.

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Flow in Slow and Even Rhythm