Pull Your Backbone Up

Taijiquan Quote of the Week

“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?

10 Responses to Pull Your Backbone Up

  1. Josh Young says:
    11 February 2010 at 7:55 pm

    I’ve observed that high level taiji players move as if their head is hanging on a string or a hook, and while their body might embody a storm itself, the head rests as if hanging. It is a strange site to see.

  2. S.Smith says:
    24 February 2010 at 10:56 am

    Yeah, I saw a great video of a man moving in a smooth, flowing Taiji form. The peculiar part was that he was turning his head as if saying “no” all throughout the form. While I don’t consider that great for consistent practice, it’s a nice way to free the head and un-stick the neck. Plus it looked fascinating!

  3. josh young says:
    26 February 2010 at 9:40 am

    It is tricky stuff.

    How to use Kao without jarring your skull and spine?

    The only way is this neck looseness, otherwise practicing a real Kao on a real target is like hitting your head against a wall. I know this from experience but have much practice ahead of me to perfect it.

  4. S.Smith says:
    26 February 2010 at 11:12 am

    Yeah, one’s gotta get close to not-lean.

    I dig an inner grin for a nice touch in lifting the back.

  5. Josh young says:
    4 March 2010 at 3:15 am

    What is interesting is that many of the older styles translate Kao as “lean” and not shoulder or bump! That is one of the moves that changed a lot because of Cheng-Fu.

  6. S.Smith says:
    4 March 2010 at 8:39 am

    That’s a bit fair: if one bumps with the shoulder, hip, or head, one ends up leaning a bit, just for a moment. Plus pressure comes from behind or underneath in a different manner than a typical axis rotation.

    Still, I fear, teaching that one leans, or that that’s the major teaching or focus, brings on a whole other kind of emphasis.

    If bump gift is from Yang Chen-Fu: awesome.

  7. josh young says:
    4 March 2010 at 10:10 am

    The version of the form I was introduced to lacks the actual posture in the form! However this not published, so when someone sees the form, but does not learn it from the real group, they do not realize what is happening right before White Crane Lifts Wings, which is a split.

    Here is where it gets better, some groups actually do the split move and call it Kao! They are ignorant to the fact the very transmission they practice has Kao removed, and then they apply a list of published names of the moves to the form, but here is a little secret: the actual published names of the form vary from the transmitted names of the form! Kao is the best example of this, but not the only one, for example, there is no single whip right before fist under elbow, however there is in the published list. However originally there is a move with a different name altogether right there in the form, something like push left look right, I forget the name actually, but the move is a good one and often totally missing from peoples forms, because it is not in the published list, it is only in the transmission of the school!

    There are other differences too, ones I will not mention for now.
    But I find it very interesting that there are a considerable number of differences from the transmissions that are authentic and the ones that originate with written publication. One thing to keep in mind is that this is not accidental. The Yang family had a history of reserving information for sworn students only, thus the books written by Chen Wei-Ming do not contain what his transmissions do in his school.

    For some reason most western taiji schools do the published version of the form, and not the one that goes back to the teachings in person! There are also some differences in regard to what jin, or power is used with the postures! The jin found in the direct transmissions is incomparable to the more common ones that now predominate. You must cross hands with them to note this, but that is worth doing anyway.

    It is funny, but tucking the backbone is one of the few things that pretty much all Taiji or taiji based schools have in common, and yet it is one of the most commonly broken principals and not just in new students!

  8. S.Smith says:
    4 March 2010 at 10:28 am

    Great ideas and research, thanks for sharing it.

  9. Arlie Stroud says:
    15 March 2010 at 7:03 pm

    awesome subject and as always youre right on time with this one.
    I have been trying to get my “structure” more correct according to the 10 rules for practicing Taiji as of late and I have come across a couple different things about raising the back.

    First as you are saying in this post, that it is a physical thing we do with our spine.straightening it out in order to line all the vertebre up and make a capacitor. also at some point Ive heard we want to have a c shape spine in the fighting area of this subject.

    Another thing I have come across lately is that what we are after is rising the qi up the spine. In order to do this I guess we need to have all the vertebre connected, wheteher slightly c shape or straight, then we can sink the qi i guess into the kidneys and change its form to jing which is raised up the spine to the base of the skull, then after the reptilian brain is activated it continues over the top of the head into the third eye point and so on…
    help me not be confused
    Arlie

  10. S.Smith says:
    19 March 2010 at 2:46 pm

    Arlie, sounds like you have a good take on it. Theory and practice are a far cry from one another, however. I’d say people who get theory and practice closer together are those with a more accurate self-image.

    Our kinesthetic sense becomes more and more defined as we apply awareness and attention to motion.

    Because of that, any movement art has a chance to bring great vitality to its masters.