Tai Chi for health & wellbeing
Well, it’s that time of the year where I’m contacting secondary schools here in Melbourne about our Top Tens (Year 10) and VCE Success and Resilience workshops.
It’s high energy stuff mixed in with Tai Chi meditation so it certainly makes me work. I sometimes feel like a duck paddling across a lake. On the surface everything looks calm but below the surface the duck is furiously paddling its little feet along to propel itself forward.
I’m sure most teachers can relate to the ‘duck’ analogy.
I’m constantly reviewing my training schedule and today I decided to get back into practicing Square Tai Chi in my form’s session.
For those not familiar with the term it’s a stop and start method of practicing Tai Chi, particularly suitable for beginners. Here’s a previous post of mine explaining it in more detail Square Tai Chi vs Round Tai Chi.
Praciticing square Tai Chi before I do the round form has the following benefits: [Read more…]
Here is a short clip showing the late master Cheng Tin Hung in 1986 demonstrating ‘Step Back and Repulse Monkey’.
I’ve been practicing this technique, left and right side, and wasn’t aware until now there are two more applications – against a reverse punch. That’s a total of four applications for ‘Step Back and Repulse Monkey’.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YBxIng2L0X8[/youtube]
We all the know the importance of turning your waist in Tai Chi.
Without turning your waist your posture will become disconnected and ineffective.
For a beginner it can be difficult to turn the waist because attention is usually focused on arms and/or legs when practicing a Tai Chi movement.
My teacher would constantly say to me, “turn your waist Chris, turn your waist”. As a beginner I would nod my head and usually forget to turn my waist because I was concentrating elsewhere.
Here’s a technique that will help get your beginner students to turn their waists more often.
If the phrase ‘turn your waist’ doesn’t work try saying ‘turn your belly button to the right (or left)’.
A single reference point such as a belly button rather than a large expanse such as the waist is easier to visualise.
So get their belly buttons turning or else they may go belly up when learning a new technique!
Counter balance is an important concept and skill in Tai Chi.
Without it you are in danger of toppling over. It is difficult to achieve in the hands form and even more difficult when performing dynamic weapons’ forms such as the sabre, spear and staff.
I’ll focus on counter balancing in the weapons’ forms for this post.
When you lunge forward in either the sabre, spear and staff forms you need to be aware of anchoring your rear foot so you stay balanced.
Once you have lunged forward bring your focus and chi into your rear leg and down into the ground.
If your focus is only on the weapon and the direction you are going in – the momentum of your lunge may throw you off balance.
It may be an extreme shift where you stumble or a subtle shift where you are not properly grounded with your rear leg.
The counter balance technique acts as a brake and will make your form more stable and powerful.
Footnote: – This technique also applies to sword forms where you lunge forward.