Here at the frontier, the leaves fall like rain. Although my neighbors are all barbarians, and you, you are a thousand miles away, there are still two cups at my table.


Ten thousand flowers in spring, the moon in autumn, a cool breeze in summer, snow in winter. If your mind isn't clouded by unnecessary things, this is the best season of your life.

~ Wu-men ~


Saturday, October 28, 2017

Agility in Taijiquan

Below is an excerpt from a post at Taichi Philosopy on Agility in Taijiquan. The full post may be read here.

In Tai Chi Chuan there are, besides the slow form, a series of weapon forms and the fast form. These forms are conducted dynamically with many changes in pace.

According to Wu Yinghua and Ma Yueliang, in the slow form the aspects stillness (jing), lightness (qing), slowness (man), conscientiousness (qie) and perseverance (heng) need to be taken into account. The dynamic forms are different from the slow form with regard to the third aspect, slowness. Slowness means that the movements are conducted in a controlled manner, yet lightly, evenly and flowing smoothly without any interruptions. (see Ma Jiangbao, p. 41)

In the dynamic forms the aspect of slowness is substituted by agility (ling). Agility manifests itself in four different characteristics, which must be taken into account during training. Only then can the qualities of the slow form translate into the mastery of fast movements. Wu Yinghua and Ma Yueliang write:

“In order to develop lightness, agility, suppleness (yuanhua) and dexterity (ziru), one has to heed four characteristics:

1. Break and turn alternate (duncuo xiangjian)
2. Hard and soft support each other (gangrou xiangji)
3. Fast and slow are in harmony (kuaiman xianghe)
4. The front and the back are connected. (qianhou xianglian)
(Wu, Ma, p. 2)

No comments: