Tai Chi Principles

Essential
Principles

A good way to improve your internal energy (Qi/Ch'i) is to keep your movements continuous.
Think of Tai Chi as flowing internal energy,
like the energy contained in water as it flows down the river - it gathers strength as it flows on.
To facilitate the flow, to make your flow better, keep your movements continuous
and you will continue to gather more energy.
And that is part of why Tai Chi can be so powerful.

- Dr. Paul Lam

Be aware of all the principles, but think of them one at a time.

Tai chi Chuan is a sophisticated art with many different styles and forms. Despite the many variations of Tai Chi, its immense power for improving health and internal energy derives from a set of essential principles. By contemplation on, and incorporating these principles into your Tai Chi practice you'll be able to do Tai Chi more effectively - and will transform your Tai Chi into an art which will provide you with a wealth of benefits, satisfaction and beauty of form.

- Moving from the External to the Internal -

Movement Control - Build inner strength and power and keep your internal energy flowing with movement that is:
- Slow. Gives your body and mind time to be connected.
- Smooth like drawing silk from a cocoon. This will calm your mind. Develop ch'i with the even, steady pace of the form, while moving as one piece - root with a straight spine.
- Gentle
- Continuous and flowing like a river. Gently flow into the movements.
and
- Circular like Yin-Yang - where each movement evolves from and grows out of what it is joined to. There should be a gentle curve in your joints, so there is *no blockage* in the even flow of Ch'i.
-- Strengthening as you move against resistance. Dry-land Swimming -like moving in water. Imagine that the air around you is becoming denser, and you are moving slowly through it against a gentle resistance. This will cultivate your inner force/Chi, and the resistance and tension will help to activate and recruit deep muscle fibers.

Alignment and Imagery - Qi / Chi flows best in an aligned body. In Taoist physiology, the spine is the 'Pillar of Heaven', with nerves and organs connected to it. Misalignment and compression of the spine is often responsible for illness.

The point on the top of the head is GV-20 Bai Hui / Crown Chakra.

GV is the Governing Vessel Meridian. Baihui (GV 20) is a point on the Governing Vessel, and is located on the highest place on the head where all the yang meridians meet. The main therapeutic effects of GV20 are usually relief of headache, stroke, dizziness, and anxiety.

Keep this point in mind and use imagery to help with body alignment.
imagine:
- the crown of your head is pressing upward toward the sky.
- you are suspended from the heavens by an invisible strand of silk connected to the point in the center of the skull.
- your spine is a string of pearls and you're gently stretching it from both ends.
- there is space between each of the vertebrae.

This imagery will help your spine be straight or erect - a loose rather than rigid straightness without any jamming of the vertebrae. This combination of the feeling of suspension and the spaciousness spine assists in postural alignment, and willl allow the ch'i to flow up the spine to the top of your head.

Train Balance with weight transference with awareness. Be mindful of every step of your weight transference. Differentiate between the leg that is empty of weight and the supporting leg. It is important to load up one leg from the other in an easy and smooth transition of weight.

Full-Body movement that is integrated and coordinated. The health benefits of Tai Chi tie in strongly with the practice of internal motion, which fully utilizes the powerful core of the body.

When your hands move, your waist and feet as well as the focus of your eyes move accordingly. The entire body is held in a state of dynamic relaxation, which allows the power of the whole body to flow out of the hands and into the opponent without obstruction. Make full use of your whole body mass in every movement.

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Root, Grounding and the Bubbling Well
The root is part of the functional aspect of Tai Chi, allowing the upper body to be insubstantial and pliable while the legs are rooted into the earth. Allow your joints to channel the weight into the ground. Generate power with the entire body from 'the bottom up'. The powerful muscles of the legs and hips serve as the seat of power.

Movement and power begin in the feet with a sense of being rooted from below the earth, then bringing that ground strength up and developing it through the legs. This energy can then be commanded or directed by the waist and transferred through the back. Then, if there is no obstruction in the shoulders, the energy can be expressed or issued through the hands. The power in Tai Chi is an expression of the body's energy unified with the earth and flowing from it.

"Before you can develop your root, you must first relax and let your body "settle." As you relax, the tension in the various parts of your body will dissolve ... If you let dirty water sit quietly, the impurities will gradually settle to the bottom, leaving the water above it clear. In the same way, if you relax your body enough to let it settle, your qi will sink to your dan tian and the bubbling wells in your feet and your mind will become clear. Then you can begin to develop your root."

"When your weight is placed into the bubbling well, you will have a natural and comfortable feeling in your abdomen."
- Yang Jun

A tree also needs to absorb sunlight to grow and be strong. Photosynthesis uses sunlight and converts it into energy for the tree. In standing like a tree we must pull the yang energy down from the sky (Tien qi) and pull the yin energy from the earth (De Qi). Draw both into the (xia) Dan Tien on the inhale, send the mixture of the two up the trunk and out the arms to the palms (Lao gong).

Bubbling Well or Rushing Spring (Kidney 1) (Yong Quan or Yung Chuan in Chinese) is a point in the middle of the foot, slightly behind the ball. Feel your weight dropping into the ground through the Bubbling Well, rather than any other point in the foot, and you'll begin to experience internal energy bubbling up from the ground through this point in the foot. Understanding the Bubbling Well will lead to 'one's unity with the ground'.

Kua

The kua is the area inside the front crest of the hip bones from Medical Qigong. The two kua points on the hip bone front serve as side channels to the main Chi energy storage site in the body. Other Chinese Qigong terms are Wei Kua, external Kua points. The lower dantian is the primary Chi energy storage site in the lower body. The lower dantian has the corresponding acupuncture point called Conception Vessel 6, CV 6 which is known in Medical Qigong as QiHai translated as the Sea of Qi. One Acupuncturist describes the dantian as the Chi Energy pump of the body.

Kua

Relax your Shoulders, Sink your Elbows. If your arms are tense, then the lever for the delivery of force will stop at the shoulder. Don't extend your arms completely or lock your elbows. If your elbows rise up this can create tension in the shoulders. “Soft heavy elbows”.

From the Martial Arts behind Tai Chi Chuan - Yield and Redirect - Acknowledge stressor, then yield to the incoming force and redirect it in a more positive way. Meet Yang with Yin. Lao Tzu provided the archetype for this in the Tao Te Ching when he wrote:

"The soft and the pliable will defeat the hard and strong."

Extensions of the Tai Chi Principles

'Chen' - Sink Qi to your Dan Tien. This will keep your mind jing (tranquil), and loosen or song your joints. Exhaling facilitates this. The more you can sink your qi, the more relaxation and energy flows.

Be upright even when you bend your knees. Sink from your hips. Move from your Dan Tien.

The Dan Tien is the Storage House of Chi / The Field of the Elixir, and is where the ch'i is gathered and nurtured, until it eventually overflows into the body and bones. The body then fills with Spirit ch'i, becoming relatively impervious to many illnesses, and the bones become strong.

'Song' - Relaxation and loosening. Consciously and gently stretch - relax and expand your joints from within. Relaxation will bring the removal of blockages, tension and hard force so that the passageways in the body are open to the flow and accumulation of ch'i, and so the energy can travel through the body. Alignment. Golden Thread holds your head to the sky.

'Jing' - Mental quietness and tranquility. Seek stillness in movement and movement within stillness. Relaxation in Tai Chi means not being agitated or tense, while at the same time being completely aware.

'Huo' - Agility

What are the Principles of Tai Chi?
with Dr. Paul Lam

Tai Chi is an internal art. Your mind directs the flow of energy.
Focus on what you are doing.
Use intention and visualization.
Be mindful of your body and movements.

Only when you can unify the internal and external
can your body move as one complete integrated unit without interruption.

Green Mountain Tai Chi
Rich Marantz
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Intro to Tai Chi

Tai chi on a frozen Vermont pond.

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Last modified May 2023