Category: Tai Chi
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The Feet Create Focus
The alignment of the Feet in Taijiquan is made effective when we are accounting for both sides of each Foot. Each Foot creates two lines, which are typically not parallel. Therefore, we must make an intentional decision about how to use each Foot in establishing the trajectory of a given Form or action.
The most common way of measuring aim or trajectory is by pointing the Big-Toe. The Mind naturally identifies with the interior, the medial aspect of the Foot. However, this generally leaves the outer edge of the Foot aimed eight, or potentially many more, degrees off the target.
While the Big-Toe does still indeed hold the target, a substantial amount of energy and intent never has a chance to interact with the target. By adjusting the Foot, we can increase the amount of energy which is likely to interact with the target.
Allowing the outer-aspect of the Foot to set our aim promotes a higher likelihood that our energy is delivered to the intended target. Accounting for both edges of the Foot creates a dynamic of triangulating focus which sharpens over distance, rather than a dispersing focus which becomes vague over distance. Utilizing “two aims in one” channels and directs power whereas using a single line of aim is more likely to disperse and leak power.
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TaiChi Tracks
True to the Name, TaiChi invites us to consider distinct interpretations of being “on track”…
There is Adhering-To-A-Line…
And there is Staying-Between-The-Lines…
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Practical TaiChi Training
The Practical Method tradition of TaiChiCh’uan makes TaiChi movement simple and clear.
The Elbow seeks to arrive either Above or Below, and the Hand likewise seeks to arrive at a position of either Above or Below. All the while, each is also honoring its task of Inward and Outward motion. The Elbow achieves the In, while the Hand achieves the Out.
The Inward action of the Elbow implies a consolidation of energy on one half of the body. The Outward action of the Hand implies a distribution of energy across the body. Both the Inward and Outward phases are created from generality, but expressed with precision. Broadly fueled, but sharply focused.
Training these actions allows the surface-level flow of TaiChi Forms to be imbued with clarity, power, and purpose.
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The Pursuit of Progress: Taiji Reminder
Tai Ji Reminder:
When progress sprouts, and fruiting from the effort of the Roots can be seen,
we tend to release our attention to that crucial foundation.
Through all phases and stages of a plant, the Roots remain hidden,
but ever resounding, and setting the bounds of what will be possible above ground.
Remain reverential to the highest resolution you can render.
Never lose your Original Nature.
The Actuality Of
IT-IS
AUM
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Polarity Is Not Plural
Tai Chi, or Tai Ji, when literally translated renders as something like:
Grand Polarity, Supreme Extreme, Ultimate End.This is significant because the translation, and therefore the original (we should hope), is singular.
To speak of many, or even merely multiple, Tai Ji is a logical error. Beyond the colloquial uses of Tai Chi, its core definition refers to THE fundamental polarity which pervades our reality.
Every known expression of polarity- Hot & Cold, Up & Down, Inside & Outside- is built upon the same principle. With this in mind, it is more apparent that there is a flaw of logic when speaking about polarity in the plural. We can discuss specific manifestations of this single principle, but no quantity of these can fracture the underlying phenomenon which they are all an expression of.This is the insight which the ancients were attempting to disclose to us.
The Grand Polarity is the structural fact of polarity which gives rise to experiences of polarization. The phenomenon of polarity itself is the only thing which can be properly described as Grand Polarity. The phenomenon of polarized extremes is always more fundamental than any set of such extremes. There is an underlying principle, a unifying theme, to be found in all cases of extremes and opposites.
To be diametrically-opposed is to be inextricably-linked.
The revelation of Tai Ji is a key to peek through the illusory nature of all expressions of opposites.
Once this key has been turned, the polarized conception of the world becomes erroneous, though still applicable. We can speak the language of Up & Down, Hot & Cold, etc. without being misled by it. We are aware that Hot & Cold are both Temperature; that Up & Down are both Direction. We do not lose our picture of ordinary reality, we merely glimpse and remember its substrate. Knowing the structure of our experiences allows immense sobriety while we play with these experiences.
To play with the experiences, rather than being played-by the experiences, is a step toward the profound liberation which all spiritual paths proclaim to be possible. -
My Taiji Lately
Lately I like to appreciate the Taiji of Line and Circle.
Bat and Ball games give us the Great lessons if we’re paying ample attention.
Any Dimension is available for your Quantum Extension.
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That’s TaiChi
Simply stated, TaiChi is the deeply pervasive principle of our Reality which we call Relativity. YinYang is another way to refer to this Relativity. TaiChi is everywhere we could bother to look, and is even operating at the level of our very capacity for looking in the first place.
The more we try to apply YinYang as a method for defining our experience, the more we lose our grasp on the true reality of our experience. Everytime we try to pin down reality into a fixed-state or description, TaiChi functions to flip the script. Yin begets Yang, begets Yin again. TaiChi is present in the very process of reality unfolding.
YinYang hiding within itself, suggests the Tao Te Ching. No thing is merely as it seems, in Truth. Quality and Function are in a polarized mutuality. To be diametrically-opposed is to be inextricably linked.
That’s TaiChi, too.
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TaiChi Encourages Epistemic Humility
What do You see?
What does He see?
What do We know?TaiChi as a principle implies polarity across all dimensions.
There is always, it would seem, a plane or a point you cannot see.
If your attenion is focalized anywhere, something will be obscured from you.
Yin-Yang-Yoga 