Keep balanced on both the
foot that advances and the foot that retreats.
Understand that retreat does not go backwards and advance does not go
forwards.
(Lao Tzu)
Maintaining contact
Tai chi requires you to locate the
opponent and make physical contact.
This contact has to be maintained.
They move, you move.
When you both move as one, they cannot strike you. As soon as the contact is
broken, they are free to attack again.
Being sticky
If you are sticky, you have the ability
to retain contact with ease.
Any form of stiffness or bodily tension will impede your ability to feel.
Stickiness is a sensitivity skill, it requires softness.
If you are tense or apply too much pressure, you will be unable to 'listen' to
their movements using your body.
Being soft
'4
ounces of pressure' cannot be repeated frequently enough in
tai chi. Once you exceed this amount, you are using
force and wasting energy.
People naturally want to tense-up but this is a reaction that we must overcome.
Stiffness blocks movement.
Resistance and
fighting are the opposite of softness; they prevent feeling.
The solution is to loosen-up and relax.
Softness starts in the mind - it is a
condition of receptivity and openness.
Your ears hear without effort, your heart beats unaided.
Let your nervous system feel without impediment, let it join with another and
move as they move, sensitive the slightest stiffening and preparation.
Yin skill
Stickiness is a yin skill - a soft, feeling quality. If you
approach it in a macho manner, it will not work.
Be comfortable with yourself and relax.
Allow your body to explore the sensations it receives.
Once you are adept at being sticky, it will feel to happen all by itself.
Yang weakness
Feel for any points of tension in your own body or
that of your opponent.
Ultimately, you will be capable of exploiting tension, of using it to
destabilise the other person.
Firmness and fixity are signs of tension.
You must learn to yield in response to force, to meet tension with softness.
Page created 13 August 2000