Tai Chi Classics I

Once you begin to move, the entire body must be light and limber. Each part of your body should be connected to each other part.

The internal energy should be extended, vibrated like the beat of a drum. The spirit should be condensed in toward the center of your body.

When performing Tai Chi, it should be perfect, allow no defect. The form should be smooth with no unevenness and continuous, allowing no interruptions.

The internal energy, Chi, roots at the feet, then transfers through the legs and is controlled from the waist, moving eventually through the back to the arms and fingertips.

When transferring the Chi from your feet to your waist, your body must operate as if all the parts were one. This allows you to move forward and backward freely with control of balance and position. Failure to do this causes loss of control of the entire body system. The only cure for such a problem will be the examination of the stance.

Application of these principles promotes the flowing Tai Chi movement in any direction; forward, backward, right side, left side.

In all of this, you must emphasize the use of the mind in controlling your movement rather than the mere use of the external muscles. You should also follow the Tai Chi principle of Opposites. When you move upward, the mind must be aware of down; when moving forward, the mind also thinks of moving back; when shifting to the left side, the mind should simultaneously notice the right side, so that if the mind is going up. it is also going down.

Such principles relate to Tai Chi movement in the same way that uprooting an object and thereby destroying its foundation will make the object fall sooner.

Besides clearly separating the positive and negative from one another, you should also clearly locate the substantial and insubstantial. When the entire body is integrated with all parts connected together, it becomes a vast connection of positive and negative energy units.

Each positive and negative unit of energy should be connected to each other unit and permit no interruption between them.

In long forms your body should move like the rhythmic flow of water on a river or like the flowing wave of the ocean.

In the long from, Ward-Off, Rollback, Press, Push, Roll-Pull, Split, Elbow and Lean Forward, are called the forms of the Eight (Pa-Kua) Diagram, the movement encompassing the Eight Directions. In stance, moving Forward, Backward, Right Side, Left Side and staying in the Center is called the Five-Style Steps. Ward-Off, Rollback, Press and Push and called the four Cardinal Directions. Roll-Pull, Split, Elbow, and Lean Forward forms are called the Four Diagonals. Forward, Backward, Left Side, Right Side and Center are called Metal, Wood, Water, Fire and Earth respectively. When combined these forms are called the Thirteen Original Style of Tai Chi.