My torso tends to bend forward in such movements as pushing the large ball forward, and sideways in such movements as sideways spreading wings. It shouldn't: the torso should be always upright and in the middle.
Practising it this way made me aware of a difference in the stretch achieved and a very different, and much more powerful, relationship between the arms/hands and the legs/feet. Thus I had also misunderstood an earlier point: to get more qi moving in the forward push on the big ball, the finger tips curl over and down, but the torso sinks down an extra bit, not forward.
Practising it this way made me aware of a difference in the stretch achieved and a very different, and much more powerful, relationship between the arms/hands and the legs/feet. Thus I had also misunderstood an earlier point: to get more qi moving in the forward push on the big ball, the finger tips curl over and down, but the torso sinks down an extra bit, not forward.
This forward/sideways leaning of the torso is a characteristic of the Wu style. Though in fact in Beijing they didn't talk of the styles by family names but by their characteristics. Thus the Yang style was referred to as the one which emphasised large circling movements, the Wu as the one in which the torso leaned off-centre, and the Sun style as the one which was discontinuous and jerky like Xing-I.
The Yang style is the oldest and most inclusive (most 'Catholic' in the Christian sense Miss Li said, in reference to the Pope's current visit). That is, the one which maintains all elements of the practice rather than focusing on just one aspect. It is the Yang style she teaches, in effect, though she wouldn't want to call it that. What has happened with the other styles is that in practising authentic/catholic Tai Ji there have arisen 'mannerisms', which are not outright faults, and these have been harmoniously integrated with the form. They are not wrong, but they are more recent and less all-inclusive.
More on the hands.
It used to be said that the back showed one's strength, the eyes showed one's spirit, and the hands showed one's intelligence. Thus again on the issue of the movement of the hands: Tai Ji is not a temple dance with each movement standing for a particular meaning, but it is expressive. In fact in a way it is more expressive than ritualised symbolic movements. Just as making a stage smile is purely external and expresses nothing of the internal state, so the apparent expressiveness of much dancing is in fact not related to current internal states. The abstract nature of Tai Ji paradoxically makes it more expressive: internal states actually appear on the surface in the way the abstract movement is performed. Thus from the back you can see the person's strength, from the eyes the quality of their spirit, from the hands their intelligence. The hands and fingers should feel shapes/solidity in the air. And when they do feel this resistance it will be obvious to the observer.
This made a lot of sense to me, as in the class I had experienced very much the way in which awareness of, and control of, the precise movements of the hands generated a pleasure of 'intelligent' action.
A specific form: the Weaver.
The rear hand should be just in front of the forehead, protecting it, not stretched back behind or to the side of the head. And the front hand should be lower, at about chest height rather than face height, as a direct forward extension of power flowing up from the strong rear leg.
