June 1982

A point for me. Watch out for straightening the back leg too much: it should always be bent, and you should always be sitting down into it somewhat even when the weight is on the front foot. This is connected to making the form more vigorous by having all the limbs stretching out from the centre in the stretching. Stretching out in all directions: so when pushing forward one is also stretching backward.

This is like a second point connected with last week's correction of my torso. On keeping the torso more erect in the centre, I became much more aware of the connection to the back foot: that pushing forward came from behind rather than from leaning onto the opponent as it were. The two faults of torso and back leg are very much connected, leaning forward being an uprooting, a breaking of the connection between the arms and that leg. When carrying out the two corrections I also had more of a sense of the 'central spine', the spine always being somehow in the centre even when the weight is forward.

Any jerkiness of movement of the empty leg can easily be corrected by taking more time to transfer the weight fully onto the full leg. The jerkiness is coming from the tension of weight-bearing still left in the leg from which one is transferring the weight.

Forward Low Fist: the fist is not only pushing down, but it and the whole lower arm are pushing forward towards the front foot.

Pushing the Big Ball forward should be a rising push: the hands coming up as well as forward, before curving over the top for Single Whip.

Miss Li made some more comments on the 'abstractess' by telling two stories about being in America and her visits to an art gallery and to a concert. They were both modern abstract art forms which she couldn't understand! So the abstractness in Tai Ji is different from that.