Human mind can concentrate on so many things at the same time ! But depending
on what level we are at, we pay attention to different things. It's like
a pyramid, each level is built upon everything below. Only after we have
practiced one thing long enough, to the point where we can now do it correctly,
automatically, every time, can we start working on the next thing.
Internal martial art skills work on different principles
than external martial arts. They can seem counterintuitive. So in internal
martial art training, we say "the analysis/understanding of skill
goes from top to bottom, the actual practice of the skills goes from bottom
to the top."
So let's start from the top, what should high level Taiji
Quan skill look like? What type of ability are we trying to get? We can
say all martial art is about delivering a physical force to the opponent's
body, causing death or injury, and preventing the opponent from doing
that to us. Martial art is the art of using force.
And what is our natural reaction when a large force comes
toward our body? Fight or flight right. Here fight generally means using
an equal or larger force to repel or defect the force so the force does
not touch our body, and flight means moving the body away from that force.
By Taiji Quan standards, both approach is too inefficient, if not ineffective
(eg. someone already started doing a joint lock on you, he's using his
whole body force against your wrist joint, here neither fight nor flight
works).
So what do we do in Taiji Quan? One common analogy is the
trap door. Your enemy confidently steps on something he thinks is solid,
but when he puts his weight on it, the floor either breaks under him,
or flips over, he loses his balance, and falls to his death. When he lands
on the sharp sticks below, it's his own weight/momentum of the fall that
kills him. This is called ???? "luring the enemy into emptiness".
So what type of skill makes "luring the enemy into
emptiness" possible? It's called following. Following means you neither
fight nor flight, like the trap door on the ground, you let your opponent
touch you, and let your opponent's force move you, but you don't just
let his force do what it wants. At first his force moves you, but then
you move in a way that let your force move him.
Following requires sensitivity. As stated in Sun Zi, know
your self and know your enemy. Knowing your enemy means knowing everything
about his force: type, amount, timing, direction, duration, etc. There
are different levels of sensitivity. At the highest level, you know what
your opponent want to do, even before he started doing it.
And what makes sensitivity possible, one major thing is
relaxation. Relaxation is not static, it doesn't mean you just go limp.
Here's a great example, picture a bowl of water, with a ping pong ball
floating on top of water. Your job is to push the ping pong ball all the
way to the bottom of the bowl with one finger. Now, theoretically, it
is plausible - if your push is so straight, that it goes through center
of the ball exactly; and if there are any minute deviations, your finger
must be sensitive enough to pick it up right away, and adjust accordingly.
In practice, this is pretty much impossible. Any slight deviation from
the center, and the ball with rotate to the side opposite of the one you
had too much force on.
This is what ideal Taiji Quan skill should look like: here
the amount or speed of the force applied is not an issue. All else being
equal, as long as your sensitive is sharp enough, you can defeat whatever
the enemy is trying to do. So the type of skill we are trying to acquire
is of the light, agile, free, sensitive type.
How do we know our opponent? It starts with knowing ourself.
Push hand training is about knowing your opponent, form training is about
knowing ourself. Knowing ourself means by observing what we do under typical
situations, know what we try to do naturally, and from that, we can begin
to understand what anyone else might do.
Everyone is going to tell you "relax, sink qi down,
have root", etc. But how do we do that? You can tell a person to
relax his jaw muscle or unfurrow his brows, but the high level relaxing
we are talking about, you can just tell someone/or yourself to do it,
and you can do it right away. You need methods. This is where solo forms
training comes in.
Now we know what we are trying to accomplish in forms training,
we can talk about how to build the skill one level at a time, and what
kind of things we need to address at each level:
1. The first step is to learn the movements of the form.
If you have to think about "what comes after this" all the time,
you really can't pay attention to anything else.
2. After you memorized the basic movements of the form,
start to get familiar with the application ideas within each movement.
The idea is not to practice those applications, but from knowing the applications,
the position, angle, timing, and the general type of force you use in
your movement will be correct. If you know it's a strike to the neck,
you will not lower it to the chest. We are not doing sitting meditation,
we are moving. Only correct movements can lead to correct feelings.
3. Basic Shen Fa (body mechanics): at part of achieving
correct movement, we also pay attention to the basic requirements for
the various parts of the body, the so called "Nine Basic Requirements"
(suspend head, relax shoulder, sink elbow, ...).
4. Basic movement requirements for forms training:
- Centered and calm: your mind need to be clear and at peace first.
If our mind is like a pond of clear water, then stray thoughts are like
rocks that falls into it, stirring up dirt and sediments, making the
water muddy. How can your body relax when the mind is not clear and
calm?
- Neutral and upright: if a structure is leaning to one side, the top
side will have to exert extra force to prevent the structure from falling
right. If you do this you will not be able to relax. When you are perfectly
upright and neutral, you have equal amount of open space in your spine
in all directions, this allows you to move freely in all directions.
In Taiji Quan we talk about 3 leveling:
1) both eyes should be level to the ground,
2) both shoulders should be level to the ground, and
3) all sides of the hips should be level to the ground.
- calm/at ease: don't force things when doing the form. In terms of
how low your postures is, how big your step is, how high you kick, if
your conditioning is such that you cannot perform the standard, don't
force yourself. Make it challenging, but don't try to do too much. If
you try too much, you cannot relax right? Forcing leads to "bouncing":
for example, lots of us have no problem kicking to the wrist level in
normal or fast speed, but when doing it slow, the middle part is really
hard to get through. It's a combination of strength and flexibility.
So what do we naturally do, we speed up that part, bouncing in an uncontrolled
manner to the end of the movement. That destroys the evenness quality
we are after (discussed later). We want every stage of every movement
be completely controlled.
- stretched out: be open/expansive. Let every joint in the body open
and therefore relax. Again, we are talking about forcibly stretching
out things, but naturally, gradually, slowly relax on its own. When
you can open and relax all joints, you can achieve this spring-like
quality in your body. In Chinese martial art we say "the body contains
5 bows". In the beginning, we want to make movements larger. When
movements are big, it's easier to observe and understand what the correct
feeling should be. If your range of movement is very small to start
with, the movement will be over very quickly, you have less time to
observe it.
- light: remember, neutralization skill is about lightness. When we
do things lightly - using the absolute minimum amount of force to perform
any movement, we can relax.
- agile: from lightness, we can get agility. Agile not only means quick,
but changeable. Anytime the situation changes, we can respond appropriately,
instantly.
- circular: in Taiji Quan everything is a circle, even ones that appears
straight, like a straight push. Laozi said "big circle appears
straight" (eg. earth is not flat). Remember, there the arm may
be straight, but we are moving our whole body, not just the arm, overall
it's a circular feeling.
- lively/free: related to agility. Think of the ping pong ball in water,
it can move in all directions. This basically means we are not heavy,
slow, plodding.
5. Basic methods for form practice:
- Slow: the faster we want to move, the more force we have
to use right? And before we acquire the Taiji Quan skill, the more force
we use, the less relaxed we are right? So we need to move slowly at first.
Moving slow, using minimal force, that automatically help relax us.
- Smooth: the transition between movements must be smooth,
to make it look like one big continuous movement, instead of two. This
is why the original name for Taiji Quan is Chang Quan - Long Fist. This
is why we use forms training in Taiji Quan: if we just do separate repetitions
of single movements or short combination movements, it's hard to build
the relaxing skill. So our movement should be like those of a chronometer:
on inexpensive watches and clocks, the second hand jumps from one position
to another. On high end watches, the second hand sweeps smoothly across
the seconds without starts and stops. Starts and stops means accelerations
and decelerations, with requires additional force, which makes relaxing
hard.
- Even: this is about rhythm - the tempo of the movement
remains the same from beginning to end. Our movement should be like a
wind-up clock: from the moment it starts to the moment it rests, it moves
at a constant speed. If the speed is not constant, again we will have
a lot of accelerations and decelerations.
Doing the form this way: calm, balanced, light, agile, within challenging
but still comfortable range of motion, at constant speed, slow, all these
things will naturally cause the qi to sink down, which gives us root.
Only when we have root below, can our torso relax. If our bottom half
alone cannot make the whole body stable, the torso and head will try to
help out, at the very least, they will automatically be tense.
Relax, sink the qi down, etc, these are goals. When we practice,
we just need to concentrate on the method for achieving those goals, with
enough practice, the goal will take care of itself.
6. Know ourself:
In the end we want to borrow our opponent's force to beat him right? Before
we can do that, we should at least be able to borrow our own force. For
example, if we are starting from a twisted position, and we need to unwind
and extend one arm out in the same direction, we should minimize the amount
of force we use to extend that arm. We should be following/borrowing the
momentum of the torso unwinding to extend that arm. It should part of
one motion, not two. This is also part of using whole body force - when
every muscle of the body contribute to doing one big thing, then no one
part has to use all its force, again the result is relaxation.
7. Three levels of stance:
Low: mostly for conditioning
Medium: used most of the time, for skill practice
High: for fighting
8. Three types of forms practice:
According to tradition, forms should be practiced in sets of three. The
first set concentrate on whole body integration. The second set focus
on details, or application ideas. The third set focus on feeling.
9. Three external integration: the torso is one big piece,
so when we say coordination, we talk mainly about the limbs, which can
move fairly freely on their own. So the three external integrations are:
movement of shoulder should be coordinated with hip, elbow with knee,
and hand to foot. If the movements are not coordinated, then the force
produced will be "incomplete".
10. Three internal integration: ok, I'm really not qualified
to talk about what they should be. In any case this is already a huge
list of things to work with...
Hope this helps...
Tai chi chuan is an internal Chinese martial art often practiced
for health reasons and deadly if applied correctly and precisely.
In this group we try to share the secrets of tai chi especially
in its movements in it being the ultimate martial arts nevertheless the
misconception of this form of martial art is associated to the practice
of tai chi for the sole reason for health purposes especially for the
older generation, remains aplenty.
It is also typically practiced for a variety of other personal
reasons: its hard and soft martial art technique, demonstration competitions,
and longevity. Consequently, a multitude of training forms exist, both
traditional and modern, which correspond to those aims. Some of tai chi
chuan's training forms are well known to Westerners.
The core training involves two primary features: the first
being the solo form??(ch'üan or quán, ?), a slow sequence
of movements which emphasize a straight spine(though conforming to the
classic of raise the back and sink the chest), abdominal breathing and
a natural range of motion; the second being different styles of pushing
hands (tui shou, ??) for training movement principles of the form in a
more practical way.
Tai chi chuan is generally classified as a form of traditional
Chinese martial arts of the Neijia (soft or internal) branch. It is considered
a soft style martial art — an art applied with internal power —
to distinguish its theory and application from that of the hard martial
art styles.
The study of tai chi chuan primarily involves three aspects.
• Health: An unhealthy or otherwise uncomfortable
person may find it difficult to meditate to a state of calmness or to
use tai chi as a martial art. Tai chi's health training therefore concentrates
on relieving the physical effects of stress on the body and mind. For
those focused on tai chi's martial application, good physical fitness
is an important step towards effective self-defense.
• Meditation: The focus and calmness cultivated by the meditative
aspect of tai chi is seen as necessary in maintaining optimum health (in
the sense of relieving stress and maintaining homeostasis) and in application
of the form as a soft style martial art.
• Martial art: The ability to use tai chi as a form of self-defense
in combat is the test of a student's understanding of the art. Martially,
Tai chi chuan is the study of appropriate change in response to outside
forces; the study of yielding and "sticking" to an incoming
attack rather than attempting to meet it with opposing force. The use
of tai chi as a martial art is quite challenging and requires a great
deal of training.
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Pionnière
du Taï Chi Chuan en 1970 à Paris
LIZELLE REYMOND
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En 1970 un ami me conseilla un livre tout nouveau « La
Vie dans la vie » ; il était écrit par Lizelle
Reymond orientaliste, philosophe, écrivain, qui fut mariée
à Jean Herbert fondateur de la collection Spiritualités
Vivantes chez Albin Michel. Je me passionnais pour ce livre
difficile, quand j’appris que Lizelle Reymond venait à
Paris présenter un film de mouvements chinois…
Pour rien au monde je n’aurais manqué l’occasion
de voir cette femme. Le film fut un émerveillement :
Maitre Dee Chao déroulait les 3 longues séquences
des 108 mouvements dans une atmosphère d’harmonie,
de beauté, de paix qui nous laissa tous sous le charme
du mystère d’une réalité, bien différente
de celle de l’expression corporelle en vogue dans ces
années là.
Je décidai, malgré ma timidité de rencontrer
Lizelle Reymond et de commencer le Tai Chi . Depuis 1972 le
Tai chi m’a accompagné tout au long de ma vie de
jeune mère et maintenant de grand-mère.
Depuis 1965 Lizelle allait aux USA apprendre les mouvements
auprès de son maître Dee Chao, puis elle les
travaillait sans relâche dans leurs principes fondamentaux
et dans les moindre détails pour les transmettre
avec un soucis d’exactitude et de perfection. Son but
était de nous préparer à travailler, le
moment venu,
avec Maître Dee Chao. Pour cela elle payait beaucoup de
sa personne : âgée de 75 ans, habitant Genève,
elle passait 2 nuits en train couchette pour donner ses cours
à Paris le vendredi. En juillet elle organisait 2
stages d’une semaine, accueillant des élèves
venant surtout de Suisse et de France. Dès 1975 elle
fit venir
Maître Dee Chao à Cartigny, près de Genève,
et ceci jusqu’en 1985. Dee Chao est venu pendant 10ans,
et
l’école regroupait une centaine d’élèves.
C’était l’époque où Catherine
Despeux, amie de Lizelle, publia sa thèse pour Les Hautes
Études, recueillant
pour la première fois un maximum d’informations
sur cette pratique chinoise. Depuis sa parution, son livre
est toujours une des principales références pour
la compréhension du Taï chi.
Lizelle Reymond, pour moi, était indissociable du Tai
Chi ; elle était là, comme un trésor qui
nous
transmettait son trésor. Elle était très
simple malgré son érudition, grande malgré
sa petite taille, ferme
malgré sa douceur, jeune malgré ses 75 ans, vive
à l’intérieur de la lenteur, chaleureuse
et très soucieuse
de chacun d’entre nous. Sa patience était infinie
et son enseignement était d’une très grande
rigueur
extérieure et d’une très grande exigence
intérieure.
Dans sa pédagogie, elle insistait sur l’exactitude
du placement des pieds, la recherche du placement du
bassin – possible réservoir d’énergie
tranquille – et de la colonne vertébrale en tant
qu’axe entre ciel et terre,
principe fondamental de la philosophie chinoise. Lizelle Reymond
invitait ses élèves à développer
la
perception intérieure du plein et du vide qui s’alternent
constamment, le lourd et le léger. Le léger n’apparaît
que dans la détente, le lâcher-prise dans toutes
les articulations. Peu à peu, le corps était travaillé,
s’ouvrait,
devenait de plus en plus souple, plus conscient, présent,
jusqu’à ce que la respiration l’accompagne
très
naturellement. C’était passionnant, une nourriture
pour le corps et l’esprit.
Lizelle était l’initiatrice et le coeur de cette
aventure mais, le Maître des mouvements était Dee
Chao. Dans
sa jeunesse, au moment des grandes famines, pour ne pas sombrer
dans la misère, il s’engagea dans
l’armée et il devint, au moment de la guerre contre
les Japonais en 1934, le plus jeune général de
l’armée
chinoise ! Il était fier de cela, c’était
touchant de l’entendre évoquer cela avec son mauvais
anglais. Émigré à
Taïwan il pratiqua le Taï Chi et les arts martiaux,
très probablement avec Chen’g Man Ching qui fut
le grand
instructeur de l’armée de Tchang Kaï-chek.
Plus âgé, émigré aux USA il soigna
ses maux par la pratique
quotidienne et intensive du Taï Chi.
Dee Chao de la lignée de Cheng Man Ching
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À Cartigny,
Dee Chao nous enseigna, la forme des 108 pas – Cheng
Man Ch’ing – et le Taï Chang Chouan qu’il
appellait Long Yang qui contient plus de déplacements,
comme dans la forme rapide. Il réservait l’épée
à quelques-uns, en cours particuliers. Souvent
on regardait un film de pratique du Tui Shu où
on le voyait à maintes reprises faire voltiger
un géant américain : c’était
sidérant ! Et toujours très drôle
! Mais cela, il ne l’a jamais enseigné, il
montrait juste quelques applications martiales.
Maître Dee Chao est décédé
vers 1990 et Lizelle Reymond nous a quittés en
1994, elle avait 95 ans ; elle est toujours présente
dans notre coeur, comme une mère qui nous a aidés
à grandir. J’ai retrouvé un programme
de stage où Lizelle Reymond présentait le
Taï Chi par ces paroles :
« Le Tai Chi Chuan est un art qui propose la pratique
de la concentration dans le mouvement dynamique de la
vie telle qu’elle est. On est toujours soit dans
un état statique, soit entraîné par
le mouvement. Le Taï Chi fait découvrir une
possibilité d’équilibre qui est en
soi, la possibilité de maintenir son attention
consciente, au milieu des forces opposées et complémentaires
du Yin (principe réceptif) et du Yang (principe
actif, créateur). La découverte d’un
équilibre intérieur permet de ressentir
la fluidité naturelle de tout
mouvement, d’où la possibilité d’écarter
de notre vie les tensions et la fatigue nerveuse. Cette
harmonie du corps et de l’esprit permet ainsi d’accéder
à une nouvelle conscience de notre "être-dans-le-monde"
».
Monique Delannoy novembre 2006 |
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Tung Ying Chieh and
His Words of Experience
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Tung Ying Chieh
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Tung Ying Chieh (1898-1961)
was a well known master of the traditional Yang style of Tai
Chi Chuan. He was a top student of the famous 3rd generation
Yang Family Tai Chi Chuan master Yang Cheng Fu (1883–1936).
Tung Ying Chieh trained with Yang Cheng Fu for more than 17
years, and assisted with Yang with teaching when he went on
travels through China.
Tung Ying Chieh wrote this essay on important points of the
practice of Tai Chi Chuan. Although Tung was a master of the
Yang style and the Wu/Hao styles of Tai Chi Chuan, this work
is valuable to all students of Tai Chi Chuan no matter the style
which they might practice.
This is one of several essays which Tung Ying Chieh wrote and
included in his “Red Book”, on Tai Chi Chuan called
“Tai Chi Chuan Explained”
Below is an excerpt from the book on the section called “Words
of Experience”.
1. Tai Chi Chuan is an internal martial art exercise. Strength
is produced in the bones. Power is reserved at the muscles.
It does not require one to have tough skin or thick muscles,
but sunken “chi” and strong bones are required.
Therefore, learners have no suffering of broken bones and hurt
muscles, and the tiredness of jumping, but just move naturally
to find the potential of power of origin. It is an exercise
to develop the your original power.
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2. The three main points: spirit,
intention, and posture (likeness of the movement’s names)
have to be there. If the posture is correct, then the spirit
and intention are there, and you will have good progression.
Also, you will feel differently every day. Learners should try
to feel the differences intentionally.
3. If the posture is not correct, then spirit and intention
are not there. The result will be just like cooking an empty
pot, even after many years of practice you will not be successful.
There is a tease saying that ten years of Tai Chi Chuan practice
is not as good as three years of kung fu. Therefore, for good
Tai Chi Chuan practice: first you have to practice diligently;
and secondly you need to have good understanding. Also, the
result is dependent on your intelligence, but hard practice
can help stupidity. So you should always encourage yourself
to practice harder.
4. Breathing during practice – to breathe naturally. Do
not force your breath deeply. After many times of practice,
your Tai Chi Chuan will reach the natural point. By that time,
the breath will be balanced automatically.
5. Originally the thirteen movements of Tai Chi
Chuan are the guiding methods of "chi". Guiding means
leading the circulation of "chi" and blood. Therefore,
when you do a good job of guiding, the "chi" and the
blood will have a good balance. All sickness will be gone, but
don't misunderstand the method, and try very hard to obtain
that balance. If you practice hard and naturally, you will get
it when you reach maturity (when the time comes).
6. Loosen the shoulder and drop the elbow means don't hold the
strength on the shoulders. Don't try to make the hands heavy,
but move smoothly and lightly.
7. Suspend your top (of your head), and hold the bottom (anus).
To suspend the top, the head has to be held naturally. If you
hold the bottom, the "chi" will come up from there
automatically. To withdraw the power, the breast has to be a
bit vacant, but don't hold your breast and bend your back.
8. Everytime whem you pratcice the form, there are at least
three things you must do. The first one is to relax your muscle.
the second one is to adjust your postures. The third on is to
concentrate more on intentions and spiritual styles. When you
can master all the movements, then the spiritual style will
appear when you move. When you reach this stage your improvement
will be better and quicker.
9. Feeling and understanding of power -
To learn these you have to practice more of the push hands.
then you will get the benifets of stick, hold, touch, and follow.
If you don't have a partner, you can always practice the form
diligently, and always use two arms to feel the power. Try to
imagine that your opponent is attacking you, and the way in
which you are using to control him. If you keep on practicing
like that for a long time, certainly you will learn the power
too.
10. When you are doing push hands, the most important thing
is to study the feeling of power, not trying to knock down your
opponent. Try not to let your opponent discover your center,
and always control your opponent's center.
11. You can practice Tai Chi Chuan while you are walking, standing,
sitting and laying. The method is to use your mind to circulate
the "chi", and find the feeling. For example : to
feel the difference beween holding a tea cup with strength,
and without strength; to feel the difference of walking with
heavy steps, and with light steps. When you are standing still,
try to feel the difference of straightening your legs, and bending
your legs; one leg, or two legs on the ground.
12. During the early stages of practicing Tai Chi Chuan you
might experience sore muscles, but don't worry, as this will
pass and you will feel good later.
13. Basic steps to learning push hands is to know the power.
There are many different types of power such as: stick on power,
follow on power, internal power, suspending power, rubbing power,
tendering power, fastening power, holding power, touching power,
and pushing power. As well there are types of power such as
penetrating bone power, shaking power, crisp power, sudden power,
tenth of an inch power, shooting arrow power, and even power.
In general the above powers are learned from the feeling developed
during practice. It is harder to learn the power by oneself,
but easier with two people, as people are alive. Additionally
you can use your own adjustment and feeling when you are enforcing
the power. Of course, all the types of power are learned and
discovered from body movements. If you have no partners, you
can learn the power from the AIR.
14. The principles of Tai Chi Chuan: The root is on the feet;
enforce from the legs; controlled by the waist; and expressed
by the fingers. These are the principles of enforcing power:
never let the knees come over the toes; never stretch the hands
over your nose; never raise over your eyebrows; and don't press
down below the center of the chest. All these are traditional
rules. If you break these rules, then the power will not be
as good. The variation is controlled by the waist. For example:
If you push someone to the left with your right hand sideways,
and your hand is over your nose, then the power will not be
there. But if you let your left chest withdraw backward a little
bit, and turn your wist to the left a little bit, then the power
is there again. So this variation is on the chest, and controlled
by the waist, and finally shows on you fingers, If the whole
body is relaxed and sensitive, then strong power will show on
the fingers.
15. People are animals, but with senses. For example: if I hit
someone with my fist, the opponent certainly will use hands
to block, or move his body to avoid the attack. It is the natural
reaction of people, but materials are different. An example
of this is a hanging sandbag. It is motionless hanging there.
If you punch it, it will move forward and backward. The way
it moves is on a fixed route. If you punch it to the left it
will move back to the right. It is the reaction of materials.
But people are different, the opponenet will have various reactions
for a punch. Therefore, a boxer has three words: steady, accurate,
and fierce. If I don't have these three qualities, I cannot
enforce the power. If I do, then the power has to be powerful.
So, how to get steady, accurate, and fierce? First, you have
to have sense. So, how does one get sense? Don't move if the
opponent is not moving. If the opponent moves, you follow and
finish the movement before he does. So you will have to fight
for that second to finish the movement. Then you will be unbeaten.
16. Before learning Tai Chi Chuan, The strength might be dull
strength. After learning Tai Chi Chuan the whole body is relaxed,
and with good circulation of the "chi" and blood.
But you must get rid of all the nervous tension, and keep the
original dull strength. Because when you are relaxed, dull strength
can be turned into real power. An example of dull strength is
what some people call shoulder power, as the strength is held
at the shoulder, and is not controlled by the waist and shown
on the fingers. Therefore, dull power is the capital. Relaxation
is the Method. If you know the method, then even small capital
can achieve great success. if you don't know the method, then
even with big capital you cannot be successful. That's why if
you understand the principle of Tai Chi Chuan, it will benefit
you for all kinds of sports.
Translated by Albert Tang,
Little Mountain Tai Club Student, thanks to Guy Tomash, taichivancouver.com
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