By Robert Amacker
When they hear the word Taijiquan, most people think immediately of a kind of mysterious, slowly executed set of movements, usually performed by elderly Chinese practitioners in traditional pajama-like costumes, now almost universally recommended as one of the greatest, if not the greatest, exercises for health ever invented. Because of its current popularity, this may in fact be the only definition the future will ever embrace. There is no doubt that this kind of low-impact, relaxed, and meditative movement is one that combines a great many positive elements of exercise with a notable absence of many of the negative aspects of other forms of sport, and, most unusually, has the added virtue of not penalizing one for starting at a relatively advanced age.
These are all qualities that may be found in the execution of its formal movements, and in fact could be incorporated into movements of a completely different origin. That is to say, it is not the movements themselves, but certain internal qualities and techniques connected with them that are the secret to its real effectiveness. It is sometimes called the highest form of Qigong (qi gong), and it is this connection that is mainly responsible for its salutary reputation. But in spite of all of this, these are not the qualities that are definitive of it.
Taijiquan is a martial art, and this is its origin. Martial arts are frequently associated with solo forms of exercise. Even Western pugilism has a tradition of shadow boxing, which, though it may be quite different in appearance, is in the same spirit and has much the same function as the more dance-like forms of Karate or Shaolin. But in no case is a martial art defined by its solo practice exercises. Martial arts are defined by their traditions of sparring, by what military men would call rules of engagement.
These are attempts to restrict opponents in their techniques in two ways. One of these is for reasons of safety. It is these restrictions that allow students to engage in meaningful practice without excessive danger, so that their education is not cut short by injuries or even death. The other is the conscious promotion of specific techniques, and it is these techniques that ultimately define the art.
In the case of Western boxing, for example, the prohibition against kicking applies to both purposes, offering protection but also promoting the development of hand techniques in particular. There is, as well, a prohibition against the use of the back fist, a technique that is certainly no more dangerous than a straight right or left hook. This restriction is more stylistic than protective. Grabs are also completely prevented by the use of gloves, but this, too, has a stylistic result. These and many other rules—such as the prohibition against punching with both hands at the same time, pushing, use of elbows, etc.—result in creating a martial art that is clearly defined and easily recognizable.
Recent attempts to create new, more “realistic” versions of boxing—kickboxing, MMA, Shootfighting, etc.—are based mainly around the simple relaxation of many rules of safety. This appeals to many as a tribute to realism, while in fact all of these forms must retain quite a few safety restrictions in order to avoid gladiatorial problems that would render them unfit for money-making promotion. They rely mainly upon already developed techniques from other martial arts, and for this reason fall short of “pure” art forms.
In the case of Taijiquan, the most developmental sparring technique is called tuishou, although faster, more athletic contests are completely within the tradition. Tuishou is done at a slow speed, or at least it should be. This allows for a very simple safety factor: injuries are, of course, far less likely at slower speeds. But simply going slowly falls far short of reaching developmental levels.
When I was still in my teens, I studied with a famous Karate master, Peter Urban of New York City. One night he mentioned to the class that the Chinese have “a way of sparring in slow motion that is very sophisticated.” I was fascinated by this idea, and so was my best friend, who was spending the summer with me training. We wasted no time trying this out. Now, I emphasize that we were—and still are—the best of friends, that is, the most likely combination to make such an idea work, but our results were quite disappointing. Try as we might, we were unable to go for more than a few seconds before accelerating to full-on fighting speed. After a sincere effort, we decided that the Chinese must have some secret to making this work, one that we were not privy to.
What Sensei Urban was referring to was, of course, Taijiquan. Now, after over forty years of study, I understand what was missing from our efforts. In order to practice at slow speed, one must have a technique that can only be developed at slow speed and make that technique his central object of learning, rather than simply victory.
Taijiquan, especially Yang-style Taijiquan, has fighting techniques that are shared by many other martial arts. The solo forms utilize and rehearse these techniques. Taijiquan cannot be defined simply by performing them at a slow speed. There is something that Taiji adepts must be doing that is completely beyond this, something that is not a safety restriction, but has a definite positive technical goal. This is the construction of real yin-yang relationships with one’s opponent, not merely symbolic ones.
Translating this goal into literal practice is a daunting task. Many martial arts would protest that that is, in fact, exactly what they do. The ideas of “returning force,” “balancing yin and yang,” “using the opponent’s force against him,” etc., are common litanies heard throughout the boxing world, and spoken, usually, with great sincerity. But only in Taijiquan is this process undertaken with completely literal intent. In my classes, I call it “making a taiji.”
There are innumerable ways in which the taiji principle can be applied to or derived from the practice of Taijiquan, but I wish to call attention here to what I consider the most definitive one, which is a fundamental element of one’s relationship to the opponent’s force, technically defined and subject to third-party analysis.
The successful application of this technique is highly dependent upon the skillful execution of a number of other areas of discipline, some reflecting the taiji principle in the same literal fashion, and others, found also in other martial arts, simply highly trained physical functions, such as proper breathing, use of winding movements, rooting, etc. These latter points of training are necessary to, but not definitive of, Taijiquan.
The particular aspect of the principle that I wish to address is what I refer to in my classes as the construction of the wooden ball. The goal here is to complete, within a certain frame of reference, the construction of a stable taiji, one that utilizes the force and movement of the opponent for exactly half of its change. This is best explained by following the learning process of the beginner through the opening lessons.
A taiji is, by definition, the balanced relation of yin and yang. To see how this idea can manifest between partners, think of two people standing with their feet comfortably apart, parallel and directly opposing each other, a few inches apart. They touch open palms at chest height, such that a line between the palms would be exactly equidistant from each player.
Now, when one player gives pressure with one hand, the other player responds by following without resistance the movement implied by the force, while at the same time duplicating, in mirror image, the action with his other hand. The first player follows this without resistance. Theoretically, such a cooperative effort should result in the at least momentary illusion that both players are in contact with a ball that is rotating around a stable center.
Several things should be noted about this relationship from the outset. One is that the cooperative movement of each player is done relative to a baseline of pressure between them. It should be obvious that at a level of zero pressure it is impossible for the players to feel each other’s movement. It should also be obvious that the players will never be exactly equal in their degree of sensitivity, so that there will always be one who is able to “listen” more accurately than the other.
When the players are in this completely symmetric relationship, this imbalance of sensitivity will usually favor one player consistently over the other. But if their positions become asymmetric, this imbalance may shift back and forth.
This initial symmetric positioning, which I call patty cake, is clearly not very martial. But a small change will rectify this. Let one player contact the palms of the other with, instead of his own two palms, the wrist and elbow of one arm only. Now his adjustments will be much more difficult in terms of body positioning, and this difficulty will reduce his sensitivity and ability to respond. These are further reduced by the fact that his wrist and elbow are likely to be less sensitive than his opponent’s palms. This, of course, assumes an equal general sensitivity on the part of both players, which will never be completely true.
In this configuration, the first player is said to be in the posture of Push, as his two hands mimic a pushing attitude, even if he is not actively pushing with them. The second player is said to be in the posture of Ward Off, apparently defending himself against the two attacking hands with just one of his own. Of course, in reality, the first player may be using his two hands defensively against the aggression of the opponent’s Ward Off.
A huge amount may be said about the ramifications of this positioning, and its effectiveness in favor of one player or the other is dependent upon a myriad of technical factors, only one of which is the creation of a stable taiji. But this taiji is critical to defining what one is doing as Taijiquan and is integral to, but not sufficient for, any guarantee of martial effectiveness or success. It is only one element of a complete system, but a very illustrative and enlightening one. There are two reasons for this.
The taiji created here is the reference point for all other changes made in relation to the opponent. The two points of contact—my teacher Chu Ch’u-fang said once, “To do Taijiquan, I need two points”—and their movements dictate all changes of posture and in fact continuously create and recreate an endless series of martial changes.
The faithful following of these dictated changes is called the Civil aspect of Taijiquan, as opposed to considerations dictated entirely by fighting expediency, called the Martial aspect. When the Classics say “attach and do not lose attachment,” what is really being referred to is an attachment to the wooden ball, which attaches one to the opponent, rather than a dogged attachment to any two specific points.
For this reason, the Classic goes on to say, “but some mistakenly give up the near to seek the far.” When one of the two points crosses the centerline connecting the opponents, the other point of contact must be abandoned and another attachment made, creating a new wooden ball, but one centered clearly between the opponents.
In following these kinds of movements—which may include shrinking, stretching, slipping sideways in any direction, rotating, etc.—great demands are put upon the body of the player in order to maintain postural integrity throughout. The rules governing this integrity and the skills to maintain it are practiced in tuishou, or fixed-step hand pushing.
It is imperative that all steps reflect the most efficient movement required to neutralize the opponent’s attack, and so these neutralizations are perfected in a context that does not allow the short circuit of simply stepping. In this paradoxical way, Taijiquan trains one to step by preventing him from doing so.
The second reason for the wooden ball’s importance is that the fulcrum, or stable center, is used to create the yin, or retreating element, of another, larger taiji, which is used to channel incoming force directly into a vertical pressure on the feet, the result of which is the uprooting of the opponent.
It should be noted here that this clean uprooting of the opponent is only accomplished when his force is double-weighted, that is, when force is applied simultaneously to two points. The same processes relating to the wooden ball are used when the force is applied only at one point, but in this case may result in a discharge that is not balanced—that is, which causes further changes of posture and positioning even while it is happening—and may in fact cause the person discharged to land in an advantageous position.
It may also not reach the level of power required for leaving the ground and simply manifest as an extremely lively step. Using the opponent’s force to create these advantageous discharges of oneself and lively steps is a much more reliable index of skill than “discharging” the opponent, as the latter can be faked, at least to the point of argumentation, by brute force.
It is very important to the realization of the sophistication and elegance possible in Taijiquan that these two functions of the wooden ball—that is, the continuous change that morphs the various techniques into one another, and the continuous maintenance of this far more subtle and internal process of channeling the opponent’s force vertically into the ground—are entirely independent of one another.
It is the center of the ball—and although I use the term stable center constantly in reference to it, this stability is never actually accomplished—that is the vital point in this second function. Stability, as I am using the word here, implies that whatever rotations the ball must endure, its center always exhibits the quality of a continuous function, meaning that it does not have breaks in its existence and can be followed continuously regardless of the behavior of its two points of creation.
This means that it is possible for any type of event associated with the more internal skill to occur at any time during the changes associated with the two points of contact. When we think of “discharge,” however sophisticated or not our conception may be, it is likely that we imagine it with some stable and powerful position in mind.
In fact, discharge is completely independent of any position or even of stability itself. It is an instantaneous event and can occur in the midst of complex and totally unstable change, far from a “powerful” position on the part of either player.
It must be pointed out here that both the disciplined following of the movements of the wooden ball and the equally disciplined channeling of all residual force into the legs and floor are completely abstract studies and skills, which have no relation to, and indeed are sometimes contradictory to, all martial instinct.
In order to devote oneself sufficiently to learning these skills, it is necessary to subvert martial instinct and resign oneself to endless periods of loss. None of these skills is sufficient to create a viable fighting technique, and pursuit and even perfection of them will not, in and of themselves, improve one’s fighting skill to any great degree.
Only when all of the processes—which are very counterintuitive, without much immediate apparent reward, and require a lot of mental energy to perfect—are completely subconscious and automatic will the elegant promise of Taijiquan as a fighting art begin to reveal itself.
What is the key to the subconscious internalization of such skills? The answer is the most difficult one to convey in writing. The processes are understandable, and one can make one’s body follow the instructions satisfyingly enough, but the key to making it work is the tactile fidelity of the wooden ball.
This can only be understood by experience, but it occurs when both players have, as their primary objective, the continuity of this tactile fidelity. At this point there is a powerful physical illusion created, that of a real ball, which both players have touch with at the same spots.
In proper Taijiquan play, both players are attempting to participate in the creation of the ball, but both are equally trying to avoid influencing it in any way, by either initiating movement or resisting it. Fortunately, even their best efforts fail in this regard, and the ball seems like a slippery thing that wants to roll freely about.
I say fortunately because this keeps it moving, and it is only when moving that the ball exists. Proper play requires a kind of doublethink on the part of the player. In his effort to stop the center from destabilizing, he will unconsciously try to stop the ball from rotating. In his effort to keep the ball rotating freely, he will accidentally destabilize the center as well.
He is apparently learning to do two contradictory things at the same time, entertaining two contradictory states of mind. However, he eventually integrates these two states into the yin and yang of a single skill.
There may be two states of mind, but there is only one ball. The more freely the outside rotates, the more stable is the center, and the more stable is the center, the more freely the outside rotates.
The two skills are actually one: preserve the ball.
The two states of mind are actually one: preserve the ball.
If one sincerely devotes oneself to the pursuit of this tactile fidelity, he will discover that this defines a certain range of speed within which he must confine his efforts. Although this range widens as one becomes more skillful, one is always conscious of it.
If one’s tuishou encounters are done at too slow a speed, the illusion of the wooden ball vanishes; it requires a certain level of activity to be continuously felt. At too high a speed, it exceeds one’s ability to keep up with the changes, and again the ball vanishes.
When this priority trumps attempts to defeat the opponent, one is truly practicing Taijiquan. This is the paradigm that was lacking in my early attempts to “spar in slow motion.” Real learning is a positive process, not a negative one. I needed something to do, not something not to do.
Besides the many advantages that moving more slowly affords in retraining basic muscular coordination, it has another interesting side effect. When keeping the integrity of the wooden ball becomes a greater priority than winning, one is faced with split-second moments of decision in which it is clear that following and preserving the wooden ball will lead us to certain disaster, and we might have a chance for some desperate move right now if we abandon it.
When we decide to follow the principle and suffer the loss, in the beginning we invariably lose due to technical flaws of other kinds. But as skill improves, there comes a time when we see that sometimes even apparent certain disaster, if one follows the technique to the end, turns out to reverse itself and lead to victory.
This is the meaning of “learning through loss.”