Learning Tai Chi from an ice cream cone
Turn your body, turn your body!
That’s what I’ve been hearing throughout my Tai Ji journey.
All movements should be whole. As the hand moves, the body moves, the leg moves – everything should move in perfect harmony.
In the last reality check, I haven’t found this unison yet. I found something more subtle – the turning radius of the kua.
Now, I’ve always heard how the kua should relax to allow the body sitting on it to turn. I think I’ve imagined the turning radius a bit too big. We actually only need to turn very little in the kua section, to generate a large turning on the hands. Imagine an ice-cream cone. The sharpest point of the cone actually turns very little, yet you would have licked off half the ice-cream with that little turn at the bottom of the cone!
Now, the trick is to find that point in the kua to turn, so that you actually know what you’re trying to turn! The point is quite elusive. Read – I don’t find it very often. Hope this observation will help you find yours. Look for the small, rather than the big. You don’t actually need to turn the body. Just turn that small point, and the body will follow.
This reminds me of an “observation” I’ve heard. The husband is the head of the family, but the wife is the neck. The head will always depend on the neck to turn.
You just have to find that neck.
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Category: Guides to life | Tags: kua, Tai Chi, tips 3 comments »
January 18th, 2008 at 3:33 am
I hope to be there one day. Right now I’m finding it enough of a challenge to achieve the looseness in my body to actually work on that.
January 19th, 2008 at 11:55 am
Hey Rick, i’m not actually there yet, but I found concentrating on the right spot actually works. I’ve been concentrating on loosening to wrong part of the body! The loosening required is actually for a very small spot. It might be the same as loosening the shoulders, wrist, elbows, etc… all loosening of joints start with a small spot spiralling to the big, rather than loosening the big arm so that your shoulder will be loosened.
September 8th, 2009 at 4:10 pm
[...] I made was very slight, but sufficient to tilt the balance in my favour. I think my observation of small points making a big difference could well be true throughout the whole [...]