Learning Taijiquan Through the Process of Body Mechanics

Below is an excerpt from a post that appeared at Thoughts on Tai Chi. The full post may be read here.

When you start learning Tai Chi, you start learning as a person who is used to mostly be aware about your head and hands. For some people, the process of starting to learn Tai Chi can be painful. You will become painfully aware about all of your mistakes and flaws, how bad your balance is, how bad your coordination is and how hard it is to coordinate the body with awareness in the most simple ways. Now you will start to use your nervous system in another way than you are used to in daily life’s movements. Through the time, you will deepen your knowledge about yourself. It will be a long journey with plenty of rewards ahead.

1. Balance and the central axis.
2. Understanding feet and legs
3. Use of the kua 
4. Understanding the lower Dantian
5. Coordinating of kua, dantian and waist
6. Opening and closing the lower ribs
7. Opening and closing scapula 
8. Coordinating lower ribs, spine and 
9. Coordinating lower and upper body and all of it together 
10. Everything moves together spontaneously without focus on any part starting/initiating movement

So, let’s explain these steps further:

Stages 1 & 2 – Balance and centerline

• Balance and the central axis.
• Understanding feet and legs

First, you will need to learn how to separate full and empty by weight shifting and moving from posture to posture. You do this while keeping your body straight while getting acquainted to the use of turning around the central axis. You will learn how to use your center and balance.

Now, after learning the basics, you’ll need to learn to become more aware about your feet and legs, not only how to shift weight but to move your body with the feet and legs. You need to try to be as passive as possible with your arms, letting the body push the arms and pull them in. 

These first two steps, the very beginning of learning Tai Chi properly, occur mostly while learning a form. The process of learning a long form might take one or two years of study. If you study a long traditional form, you will probably need to learn it first before being able to deepening your body method further.