Tai Chi Chuan - Meeting A Master
I was introduced to the martial art of tai chi chuan first of
all, by meeting a Yang Style master by the name of Wu Hongliang.
At the time, I attended regular hatha yoga classes, but had just
found a Chinese girlfriend who is now my wife. Master Wu agreed
to take me on as his only British tai chi chuan student and he
insisted I began regular training on a daily basis and continue
to do the tai chi chuan exercises he taught me each day, in
order to benefit mentally, physically and emotionally.
The benefits of tai chi he told that he had gained in his
lifetime of practice, were that of having a clear mind and being
able to relax consistently but have a lot of chi energy to keep
him fresh and agile mentally for his studies and physically
strong and energetic for his port and well being. He started
with some fundamentals of tai chi chuan. Firstly, he said the
most important thing in tai chi chuan is to relax. See my
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Relax your body, relax your shoulders and joints, relax your
mind, so your mind is clean or clear for the practice.
Particularly, in fact relax your waist. Waist in the Chinese tai
chi chuan aspect does not mean the part of your body around
which you place a belt exactly. Rather, waist in tai chi chuan
refers to all the muscles, ligaments and internal organ aspects
around the waist area. This is because in true tai chi chuan,
the movements are all being performed from and controlled by the
center of the waist also known as the Tan Tien, Dan T'ien or
body's center of gravity "hara center" in yoga. So, it's very
important to relax the waist whilst doing the exercises. After
practice and learning, there becomes very little actual
movement. All movement is controlled from the waist creating the
illusion aspect of Tai chi chuan.
Master Wu gave me some simple exercises to do to clear the mind
and relax the body before tai chi form practice and also to give
strength and supplety to the muscles. He said that after a while
my legs would become very strong like his and the tai chi chuan
would heal my body and any mental conditions while giving me
increased spiritual awareness ad a positive shift towards
spirituality over bad habits, from poor eating and sleeping to
moral choices and behavior.
He said that the first exercise - what I had known to be called
"the horse stance" - was one all students had to do every
morning for half an hour at the tai chi training he had
attended. If students pulled out of the stance or were not low
enough, they would be whacked with a stick much like in the
training for zen meditation. Secondarily, he asked me to stand
in the "bow stance" or "dragon" and gently and slowly twist my
whole body from side to side, from the waist, with my arms
outstretched, wrists, elbows and fingers relaxed, to get a
feeling of the natural surroundings and develop awareness of the
chi energy in my body and in the universe, just by feeling. I
would also do a squat exercise and "Roll back and press" part of
the posture "grasp the sparrow's tail" Master Wu asked me to
practice these exercises 9 times because 9 is a "lucky" number
in Chinese culture - considered the biggest number or longest
number and therefore relating to longevity, long lasting health
and long marriage - which is why my wife chose to marry me on
the 9th of the month.
After these 9 sets of four exercises, he started to teach me the
beginning postures in the tai chi chuan form. I began by
learning the postures or movements of the 24 form, starting only
by learning the first movement and practicing for a few weeks.
Tai chi takes patience, and really, you can think you know it,
before you realize you know nothing about it!
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