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4 Principles of Tai Chi Chuan
4 Principles of Tai Chi Chuan
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Beginning with the first principle, we find in Tai Chi a saying that if a leaf were placed in the hand of a Tai Chi expert that hand would sink lower, such is the balance and optimum use of force being applied to keep that hand in place. The weight of a leaf would cause it to move, like a well-balanced pair of scales. Add a gramme weight and one side sinks. This applies to the whole body. The aim in Tai Chi is to have a body which is so balanced, with tensions and relaxations so evenly spread, that even a leaf would displace the position of the whole body. tabOf course, this is an ideal, something which rarely if ever happens in humans, although fully expressed in the rest of the living world. In terms of Chinese philosophy, it is an expression of Yin and Yang balance. In Tai Chi there should be not too much Yin, yielding, softness, and not too much Yang, aggression, hardness.
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The third principle of being in touch with the experience of gravity is part of the psychological problem of being civilized. What we call being civilized, the condition, implies an over-active, associating, 'thinking' brain and a body whose very existence we are hardly aware of unless hungry, sleepy, in need of sexual satisfaction or in pain. So the first step will be to become more aware of the body, any part of it, and in time also aware of the gravitational pull on it; one could say becoming aware of one's own body weight. The fact that a living organism has to return to an awareness of something which should be a constant in its life, through the intervention of an exercise, is something remarkable in itself. tabThis third principle is clearly intimately connected with the other two, preceding ones. If it were possible for us to be aware, throughout the body, of the action of gravity, and let the body respond to it, without interference, then we would not need Tai Chi, or anything like it. Partly through having an overactive brain, our awareness of gravity has been blanked out, as though certain nerve pathways in our nervous system had been severed, or at least, anaesthetized, put to sleep. By beginning to return to this awareness, to awaken and reactivate the pathways, again and again, we shall approach more of a wholeness in ourselves. Another consequence of a growing awareness of gravity, combined with the effects of exploring the other principles of Tai Chi, is that breathing may become more natural, and less impeded by unnatural tensions.