Tai Chi Classics & Insights

These three core Tai Chi principles should be applied in any posture and any styles:

Compressibility
Compressibility describes the body’s ability to condense energy inward, much like compressing a spring, before releasing it outward. This principle involves the absorption and redirection of external forces, transforming an opponent’s energy into a controlled and effective response. In Tai Chi, compressibility is evident in movements where the body “sinks” or draws inward to generate power and maintain balance. It also conveys the idea of storing potential energy while remaining calm and centered, ready to expand when needed.

Twistability
Twistability highlights the rotational and spiraling movements central to Tai Chi. This principle emphasizes the body’s ability to coil and uncoil, creating internal torque that generates power and flow. Through twisting, energy is cultivated and distributed efficiently, often involving the waist, spine, and limbs working in harmony. Twistability also reflects the flexibility of mind and body, ensuring that movements are not linear or rigid but instead circular, continuous, and adaptable to changing circumstances.

Elasticity
Elasticity represents the ability to store and release energy with ease, much like a spring. In Tai Chi, this principle is about maintaining a supple and responsive body, capable of absorbing incoming force and rebounding it outward without stiffness or rigidity. Elasticity is not just physical—it is also mental and energetic, allowing for adaptability and smooth transitions between movements. It embodies the dynamic quality of yielding while remaining ready to return energy in a controlled, powerful way.

“I have one question concerning the role of the lower dantian in tai chi. Forgive me if I don’t use all the terms correctly as this is all quite new to me. I read recently that the driving force that puts qi in motion in tai chi is not dan tian (as it is in qi gong) but the song/sung (the release). It begins with the foot touching the ground. If the release is correct, it moves the qi. And if the qi movement is strong enough, it moves the physical structures of the body. From my recent experience with internal practice, the release works exactly as described. However, in chen style, we emphasize the lower dan tian a lot and it is quite confusing for me. What is the role of the dantian in taichi then?”

Your question highlights an important distinction between the role of the lower dantian and the concept of “song” in Tai Chi. Both the dantian and song are crucial to Tai Chi practice, but they serve different purposes and work together in harmony.

In Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM), the lower dantian (located about three finger widths below the navel) is considered the primary storage center and source of qi (energy). Chen style Tai Chi dantian concept actually is the area of the lower abdomen surrounding the dantian point, where the pelvis bowl is supported by hips, a much bigger area, not limited to a needling point as in TCM. I think this is where your confusion came from. While qi might be stored and cultivated in the dantian, it doesn’t move on its own. This is where “song” or release comes in.  

“Song” refers to the relaxation and loosening up of the body, allowing energy to flow freely without tension. It begins with a sinking from the hip where your body “releases,” the energy stored in the dantian descending to feet and creating a rebond from the ground, then the energy can ascend and circulate throughout the body, helping move your physical structure. The proper release of tension in the hips, legs, feet, and torso allows qi to travel upward from the ground, passing through the body in a spiral or circular manner. That is why in Tai Chi Classics it is said: Internal strength (jin) starts from the feet, goes up the leg and back, then reaches to the arm and hands. These dynamic and coordinated movements are central to Tai Chi. The dantian remains essential for centering and maintaining internal strength, while the song and release let that strength flow outward to move your body.

Proper knee alignment: Always keep your knee positioned roughly above the center of your foot of your weighted leg to avoid overextending it forward or backward. Most knee pain in Tai Chi comes from pushing the front knee past the toes in a bow stance which causes strain on your front knee. Maintain a natural range of motion, avoiding excessive bending or stretching that could strain the joint.

Knee pain during Tai Chi can often be traced to improper alignment or chronic knee conditions. Tai Chi involves a lot of weight shifting and hip turning, and if your knee isn’t properly aligned, you risk injury. The knee joint is designed to handle vertical pressure well but is vulnerable to lateral and twisting forces, even in small amounts. Chronic knee issues, such as osteoarthritis, are common in adults and can lead to pain during practice. Research shows that Tai Chi can improve blood circulation and may alleviate knee pain and stiffness by promoting better energy flow, but improper technique can aggravate existing conditions. Here are some key tips to prevent knee pain:

Using your hips as a tool to protect your knees is a very important concept in any tai chi styles, Chen, Yang, Wu, Sun. Before shifting weight or stepping, sink your hips to lower your center of gravity. This helps direct weight through the heel of your foot rather than placing pressure on the knee. Relaxing the hip when forming a bow stance allows the weight to settle at the heel, relieving pressure from the front knee and preventing torquing or twisting, which can lead to injury in both the knees and ankles.

Align toes and knees: Ensure that your toes point in the same direction as your knee bends. Twisting the knee inward or outward creates torsion, which can stress the joint and lead to injury.

Warm-up properly: Spend 5-10 minutes warming up to increase blood flow to your muscles, especially around the knees. This reduces the risk of injury by preparing your body for movement and ensuring that the muscles around your knee joint are warm and flexible.

Avoid sports competition-style Tai Chi: Practicing Tai Chi in an overly athletic, sports-oriented way can lead to excessive stretching and unnatural stances. This method, which is often focused on performance, can overwork your knees and increase the risk of injury. Instead, focus on maintaining a natural, relaxed posture, with minimal stress on the knees for health and longevity in your practice.

Yes, Chen style Tai Chi places significant emphasis on spiral and coiling silk reeling movements (螺旋纏絲), as a fundamental aspect of its practice. These spiral movements are not just external forms; they involve internal energy and the coiling and uncoiling of muscles, tendons, and connective tissues. This unique method indeed strengthens the core in a special way.

Here’s how the spiral and coiling moves in Chen style Tai Chi strengthen the core:

Internal Power (Nei Jin 内劲) Development: The coiling movements help to generate internal power by focusing on controlled, connected motion from the dantian (lower abdomen) outward. As you coil, uncoil, and engage the whole body, particularly the waist and abdomen, it promotes stronger core stability.

Engagement of Deep Core Muscles: Spiral movements activate the deep stabilizing muscles around the spine, waist, and hips. Continuous coiling strengthens the obliques (斜肌), lower back, and transverse abdominis, which are essential for maintaining posture and balance.

Full-Body Integration: In Chen style Tai Chi, the spiraling energy from silk reeling connects the upper and lower body through the core. The spiraling movements demand a smooth transition of energy, which requires the core to act as a conduit (渠道) between the legs and arms.

Flexibility and Elasticity: The coiling and uncoiling of the body in different directions improve the flexibility and elasticity of the core muscles, helping to increase range of motion and coordination.

The spiraling movements in Chen style Tai Chi not only emphasize physical strength but also train practitioners in the art of “song” (relaxation). This practice encourages the use of dynamic strength through relaxation and expansion rather than excessive tension. By allowing the body to release, the practitioner can generate powerful force with minimal strain. This relaxed state fosters improved balance and rooting, which originates from the core, stabilizing the entire body. In turn, strong rooting enhances core strength, creating a harmonious cycle where the core and rooting reinforce each other for maximum stability and power.

In summary, the spiral and coiling movements in Chen style Tai Chi are integral to building core strength, flexibility, and overall internal power. It’s a unique method that enhances both the physical and energetic aspects of the body.

Is there a specific form of Tai Chi designed just for improving balance? Do you need to learn this form to see results? The answer is: don’t be misled by commercial marketing. Any authentic Tai Chi form, routine, or even a single posture can enhance your balance. The key isn’t which form you practice, but how you practice Tai Chi.

A recent Harvard Medical School Newsletter (September 24, 2024) highlighted the importance of balance, stating: “It’s no secret that as we get into our 60s, 70s, 80s, and beyond, we may not be as steady on our feet as we used to be. We all occasionally feel a little shaky just walking, standing still, or going up and down stairs. But the truth is that these shaky moments can lead to a downward spiral of inactivity and an increased risk of incapacitating falls — the leading cause of injuries in people over 65 years of age.”

To improve your balance through Tai Chi, it’s essential to focus on how you train. Here are some key formulas you can apply to any Tai Chi form or practice to enhance balance:

1. Loosen Up Body Weight: Sink your hips to root your feet to the ground. Feel that strong connection to the earth beneath you. Keep your torso upright and well-aligned, releasing tension from the body. This relaxed stance helps train your static balance, ensuring you remain stable and centered without swaying. Any tai chi form starts with this relaxed stance.

2. Train Dynamic Balance: Shift your weight between your feet smoothly. Over time, aim to hold the majority of your body weight on one foot without wobbling. Eventually, you’ll be able to stand on one foot with ease—like in the “Golden Rooster Stance.” This type of practice builds foot sensitivity, helping you stay grounded during movements.

3. Build Leg Strength: A stronger leg muscle is the prerequisite for good balance. Practice slow, deliberate walking in your Tai Chi movements. The slower, the better. As you lift one foot ready to step forward, lower the hip of your non-stepping leg toward your heel. This strengthens the thigh and calf muscles, which are essential for maintaining balance.

4. Enhance Leg Flexibility and Elasticity: In any Tai Chi stance, focus on stretching both legs in opposite directions. When one leg bends forward, the other leg should extend backward, creating a sense of ward-off energy in the legs. This not only builds resilience and flexibility but also improves balance.

By integrating these techniques into your Tai Chi practice, you can significantly improve your balance, regardless of which form or routine you follow.

When practicing push hands, avoid using straight or linear force to try to push your opponent. Doing so will quickly tire you out, and this type of direct, poking strike will only frustrate your opponent without producing effective results. Using straight force is like trying to poke with a bamboo stick—if you miss, you have to pull back and reset. While you’re resetting, you leave yourself open to being pushed. Additionally, if you push too hard and miss, you’ll throw yourself off balance. Many beginners in push hands instinctively use this kind of straight force, simply placing their hands on their opponent and pushing directly. However, this approach is ineffective.

Think of driving a screw into wood: it’s far easier to do so with a screwdriver’s spiral motion than by pushing the screw directly into the wood with your hand. This analogy applies perfectly to push hands.

You can train spiral strength through Tai Chi forms by incorporating the concept of silk reeling into your practice. The figure-8 energy loop—performed at the lower level between your feet and the middle level at your hips—serves as the driving force behind your arms’ spiral power. Imagine this lower-body energy spiraling up through the ming-men (命門), the life gate located at your lower back, which acts as an energy hub regulating internal strength. While your outward movements remain relaxed and circular, your internal qi is actively consolidating, flowing along a spiraling path to strengthen and harmonize your body from within.

Spiral strength expands and contracts like a coiled spring. Unlike straight force, it never extends into a rigid line, giving it the unique advantage of being able to retract smoothly without getting stuck. This allows you to maintain balance and flexibility in your push hands practice, enabling you to apply force or withdraw effortlessly.

In Tai Chi practice, your two legs serve distinct and complementary functions. While in Wu style Tai Chi the feet are relatively parallel and the weight is more evenly distributed in the horse stance, each leg still plays a unique role. For instance, in the posture Single Whip, the left leg is referred to as the “tree trunk leg” because your intent is focused on your left palm—the primary palm—while the right leg acts as the “post” or “supporting leg” (左桩右柱).

The tree trunk leg is responsible for grounding and stabilizing your body with a deeply rooted foot. It’s considered the yin (settled) leg, representing the stability and foundation you need. On the other hand, the post leg provides the power behind your movement, especially when delivering a strike with the left palm. This leg is considered the yang (active) leg, driving the dynamic flow and strength of the movement.

This differentiation between yin and yang in the legs is what the Tai Chi Classics refer to when they emphasize the need to distinguish between these two energies in every posture. The tree trunk leg supplies the foundation, allowing the post leg to facilitate both physical movement and internal energy flow. The tree trunk leg focuses on descending energy, sinking into the earth for grounding, while the post leg emphasizes ascending energy, pushing against the ground to propel the action. Together, these energies harmonize, maintaining a dynamic balance that allows for fluid yet powerful movement.

It’s important to understand that the legs must maintain this yin-yang harmony to move the body effectively and efficiently. The arms also follow this principle, where the interplay of yin and yang enables both defensive and offensive maneuvers.

This concept applies to other stances as well. In Yang style Tai Chi’s bow stance during Single Whip, the left leg, bent at the knee, acts as the tree trunk leg, deeply rooted for stability, while the right leg, which is stretched out, serves as the post leg, driving power to the left palm.

To summarize, the “tree trunk” leg focuses on creating a deep root beneath the earth’s surface, channeling descending energy. Like an anchor on a ship, it stabilizes you and absorbs the force of an opponent’s push or attack so that you aren’t knocked over. However, since this leg is rooted, it isn’t used to generate offensive power. That is the role of the “post leg”, which pushes against the ground with ascending energy, driving the force needed for strikes or movements.

Both legs hold strength, but they serve different purposes, working together in a yin-yang balance to create fluid, powerful movement in Tai Chi.

This statement is inaccurate. While Yang style Tai Chi prominently features the bow stance, it also utilizes the horse stance (horseback-riding stance) as a crucial transitional posture. In fact, the horse stance, or ma bu (馬步), is foundational across all Tai Chi styles. It serves as a key position for smooth transitions between movements, allowing practitioners to shift their weight and maintain fluidity throughout the routine.

In Yang style, the horse stance often appears in a higher position or a partially side-weighted form as a means to move gracefully between poses. Its importance lies in its ability to promote sinking and stabilizing the hips, keeping the pelvis level. This alignment is essential for maintaining balance and a strong, rooted foundation. Mastering the horse stance also requires training the body to prevent the pelvis from tilting left or right, which is fundamental to good posture and balance in Tai Chi.

Although Yang style Tai Chi may emphasize a more upright posture, the horse stance remains integral to practice, as all stances transition through it. Practitioners must be aware of its role, even if it’s less pronounced compared to other styles like Chen.

There are variations in the use of the horse stance, such as the higher-positioned stance (高馬步, gao ma bu) and the lower-positioned stance (低馬步, di ma bu). In Yang style, the higher horse stance is used primarily during turns, directional changes, and weight shifts, as it aids in maintaining balance and fluid movement by keeping the pelvis stable. On the other hand, the lower horse stance is more commonly seen in Chen style Tai Chi, which uses it to build leg strength and endurance for martial arts applications.

Thus, while the lower horse stance is more associated with Chen style, Yang style Tai Chi still employs the horse stance in its higher form, emphasizing balance, stability, and smooth transitions.

Yes, my doctorate focused on traditional Chinese sports for health and martial arts, with a major in the Wushu Department of Shanghai University of Sport. Given my extensive experience in Tai Chi, I centered my research on the idea of using Tai Chi for health enhancement throughout the four seasons, drawing a parallel to the different stages of life. Just as the seasons change, so do our bodies as we age. For example, the way young children practice Tai Chi should differ from how older adults practice it. The same routine practiced in the spring time should be different from the cold winter season. This insight allows for a more tailored approach to teaching and practicing Tai Chi at various life stages.

My research was deeply rooted in classical Chinese texts, especially the Huangdi Neijing (The Yellow Emperor’s Inner Canon), as well as Qigong principles, which I integrated into the inner practice of Tai Chi. My PhD advisor, Professor Yu Dinghai, is the only person in China to hold a 9th-degree black belt in both Wushu and Qigong, so under his guidance, I gained profound knowledge of Qigong. This dual understanding made my research quite unique, as it enabled me to interpret Tai Chi movements through the lens of Qigong, emphasizing not just the physical aspects but also the cultivation of inner energy. This deeper integration of Qigong into Tai Chi practice has become a hallmark of my teaching and approach to health.

Pre-Setting Foot Direction for Hip (Kua) Opening:
When your torso turns more than forty-five degrees, your foot should pre-set its direction in anticipation of the movement. By doing so, you prevent unnecessary strain on your knees and facilitate a smoother, more coordinated rotation of the torso. After completing the torso’s movement, you might need to adjust the position of the opposite foot. This helps balance both hips, allowing them to harmonize and move fluidly without tension or restriction.

Do I pivot on my heel or ball to adjust my foot direction?
To adjust the direction that the foot is pointing during tai chi practice, some teachers prefer to pivot on the heel of the foot and some teachers prefer to pivot on the ball of the foot. What is the correct method? This is a long-standing question that confuses many practitioners and even teachers. The answer depends on whether you need to reduce or increase the distance between your feet, and whether you want to withdraw energy or to discharge power. The intention, yi in your mind will make a difference.

In Yang style tai chi, practitioners from Cheng Man Ching’s 郑曼青 system are used to pivoting on the heel and turning the toes inward to finish the postures of Single Whip or Brush Knee, but practitioners from Dong Yingjie’s lineage 董英杰 are used to pivoting on the ball of the foot and turning the heel outward to finish those postures. These masters learned from the same Yang family tradition, so why did they practice differently? The answer is that their intentions were different. Cheng Man Ching’s intention was in cultivating inner energy during practice, his movements were light with the focus on gathering in energy, and almost no stretching or discharging power was intended. In Single Whip, his left foot stepped out much wider toward the left side, so he needed to turn the toes of his right foot inward to reduce the width between his feet. The same is also true for the wider steps in his Brush Knee posture where he had to adjust his back foot by pivoting on heel to rotate the toes inward. Dong Yingjie’s positions were filled with martial spirit, and positions containing both a sense of stretch and expanding strength. He powered his martial applications and increased the distance between his feet by twisting his heel backwards. Dong’s left foot stepped out into a more narrow stance in Single Whip in order to execute a sharp strike with his left palm. Therefore, Dong used the ball of the right foot as a pivot point to push the heel outward to increase the base of his stance. Dong’s background was in kung fu before he started tai chi.

In summary, you have two options if pivot on your heel: 1) turning the toes inward will close that kua and reduce the distance between your feet to facilitate withdrawing the leg with less weight on it, will assist you when you want to turn the torso to the other side, and also serves the purpose to return energy back to your center or hui-jin 回勁 in Chinese; 2) turning the toes outward will open that kua and lead the torso for a larger turn with spiraling strength, and expand the distance between the feet to create a twisting stretch. Turning your toes outward will also ensure your knee is not being sprained as your torso twists.

You will also have two options if you pivot on the ball of your foot: 1) turning the heel inward will open that kua to reduce the distance between the feet allowing the other kua to close in and allow you to rotate your torso toward the direction of the open kua side with greater ease; 2) turning the heel outward will close that kua and increase the distance between your feet for a wider base and stretch that leg as well as to facilitate the discharge of power 發勁 for martial application”

These three core Tai Chi principles should be applied in any posture and any styles:

Compressibility
Compressibility describes the body’s ability to condense energy inward, much like compressing a spring, before releasing it outward. This principle involves the absorption and redirection of external forces, transforming an opponent’s energy into a controlled and effective response. In Tai Chi, compressibility is evident in movements where the body “sinks” or draws inward to generate power and maintain balance. It also conveys the idea of storing potential energy while remaining calm and centered, ready to expand when needed.

Twistability
Twistability highlights the rotational and spiraling movements central to Tai Chi. This principle emphasizes the body’s ability to coil and uncoil, creating internal torque that generates power and flow. Through twisting, energy is cultivated and distributed efficiently, often involving the waist, spine, and limbs working in harmony. Twistability also reflects the flexibility of mind and body, ensuring that movements are not linear or rigid but instead circular, continuous, and adaptable to changing circumstances.

Elasticity
Elasticity represents the ability to store and release energy with ease, much like a spring. In Tai Chi, this principle is about maintaining a supple and responsive body, capable of absorbing incoming force and rebounding it outward without stiffness or rigidity. Elasticity is not just physical—it is also mental and energetic, allowing for adaptability and smooth transitions between movements. It embodies the dynamic quality of yielding while remaining ready to return energy in a controlled, powerful way.