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correctly.)
For taiji practice in particular, the static meditations
have the following purposes. Sitting meditation
is the best modality to train your mind: awareness
of reality and mental principles. In addition, it
increases awareness of your physical body. It also
enhances your nervous system, which increases your
reaction time. All contribute to the ling (agility)
quality of your practice. The ability to move with
lighting quickness, and to perceive a situation or
even to foretell an occurrence, is an aspect of ling. In
the taiji classics, the saying “the opponent moves, I
move first” is a description of ling. The often held
secret in taiji tradition is that this skill comes from
sitting meditation. (The problem with secrets is that,
if they are not made common knowledge, they are
eventually lost.).
Standing practice primarily develops your
strength, alignment, posture, economy of movement,
and sleep quality. Lying-down practice will help
with your sleep, relax your mind and body, and, importantly,
prevent overuse of the body and injury.
Actually, the more adept you become at taiji movement,
the more you need to incorporate lying-down
to prevent over-use of core musculature. With this
foundation, you can start to incorporate the “gong”
derived from meditation into movement.
3 Simple, repetitive movement
(e.g. dynamic qigong exercises such as Grand
Open & Close, Circulating Qi, etc.). Here we begin
to incorporate fundamentals of, stance, posture, and
weight shifting/waist turning/chest opening and closing
with yin/yang taiji movement and reverse breathing.
4. Complex taiji movement.
There is nothing new in the taiji form in terms of
stance, alignment, coordination, silk reeling energy,
application, etc. except the choreography. Taiji form
is complex movement and must be learned. The
“eight forces” (peng/lu/ji/an/zi/lie/zhou/kao) and
“five cardinal directions” of taiji movement, in combination,
ultimately contain all possible lengths and
directions of human movement and force generation,
and so contain virtually all possible (standing) martial
applications of the feet, knees, hips, body, shoulder,
elbows, and hands. I have never seen a
(standing) martial application that is not contained
within the 48 and pao cui forms.
5 Integration into daily life
Finally, you can apply physical quality cultivated
in the form practice to daily activities: your jogging,
dish washing, vacuuming your house, holding a
baby in your arms, gardening, even waiting in the
grocery line. It is a higher level of practice as the
application is random. And it is the ultimate goal of
practice: to improve the quality of daily life. Mentally
and spiritually, you are applying the awareness
and mental principles to your daily life while you
interact with family members, colleagues at work,
and strangers on the street.
All of the above are qigong – all are energy nurturing,
mind/body/spirit integrative exercise at their
deepest levels. The exercises are interrelated and interdependent
- it is the combination of exercises that
yields efficient practice and realization of the widest
benefits of practice.
Yang Yang, Ph.D.- is one of
the few individuals who are
recognized within the traditional
Taiji and Qigong community
as a master practitioner
and instructor, as well as
an academic researcher
who’s using western science
to explore evidence-based
Eastern philosophy and healing arts. He is author of the highly
acclaimed book “Taijiquan: The Art of Nurturing, The Science
of Power”, and in 2006 was honored as the “Qigong Master of
the Year” at the 9th World Congress on Qigong and Traditional
Chinese Medicine. Yang trained in China under several
of the 18th generation grandmasters of the Chen style – Chen
Zhaokui, Gu Liuxin, and Feng Zhiqiang. He was a three-time
Taiji champion at the Shanghai collegiate tournament and former
instructor at the Shanghai Chen Style Taiji research association.
To understand the power and mechanics of Taiji and
Qigong beyond traditional explanatory frameworks, Master
Yang completed a doctorate degree in kinesiology at the University
of Illinois, where he remains as an adjunct faculty. Dr.
Yang is currently the Director of the Center for Taiji and
Qigong Studies (www.centerfortaiji.com) in New York City.
September—October 2012 Yang-Sheng (Nurturing Life) 11