T'ai Chi Empower - 13 Postures

The `13 Postures are the foundation movements of T'ai Chi. The style and complexity may vary - from one school, family or individual, to another - but the entire form revolves around these core movements.

These `13 Postures are from the 1st Part of the Yang Long Form. I do an Overview, Closer Look, and Review, so you can follow along and learn it, if you like :)

T'ai Chi Empower - Form and Flow

T'ai Chi Empower - Form and Flow

I do the entire 1st Part of the Yang Long Form, and film it from the front and the back. This way, you can follow it better, and learn it, if you like :)

Principles of Standing Posture

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T'ai Chi has standing postures, although they may different according to style, school or individual.  The lady in the image is Embracing the Tree.  What I learned was Holding the Ball.  Regardless, the principles of posture are similar.

Points to keep in mind:

• Hold your head up, as if it were hung by a string from the top of your head (Bai Hui) up to the ceiling or sky.  This is one way of raising your spirit (shen).  It is also effective at easing or eliminating common headaches.
• Tuck your hips gently.  So with the lifting from above, and this tucking of your hips, you feel a nice stretching (lengthening) of your lower back.    
• Keep this posture for a reasonable length of time, for example, three to four minutes.  Because it's important to maintain proper posture, it quietly builds strength in your legs, back and shoulders.  

Holding the Ball for 10 minutes, or longer, was a challenge to my classmates and me.

Keep your Gaze Relaxed

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What is your gaze like, whenever you practice T'ai Chi or whatever you may be doing?  A relaxed gaze helps you be aware more broadly of your surroundings.  

T'ai Chi Empower - The Road, Taken {1}

I choose selected movements from the 1st, 2nd and 3rd Parts of the Yang Long Form. Done slowly, these three parts take up to two hours. In this short video, I hope I've given you a good sense for the beauty, energy and complexity of the form.

`The Road, Taken alludes to the poem by Robert Frost - "The Road Not Taken":

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth; 

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same, 

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back. 

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I —
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

There are many exercise options at our disposal, as far as health, self defense and spirituality are concerned. T'ai Chi was the road I took.

T'ai Chi Empowers You, by Paul Lam

Paul Lam tells a story of a time in China, when he wasn't allowed to go to school.  Two years, no school.  But he was so keen to learn that he'd find crumpled paper in a garbage heap, smooth it out, and read whatever he could.

T'ai Chi gave him that quiet sense of determination.

Give someone fish, and he or she has food for a day.  But teach someone how to fish, and he or she has food for a lifetime.

This is an age-old lesson of empowerment, that I never tire of hearing and it's a good reminder for all of us.  

Studying the T'ai Chi Ch'uan Classics

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Besides being a diligent practitioner, I am also a curious student of T'ai Chi.  I learned from repeatedly coming back to lessons and insights by the likes of TT Liang, Marshall Ho'o, Martin Inn, and Jwing-Ming Yang.  I don't know when the internet started was, but since 1978 my T'ai Chi studies were mostly from books and magazines and from instruction and conversation.  Over the past decade, however, so much more is at our fingertips.      

Enter, Lee N. Scheele.   

I really appreciate the research that Scheele did on the T'ai Chi Ch'uan Classics.  These are the hallmarks texts from masters of the art, and one doesn't learn them simply by taking a course or reading a book.  Instead, one learns them over a lifetime of study, reflection and practice.

Here are key points:

All movements are motivated by I [mind-intention],
not external form.
~Chang San-feng

Make the ch'i sink calmly;
then the ch'i gathers and permeates the bones.
~Wu Yu-hsiang

Maintain your central equilibrium
and your opponent cannot gain an advantage.
~T'an Meng-hsien

Carefully study, the Classics say.