My idea for tai chi training at the moment is lightness of foot and swiftness of change. The image and idea that many people have of tai chi is rather ponderous. This I think is because people confuse the benefits of doing the handform slowly, with the actual martial application. In tai chi we learn good balance and structure so that we can then move our feet, not so that we can stand still. If we are out of aignment, our body is biased in one particular direction, and thus our options to move are reduced. We have to "be on our legs" as Ron Sieh puts it in his rather nifty little book "Tai chi chuan: the internal tradition" published by North Atlantic. Stepping is itself slightly neglected by the Classics: of the Thirteen Tactics, five are stepping and they are: centrally fixed, left, right, backwards and forwards. Well, like, duh...There are also the "Seven Stars" and "Nine Palace" methods, and our Da Lu drill also features nifty footwork. Think fencing, think boxing: these arts have masterful stepping methods. Look to them for inspiration. Notice that of the rather lame five steps in the Thirteen Tactics, only ONE is centrally fixed...The idea of being able to step gives us the idea of following our opponent. We don't always want to follow,as there are two sorts of retreat that the opponent may make:1) He may be retreating or disengaging in order to swing back with something bigger, or to tempt you to come forward so he can hit you, or 2) He may have had enough and be trying to beat a genuine retreat. In the first case you want to stick and smother, in the second you want to let him go andd maintain a ready stance and awareness. The line between these two may not be immediately discernible.
In the next edition of "Tai Chi Chuan and Oriental Arts" I have an article which talks more about people's fixation on fixedness, one which may ruffle some feathers. So look out for that if you're a subsciber, and if you're not...well why not?
