Well worth a look, to get an idea of how different Tai Chi styles look, especially for my students, as our style has quite a few differences that you should be able to spot :)
I know I promised a different topic for this (much delayed) post, but I think it’s worth looking a bit more about why we possibly cross hands the way we do. And now that my camcorder has arrived, hopefully the accompanying video will help with the explanations and the questions. This is the first Tai Chi video that I’ve ever uploaded, and it’s also the first time in years that I’ve videoed myself, so be gentle ;-)
Cross Hands - A Popular Move
Here’s a short video I’ve uploaded to YouTube demonstrating the different places where we cross hands in our form:
Cross Hands after Shoulder Press
Cross Hands after Box Ears (which is repeated again at the end of our form)
Cross Hands Low after Golden Pheasant Stands on One Leg, immediately followed by Cross Hands after Golden Pheasant Stands On One Leg (repeated twice, but not properly shown on the video)
Crossed Guard in Fair Ladies corner #1
Crossed Guard in Fair Ladies corner #2
Crossed Hands in Fair Ladies corner #4
Cross Hands Travelling Low after the Second Squatting Single Whip, immediately followed by Step Up To Seven Stars
In most of these moves, we’re in motion as we play Cross Hands. Normally we’re moving off to the side, which is consistent with the idea of using Cross Hands to bridge with an opponent before taking control of their energy and using it against them. But there are a couple of cases where this clearly isn’t happening in our version of the form, and I find that interesting.
Cross Hands As A Block
What’s going on with the Cross Hands Low immediately after Golden Pheasant Stands On One Leg, the third example in the video? Take another look at it. With my current understanding of Tai Chi, that looks like a two-handed block against a kick, in a very static position, followed by a block against a follow-up strike or punch.
This is where I had a better understanding of the fighting side of our art, for sure. The immediate question I have about this is one of practicality. Would the Cross Hands Low be strong enough to block a kick, and what is the likelihood of the kick causing serious damage to the hands and wrists in the process?
It stands out for me as something to investigate further because it seems quite the anomaly …
The Crossed Guard In Fair Ladies
In the first two corners of Fair Ladies Weaves Shuttles To The Four Corners, we almost cross hands but not quite. The left hand falls and the right hand rises, but they pass left hand inside right, as if guarding the right side of the head and body as one zone from attack. Lacking a better name for this move, I’ve started calling it Crossed Guard.
It shares one of the major characteristics of Cross Hands - the arm attached to the leading shoulder is on the outside of the move. Indeed, in corner #4, we actually play Cross Hands, which immediately separates out into a head guard and a body guard.
So my first question to investigate is whether or not we should Cross Hands in corners #1 and #2 before immediately transitioning into Crossed Guard (artistically, possibly, but from a martial perspective, I have doubts). And my second question? Where should the emphasis and explanation be for folks who are in it for the health benefits rather than the martial aspect?
Summing Up
Hopefully my video doesn’t suck too badly (I’m pretty sure my performance does!) and it gives you an idea of the different ways we play Cross Hands in the Ng Family Yang Style Tai Chi form that I study and teach.
The video shows two areas - Cross Hands Low and Fair Ladies corners #1 and #2 - where we play Cross Hands differently, and where I currently have questions about both form and function.
How well do you know your form? How well does your form, and indeed your practice, relate to the Tai Chi Classics? Can you find all of the Thirteen Postures in your form?
And, for my students, a treasure hunt … can you spot which of the Thirteen Postures appears where in Grasp Sparrows Tail? Especially the one I haven’t mentioned yet in my class? :)
I haven’t, until today. That’s over eight years of experience with no reliable record - only the neurones of my brain as an unreliable witness. How much have I learned and forgotten, and how many questions have I come across that I no longer recall?
In my experience, practising Tai Chi is a series of personal revelations. No progress is made, sometimes for months, and then WHAM - the pieces fall into place and my understanding takes a tiny step forward. The progress comes not through answers, but by finding the questions. When you find the right questions, the answers don’t provide the information - they simply show you what you’ve already come to understand.
For example, take one of the most basic hand movements in Tai Chi - cross hands. For the first eight years of my training, all the questions (from myself, and from fellow students) were about “what is it for?” or “how does it work?” They’re important questions; the student needs to know that cross hands is used to block kicks and punches, and they need to know how the timing and distancing works. If the student is more interested in health than martial, then the answers need to be couched in those terms instead.
But I no longer think that they’re the right questions, not with the outlook on the question as progress. The right question is “why is it that so-and-so arm is on the outside?” The answer to that ensures that form and function falls into place as a result.
In our form (Ng Family Yang Style Tai Chi Chuan), it is always the arm attached to the leading shoulder that sits on the outside of cross hands. We move left, and it is the left arm on the outside. We move right, and it is the right arm on the outside. Every time. Without fail. We’re always looking to move into a block, and we’re always looking to snag an arm or a leg and take it with us.
We’re always in continuous motion (one of the ten important principles from Yang Chen’fu), and cross hands appears deliberately designed to ensure that the move maximises the benefits of being in motion.
It also gives me new questions (well, new to me anyway!) about the old saying of the needle in the cotton, which I’ll look at next time.
This week was week 16 (out of 30) for my beginners’ class. It’s the first week back after half term, and it’s bloody freezing (well, for the UK anyway) outside by 6pm on an evening. It would be more than understandable for folks to drop out … but they haven’t. In fact, they’ve been spreading the word about the class, and our numbers went up again this week. If our new beginners come back next week, that brings the class up to 15 regular students on a Tuesday night. I’m really grateful to my students this year; this is my first year of teaching a public class on my own, and they continue to be fantastically supportive as I get to grips with things.
I think I’m going to need a bigger hall for next September, if I’m going to run the Year 2 class alongside next year’s beginners’ class!
Robert often told me that one of appeals of Tai Chi is that beginners stuff is the advanced stuff. If you’ve been playing the form for years, or its your first night in a class, what you’re learning is the same stuff. It really helps with a mixed ability class, because you can do something like a walking drill and everyone benefits. Walking drills are the first thing I teach anyone joining the class, and even those who have been with us for a couple of years now need a refresher and some pointers for improvement :)
We did a walking drill last night, and I broke the class up into three groups.
Those enjoying their first night with us were simply concentrating on the three main stances that we teach (cat stance, back stance and front stance).
The rest of the beginners were asked to ensure that they stepped toe to heel and shoulder width apart at each step. (”Ensure” is a gross over-simplification; I must remember to elaborate on that in a future blog post).
My intermediate group were also asked to ensure that they picked up their legs to waist height with each step.
The usual explanation for picking up the leg to waist height is that you’re stepping over the fallen foe that you’ve just dispatched (well, it is a martial art after all :), and for those uncomfortable with the martial aspects of the art, there’s always the explanation that picking up the leg is good for your health and range of movement (the use it or lose it principle).
They’re good reasons, but they’re not really why we do it.
The group has walked down one end of the hall, and they’ve turned around and are making their way back towards me, when Leon comes to a halt. Although he’s in the middle group, he’s been doing the waist-high stepping as he walks. It’s one of those lightbulb moments, and they’re the reason anyone who teaches loves their vocation. Excitedly, he catches my eye, and the ear of everyone around him, and explains what he’s just discovered.
The reason we lift our leg to waist height is because, when we put our foot back down on the floor, the foot goes into the right place every time.
It’s simplicity itself. We standardise our movements so that we get consistent results. We measure our movements against our own physical dimensions, because that works for everyone. And we internalise the movement (pick up the leg to waist height) because it’s much less effort / workload to execute consistently than externalising it (step over the corpse in front of us).
These points apply to everything we do in our daily practice, which is far easier to say than it is to actually do :)
As teachers, we can’t always tell our students points like these. We have to do our best to create the right circumstances for the students to experience the rule for themselves. As Robert told me just before Christmas, a rule has to be felt for it to be truly understood. Wise words indeed.
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