Issue 57 - Tse Qigong Centre

from your mind instead of from your muscles. The mind buildsup the energy and the energy creates the power.In Tui Shou (pushing hands) you are able to handle thosepeople at a lower level more easily, but when you train withsomeone at the same level you will still use a lot of strength toovercome your partner’s power. This is because internal andexternal are not completely connected yet.So you still need to continue to train. When you are atLevel Three, you are normallydoing more Xinjia (NewFrame), as the Xinjia circles aresmaller than the Laojiao’s.Level FourUsually when youpractise Taijiquan, if you canreach Level Three then this isalready very good. You canhandle ordinary people quitecomfortably, but with certainbig or strong people you willstill find some difficulties.Certain parts of your body arestill difficult to bring togetherso they become oneconnected movement. Forexample, someone may pushyou strongly and you still findit hard to move, or step backor avoid it.To get to Level Four itusually takes about threeyears after you have reachedLevel Three. In Level Fouryour medium circle becomea small circle, so small thatyou can hardly see it.Just a small movementof your waistcreates thecircle and youropponent ispushed or trapped withoutthem even noticing it. Thetiming is so good and themovements fast and powerful.This means that your Qi is flowing along the body andthere are no blockages. When you want to Fajing, the Qi andpower come together.When you do the form, you can perform it slowly, quickly,powerfully or gently and each time it feels comfortable. Butremember you are still “Four Yin and Six Yang”. Although thisis a very high level, it is is not completely even. Why is that? Itis because you are still in control of the situation. You do whatyou want, but when you want something then you need to paya price. Most situations in Tui Shou you can handle very well.You can push them around or even throw them whenever youwant. But you have not reached a level where it happens on itsown.In Level Four your Qi flows and you find you are powerfuland strong, but each time you practise, you still find you aretired. In some way, you are still using your energy. So althoughyou can handle most things in fighting and Tui Shou and youare strong and powerful if you do too much you can makeyourself tired. And so the next day you cannot do so much.Level FiveAt Level Five you are “Five Yin and Five Yang”. This is aspiritual level when your Taijiquan reaches 50% Yin and 50%Yang. So your entire body is like the Taiji symbol: movement,stillness, there is nodifference between Yinand Yang, they are alltogether. Yin is insideYang and Yang is insideYin. This means that youbecome one with theTaiji form. All youreveryday movementsare like the Taiji Form.Practising the Taijiform helps you keep theTaiji principle inside you.It is like you visit an oldfriend and enjoy beingtogether. Every time youpractise, there is notiredness and any effortcomes naturally. Yourbody, breathing andmind do everything youwant by themselves.The circle changesfrom a small circle to nocircle. In the movementsyou measure the circle bythe Qi flowing inside ina circle, but you cannotsee it with your eyes. Thisis a spiritual, natural andbalanced level.Whatever you doeven something otherthan the Taijiquan form,like climbing a mountain,playing football, driving acar all follow the Taijiprinciple and so become a Taiji form. Your lifestyle follows theprinciple of Taiji and you deal with any problems the sameway. You are become a happy and strong person. You do notneed to think about making any effort, so in Tui Shou everythingis natural, all your movements and reactions come becauseyour opponent caused it. As Bruce Lee said, “You do not needto push or hit your opponent, they do it by themselves”.At this level, whenever you look at other martial arts, oreven any other human movement, you can explain it with theTaiji principle. The Taiji principle follows nature and so anythingthat is not natural will have a bad result.That is a high level of Taijiquan. 50% Yin and 50% Yangeverything happens naturally as it does our lives. This is theDao. Practising Taijiquan is a method for us to understand theTaiji principle and so it is a method to help us understand natureand ourselvesBy Michael TseQi Magazine 15