
There is no shortcut to Tai Chi. Only by taking solid steps one by one can we achieve the ideal state. Tai Chi is all about persistence! It is not about being against it all the time. Tai Chi can let us release our inner heart, and Kung Fu can double our confidence. Even if we don’t achieve great success in martial arts in the future, we will have the most moving years in martial arts. No matter how busy you are, you must practice Kung Fu! Physical health is the goal. The stance is divided into static stance and dynamic stance, and the boxing frame is the dynamic stance and active stance. The standing practice of Zhaobao Tai Chi is the foundation of foundation building and the beginning of getting qi, but you can’t stand in a dead stance and treat the stance as wood.
The real Kung Fu is outside the boxing, and simple basic skills are valuable.
To learn Tai Chi, you must first understand the principles. After understanding the principles, you will be full of stances. If you don’t know what the stance is for, then there is not much effect. Many people pay attention to relaxation at the beginning, but after standing for half an hour, the body begins to stiffen, especially if the two feet stand stiffly for a long time, it is easy to have problems. After standing still and becoming stiff, the more you practice, the less you will improve your skills. Instead, you will increase unnecessary consumption, which will increase the burden on your heart and muscles, and will be bad for your health. Many people think that sweating profusely while practicing boxing and standing still is a sign of kung fu, but this is actually a misunderstanding. Using rigid force to practice, sweating profusely, especially in the horse stance, you may think that you have deep kung fu, but in fact, you have consumed precious energy and your body may not be healthy. The less mental activity, the better. At the beginning, you can use some active methods to gradually transition to passive methods, that is, to get rid of acquired artificial thoughts. This is the way to practice. Artificial intentions actually use the brain. If you use the brain too much, on the one hand, it consumes more energy than using the limbs, which is not good for the health of the spleen and stomach. On the other hand, if you use too much intention, it is easy to identify with the body’s reactions and false perceptions, which is not good for mental health.
Rigid force and excessive intention may bring so-called kung fu for a while, but when you get older or encounter certain unfavorable opportunities, you will fall ill. Seek without action, calm the five internal organs, harmonize the six internal organs, keep the spirit and soul still, look inward, listen, regulate the breath, and wait for the spirit to come. “Seek without action”. It must be based on the correct inheritance of the mind method. If the method is not correct and the body is broken, health will be compromised.
Standing is also to train the mind. When the mind is obedient, your limbs will be obedient. This is a very simple truth. It does not depend on the length of time, but on his mind.
The basic essentials of its body method are completely consistent with the Tai Chi boxing frame. While lifting the top and lowering the hips, the two hands are raised from both sides and embraced in front of the chest, so that the palms and the center of the breasts are facing each other, with a horizontal fist and a half in between. The ten fingers of both hands are also facing the palms, and the fingertips of the two hands are about a horizontal fist apart. The palms of the two palms are facing inward and slightly downward, the wrists are collapsed, and the palms are empty. The little finger of the palm is slightly buckled down, which is actually to support the muscles and bones. The elbows should be slightly lower than the wrists, and the mind should be wrapped inside. The whole body must have the momentum of sinking. If you can’t feel the shoulders sinking, you should use your mind to imagine yourself standing in the water, with a wooden board under your elbows, and the shoulders will sink. This standing posture with the arms around contains the meaning of “keeping the center” in the sense of martial arts. That is: take the line from the Baihui point on the top of the head to the perineum point under the crotch as the center line, so that the center of gravity of the whole body naturally falls on the center between the two feet. In this way, the body method and crotch step are naturally comfortable and stable. The reason why the arms and hands are placed on the circumference line is to contain the offensive and defensive consciousness of defense and waiting for counterattack and attack.
Therefore, the armpits should be empty, and the gaps between the two sides should be relatively solid. If the armpits are empty, the arms are flexible enough and have more room for expansion and contraction; if the two sides are solid, the side gates are not easily invaded. But the empty armpits and solid sides are combined with the two arms and elbows. The two arms should be supported with the mind and wrapped with the heart. This is to consciously exercise the strength of the two arms, and include the responsibilities of waiting for the opportunity to attack the enemy, and guarding the heart, stomach, side and armpits. On the basis of this posture, once the static is transformed into dynamic, you only need to use the elbow as the axis, raise your hands upward to protect your head and face, and lower your hands downward to defend your knees. This fully shows that the requirements of Tai Chi standing and health Qigong standing are different. This is prominently reflected in the psychological will training, relaxation training, endurance training, form training and breathing training of Tai Chi standing, which are almost all closely related to the requirements of martial arts. What is boxing? Boxing is practiced with the heart. What is the heart? The heart is the Tao. Therefore, boxing is also the Tao. If you do not subdue your heart, how can you move your body, how can you make your hands and feet listen to you as a whole, hand over the power and form a whole. Boxing without heart is easy to go astray and become extreme and self-righteous. In fact, enlightenment lies here. If the stance is not relaxed, then use the fist; if the fist is not familiar, talk about strength; if you do not understand strength, then practice Qi; if you do not feel Qi, how can you understand the world. Fist is originally without method, and the stance is the method. One combination has no self-nature. There is no form, no form without form, no combination and form, and being attached to form will lead to confusion.
Nowadays, there are more people who work hard on the stance than on the fist. The stance is not achieved by standing for several hours a day. If you do not understand the principle, it may seem very serious, but in fact it is not the principle of the stance. There are thousands of people who practice the stance, but only a few who have achieved the stance. If you have not practiced the stance, the so-called small form means that the function of the stance has been grafted. Can you say that it is not a stance, but must stand still? All the high-sounding explanations are superficial, not true body language, and only see the impetuous side, that is, movement and stillness exist at the same time, and only such movement can have life. Tai Chi is nothing more than movement and stillness, movement and stillness are the stance, and the stance is important. If you do not have the stance, your words will be pale and powerless, and you will oppose it when you encounter the fist. The basic skills of traditional martial arts are based on the stance, and stillness is the stance, and movement is also the stance. Tai Chi “returns from form to formlessness” and “has no front or back, no left or right, no up or down”. This is correct for beginners, but after practicing for a while, you have divided it into front and back, left and right, up and down, big frame and small frame. In fact, if you “divide”, it is too much. Tai Chi “does not have pressure”. Those who practice it in the form are basically beginners. If you don’t understand, you can only be obsessed with it. The arrangement of Tai Chi movements is based on “Yin Yang Five Elements Eight Diagrams”. It is difficult to understand it from the structure alone. If you are specific to each move, it is impossible to understand its meaning without a teacher. This meaning often involves the thought of Tai Chi. If you have not studied Tai Chi specifically, the thought is the mind method. This is very critical. Even if you have learned the routine and figured out all the details, if you don’t have the mind method, the inner meaning is mostly wrong. The book says “the entry guide must be taught orally, and the function is self-taught”. If the master has not led you into the door, it is very difficult for you to practice it. If you don’t reach that level, you are not qualified to judge the true and false Tai Chi power. Some people are in the stage of ignorance in self-confidence, and they receive information in the blind spot. People with wisdom can understand. The acquired thinking cannot objectively view the laws of nature. The law of all things is the law of nature. If you don’t understand, it’s a process. Slowly adapt and change your mind. Don’t rush to oppose.
For example, what is the root joint? The root joint is between the waist and legs, the horizontal is open, and the vertical is fall. Beginners seek crotch. It is a local skill. When the skill is reached, all of this must be empty. If you can’t hold it, you will lose it. You can’t hold the eight sides together, hold each other together, and be at ease. If the body can’t hold together, there is no talk of the skill of the mind. Loosen the waist and open the hips. Only when the hips are opened can the hips fall and close the hips; close the knees and crotch, and the feet will not fall apart; embrace the chest and ribs, wrap the crotch and protect the buttocks, and the body will not fall apart. But all this is inseparable from opening the hips, and the joint gap between the pubic symphysis and the ischial tuberosity is enlarged to increase the range of motion. It is to open the hips, because the hip joint is the key to adjusting the waist and leg movements. Internal force explosion refers to the ability to exert muscle strength, energy, and gravity in the shortest possible time. Energy is like electricity, and tendons are like wires that quickly transport and conduct electricity, conducting it in the form of waves and oscillations in the tissues, relaxing each joint, connecting each joint, connecting the tendons, and coordinating to achieve energy conversion.
It is the value and significance that the standing practice of Zhaobao Tai Chi.