In this episode I ask George what it is like to live and train Tai Chi on Wudang Mountain, what Wudang Tai Chi is like and what lessons he’s learned from Taoism.
You too can learn from George’s teacher, Master Gu, 15th generation of Wudang Sanfeng Pai of Wudang mountain via his online learning site at https://www.taoistwellness.online/
Click on the 7 day trial option, then use the coupon code TAICHINOTEBOOK when you sign up and you’ll get a lifetime 8% discount. That’s equivalent to one free month a year!
You can get a similar discount from George’s website https://www.wayfinder.academy/ using the same discount code TAICHINOTEBOOK when you sign up.
Yesterday was World Tai Chi and Qigong day (note the crazy mix of Wade-Giles and Pinying Romanisation going on there!)
So, I hope you celebrated the day by doing some sort of practice somewhere. I saw a couple of posts in my feed showing groups practicing Tai Chi in the park. Here’s one taken by Donald Kerr of Spinning Dragon Tao. Check out his YouTube channel.
Just a group of people getting together and peacefully practicing Tai Chi. Given the state of the world today, that’s no small thing.
I don’t normally do a preview of my podcasts guests before the podcast comes out, but in the case of George Thompson I think it’s worth doing one because not only is he a fellow Bristolian, but he has so much great media out there for you to view that it’s worth watching some of it before the next podcast drops (which will be episode 24, due in a few weeks).
George has a great YouTube channel that has lots of Tai Chi and Taoism videos. He spent time in the Wudang mountains learning in a small Tai Chi school and there are lots of great videos shot in China that just look amazing.
He also makes hour-long films and I’d recommend giving Journey to the East a go, it’s a documentary of his last trip to Wudang and his adventures getting there because he was attempting to travel by train across Europe to China just at the same time as the pandemic was breaking in 2020. Check it out!
In the latest episode of the Tai Chi Notebook podcast host Graham is left all on his own without a guest, so he’s decided to pick up a book and read it to you! He’s gone for The Tai Chi Classic, one of the core works which make up a collection known as The Tai Chi Classics. Graham goes through the text a paragraph at a time and gives his interpretation of what the classic is saying. We hope you enjoy!
The Tai Chi Classic
In motion, the whole body should be light and agile,
with all parts linked as if threaded together.
The chi should be activated,
The mind should be internally gathered.
The postures should be rounded and without defect,
without deviations from the proper alignment;
in motion, your form should be continuous, without stops and starts.
The jin should be
rooted in the feet,
generated from the legs,
controlled by the waist, and
expressed through the fingers.
The feet, legs, and waist should act together
as an integrated whole,
so that while advancing or withdrawing
one can take the opportunity for favorable timing
and good position.
If correct timing and position are not achieved,
the body will become disordered
and will not move as an integrated whole;
the correction for this defect
must be sought in the legs and waist.
The principle of adjusting the legs and waist
applies for moving in all directions;
upward or downward,
advancing or withdrawing,
left or right.
All movements are motivated by Yi,
not external form.
If there is up, there is down;
when advancing, have regard for withdrawing;
when striking left, pay attention to the right.
If the yi wants to move upward,
it must simultaneously have intent downward.
Alternating the force of pulling and pushing
severs an opponent’s root
so that he can be defeated
quickly and certainly.
Full and empty
should be clearly differentiated.
At any place where there is emptiness,
there must be fullness;
Every place has both emptiness and fullness.
The whole body should be threaded together through every joint
without the slightest break.
Long Boxing is like a great river
rolling on unceasingly.
Peng, Lu, Ji, An,
Tsai, Lieh, Zhou, and Kao
are equated to the Eight Trigrams.
The first four are the cardinal directions;
South; Heaven, North; Earth, West; Water, and East; Fire.
The second four are the four corners:
Southwest; Wind, Northeast; Thunder,
Southeast; Lake, and Northwest; Mountain.
Advance, Withdraw,
Look Left, Look Right, and
Central Equilibrium
are equated to the five elements:
Metal,
Wood,
Water,
Fire, and
Earth
Taken together, these are termed the Thirteen Postures
The plum tree in my garden is blossoming, and that can mean only one thing: Spring is here!
Without getting too poetic about it, the potential energy trapped within the tree over Winter is releasing and opening out to the world. So, in keeping with the cycle of the seasons, let’s return our Tai Chi practice to a similar aspect – opening and closing.
All Chinese martial arts contain movements that open and close the body, but I’d go as far as to say that a repeated pattern of opening and closing your body in movement is the fundamental action of Tai Chi Chuan. It’s perhaps the one thing that makes Tai Chi Chuan (Taijiquan) different to other Chinese martial arts.
Then there are also Chinese martial arts that use ‘open’ postures a lot, and produce power from the big turning actions of the waist and shoulders – Choy Li Fut is a good example of this.
Of course, both these arts make use of both opening and closing movements in application, but what makes Taijiquan different is that it seems to have a rule that the body must constantly cycle through a series of opening and closing postures. You can see this when you look at Tai Chi forms – it shouldn’t matter which style you’re looking at, the opening and closing movements should follow each other in a cycle, very much like the Yin Yang symbol. If you imagine the Yin Yang symbol turning in a clockwise direction then the white fish becomes the black fish, which becomes the white fish, and on and on.
Silk Reeling exercises are a great way to focus on understanding open and close movements, as you just keep repeating the same pattern over and over, so your brain doesn’t get occupied thinking about the movement you are doing next (as it would in a Tai Chi form) and you can focus on the opening and closing actions.
So, what are the opening and closing actions? Well, I went over it in a video series a while ago. You can watch it here:
But it takes a while to watch all that series, so long story short, here’s a written explanation: an opening movement generally stretches out the front of the body (the Yin side – the soft parts, like the inside of the arms, and thigh, calves, and belly) and a closing movement generally stretches out the back of the body (the Yang side – the harder parts, like back of the arms, back and outside of the thighs and shins).
You can see these actions everywhere in nature: Cats tend to stretch along the front and back (yin and yang) of the body when stretching. (And it’s the same with the Yoga “Cat stretch” posture). But you see them in humans too – when you do one of those involuntary yawning/stretching movements in the morning, it tends to be opening the chest (yin stretch), occasionally followed up by a Yang side stretch.
It’s been noted that animals running are opening and closing the Yin and Yang sides of their bodies in sequence. So, this opening and closing action is fundamental to human and animal movement and the more we can utilise it, the more we are returning to our own natural systems of movement. Now, I don’t want to get sidetracked into a debate on what exactly “natural” movement is, but simply put, this opening and closing movement done in the human body feels good, it seems to put you in a good mood and you feel like your body and mind are returning to the way they are supposed to work. It requires less effort to perform tasks using it because it’s very efficient and it feels natural. If you watch skilled workmen and women then you’ll notice that they tend to gravitate towards easy body movements that have this natural opening and closing quality. Many of the people in ancient China who practised kung fu systems would have been agricultural village works who were familiar with natural movement patterns through necessity.
4 Directions Breathing exercise
Silk reeling exercises belong to the Chen style of Taijiquan, and while I (a Yang stylist) have no problem borrowing what works from other styles, a lot of Tai Chi practitioners might not want to do something from another style. However, almost all Qi Gong/Tao Yin type breathing exercises follow the same idea of opening along the Yin side of the body and closing along the Yang side that you find in Silk Reeling exercises.
You probably have some sort of exercise already that’s in your system to try this with, but let’s try one simple exercise to get our heads around the idea of open and close.
Stand in a Horse stance,
Breathe in as you bring your hands up facing you and then move them around a large imaginary ball that’s in front of your chest, so that your hands are facing away from you.
Push the imaginary ball forward away from you as you breathe out.
Turn the hands over and bring them back in towards you as you breathe in, going around the outside of the ball.
Push to the sides as you breathe out.
Bring the hands back in, circling the ball, getting underneath it as you breathe in.
Push upwards as you breathe out.
Bring the hands back in, circling the ball, getting on top of it as you breathe in.
Push downwards as you breathe out.
Bring the hands back in, going around the ball as you breathe in.
Let the palms face down and hands return to your sides as you breathe out.
Adding the opening and closing:
As you bring your arms up and towards you and go around a big ball that’s the opening movement. You can feel the slight stretch opening around the chest area, and you use that slight tension to help push your hands forward. As you do you’ll feel a slight stretch developing along your back. That’s the closing movement. You then use that slight tension to help bring your arms back. This is opening. Then as the arms push to the side, this is closing, and so on.
You often hear Tai Chi teachers say things like “don’t use muscle”. Normally this drives me mad, as you can’t physically make a movement without using muscles! However, what they’re really talking about is using that slight stretch you can feel to power the movement instead of just moving as you normally would, which results in making it “too physical” for Tai Chi. Finding the right words here is a delicate balance, but what we’re looking for is more of a whole body movement.
Final words
It helps to work on this in a stationary exercise, as described, but when you try your Tai Chi form, try and focus on keeping that feeling of opening and closing going throughout the whole form. The opening and closing movements are already there in the form, it’s up to you to reveal them. It’s a way of approaching the form from the inside, rather than the outside. So, if you’ve been struggling to get a movement to feel right in your form, it could be that the method described here will solve the problem for you. For it to work you have to be “sung” (relaxed) and focused on what you’re doing and the feelings inside the body. If your mind wanders off then inevitably so will your form. This is the start of what we call in the Tai Chi Classics “internal and external combine”.
The latest edition 13 of the Martial Arts Studies journal is out! Of particular interest to practitioners of Taijiquan this issue is Douglas Wile’s article on The Many Lives of Yang Luchan: Mythopoesis, Media, and the Martial Imagination. Yang Luchan is, of course, the patriarch of the Yang style, yet very little is actually known about him for sure, although that hasn’t stopped people filling the void with many colourful stories.
Yang Lu Chan
Here’s the abstract:
“The life of Yang Luchan, patriarch of the Yang lineage and founder of taijiquan’s most popular style, is a biographical blank slate upon which conservative, progressive, orientalist, and just plain rice bowl interests have inscribed wildly divergent narratives. Conservative scholar-disciples sought to link him with the invented Wudang-Daoist lineage, while progressives emphasized his humble origins and health benefits of the practice. His life (c.1799-1872) straddled the height of the Manchu empire and decline into semi-colonial spheres of foreign influence, while successive generations of Yang descendants propagated his ‘intangible cultural heritage’ through Republican, Communist, ‘open’ and global eras. Practiced world-wide by hundreds of millions, taijiquan’s name recognition made it ripe for media appropriation, and Yang Luchan has been remythologized in countless novels, cartoons, television series, and full-length feature films. The case of Yang Luchan offers an unusual opportunity to witness an ongoing process of mythopoesis against a background of historical antecedents and to compare these narratives with traditional Chinese warrior heroes and Western models of mythology and heroology. If the lack of facts has not constrained the fabrication of invented biographies, neither should it discourage the quest for historical context as we sift and winnow truth from trope in examining the patterns of motivated reasoning that characterize the many reconstructions of Yang’s biography.”
The Just One Thing series from Dr Michael Mosley is a radio show on little ideas that might make a big difference to your life. This week he’s looking at Tai Chi, and seeing what difference 15 minutes a day can make.
Dr Mosely looks at the scientific evidence for Tai Chi being as effective as conventional exercise. It’s quite interesting. One study said Tai Chi was better than brisk walking, for example, which is something I’ve always wondered about. He also looks at Tai Chi’s effect on the brain.
Here’s the blurb
“If you’re looking to add more exercise into your lifestyle why not consider Tai Chi. It’s an ancient Chinese martial art – it’s sometimes called “meditation in motion”. It’s a series of different postures that gently flow into each other in slow movements. One of the big benefits to Tai Chi is that it can significantly enhance the activity of our immune system. And although it looks gentle, it can be a surprisingly good workout! Michael Mosley speaks to Dr. Parco Siu from the University of Hong Kong, who has been studying the health benefits of Tai Chi for over a decade. His research has revealed that Tai Chi can lead to faster brain benefits than other exercises. He also found that Tai Chi was as effective as conventional exercise like moderate-intensity aerobic exercise or muscle strengthening activities for reducing body weight and visceral fat!”
Acclaimed rock ‘n’ roll icon Lou Reed (Walk on the Wild Side, Perfect Day) was also a Tai Chi fanatic, practicing Chen style since the 1980s. Sadly, Lou passed away in 2013 from liver cancer, but his writings about Tai Chi, meditation and music are about to be published by HarperCollins. The Art of the Straight Line: My Tai Chi, is out on March 14 via HarperOne, and features a foreword from the late artist’s partner, Laurie Anderson.
If you’d like to get a flavour of Lou’s Tai Chi and his thoughts on Tai Chi then check out this short video called Lou Reed – The Voice and The Practice. It’s nice to see that he was into the martial side of Tai Chi as much as the performance side – there’s a nice clip of him pushing hands with his teacher Ren Guang Yi, for example. I quite like the “New York vibe” he brought to the practice.
ChatGPT is an artificial intelligence that can answer questions. Don’t worry – it will not be a threat to academics and journalists they say! I’m not so sure. See what you think… is there a future for even blogging now?
Me: Can you write me a 500 word blog post about using Tai Chi to get better mental health?
ChatGPT: Sure, here is a 500-word blog post about using tai chi to improve mental health:
Tai chi is a traditional Chinese martial art that involves a series of slow, graceful movements and deep breathing. It is often described as a “moving meditation,” as it can help to cultivate a sense of calm and clarity in the mind. In recent years, tai chi has gained recognition for its potential to improve mental health and well-being.
One of the key benefits of tai chi for mental health is its ability to reduce stress and anxiety. The slow, flowing movements and mindful breathing of tai chi can help to regulate the body’s stress response and promote relaxation. Research has shown that tai chi can significantly reduce stress and anxiety levels in people with anxiety disorders, as well as in healthy individuals experiencing stress.
Tai chi may also have a positive effect on mood and emotional well-being. The meditative nature of the practice can help to promote feelings of calm and contentment, and may have antidepressant effects. Some research has also suggested that tai chi may have a positive impact on symptoms of depression and improve overall quality of life.
In addition to its stress-reducing and mood-boosting effects, tai chi may also have other benefits for mental health. For example, some research has indicated that tai chi may improve cognitive function and reduce the risk of cognitive decline in older adults. Tai chi may also have a positive impact on sleep, as it can help to regulate the body’s natural sleep-wake cycle and improve sleep quality.
Overall, the mental health benefits of tai chi are thought to be due to the combination of physical movement, deep breathing, and mindfulness that the practice involves. By helping to regulate the body’s stress response and promote relaxation, tai chi can create a sense of balance and well-being in the mind.
If you are interested in using tai chi to improve your mental health, it is a good idea to seek out a qualified instructor and start with beginner classes. Tai chi can be adapted for people of all fitness levels, and many instructors offer classes specifically tailored for people with stress, anxiety, or other mental health concerns. As with any physical activity, it is important to listen to your body and stop if you feel any discomfort or strain.
Incorporating tai chi into your weekly routine can be a simple and effective way to promote mental well-being and reduce stress. Give it a try and see how it can improve your mental health and overall sense of balance and well-being.
The Yang Family Secret Transmissions book contains a number of writings that are seen as additions to the main Tai Chi Classics documents.
Amongst the documents is “The Song of Pull down”. “Pull down” is the name of one of the ‘8 energies of Tai Chi’, there’s a song, meaning verse, for each of the energies in the book. Here’s the Pull Down song:
The Song of Pull-Down
How can we explain the energy of Pull-down? Like weighing something on a balance scale, We give free play to the opponent’s force whether great or small. After weighing it we know its lightness or heaviness . Turning on only four ounces, We can weigh a thousand pounds . If we ask what is the principle behind this, We discover it is the function of the lever.
The verse is not talking about something mystical, it’s quite clearly talking about the principle of leverage. A lot of Tai Chi people don’t like the idea that ‘Pull down’ might be about something as mundane as leverage, which is found in all other martial arts. Well, tough! The verse is clearly talking about leverage.
You’ll see the reference to four ounces moving a thousand pounds in this verse. This also appears in the ‘Treatise of Tai Chi Chuan’, one of the main Tai Chi classics, where it says:
“From the sentence “A force of four ounces deflects a thousand pounds” we know that the technique is not accomplished with strength. “
Treatise of Tai Chi Chuan
Leverage, of course, is different to pure strength. As Archimedes said about leverage:
“Give me a place to stand on, and I will move the earth.” (quoted by Pappus of Alexandria in Synagoge, Book VIII, c. AD 340)
By using leverage you can significantly increase the amount of power you can generate. The martial arts that will teach you the most about leverage are all grappling arts – Shuai Jiao, Judo, BJJ, etc..
For an example of leverage in marital arts – look how much pressure is required to break the elbow at the end position of an armbar in BJJ – you could say that it’s about….. 4 oz.
When looking for the energy of Pull Down in the Tai Chi form you find it all over the place. A classic posture its used in is the Raise hands/ Play Guitar type of movements. Here you hold the wrist and elbow of the attacker, and apply pressure to hyperextend the arm. Again, this is another example of leverage.
Raise Hands, Yang Cheng-Fu
My Tai Chi teacher tends to call the energy “shock” rather than “Pull down”, but its application is the same. It’s a short sharp jolt to the system that usually has the effect of getting you up on your toes, or moving forward or backwards whether you want to or not. And the only way to do that to somebody, without being significantly stronger than them, is through the use of leverage.
Look out for the movement in the video where he pulls the attacker’s arm down to uproot him and says “this is shock” (around the 1 minute mark).
Now, all these different applications of ‘pull down’ or ‘shock’ energy looked very different to each other, however, they’re all applications of the same principle – leverage. The technique can look very different, but the principle (or as Led Zeppelin would say, the song) remains the same.
The Tai Chi Notebook 