The concept of YIN YANG does not only apply to activities and matters which we can observe physically, eg, floating up of the arms, moon and sun, or even winter (YIN) and summer (YANG), but it is also used to represent or even describe the relationship between two abstract phenomena. For example, YIN is used to represent the state of being calm, stationary or still and YANG the state of being active, or moving; YIN abstract, imaginary or virtual and YANG tangible, real, or solid. The skills that I describe in Chapter 16 are also based on the principle of YIN YANG. The body weight that you transfer to your feet and then the ground is YIN and the bouncing effect, ie, the pressure that your feel through your feet and legs from the ground is YANG. Without the body weight, you cannot generate the bouncing effect. That is, without YIN, you cannot develop YANG. When the bouncing effect reaches the highest level, you will feel that your upper body is light and also tends to float upwards. Therefore, when YANG (the bouncing effect) increases, your body weight (YIN) decreases. And when the bouncing effect is exhausted, you will feel that your body is heavy again, supporting the principle that when YANG disappears, YIN will start to grow and vice versa. Of course, YIN and YANG complement one another.
This leads me to introduce two terms in Chinese for which no exact English equivalent can be found but which are very important to taijiquan practitioners. These are ‘yi’ and ‘qi’.
I have not mentioned these two terms in previous chapters because I would like beginners to understand the basics of taijiquan first before they attempt skills of a higher level. It is important that people learning taijiquan should develop and cultivate their skills stage by stage just as children should not be taught how to use a calculator before they learn the times table.
Many people have translated ‘yi’ to mean ‘mind’ or ‘intention’. I believe that ‘yi’ is more than just mind or intention because the use of ‘yi’ to control the internal and external movements of the fingers, palms, arms, shoulders, body, legs, feet, and of course all the cells and joints inside the body, involves first of all your consciousness. After you realize and are conscious of the possibility of using ‘yi’ to achieve a certain movement, you should then have the desire to do that. Desire of course is not enough because you must have determination and then the will power to achieve the movement. And last and but not the least, you must have determination again. One of the key taijiquan principles is that when moving your body or your arms and hands, no muscular power may be used and this I have mentioned and indeed stressed many times in previous chapters. Instead, you should use ‘yi’ to control all the movements. The information that I have given in previous chapters is to make you aware of the possibility and indeed the beauty of moving the different parts of your body without using your muscular power. Now that you have trained yourself to so move your arms and body, you should now try to use the ‘yi’, that is, your intention or desire, your determination and will power to move your arms and body.
Why should you use ‘yi’ to move your arms and body? You should realize that many of the muscles inside your body are involuntary muscles; they do not move and cannot easily be moved by other voluntary muscles in your body. The most efficient and effective way is to use your ‘yi’ to move them. Furthermore, as the use of muscular power to move your arms and body would render the parts in question inflexible and impede the flow of the ‘qi’ (see following paragraphs) inside your body, you should therefore use ‘yi’ to move both your voluntary and involuntary muscles.
The term ‘yi’ has a further meaning. In the context of the phrase ‘yi shou dan tian’, (meaning that you maintain (shou) your ‘yi’ in your dan tian, ‘yi’ means ‘attention’. In other words, ‘yi shou dan tian’ really means that you pay attention to your dan tian and keep it full, round, hollow and relaxed.
‘Yi’ is always used together with ‘qi’. ‘Qi’ is such an abstract character in the Chinese language that you can easily find several interpretations of this term. Ordinarily, it means air. However, in the context of Chinese medicine and Chinese martial arts, it has nothing to do with air. Many people have used the term ‘internal energy’ to explain ‘qi’. I do not consider this to be wrong but from my knowledge and experience, I think ‘qi’ is the sensation you obtain after you have deployed ‘yi’. The best example is the feeling that you will get after you have used your ‘yi’ to sink your body weight to your feet; once the weight reaches your feet, the weight bounces upwards, giving you a sensation of upward pressure through your legs to your hip and then your spine. The feeling of the pressure is ‘qi’. Another example is to use your ‘yi’ to push or move the cells in your arms from your shoulders to your finger tips. Initially, you may not have much feeling but after you have practised this for some time, you will feel that something is flowing inside your arms in the direction of your ‘yi’. This feeling is ‘qi’. From ‘qi’ your will be able to develop your internal energy.
This is the reason why taijiquan practitioners always use the phrase ‘yi qi’ because we believe that ‘qi’ is mobilized by ‘yi’.
Now that you have an understanding of these two terms, you should start using ‘yi’ and ‘qi’, or indeed ‘yi qi’ to practise taijiquan. For example, when you try to float your arms upwards, you should have the ‘yi’ (knowledge) that your arms comprise three parts, the muscle above the bone, the bone itself, and then the muscle underneath the bone. On the one hand, the bone weighs heavily and is dragged down by the force of gravity. However, you should have the ‘yi’ that the muscle above it is light and flies or floats upwards whereas the muscle underneath the bone has the tendency to fill up the gap left behind by the floating up of the arms. You should use your ‘yi’ (desire, determination, will power and again determination) to control all such movements and refrain from using your muscles to move your arms. The ideas of letting all your cells swell, maintaining an air bubble in each of your joints, floating your head upwards, shifting the weight of the different parts of your arms and body are all accomplished by the use of ‘yi’.
The use of ‘yi’ to float your arms upwards or to transfer your body weight is to supplement your effort to shift the weight of your arms and body so that you will find it much easier to mobilize the weight of your arms and the different parts of your body. After prolonged practice, you will be able to use purely ‘yi’ to relax and to move your arms and body without thinking.
| < Prev | Next > |
|---|