Tai Chi Chuan - Wet But Not So Wild

Tai Chi Chuan – Wet But Not So Wild

It intrigues me to hear how often water is used as a metaphor in tai chi. Of course, we are mostly made up of water so I guess there is sense in its use in a martial art.

Professor Cheng Man-ch’ing has said that tai chi is like swimming on land. The image here is to feel the air as if you are doing tai chi in water, that air has the mass and feel of water, that you are interacting with air as if it has more solidity. This will make the solidity of your body less solid and more like water itself. You will use less effort if you float yourself in water. I have a friend who practices in water to feel this literally.

Someone just told me that when you pushed with Professor, it was like trying to press a ping pong ball into water with a finger. He’d bob right back up in another place.

Another reminisced that when Professor pushed you, it was as if the wall of a wave was coming at you. You could poke your hands into the wall of water, it was soft, but it was useless to avoid the force of the wave. The wave simply picked you up and sent you flying.

My teacher often uses the phrase of letting yourself "melt into the ground" as a way to encourage us to relax and soften.

The tai chi classics refer to water in the following statement: “Tai Chi Chuan is like a great river rolling on unceasingly”.

My point this round is simple. Keep yourself fluid and easy, like water. Find ways to emulate it in your form and push-hands practice.