Tai Chi Chuan - Getting to the Root

Tai Chi Chuan – Getting to the Root

I have asked my classmate Denise to join me in a point-counterpoint discussion of “root.” I asked Denise to do this for two reasons. One, I know she really looks closely at tai chi issues and principles and strives to learn more. Two, we don’t think the same way, so we may not agree!

We’ve agreed that I will start this and she will finish it.

Here goes:

Tom: We are developing root from the start but to really understand it is a later stage of practice. Root is clearly about your connection to the ground and in a way what is underneath the ground. The less of you, the more of it. One can feel it in others. As you become more empty (of tension), the ground becomes more solid. Root comes indirectly from a few basic sources. Relaxation and alignment are crucial so that your weight seamlessly drops through the body into the ground. I think it helps to have a mental sense of extending into the ground.

Some use root to stop an opponent from pushing them, and while I think this is a good test of root – you see it in the videos with Prof. Cheng – I believe root should not be used to block anyone. Like a bamboo reed, it lets you bend with the wind, but remain solidly connected to the ground.

Ben Lo creates root by pushing students lower and longer in their stances. I fondly recall my form post Ben Lo camp. Clearly a greater sense of stability had been created as if by magic (and a week of utter leg pain.) Maggie takes a longer time with root, focusing on the whole body connected to the ground and using the ground to move the body. It tip toes in through the back door.

As you progress in tai chi, the body takes up less and less attention. The mind can focus on other areas. Does root require attention? Or does it just develop naturally? Many students have a moment when they feel that they have found their root. Suddenly it has appeared more concretely in their body/minds. Why or how this happens I’m not entirely sure.

Denise: Normally one would start a discussion about Root with a definition, but since it is an enigmatic fundamental principal of tai chi Tom has requested that we skip to observables. Seeing it in others is visually difficult as it takes experience to tell the difference between a nice Qi flow and a grounded or rooted Qi flow. In push hands, however, the difference is apparent after about five seconds.

A player with root has a hidden strength that comes not from muscle. A big strong man seems herculean. A smaller man or woman with strong root suddenly upends presumptions you have made about them based on their body type or sex. They feel solid, but you can’t find their center to push on. They may neutralize by absorbing Qi and then turning it around and giving it back to you, as if you had pushed yourself. They can patiently wait for you to make a mistake, staying in their center and tapping into something extra. On occasions when I’ve connected with that root, I have felt sensations such as a magnetic currents and complete dissolution of boundaries between my partner and me.

What we are connecting to is what Tom terms, ground. Relaxation and alignment facilitate that connection and have what I think is a symbiotic relationship with it. In connecting to the ground, we surrender to the force of gravity and so learn to trust it. With that trust we can feel safe in letting go of stiff muscles that are holding us up. With a little more relaxation, comes a little more root, and so on.

My observation is that players who have really strong root, have generally done a fair amount of standing practice or other forms of meditation. The physical discipline builds the legs so they know where the body is in alignment and can keep the skeleton in alignment even when engaged in push hands.

Tom: I like that Denise has emphasized the symbiotic relationship of relaxation and alignment.

What is trusting gravity? What is feeling safe in letting go of stiff muscles? Do we not feel safe in letting go of stiff muscles? I like the sense of these statements. Root is encouraged by metaphoric or psychological words which help in terms of thinking about it and deepening it. Root may have a mechanical aspect, but the mind aspect goes hand in hand. Both “safe” and “trust” are comfort words that help move us in the direction of greater relaxation and therefore root. One can relate to various entities in an emotional way. For example, “play” with the air, the ground and gravity as “your friends.” Trust them. Let them help you to feel safe. And so on. Yes, a bit “new agey,” but the mind is a powerful relationship builder and interpreter. We do what our mind suggests – let’s take advantage of making good ones.

Alignment is a crucial aspect because it creates a central column that allows the relaxation to be central to the body. Alignment is required when Denise talks about when someone feels as “if you had pushed yourself.” That is, you bounce yourself off of their ground. This is why the upright body in the full part of the posture is emphasized in the form.

It seems to me that when you get pushed by someone with a deep root, it feels like MORE of them have pushed you than their actual size suggests. ALL of them – every cell – have helped in the push. It is hard to identify the arms as the “pushers”. If the alignment creates a good connection into the ground, there is a solid path for energy to transfer up and down the body.

Denise: To term words such as “safe” and “trust,” as a “new agey,” is a disservice. Their opposites, “dangerous,” and “afraid,” are primal motivators. While most of the time, I may not be in the kind of physical danger that requires mammalian survival instinct (except for that walk to the office past New Haven’s least gentile inhabitants that does sometimes raise the hair on the back of my neck) there are still stressors in my life that find a nice home in the muscles in my neck and shoulders. To release that is not easy. There have been times in class that my teacher has taken the weight of my arm, and still I could not let go of that tension.

While I absolutely agree that the mind is a powerful relationship builder and interpreter, I don’t use the words “safe” and “trust” as metaphors. In studying this martial art, we choose to embrace a system of combat. While nowadays, few of us have a mortal enemy lurking outside our temple, we nevertheless, do battle at the office, at home, and most difficultly, with ourselves. The modern study of tai chi is as much about facing our fear in the face of battle as ever. It is just that the battlefield is a lot harder to define.

Root, then, makes it easier to know ourselves and face fear. As it develops, we are more at ease in all situations – especially in the laboratory we call push hands. On the rare opportunity when I’ve felt the “perfect” rooted push, it has been as if a gentle breeze redirected either my opponent or me. Matter (my body) and force (making movement) dissolve along with any sense of self or doing. To be released from that, even momentarily is what keeps me at this practice.

Tom: I actually did not term the words “trust” or “safe” as “new agey” nor as metaphors. My statement is far more complex. We can quibble over word usage but my point is that the body takes on the messages we send it, real or perceived. How we think about our root can be helpful in deepening the experience. I would also suggest that the radical departure of tai chi is that it is less a system of combat, but more a system of peace interacting with a combatant.

But here is my main interest: deepening the root and using it to our best advantage. One mechanical way is to feel the tailbone drop straight and hang. Add to this the image of the central core sinking into the ground below, and the feeling that follows. Root of course congers up the image of the root of a tree, adding support or nutritional advantage to the tree. Metaphor? Real? Perceived? All that matters to me is if this helps. If not, disregard! We all have different relationships to words.

My second interest is in what is gained – functionally how do we use it? Those that have great root and great pushes – at least in my experience – never block me. Instead, they are never there, never in reach, never in my way. They disappear. The root functions as the pathway that the body can use in order to NOT let pressure build up. This is more than relaxation – it is the ability to read an intention and utilize the root to direct a partner’s intention into a neutral space. We neutralize force, not block or “absorb” it. You can only be neutral if your body is relaxed and has a base it can rely on. That base is the root in the ground.

Denise: Another way of experiencing root is when you can move past directing a partner’s intention into a neutral space and dissolve any difference between individuals. By entering a deeper state of consciousness, wuwei, you enter being the same space with your partner and as one you change directions. It is not until you disassociate, or disconnect, that you feel that you have neutralized an incoming force.

While these are difficult skills to develop in push hands, there are any number of exercises that two people can do to experience the sensation of becoming one and then disconnecting, even as beginners. But to develop one’s own reliable connection to ground, standing meditation is a key practice. Then one can learn to stay rooted despite being in movement through form practice and then again with the challenge of another person in push hands.

It is in form practice that I find metaphor particularly useful. Whether I’ve chosen to think about my legs serving like tree roots connecting the matter of my body to the energy of the earth, or envisioned my legs drilling to the center of the earth I can deepen the feeling of gravity that pulses through my body. At a certain point though intention to root can be undermined. One explanation is that root is an insubstantial entity that through concentration turns substantial and in that transformation, disappears. As odd as that sounds, I’ve felt this in a demonstration. This is where that symbiotic relationship between root and alignment and relaxation are particularly valuable. You can refocus your attention on those mechanics and reestablish your connection.

Functionally, I believe root simply becomes a part of you – part of your personal packaging. You can’t use it, per se, but is part of the fabric of your movement and existence in space.