Tuesday Morning Training

Discussed three breaths before starting the tai chi practised as a means of connecting through the body, more to come on the origins of this.

Clarified how the standing exercise promotes and develops peng force in the body and intention in the mind. This peng force is then utilised through all postures and gives rise to different energetics, depending upon the posture.

The Peng force should be ever present within the body and results from sinking and releasing. We experience it whenever we sink and we use it to feel drawn into position in stepping always.

When we practice the open close movement we experience releasing while drawing down and sinking, and releasing while coming up as we sink.

It is the sinking process that creates a release, which we call the Peng  force, that allows the arms to move up into position or down into position; it follows the sinking and the releasing.

The open close exercise teaches us to swallow the energy of heaven, and to borrow the energy of the Earth. When we connect with a training partner, we should feel the peng force which can often be enough to disrupt or disconnect their root.

When we add extra sinking, that is extra swallowing the energy of heaven, and we add borrowing energy from the Earth, the release into the training partner stronger.

We went through a guided, sinking and releasing in a bow stance and discussed and demonstrated cross alignment theory and the ability to release while in one leg. We went through the fundamentals of how sticking arises and the mechanism, for which we apply “coming under and forward “as we move forward and backward in a bow stance.

We clarified and demonstrated how we often see and experience one arm, neutralising, and what that means as the other arm, issues or releases.

We discussed the notion of sinking down the front of the body and releasing up the back, which at some point likely becomes more or less the same thing and how the heels direct the issue of the relaxed force like a rudder on a ship.