Musings on the distribution of weight and force in Tai Chi

In most  systems of Tai chi it appears that releasing into each posture arises either as a back leg release or coming from the back leg and by sinking through the front leg.

Some systems appear to end up at roughy 70% in the front leg, which suggests they have have effected a back leg release. If, however, they travel 100% into the front leg they will have likely added a back leg and front leg release together, thereby increasing power of the release. Since the power is significant it might follow that a substantial level of training would be required to deal with the oncoming force which may not be particularly well hidden and indeed may not need be until we are able to deal with those forces.

In the Huang system we move forward by sinking into a 55:45 position and release from that weight distribution without and further change in the weight distribution, since to do so would referred to as “Chasing the arrow”.

Of course there’s a misconception by some that being in a 55:45 would be considered to be “double weighting”, however from our perspective this is a mistranslation of the term which should read “Double Heaviness”, which refers to force distribution rather than weight distribution.

The reason why a 55.45 weight distribution works in the Huang system is due to “Cross Alignment Theory”.

In the Huang system we release from the back, front or in 55:45 weight distribution, which presents us further options than other systems.

My teacher Wee Kee Jin demonstrating moving forward in a bow stance from Roll Back to Press; from 90% back into 55% in the back leg.