Crane and Willow Taiji Club

01/15/2018

"Put the weight on the hollow of the foot to allow for the opening of the acupuncture point called "bubbling spring". If the weight is on this point, the force will be too much and the ch'i will get stuck. Concentrating on this point (the hollow of the foot) opens up the "bubbling spring". When you stand correctly and relaxed, the "bubbling spring" will open up and the ch'i from the root will rise up to the legs. The sensation is like that of a bubbling spring." - Professor Cheng Man Ching from Bataan Faigao's class notes
http://www.rockymountaintaichi.com/36-bubbling-spring

10/17/2017

translation of the Taijiquan Classics. Tao Ping Siang translated the Taijiquan Classics into English for his Western students. Chang San Feng's Treatise...

05/09/2016

LEARNING DOESN’T HAPPEN UNTIL YOU CAN USE IT FOR YOURSELF

You can do everything your teacher tells you to do. But until you try it for yourself, perhaps needing years of discussion, practice, questioning, and correction, that learning isn’t yours.

You can see that in Taijiquan. You can see it in any academic subject. It’s certainly true in art: the teacher shows you how to use the brush, palette, and paint—and then you still have to face that blank canvas, not just once, but many times.

Someday, perhaps decades later, you’ll teach the same knowledge to another. You’ll wait for them to try it, patiently hoping that they discover the same advantages that you did. The spark is passed, you see a blaze begin, and eventually you see how brilliant your student is. You don’t even care that your student’s light outshines yours: you’re too busy dancing around that bonfire.

Later, you’ll reflect: you didn’t lose anything in order to give something to your student. You still have what your teacher gave you. And you smile, knowing how your teacher, you, and your student are now linked in one bright Tao of light.

04/18/2016

Often called the ’13 Techniques’ or the ’13 Postures’ this list can really confuse Tai Chi practitioners and therefore they often get sidelined or bypassed, but when understood, they lie at the hea…

03/30/2016

THE TURNING THAT TAOISTS FEEL

Can you feel the earth turning right now? Maybe not, but it’s constant. The only way you can know immediately is by the sun, moon, and changing seasons.

The same is true of our lives. Daily events affect us, but they are really the outcome of vast and invisible turnings. The secret of being a Taoist is to work both with the tangible and the much larger intangible root.

The proper attitude is to fend off the negative and to embrace the positive. Simultaneously, we remain aware of the invisible turnings, and do the same on that level too: we fend off the negatives that are coming and take advantage of the positives.

From now on, look for the gifts offered to you each day. If you collect them, build them up, and use them for benefit, then you will indeed have fortune. Quite honestly, good luck happens to everyone on a daily basis, except that we don’t always recognize it or we cancel it out with our own blunders and weaknesses. If you can remain vigilant and grateful—and avoid undermining yourself—then you will quickly have a better life.

Taoists are quiet so that they get out of their own way.

Can you feel the turning?

[Shi Tao (1642–1707). Huangshan (c. 1670), detail. Don’t miss the hermit hiking up the trail, about a third of the way from the bottom and a third of the way from the right.]

03/30/2016

If you're anything like me you probably like a bit of science to back up the ancient wisdom of the yogis…. Join us for a journey through the ethers!

03/29/2016

LAKE AND MOUNTAIN

The final yin-yang pair taken from the “I Ching” (drawn from Fu Xi’s Early Heaven Eight Trigrams or Bagua) is Lake and Mountain. The classical definition says that Lake is Joy and Mountain is Stillness. But whatever does that mean, and how do we understand that on a cosmological and yin yang basis?

If you look at Heaven and Earth, Water and Fire, and Wind and Thunder as a story, Lake and Mountain are the culminations of those processes. Heaven and Earth form the cosmological setting. Water and Fire are the two fundamental forces that animate that setting. Wind and Thunder are speed, intensity, and duration. Finally, Lake and Mountain form two kinds of outcomes. They are the consolidation of all that has gone before.

Lake is pooling. Heaven gives us rainwater, which falls on earth during thunderstorms and runs down the slopes to form lakes. Mountain is solidifying. Heaven’s winds and rains carve some mountains, while thunderous explosions of fire from the earth heap up others. These two forms of consolidation have contrasting characters. Lake levels out; it is flowing, conforms to its shores, and is open to heaven. Mountain rises up; it is solid, distinct, a proud and sometimes even jagged contrast to heaven.

These two images also give us two kinds of social interaction. Just as marketplaces are set up on lakeshores, migrating birds fill wetlands, and animals bathe and drink from the waters, Lake represents exchange. That is why it is equated with Joy. Just as officials are remote from the public, meditators climb mountains to sit in solitude, and defenders set their fortresses on cliffs, Mountain represents withdrawal and motionlessness. That is why it is called Stillness.

The Way of Change is ever to study natural principles and to ask how we can emulate them and take advantage of them. Yin and Yang can be rather abstract to conceive. By seeing how yin and yang take the forms of Heaven, Earth, Water, Fire, Wind, Thunder, Lake, and Mountain, we can learn the secrets of this world.

03/20/2016

SPRING EQUINOX (Chun Fen)

After this moment of equal day and night, the trend will tip in favor of longer days, bringing blossoming and summer’s bounty of vegetables and fruit.

Balance is desirable, but change is constant. For today, the scale will swing in a favorable direction. That’s cause for joy, and an opportunity to work with momentum favoring us.

We must look at balance as more than a teeter-totter. Imagine a circle, the two equinoxes appearing on opposite ends of a line bisecting a circle, and the solstices on an axis 90° to that line. If you can understand that kind of equilibrium, it makes the concept of momentum far more dynamic. If you want to understand where you are on a circle, use a cross to analyze the entire cycle. Understanding a wheel means you know the spokes and the hub, even as you look from the circumference.

Knowing the difference makes all the difference.
Turn with the wheel for easier labor.
Turn the wheel yourself when you have the power.

02/22/2016

- 太極法說 EXPLAINING TAIJI PRINCIPLES 楊班侯 attributed to Yang Banhou [circa 1875] [translation by Paul Brennan, Sep, 2013] - [On the front cover, there are two titles for the manuscript and five person...

02/16/2016

The ten thousand things rely on yin and embrace yang,
and through the blending of qi, they achieve harmony.

HOW OLD IS THE IDEA OF YIN AND YANG?

The history of yin and yang goes quite far back. The terms appear in the “Classic of Poetry” ("Shijing;" 11th–7th centuries BCE). Ode 250 praises Duke Liu:

He determined the points of the heavens by means of the shadows,
Ascending the ridges, he surveyed yin and yang.

Yin and yang are also mentioned in the “Daodejing” (c. 6th c. BCE), Chapter 42:

Tao generates one,
one generates two,
two generates three,
three generates the ten thousand things.
The ten thousand things rely on yin and embrace yang,
and through the blending of qi, the achieve harmony.

Yin and yang are rarely 50/50. If they do pass into that balance, it’s always ephemeral and shifting. Seeing which side is predominant can be one way of understanding the ascendancy of one force or the other. It also allows us to predict where events will go, because of the idea that forces that reach their extreme will inevitably change to their opposites.

Why am I pointing out the ancient origins of this idea? I remember seeing a yin yang symbol for sale in a gumball machine. People could be forgiven for thinking this some fad idea. But the idea is ancient, and has been tested and elaborated for millennia. Generations have lived and died while using this wisdom. Make it yours too.

01/28/2016

Julia Parker, John Schnack Emil Owen Joe Tai Chi Neville A. Jones II Reggie Kincer

In our Tai Chi training we are often told to be mindful. So what is mindfulness, and why is it important to our practice of Tai Chi Chuan...

01/28/2016

Internal strength training