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Body Coordination
A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.
It's commonly said that a goal of martial arts training is to overcome instinctive "flight or fight" reactions replacing them over time with a wide range of constructive responses.
What distinguishes martial arts like Taijiquan, Xingyiquan and Baguazhang is their emphasis on the "internal." This is not just a figurative distinction. Before one retrains one's reactions, Taijiquan basics first address the very nuts, bolts and pulleys of the human machine. Individual joints need to be loosened, individual ligaments need to be stretched, and individual muscles need to be relaxed.
At the start of Taijiquan training, we seek to accomplish two goals, -
- to transform our bodies into fine-tuned mechanisms, capable of a wide range of flexing and twining skills
- to develop a high degree of coordination between the individual parts of the body and the movement of the whole
Each Part of Your Body
Must Coordinate itself
like the Gears of a Machine
Thus we embark on our training, focusing on the relationship between the individual parts of our bodies to each other as we move, seeking to embody and maintain an optimum state of structural alignment while exhibiting fine-tuned coordination in movement - and allowing for the efficient transmission of energy through the body.
Only when the whole body has been thoroughly retrained and moves with complete coordination that we can consider the body "qi-unified" or "in sync" Some might think this requirement is theoretical. We believe that this is the way of proper training.
When practicing your forms and drills, do not get overwhelmed by the sheer number of details addressed in class. Instead select some aspect of training, for example, coordinating the movement of the shoulders with the movement of the hips - or maintaining the correct distribution of weight, and focus on that aspect of your movement or posture throughout your form. Do this several times, training that part of the body, or perfecting that specific movement. Let the results of your forced practice sink in then move on. Begin working another part of the body or train another aspect of your movement.
Practice, indeed, makes perfect. However without developing one's intention (yi) by consciously focusing one's attention on the most minute aspects of one's alignment-in-movement, much of one's effort will have been expended in vain - regardless of the amount of time one invests in the repetitive practice of a few qigong postures and the forms.
- Qichen Guo
- Chief Instructor
- Los Angeles Chen Tai Chi Center
- qichen@chen-taiji-la.com
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