Years ago, a T’ai Chi student who had come from New York and was studying with the Chows told me that he had heard that there was a teacher in Miami who could make the circle into a square. He was referring to Mr. Chow.
My understanding of this concept has come full circle, as it were, and I now find it useful and perhaps productive to look at this intersection more closely. The relationship between rotation, exemplified by the turning of the hips, and the reciprocal forward and backward movements manifested by the extremities, the arms and legs, hands and feet, may be viewed as the heart of this process.
These movement patterns may be likened to the transformation and transference of power which takes place, in both a steam engine, and in an internal combustion engine. In both cases, the reciprocal movement of a piston is first translated into the rotation of a wheel, and is then often transferred again into the forward or reverse movement of a vehicle.
As the hip is rotated, and one side of the hip is moved forward or back, the arm/leg is propelled either forward or back. This movement is, in the form, combined with a concept which has been described as stillness in motion.
Stillness in Motion
As the hip rotation propels the hand or foot forward, (I will use the hand here to simplify this description. It may also be applied to the foot and ankle), there is an opposite and equal rotation of the wrist, synchronized with the hip rotation, which serves to maintain the hand (fist)’s alignment with the surroundings. This may be seen in the elegant simplicity of movement that often characterizes good T’ai Chi. This is similar to the movement of a carpenter’s wrist as he/she saws a cut in a piece of wood without binding the saw blade in the slot cut by the blade.
In the form, where movement is originated from the center, as the hip turns and propels the shoulder forward, the hip rotates inward toward the center of the body, the shoulder rotates out in a complementary movement, and the wrist straightens in another complementary rotation. When the hip rotates outward and brings the arm back, the shoulder rotates inward and the wrist bends as the fist approaches the dan’tien (The body center, just below the belly button).
These complementary synchronous movements may also be seen just after the first cloud hands, when the outward hip rotation is balanced by an inward rotation of the ankle, as the foot is retreated in a straight line, also manifesting the appearance of stillness in motion.
This juxtaposition of rotation and linear movement, executed in perfect harmony, allows movement from the center to be translated into movement of the body, or of the body parts, through space. It is good T’ai Chi, because the whole body is involved in relaxed, balanced movement originating from the center.
