Slovníček pojmů 9: základní a pokročilé dovednosti

Before taijiquan students start to fight, they should practise basic and advanced skills, forms in routines or the ability to „listen and react to the incoming force of their opponent“ in tuishou.

Basic skills

Basic skills include the ability to stand still in wuji (but in particular in basic taiji stances), to perform continuous, spiralling patterns (so called silk reeling), the ability to be rooted and push against the ground, as well as arms and legs techniques.

wuji kung

wuji static posture training

chan si gong

silk reeling (continuous, spiralling movements)

xia ban gong

lower body art

This includes leg and footwork, i.e the training of stances and step training. These techniques strenghten the lower body, improve leg coordination and train the very notion of balance and your own body centre.

bufa

foot and leg techniques (steps)

5 foot and leg techniques are associated with 5 elements:

• jin – advancing steps (fire)
• tui – retreating steps (water)
• gu – stepping to the left side (wood)
• pan – stepping to the right side (metal)
• ding – resting in the centre (earth)

shoufa

hand techniques

8 hand techniques are associated with 8 trigrams. They include 4 direct / soft techniques:

• an – push
• lu – roll back
• ji – press
• peng – ward off

a 4 corner (diagonal) / hard techniques:

• cai – pull down
• lie – split
• zhou – elbow strike
• kao – shoulder strike

qinna

joint lock techniques

Other skills

And what else do we need to practise? It is a good idea to stretch and loosen up. When exercising, concentrate on proper breathing, loosing up (relaxing your body), focusing your mind, first leading, and later releasing the energy (in fajins).

yatui

a set of stretching and loosening exercises to develop full-body mobility

peng jing

ward off energy

fang song

relax/ loosen up

fajin(g)

sudden strike, explosive power, short and concentrated release of energy

tuna

deep abdominal breathing exercises

jingshen

mental concentration / focusing the mind

daoyin

the taoist method of leading qi; channelling and leading internal energy (activating body and limbs through internal energy navigated by the mind)

Sources:
Vít Vojta – Umění tchaj-ťi čchűan
Bob Bacher – Bacher Taiji
Wikipedia
www.cinsky.cz