Root + Suppleness = Agility
Posted by Cat on May 19th 2020
The next of the Ten Essentials I’m going to look at is “Separate Empty and Full”, or “Distinguish Empty and Full”.
I talked a little bit about this in Which Taiji?. Empty and Full are Yin and Yang. Yin and Yang are not static states, they are relative to each other, and always changing.
It’s that change that’s the core take away of this principle: Agility.
When we clearly understand the yin and yang in our form, we are able to change and adapt to pressure. We can move freely and still remain comfortable and relaxed.
When yin and yang are muddled together, we become what is sometimes called “double weighted” or “double heavy” - a state in which there is no distinction between yin and yang. If you have trouble breathing freely, shifting weight, or in extreme cases, feel like any move you make will further unbalance you… that’s double weighted.
We want to be heavy on the bottom and light on top. I like to think of this as a taiji pair of: root and suppleness.
You need both of these to remain agile. If you lose your suppleness and become rigid… you’re easily knocked out of your root. If you’re unbalanced and become heavy on top, you also become rigid as you attempt to regain your balance.
By being flexible, we become immovable. By being immovable, we become flexible.