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TAIJI LESSONS

When we say Taiji lessons, we think of someone going to a school and training with a master.

But there’s another aspect of Taiji lessons: the one that comes when you practice the set.

Taiji consists of a series of postures. You’re supposed to take those postures perfectly, but only for a moment, because your body remains in constant motion. How do you move and yet take definite postures?

When you take a Taiji posture, you move up to the very fullness of the form. At the same time, your breath culminates in an inhalation or exhalation. Imagine the hand of a clock as it reaches twelve. The moment that it is on twelve lasts no longer than any other moment.

This process of coming to culmination and then changing to something else reflects the philosophy of the “Yijing”: when an event reaches its greatest extreme, it changes into its opposite.

Taiji means the supreme ultimate, the greatest limit. Usually, masters explain that means the art itself is the utmost martial style. But it also applies to every movement. We have to reach the maximum of each posture—its Taiji—in order to move to the next one.

We must reach the fullness of every cycle embedded in the set in order to realize the fullness—again, the “Taiji”—of the practice. If we exercise Taiji on a minute, personal, and bodily level many times during our set, then we can reach our own supreme ultimate.

Every time you practice, the masters whisper to you. If you don’t practice, you won’t hear anything. Practice, and the lessons will come.

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Photo: Nazareno Russo, Sicily