No really, what is Taijiquan, exactly?
Just what is Taijiquan? This might seem like a somewhat peculiar question: it’s a Chinese Internal Style Martial Art, isn’t it? The simple answer to that is yes, but that doesn’t fundamentally answer the question, which when asked here, means: “What is the basic nature of Taijiquan that makes it a distinct entity, different from other martial arts, even other internal styles?”
The answer to that is fairly simple, as it turns out (in this author’s opinion, anyway): Taijiquan is a Chinese, internal style martial art distinguished from all other martial arts by 1) a distinct movement imaginary, 2) a guiding philosophy that eschews domination of the other, and 3) the use of a core set of neurobiological “tricks” that render opponents ineffective and easy to redirect, strike, or otherwise be shown the unintended consequences of their violent urges.
What is a Movement Imaginary?
This was a favorite term of Sifu Iden’s. It means, very simply, the range of movements a person can conceive of performing, that they have the ability to intuitively understand, and some hope of duplicating (with effort). One of the things that makes Taiji (even the solo forms) very difficult for many people is that it makes use of a very distinctive and difficult to replicate set of body mechanics. Movements are driven from the floor via opening and closing of the hips and subtle rotations of the pelvis, the entire body is coordinated as a singular unit, the relationships between the spine, head, and pelvis have very particular significance, and weight is distributed in a ways that are not familiar to most people from their daily lives.
If you have ever watched a group of Taiji students completely and utterly fail to duplicate a movement they are being carefully walked through, and not even realize they are failing, then you have seen the limitations imposed by one’s preexisting movement imaginary in action. Fortunately this is overcome-able through time, repeated exposure, and careful practice. It’s part of why partner work and Push Hands with more skilled practitioners can be essential in helping people learn the solo form, as these provide opportunities to feel, rather than attempt to understand by watching, how these movements are performed.
A Daoist Guiding Philosophy
I have written about this elsewhere a bit, but my reading of the Taiji classics strongly supports a Daoist philosophy of non-domination and following the intentions of others in the performance of Taiji as a martial art. Fundamentally, this means not engaging with others from a mindset of domination and control, as these things are antithetical to the Way. This does not mean you cannot influence the course of events, of course. Simply, that to do so you must act in a way that does not carry the desire to “win”, and with no attachment to the outcomes of your own actions. Experience suggests that is possible to throw punches or launch other attacks of your own with such a mindset, but it is very difficult. Taiji is much easier (though still incredibly difficult) to use as a defensive art, and is often understood that way.
Engaging in Neurobiological Trickery
Probably the most unusual thing about Taijiquan is that it requires you to combine the two attributes above with a handful of neurobiological ’tricks’ that take advantage of human evolutionary history and our nature as intensely social animals.
The first of these (which may eventually get written about at great length) is “not lighting up”. This is the practical application of the Daoist philosophy mentioned above, taken to a high level: no matter the circumstances and how my opponent acts, I do not engage in a typical emotional response. I do not respond to aggression with aggression, or with fear, or submission, but with something akin to disinterest, as if it were of no consequence. Humans are apes, and apes have very predictable (basically hardwired) Monkey Dances we do in response to the issuance of challenges and threats. Failing to follow the script and react as you’re “supposed to” can generate a lot of confusion in an opponent, and cause them to fail to commit to their actions in useful ways. Very skilled opponents are less impacted by this, because they are more concerned with the practicalities of the moment than engaging in emotional primate domination games.
Following “not lighting up” as a response, we have to join our opponent’s actions, in order to help them see the error of their ways. To do this requires being carefully aligned with their intentions, which requires a peculiar degree of being aware of their actions without being invested in what they are doing: again, we are not lighting up. By being open, receptive, and grounded in the moment (plus a very large amount of practice) we can softly and seamlessly join an opponent’s motion in a way that feels preemptive and somewhat spooky to them; part of this is again about violation of expectations.
The important bit of neurobiological trickery here is that the brain does not simply send out little motor programs to the muscles to perform. Instead, it makes a model of what it expects to happen, and then double checks to see if it has happened or not, in order to be able to model future actions. This is how you learn to walk, and this is why picking up a “full” mug of coffee that turns out to be mostly empty results in coffee on the ceiling. If we join with our opponent’s action, and then alter the course and shape of that action, this causes their brain’s model and perceived outcome to differ in a way that can be disorienting and can create an opportunity for action on our part. If you have ever done applications or Push Hands with someone who is very skilled at this, you will often simply find yourself suddenly facing the wrong direction, or with your arm not at all where you intended it to be, and only a vague sense of how you got in that position. This can be quite useful, particularly for creating openings that allow us to control the opponent’s center of gravity and take their balance.
We take the opponents balance because one of Taiji’s most powerful bits of trickery is in evoking the righting reflex. Most animals have a powerful and nearly instantaneous response to an unexpected loss of balance and/or falling: the righting reflex. This is perhaps most famous in cats, but it is also present and extremely potent in humans. Falling over for a tall, bipedal animal with a big ol’ noggin full of delicate brainmeat is serious business. Nearly everyone has had the experience of losing their balance and their body reacting instantly and with astonishing accuracy and speed to grab a nearby railing or other object perceived as stable. This happens well below the level of consciousness and totally hijacks any and all other motor programs that you might be trying to run at the time, along with pretty much all of your sensory input. With a lot of effort and practice, I have arrived at the point of being able to remember the blank spot in my experience caused by having my righting reflex triggered (a regular occurrence when training with Bob).
The purpose of joining with the opponent’s action is not to help them perform it, it’s to undermine that action by subtly altering it in ways that capture their center of gravity and then send it moving ever-so-slightly towards the ground. This subtle loss of balance will trigger the righting reflex and everything that person is doing will suddenly screech to a halt as they attempt to regain their balance. While this is happening, they are extremely vulnerable and can very easily be made to move (fall down/away) in a dramatic fashion, or they can be struck with very high effectiveness.
An important note here is that this experience, if not artificially extended into a silly moment of keeping them off balance, will not rise to the level of conscious experience for most people. Instead, they will have a transient and easily forgotten split second of disorientation as their planned movement goes somehow very wrong… and then you have done something to them that is strangely effective (push, punch, throw, whatever).
These neuro/sociobiological tricks are extremely potent, and good fighters generally learn to make use of some of them to greater or less extent through sheer necessity (this is especially true of not lighting up), but they are an integral part of what Taijiquan is as a martial art. They are at the heart of what makes Taijiquan feel like magic when well performed, and what make it so direly difficult to learn. This is especially true because these skills are generally couched in traditional teaching methods that rely heavily on metaphor or that suffer from needing to already have the skill to understand the words. I cannot recall the number of times I have gone, “Oh yes, of course, how could I have not understood!” when coming back to some traditional aphorism of Taiji after my practical skills have deepened. In truth, I did not understand because I literally could not understand, due to what was being described being entirely outside of my conscious experience. Once I had experienced these things myself and begun to consciously reproduce them as a physical thing, the words became self evident. On a certain level, this is probably what is understood to be the “secret transmission” of the art from master to student.
One of the goals of Laughing Ox has been to find ways to teach these skills that define Taijiquan more directly… which first required working out what was actually happening when we were doing Taiji. Collectively, between myself and Bob, it only took about fifty or sixty years of practice and study. May it take you much less time and patience.