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Feeling – That Stuff That Makes Taijiquan Internal

As promised, the link to Standing Meditation Lessons

The main thing that makes Taijiquan an “internal” (as opposed to external) pursuit is feeling.  As you practise, the feelings that you get within your body tell you whether you are doing it right, and more importantly, tell you if there is something within your body that needs to be healed (such as an injured back or dodgy knee).  This internal awareness isn’t just limited to the physical, it can also be emotional or mental (You’ll know what we mean if you’ve read the post about the infinite onion) and allowing yourself to feel these things being there is key to Taijiquan skill, healing and all those goodies we know and love.

If you’re at a bit of a loss as to how to go about starting to feel what’s going on inside your body, you can do standing meditation, or as another exercise, just take a look at your breath.  What does your breath feel like?  Is it tense, is it too fast, too slow, uncomfortable, does it feel restricted, is it even comfortable when you breathe?  It’s a great place to start,and once you get the idea of how to feel inside your body, you can start to develop it to feel what goes on when you’re practising Taiji, or when you’re just hanging out at home.

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This entry was posted on Monday, June 8th, 2009 at 1:21 pm and is filed under Tai Chi Online Training Tips, This Week's Big Idea (TWBI). You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

One Response to “Feeling – That Stuff That Makes Taijiquan Internal”

  1. Mr Stevenson Says:
    July 24th, 2009 at 4:21 pm

    Fantastic! Had me in fits of giggles, 2.38 ‘Become your own master!’

    Funny but so true! So many people in the martial arts seek to have a master who can tell them what to do (physically, emotioanlly, metaphysically etc etc etc), and hence do not develop internal feeling on any such levels…

    Reminds me of the story of old man who could turn stones into gold. Many people would go and see him and ask for gold. One day a small boy wandered along.

    ‘Hey are you that man that can trun rocks into gold?’ The lad asks

    ‘Why yes, I have some here, take it and be on your way boy.’ Says the grumpy old master (having had a hard day of transmuting).

    ‘Oh I dont want that!’ Exclaimed the boy

    ‘Then why are you here?’ Baffled, for the first time having someone turning away free gold.

    ‘I want you to teach me how to do it, so that I understand the method and can experience it for myself.’

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