‘Body Mechanics’ as Body ‘Language’

Tags

Body language, Body Mechanics, language, Shenfa

Learning and using taught body mechanics, is similar to using and expressing yourself verbally in another language. Yes, I mean that a specific type of body mechanics is a body language, a language as in speaking another language. And I don’t mean this as an analogy or in any symbolistic kind of manner. I won’t even address how you can use your body to express meaning or art.

No, I am not talking about body language as an artistic expression. Not at all. Here, at least, I will only talk about a similarity of learning and becoming comfortable with a new kind of way of using your body to express yourself, something meant in a most practical manner. Yes, it’s something highly practical you must do and something which demands you to do a physical change compared with what you are used to do.

It doesn’t really matter if you perform a dance, if you act on stage, if you do some kind of physical theatre as mime, or if you do your Tai Chi. They are all different “taught” expressions of body language and mechanics. There is a great similarity with using a new, taught, body language and using a foreign spoken language. Why? Okay, let me explain further what I mean.

Starting to speak a new language feels unnatural

Your common way of speaking and expressing yourself in your own language is the most natural thing you can do. You don’t need to “think” about how to pronounce the different sounds in your own language. They are just there, naturally. However this is not the case if you want to learn to speak in another language. To learn how to use a good pronunciation, something sounding authentic to that other language, takes a lot of practice.

However, some languages might be simple to learn, other harder. Yes, this is also true. So let’s say that we want to learn a much different and very difficult language. Now, to understand pronunciation and to be able to pronounce words and your sounds differently, or to even learn new sounds, you need to actually learn how to use your the muscles in your mouth differently compared to how you are used to speak.

You need to learn how to use the tongue, throat, lips, differently, in order to shape the sounds correctly. Vowels and consonants, they might all be shaped differently even if they sound similar. For some languages, you need to shift your “whole language” to another place in your mouth, deeper towards the throat or moving it forward to the front of your mouth. Some other languages use the whole mouth more “full”, or you might need to explicitly shift individual sounds to different places.

This is of course a very general description, but it might give you an idea of the way I am thinking about spoken languages and pronunciation. The trouble though, regardless of what language you are dealing with, is that when you actually speak, you really need to be very conscious about how you use everything in your mouth and how you use your throat when you speak. You need to be aware about how you speak. Why? First – most people are not at all conscious about how they physically shape different sounds. And that is, in my own opinion, the biggest reason to why they (bryter starkt) in their own language, and why they cannot learn a good pronunciation in another language.

The consequence of this level of awareness is that you really need to learn how to use your nervous system differently and train in order remember the new way to use certain muscles. You see, if you are not both conscious and aware about how you shape your mouth and tongue, and “where” in your mouth you put the different sounds, you will slip back into to your own natural habits of using your mouth and throat in your own language.

Just let me give you a quick example: In my native language, or “J” sound is neutral without the English “D” starting of the sound. Instead of “Djuice”, we say “Juice”, without the “d” as in “You”. The tongue lies pretty much flat and only touches the upper palate gently.

The English “J” is not problematic for us, however, the Chinese “J” can be. Here you need to put the tip on the tongue directly behind the upper front teeth and try to squeeze the air out through the sides. I also need to push out my whole chin, which I don’t need when I do my common “J”. It’s a bit difficult to explain. But even if those different “J:s” sound similar, they actually engage different muscles and parts of you mouth and head quite differently.

(Yes, English is not my mother tongue. I primarily chose to start this blog in English to practice my English language skills. Hopefully you will not spot as many grammar mistakes lately as in earlier posts. )

So what all of this means, is that you can’t be lazy while practicing the sounds of another language, if you want to learn how to speak it well. You must really make an effort to do everything right until the new way to pronounce the different sounds will become a new natural habit.

This is actually not a simple task, as it takes a lot of physical and mental effort. It’s not easy to use different muscles in a way they are not used to. While speaking, you need to be mentally aware about how you use them.

Your own mother tongue, however, is your lazy way of dealing with language, how you speak normally. So if you are lazy when you try to learn how to speak in another language, you will slip back into your lazy, common habits.

This is just how your own brain, body and nervous system, work. It takes awareness, effort and a conscious effort for a long time, before you can become confident in a new way to use your body, even if you just work with your mouth. And the same goes for learning how to play an instrument as the piano or the violin as well. Your hands and fingers will be tired a long time practicing a new instrument before you learn how to relax into what you do. But if you get lazy and don’t pay attention to the fine details, you will break the sound you try to learn how to make, and make noise instead of music.

Studying body movement as a new body language

That’s the way you learn to use your body differently. And it’s the same with Tai Chi. However, learning a new “Body Art”, or an Art of Body movement, as Tai Chi Chuan, and also other body movement arts as dances and some types of physical theatre, is a bit different than learning how to speak another language or playing the violin. The simple reason is that your whole body, and not just an individual part of it, is integrated with the expression of the art.

To learn and to express Tai Chi, your whole body, all the way down from the toes, and up to the fingertips, all of your body parts need to be consciously moved, and integrated together as a whole, with awareness – both while standing and while in movement. But this is not all there is to it. There’s something else that complicates Tai Chi further.

In action, Tai Chi really acts as a language. When you use your Tai Chi while interacting with another person, as in working with partner exercises, applications, push hands and even real fighting, your “language skills” need to be brought one step further. Just like you need to speak and pronounce words with awareness and consciously learning how to speak another language, the Tai Chi practitioner need to consciously keep focus and awareness of the whole body while practicing. Yes, the whole body, from down to up, and from inside and out.

This is the only way how to learn the body language of Tai Chi. You need to not only learn how to move your whole body will doing a form. You need to learn how to express the “shenfa” or the whole body mechanics while “communicating” or interacting with another person. Just as you need to keep the awareness of your pronunciation when you speak, while at the same time trying to understand what the other person say, you as a Tai Chi practitioner need to keep your whole body awareness and consciousness, and learn how to move the different body parts correctly, integrated as a whole, while someone else at the same time, tries to push you, pull you, take you down or launch a punch at you.

This is the only way to learn how to really use Tai Chi. You must make this work. And while trying to make this work, if you are lazy or tired, you will slip away from your Tai Chi. You might find yourself using your hands individually, not connected with the rest of the body, and you might use external “dumb” force. You will forget all about “jin” and slip into your old, comfortable way of using “li”.

Using Li, or clumsy force, and to use your body parts individually, this is your body’s “mother tongue”, the way a common person uses his or her body on an everyday basis. This is what you will slip back into if you don’t make a real effort to consciously use your Tai Chi while being pressured. After all, using “li” is the most natural thing for your body to do. Not Jin.

This means that your body mechanics, you whole body movement and to engage the whole body in the correct way should be of utmost importance in all of your tai chi practice. Not only for your solo practice as stances, forms and drills, but also every time when you practice an application, different techniques and every type of push hands, simple drills or free push hands.

And you must always, always pay attention to the fine details and always coordinate the whole body in the correct way. You need to practice and continue to practice with awareness and focus, minding the fine details, until your new way to move your whole body become natural and feels effortless.

Tai Chi is not “Natural” for your body when you start practicing it. As a beginner, you will become tired, have a hard time to coordinate the body parts the correct way. You will feel clumsy, unbalanced and sometimes uncomfortable. And later, maybe after years of practice, you will still slip into old habits if you don’t focus properly and mind the subtle details.

Why we need to accept that we are all different

But also, compare my thoughts with people having secondary languages, regardless from where they come or what language they have learned. The very most of people speaking in a foreign language do it with an accent. You can hear if someone comes from India, Spain, France, England, by the way they pronounce another language. They might have less or more accent. Now, compare this with a body language. We humans have more or less the same body language, and we use our bodies more or less in the same way, regardless country or from where on Earth we were born.

But if we assume that learning a new expression of our bodies by using it differently and in another way that we were used to, is similar to learning another language, well, then we could also assume that different people will be better to speak this new body language more or less “clearly.” And also, they will “speak” the new body language with a stronger or lesser accent. By this I mean that some people will understand the details of their new body language better than others, and some people will have it harder or more easy to “speak fluently”.

So we might presume that when we speak about body method, or “shenfa“, in Tai Chi, we mean an ideal. Most people assume that the body method is some type of level that is achievable by everyone in the same degree. And that is just a matter of time and practice in order to achieve this ideal

I am not so sure that a Tai Chi “body method” is as something easy and uncomplicated as that it is something that fits all. Or that everyone has the same possibilities to learn a Tai Chi body method and come as close as possible to a certain ideal.

Also remember that your own teacher is probably not “perfect” in this sense, even if many people consider him or her a “master”. We all have our own shortcomings. None of us is perfect. Personally, I don’t believe that there is anyone we could point out having a “perfect Tai Chi Shenfa”. And I am not sure that “perfection” is something to strive. We can only gradually become better and learn how to speak our new language more fluently. Here, the beginner and the advanced, long time practitioner, have that same task in their practices. They must always strive to “speak” their learned body language more fluently. And today, we can all only strive to become better than we were Yesterday.

Repetition only is not enough

When you study Tai Chi, just practicing to remember movements is not enough. Repetition of movement is not enough. Mindlessly going through exercises as a form just because you’ve heard that you should practice daily is not enough. If you want to progress, you always need to “use xin“, you need to work consciously with every principle, method and detail in your art. You really need to feel your whole body through your awareness when you practice, and feel everything you do with your body, through every slight change that occurs when you move.

Practicing to make Tai Chi natural for your body takes a lot of effort, conscious effort. In the beginning, it’s something new and hard to learn, just like it’s hard for anyone to learn how to pronounce another spoken language or to play the violin. But again, Tai Chi is different. To learn Tai Chi won’t be hard only for your mouth or fingers, but for your whole body. This is something you “speak” using your whole body. After all, Tai Chi Chuan is a “whole body” language.

Heavy Bags Allowed in Tai Chi? – An Introduction to Punching Stuff: Punching – Part II

Tags

Body method, Heavy bags, Punching, Striking

There are many different opinions about hitting objects in Tai Chi Chuan, and especially about punching heavy bags. Some people absolutely do not believe in them and say that punching a bag goes against Tai Chi principles. Others say that if you are not allowed to punch a bag, how would you be able to punch an opponent? So what should we think about all of the contradicting views?

Why would punching a bag be wrong?

The most common objection is probably that you should not use external strength when you punch, and this is perfectly true, in the sense of that you should not use the type of power, that is common in most so called “external styles”, a type of strength that relies on tensing up the limbs and the body. People who have this kind of objection have never been introduced to the type of strikes we actually use in Tai Chi. And some people don’t even believe that strikes and punching exist in Tai Chi.

Another thing that I have heard Tai Chi stylists speak about, is the common idea that you never attack in Tai Chi. Many believe that you should never initiate an attack and only respond to what the opponent does. Some of those people don’t believe in punching at all as a separate practice, and believe that the mind-set of punching itself is a contradiction to tai chi principles.

Even if they recognise punching as a part of Tai Chi, they mean that a response as a palm strike or punch should happen naturally, and use borrowing energy from the opponent. As an example, imagine if someone punches or pushes at your shoulder. Then the movement of evading or following the opponent’s attack on one side of the body should be enough to power up a punch using the other side of the body. This would work as wind and rewind, or storing energy and releasing it. But you use the opponent’s attack to store and release your own movement – or specifically in this case – a punch.

I can easily dismiss some part of this problem of mind-set by reminding you of what I said in the earlier post about punching without the mind-set of punching. But even if we leave this aside, we still have a problem. That is: you won’t understand how your body reacts when it meets another body until you meet a real punch. Will you be able to respond in such a way, that you can keep your body aligned, and support a fist upon contact? First, in order to gain confidence of your evasion skills, you would need to practice some sparring against people who actually know how to punch, right?

But to return to the original question about punching “dead stuff”, as hitting a punching bag, there’s a whole other issue: If you haven’t practiced punching at some kind of surface, how will you know what it means to meet a target with your fist? Will you understand how to use it to penetrate the target and do enough damage? Or will your fist just bounce off? You always need to do something to know it. To learn something, you need to gain practical experience. “Thinking” that you can punch something is not enough, you need to experience it with your own body in order to know. This is the plain truth.

A realistic and scientific approach

So, regardless type of punch you want to use, or if using any kind of offensive technique, you really need methods to first measure and evaluate what you do, to really know that you can actually do something. When you practice other types of techniques as pushing, throws, takedowns, qinna etc, those techniques and methods are all very easy to practice against a partner. You can throw each other around, and practicing joint-locks without hurting each other.

But this kind of realistic training is much harder with striking as you can’t really do a realistic punch against an unprotected partner. Strikes and punches are meant to break and damage things, right? So if you don’t have any way to measure what happens when your palm or fist meets a target, then how do you know that you could hurt a real opponent? How do you know if you have a method to actually finish someone off?

Yes, on the other hand, I get what some people are saying; that in Tai Chi, you should achieve so much control that you would never need to really hurt someone. Generally, I would agree with this assessment. This is very much the real strength of Tai Chi as a combat method. The control you gain with Tai Chi practice means that you can often find ways to use your methods in fighting so that you don’t really need to hurt someone very much at all. (In fact, I truly believe that the focus on a high level of control in Tai Chi Chuan might be a heritage from the Buddhism idea to never hurt and never kill.) And of course, if you can avoid lawsuits, going to jail or pay fines, by not hurting your opponent, this is obviously the wisest thing to strive for.

But, FFS, this is still a martial art we are practicing! The point of training “how to fight” is not about being able to count how many arms or noses we have broken, but about knowing that we have what we need in every kind of situation. Our practice should lead us to build confidence in what we do. And if we want to have real confidence, we need to know that we have things in our toolbox that actually work. And if we want to know that they work, well, then we really need methods to measure and evaluate what we do.

This is exactly the advantage with practice on heavy bags and similar. We can use them in our training to measure and evaluate what we do. If we know that we can use a strong punch, when it is needed, we can gain confidence by this knowledge, by knowing that we have a finishing strategy that works when it counts. Hopefully we will never need to use this capability against a person, but we can face someone with much greater confidence if we know that our tools really work.

The double-trouble of actually hitting something

In Tai Chi Chuan, though, we actually have a double-problem compared to styles who rely on tensing up the body upon impact. Yeah, that’s right: We don’t. We need to learn to align our fist, writs, arm to the rest of the body so we can relax when we strike – the whole way into the bag. In the next post, I will speak more about proper relaxation and how to achieve something that must sound confusing and contradicting to people who don’t have the experience of learning and practicing real, genuine Tai Chi methods of punching.

But to sum it up: In fact, in Tai Chi Chuan, instead of tensing, you need to relax even more as you meet the target with your hand. Yeah, it sounds hard enough without breaking your wrist, doesn’t it? (again, don’t worry if you don’t understand this for the moment, I will explain further later on) But here you see, is a real double-trouble of trying to keep relaxed: Hitting something hard or solid will inevitably make you tense up. This is the normal, common way for your body to react. Why? Simply put: This is about how your body reacts on the rebound force. If you hit a wall with your fist, the wall hits back on your fist at the same time, wit the same force.

Or as Newton’s third law says: “For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction.” Or:

A exerts a force F_A on a second object B, then B simultaneously exerts a force F_B on A, and the two forces are equal in magnitude and opposite in direction: F_A = −F_B.

So how do you deal with this? Well, in practical practice of Tai Chi Chuan punching, to deal with this rebound force, you want to connect and align your fist through the center of the body, and connect the fist to the foot when you strike. Not only do you want to use the center of your body and ground to gain strength for your punch, but the idea is just as much to transfer the rebound force down the same path you align your strike with, right down to the foot and into the ground. When the whole body is aligned with best possibly way for structural support, the fist can go deep into target, without the rebound force having any effect directly on the fist. If the body is aligned this way, as well as relaxed and while the joints open up, the rebound force will go down into the foot while the fist continues further into the target. Well, this is the idea anyway. You need to actually practice this method on something to understand the difference between the practical implications of “bad” alignment and Tai Chi type of alignment.

So in Tai Chi Chuan, you really want to keep your whole body as relaxed as possible while meeting the target with the fist, because whatever part of your body you tense up, the rebound force will hit that part. But if the whole body can be neutral and have the same level of relaxation throughout the whole body, you will be able to direct the rebound force down to the supporting foot and into the ground. (And this, the “Tai Chi way”, will be a much more healthy way of practicing punching against dead objects as well. Punching hard things with a straight fist isolated from the rest of the body will often have the effect of the rebound force striking straight into your body through the stretched fist, “hitting the heart and lungs.” )

Therefore, using this method, relaxed Tai Chi striking is not something magical that needs “Qi” or anything similar to achieve real punching power, but instead it’s a very practical and effective method to develop strong whole body power. The hard part in my own experience is to learn how to trust in relaxation, and to get rid of the reflex of trying to add extra power by isolated arm movement.

And this is the reason to why I believe it is a good idea to regularly practice punching on bags and similar, and preferably against a partner holding a sturdy kicking protection. You need to get used to the rebound force and learn how to keep relaxed while meeting a target with your fist. This takes a whole deal of methodological practice. If your don’t practice how to get rid of your common ways to react by tensing up and if you don’t learn how to maintain structure while relaxing, you just won’t have what it takes to really punch someone “The Tai Chi way” when it really counts, when you are actually up against someone.

But still, and again, to practice Tai Chi punching, you need to not “just punch a bag” in any kind of manner. You need to actually practice relaxed, aligned Tai Chi punching methods, and never use hard, external “dumb force”, i.e tensing the muscles. That would contradict and act detrimental to everything you want achieve n your Tai Chi practice.

Well, this might sound extremely contradicting for some people – punch hard, but don’t tense your muscles. Don’t worry, I will get deeper into this about how to practice these things in the next post.

So to conclude this post, I should mention that I thought that I would make this a 3 part series. But I have broken it up further to not keep you waiting for too long between the posts. So maybe you should look forward to something like a 5-part series or something. Maybe longer. I don’t really know. Maybe I might be able to find a way to say more things with less words. This is also a possibility.

Anyway, how you should “think” when you practice on a bag “the Tai Chi way” and how you can use a bag and similar to learn to control your movement better is something I will discuss in the next post in this series. However, I might throw in a post or two about other things, in between the posts of this series. It takes a long time to verbalise this stuff as I myself have never encountered it in writing. So if you have ideas, questions or things you want to know more about, please feel free to share your own “Tai Chi thoughts” in the comments below.