Wuji / beginning

[D_Glenn]

A snippet from my teacher Xie Peiqi’s book:
“ Before actually starting these exercises, the practitioner must first practice the Empty State (Wuji) standing meditation. Begin in a standing position, feet shoulder width apart, front facing South and back facing North. The ten toes of the feet grasp into the earth and the Yong Quan point is raised to be in empty space, both knees are slightly bent but not extended past the toes, draw back the hips, raise (inward) the anus [muscles of the pelvic basin and the perineum], and push the lower back out as if sitting. Gather in/close the brain, pull the chin slightly, the top of the head straight up and feeling as if being slightly lifted up, sink down the shoulders and bring in the elbows, the five fingers relaxed, naturally open and extended, the middle fingers next to their respective Feng Shi points (Gall bladder meridian, located on the thigh). Both eyelids close naturally, the eyes "come in" to the body (looking inward), the ears "reverse" listen (listen inward), the Qi sinks to the Dan Tian (lower abdomen), breath naturally, slow and long, even and steady. Relaxed and quietly standing, facial expression contented. Main points: body position must be correct, practice environment must be tranquil, the Spirit of the heart must be held in check, the entire body must be relaxed. The Empty State form is held for one minute or so.”

And then move onto what ever practice you’re doing.

You can also press your middle fingers into their respective Feng Shi points and it will help get you mentally into the Wuji state of mind. Of course this is a crutch, so don’t use it too much, just in the very beginning of your career.

He also said that if you get dizzy with your eyes closed then you can keep your eyelids slightly cracked open, point your eyeballs downward, until you're just barely seeing your own nose and the ground.

When you move your 2 feet after Wuji you create Taiji (two poles/ yin and yang). When you bring your 2 arms up you make the four directions (siwei), when you start to move into a form you create the bagua (eight trigrams).

Also note that you don't want to turn off your 意 Yi (Intent) you need that, but you do want to 關脑 Guan Nao (shut off your brain).

.

[Appledog]

A snippet from my teacher Xie Peiqi’s book:
...The ten toes of the feet grasp into the earth and the Yong Quan point is raised to be in empty space, both knees are slightly bent but not extended past the toes, draw back the hips, raise (inward) the anus [muscles of the pelvic basin and the perineum], and push the lower back out as if sitting ...."

Great teacher, great quote and great teaching -- a lot of material in here to discuss wrt wuji training. So question about toes and sitting. Are these principles you teach and pass down as "green flags", or are there qigongs and daoyins to inform these principles? For example in my lineage we have extensive sets which inform ten toes, but we do not have any sets which inform the alignment of the hips/anus with the same directness. I first felt good about that kind of alignment randomly when practicing bow stance. And, very recently. Still playing with it. Sitting seems to be a term often referred to in Tai Chi schools but I haven't heard of a way to teach it actively. Maybe it is just a result of the wuji work itself?

Also, do you feel ten toes are important to this sitting, or are they somewhat independent actions? I mean, can you sit without your ten toes like that?

[windwalker]

Maybe we should start at the beginning lol

Do you make something of it?

Do you pay attention to it?

Most of the writings say to give it primary importance.

This teacher explains it well for our purposes

“When we talk about Taijiquan, we use Wuji to influence Youji, the Youji reflects itself back to Wuji.
This back-and-forth transition, in this case, we think that the transition is a particularly important aspect of Tai Chi. Yin and Yang, Xu and Shi{deficiency and reality} are two aspects of the same object. “

[D_Glenn]

Great teacher, great quote and great teaching -- a lot of material in here to discuss wrt wuji training. So question about toes and sitting. Are these principles you teach and pass down as "green flags", or are there qigongs and daoyins to inform these principles? For example in my lineage we have extensive sets which inform ten toes, but we do not have any sets which inform the alignment of the hips/anus with the same directness. I first felt good about that kind of alignment randomly when practicing bow stance. And, very recently. Still playing with it. Sitting seems to be a term often referred to in Tai Chi schools but I haven't heard of a way to teach it actively. Maybe it is just a result of the wuji work itself?

Also, do you feel ten toes are important to this sitting, or are they somewhat independent actions? I mean, can you sit without your ten toes like that?

All these requirements are done when standing in the Wuji Stance, and then you also go on to trying to hold these requirements while walking around in a circle. Only the toes will be pulled up, pushing out Yong Quan point, and then grabbing the ground and pulling up Yong Quan when the foot is on the ground. It will be alternating back and forth.

(You don’t want to grab so hard that the two balls of your feet come off the ground. The basic reason for doing it is to prevent fallen arches.)

The lumbar being pressed backwards while tucking the tailbone and buttocks under, (as if one is sitting down on a hard wooden chair). And the counter movement of that is to tuck the chin down while raising up your head and stretching the cervical vertebrae. This is done so that Bai Hui point on your head is vertically straight above Huiyin point near your tailbone.

These two points are also lined up vertically when a person is standing normally.

So this gives you a visual idea of the positions and shape of the whole spine if looked at from the side view, and a clear demarcation of the spine in 2 different shapes, particular to ones unique body. (These two distinct positions are crucial to establish as they are what you shift into and out of when doing Bao Fali (adding in an explosive emission of power), alongside your normal striking techniques.)

If you only follow some of the principles, tucking the tailbone and chin are the most important and need to be done as a pair. Without doing these two requirements you will never really cultivate anything. Think of it like: in order to do sitting meditation for cultivating, that your spine is in this position. So when doing standing and moving meditation that your spine also needs to be in this position.

But the rest of the requirements are sort of done in order of importance and can be learned singularly. Lifting up the Huiyin/ muscles of the pelvic basin would be 3rd. Touching the tip of your tongue to the roof of the mouth is 4th but it will take a lot of time for that to be right because you need to stretch your frenulum out so you can comfortably touch it to the soft palate, and sort of hook it on the back edge of your hard palate.
Grabbing the ground with your toes is probably last on the list because it can scatter your Yi when you have to shift your inner mind’s eye down to the feet and back up and make learning and maintaining the other requirements harder.

Think of the Wuji Stance as the calm place to learn the requirements.



.

[Appledog]

Think of the Wuji Stance as the calm place to learn the requirements.

Really good info there. I knew I must have been doing something wrong! All I usually do is touch the tip of my tongue to the plateau behind the gumline or the ridge at the front of the hard palate >_<

[D_Glenn]

Really good info there. I knew I must have been doing something wrong! All I usually do is touch the tip of my tongue to the plateau behind the gumline or the ridge at the front of the hard palate >_<

There’s a powerful acupuncture point up there. Above that ledge of the hard palate there’s a point you can try to press. It causes a little bit of a mental change but it also feels like it’s clearing and draining your sinuses only on a deeper level. The only other way to reach it is with a long needle carefully threaded diagonally through one nostril or the other. It’s a point on a channel that goes up into the brain and through the pineal gland. Touching the tip of your tongue to this point is called ‘Crossing the Magpie Bridge’ in Daoist terminology.

Edit— Looked up where the Magpie Bridge comes from: https://birdingbeijing.com/2016/09/22/a-bridge-of-magpies-birds-in-chinese-folklore/

.

[wayne hansen]

Every move in tai chi is dissolving the opponents attack to return to Wu Chi
Central equilibrium and right method is the key

[origami_itto]

Every move in tai chi is dissolving the opponents attack to return to Wu Chi
Central equilibrium and right method is the key

See, Wayne agrees with me.

[HotSoup]

D_Glenn saved the day. It’s always great to see people that have access to the traditional training, who keep doing their own research, and don’t mind sharing. Long gone are the days when everyone was clueless and confused the rudimentary Daoist philosophy for actual CMA training concepts. Speaking about “nothingness” no longer cuts it. One either knows what it means physically and how to train it or simply has no clue what they are talking about.

[twocircles13]

Think of the Wuji Stance as the calm place to learn the requirements.

Really good info there. I knew I must have been doing something wrong! All I usually do is touch the tip of my tongue to the plateau behind the gumline or the ridge at the front of the hard palate >_<

I agree there’s some really good information in D_Glenn’s posts. However, don’t think of it as "right and wrong.” It is a different method, perhaps one you have not heard of before.

By analogy, think of it like hand placement while doing a push up. There’s no absolutely wrong hand placement, but each hand placement, wide, close, low, high, exercises a different set of muscles.

Likewise, there are three acupuncture point to which the tongue can connect, just behind the teeth, the highest forward position on the hard palate, and at the meeting of the hard and soft palate. There are probably others. Each position does something different, but you’ll never know what unless you try each.

I was also taught that you gently reach across the gap as if tenderly kissing, or like your two relaxed lips just meeting. Tension blocks or redirects qi, but too soft may not make the connection. Go ahead and try to find the balance.

It’s also good to have a good cleansing, balancing routine while exploring if you find a method to which your body or mind objects.

[twocircles13]

Every move in tai chi is dissolving the opponents attack to return to Wu Chi
Central equilibrium and right method is the key

I like that. There is a lot of packed in those statements. "Hidden in plain sight" as they say.

[D_Glenn]

Wayne,
I never heard Wuji in that context but I have heard of ‘Leading the opponent into emptiness' 空 (kong).

Is that maybe the same thing that you’re talking about?


Twocircles,
It takes time to get the frenulum stretched until it’s comfortable enough to press the point to “cross the Magpie bridge”, so of course you will be using the other points along the way. But the mental affects are so much more significant when you reach it, that it’s hard to just go back to pressing the other points.
Plus the Saliva being produced is a little bit better so it makes it easier to swallow down the lumps of CSF that start coming down after the hour or so of circle turning. Assuming that you got all the way to the end, where it feels like your body is “A Deer attached to a cart.” Which of course doesn’t always happen, just depends on what your body wants to do that day.

So not ‘right’ but it feels better. And something to strive for if you can’t get your tongue back that far.

.

[wayne hansen]

One thing about the Magpie Bridge is it allows for Heavenly Rain
Once you expierence it you will never forget it

Think of Wu chi as perfect balance pre yin/yang
Once you are attacked some parts of your body are more yin or yang
The whole point of the form is to get you back to that point
Tai chi is a long river tossing you too and fro
You won’t be in tranquility until you get out of the river

[twocircles13]

Twocircles,
It takes time to get the frenulum stretched until it’s comfortable enough to press the point to “cross the Magpie bridge”, so of course you will be using the other points along the way. But the mental affects are so much more significant when you reach it, that it’s hard to just go back to pressing the other points.
Plus the Saliva being produced is a little bit better so it makes it easier to swallow down the lumps of CSF that start coming down after the hour or so of circle turning. Assuming that you got all the way to the end, where it feels like your body is “A Deer attached to a cart.” Which of course doesn’t always happen, just depends on what your body wants to do that day.

So not ‘right’ but it feels better. And something to strive for if you can’t get your tongue back that far.

.

Unless you’ve got a loose tongue like me, I guess. I could make the connection comfortably from the start.

“Better” is subjective, which is why, I was encouraging people to try the different points. Each is different and does different things. I understand this is a classic practice, but some people may need another point more than this one.

Everything has tis place, and there is a place for everything.

[windwalker]

While interesting what can objectively be shown by using the above methods in martial encounters .

Assuming everyone is posting from “experience “

What or how does this help with John Wang’s proverbial “ fist meets face “
Question