Awareness Of The Back Leg To Help Your Practice

Moving with a loose waist is important in our T’ai Chi Chih practice. Flexibility in the pelvic girdle allows a strong flow of Chi. Justin Stone repeated that when we move, one leg bends while the other straightens. (He used the word stiffens but he did not mean tensing the leg.)

In ongoing classes and in helping student candidates to become teachers, I have found that this bending and straightening principle can often be taken for granted, not being executed correctly, causing difficulties in posture, complete weight shift or even physical discomfort. I have two suggestions to possibly help with this, and perhaps make a big difference in your practice.

First, feel how deeply you initially sink the weight into the supporting leg when preparing to place the other foot forward (or to the side). Just how much is your weighted leg bent at the knee? (Feel it.) As you move, does your back knee continue to bend that same amount, as it did initially, every time the weight comes back?

Second, feel the amount of bend in the front knee when your weight is forward, and then the amount of bend in the back knee when your weight is back. Does the degree of bending feel equal? Stubborn difficulties can arise when the back leg does not bend as much as the front leg, and this becomes a habit energy in the practice.

What can one do to correct the above situations, once discovered? Ask the knee to soften as the weight arrives fully on that leg. Allow the weight to sink down into the foot without tension in the leg or knee or ankle. Allowing the knee to soften/flex continuously, from the very start of the backward weight shift, will help a great deal.

If it feels like this means having to be too low every time the weight returns to the back leg, it could very well be that the front leg is too far forward (i.e., your stance is too large). Try gently dragging the front heel (with the weight off of it) back in a bit, and then try again.

Do I know how much I need to sink? Do I know how far out the front heel needs to be placed? Although a good teacher can help with this, we must discover it for ourselves.