Oct 1, 20243 min read

‘Testing’ Postures

Updated: 4 days ago

It wasn’t really explained what or why we were doing it, but we did it nonetheless.

Working with a partner, you held a tai chi posture, and your partner would push against you; I seem to remember that it was a bit hit and miss as to whether your partner got the correct angle for the push.

So your partner would push into you, and all I understood was that it was necessary to withstand that push; so, of course you went very rigid in the attempt not to be pushed backwards (or if it was a pull, pulled forward).

This was back in the 1980s, and 40 years on I'd like to think that I understand more about what we were attempting to do!

'Leaking' energy in Postures.

First of all it's about energy efficiency.

One of the things you want to be able to do is to transfer your partner's push through your body without 'leaking' energy anywhere.

In the picture, the energy from the push travels directly to the end of the pole under the water. If the pole were to bend in the middle, you would say that energy was 'leaking' at the midpoint, and therefore not all of the push was reaching the end of the pole.

How do you do it?

In the human body, it's about aligning the joints correctly to begin with.

As a simple example of this, if you are in the posture of Play the Lute (Strum the Lute), and someone takes hold of your wrists and gently pushes you towards your rear foot, your elbows would need to be sunk, as though metaphorically connecting to the knees below them.

If your elbows were raised sideways to left and right with the palms still facing inwards (as in the photo), you would be 'leaking' energy from those joints; the body would not be connected correctly in that area.

Opening the joints.

The above is one small example of an alignment and the importance of bodily connection, but being able to keep a posture whilst someone is testing it has another aspect - that of decompressing the joints.

Compression & de-compression.

When someone pushes you, the joints compress..This is also true when there is an emotional stress of any kind - the body 'grips up'.

It isn't very different to the power supply for a city and outlying villages; the joints act as substations at which the power is controlled for commercial or residential use.

If the substations/joints are overloaded, they are liable to damage; in a substation this might result in overheating and burn out; in a joint this translates as inflammation, over-compression, and tendons and ligaments over-working.

The joint becomes inefficient because, if you tense one or more joints, the energy or pressure from the partner's push is less able to move through the joint, in the same way that putting a bend in your hosepipe squeezes the hosepipe causing the water to slow down, and an increase in pressure to build at the joint.

Putting it all together.

So how do you do it?

Surely if you relax, your partner's push just makes you crumple?

Oddly... no.

Because you are opening all the joints in your body as your partner pushes, and because you are simultaneously relaxing, when your partner pushes you it feels as though that force of that push is simply passing through you without any involvement on your part.

You feel it passing through your body and into your rear foot, and it's as though you are not there.

Applying it elsewhere...

Personally, I try to apply this to the knocks and scrapes of life's everyday pressures, sometimes successfully, sometime not!

It seems to me that, when things get a little tough, I need to let the problem pass through me, rather than trapping it inside. Definitely not always easy - but sometimes you get it right!

James Drewe teaches Tai Chi and Qigong in both London and in Kent and online.

Details of weekly classes both live and online can be found on the website, and there are classes for 2-person Tai Chi on one Saturday a month.