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Do You Know Your Tai Chi / Qigong "Frame"?

From: The ChiFusion Tai Chi and Qigong Blog
Posted: Wednesday August 15, 2007

Look up the word "frame" in an unabridged dictionary, and you'll find dozens of meanings for the word. While many of us think of photo frames or eyeglass frames when we hear the word, the dictionary meanings cover a wide variety of objects and ideas for "frame".

However, many of the uses of the word "frame" in the dictionary involve the idea of "structure", and specifically how parts of a structure are "arranged" to create the structure.

It's in this sense of "arrangement" that we'll be discussing your Tai Chi and Qigong frame. Specifically, we'll be discussing how parts of your body structure are arranged to create your movements.

When the term "frame" is used to indicate body arrangement, we often describe the "size" of the movements you make with your body, especially your limbs. As such, we often refer to frames as large, medium, or small in a given Tai Chi or Qigong practice.

Large Frames

Large frame Tai Chi and Qigong involves making physically large movements. The limbs are generally extended far from the body, stretching the muscles in the limbs, but also taking the muscles and joints through a large range of motion.

At right is a photo of me performing a Tai Chi movement known as "Flying Obliquely" in a large frame style. Notice the extension of both my arms, plus my rear leg. These limbs are extended almost (but not quite) to the point of being straight. Especially notice my rear leg extension, highlighted in blue, in the stance.

As a rule-of-thumb, the distance between the feet when they are extended in a large frame stance will be twice hip-width distance. Of course, the actual distance is highly variable from person to person, but generally the distance will be a large step forward.

Large Frame styles are valuable for opening the body - not just for stretching and range of motion, but also for opening the energy pathways in the torso and out to the limbs. It's often the case that Large Frame styles work on the "energy meridians", the pathways that distribute chi throughout the body.

Small Frames

Small frame Tai Chi and Qigong is just the opposite of large frame. The movements made with the body are smaller, with less physical extension of the limbs. The arms are generally held closer to the body, and the feet are much closer to each other.

In the photo at right, I perform a Tai Chi movement called "Thrusting Palm" in a small frame style. Comparing this photo to the large frame photo above, notice how my limbs are generally much more bent. Notice my back leg and especially how the knee of that leg is directly under the hip above it. In small frame styles, as a rule-of-thumb, the distance between the feet will generally be equal to or less than the width of the hips.

Small frame styles generally focus not on the limbs but on the torso. From a chi development standpoint, small frame styles focus more on the "energy vessels", the storage places for chi usually buried deep in the torso. In some small frame styles, the movement of the limbs is often used more like an "after-thought" than a focus of the practice.

As such, these styles have more in common with non-moving Qigong than with what most people think of as Tai Chi. As one Tai Chi master put it, non-moving Qigong that focuses on chi storage may be the "ultimate small frame style".

Medium Frames

Medium frame Tai Chi and Qigong is just as the name implies - not as large as Large Frame, but not as small as Small Frame.

As an example, look at Carole's photo of "Flying Obliquely". This is the same movement as performed above as Large Frame, but here Carole is performing it in a medium frame.

Notice how her arms have much more bend to them than my large frame photo, but less bend than my small frame photo. Also notice that her back leg is closer to her hip with more bend in the knee than in my large frame stance. But her knee is not straight under the hip like in my small frame stance. The distance between her feet is closer to one-and-a-half hip width distance rather than two hip-widths (large frame) or just hip-width (small frame).

Medium frame styles generally combine the best of both large and small frame styles. Like large frame styles, the medium frame affords some physical distance to help with body opening and energy expansion into the limbs. However, it also incorporates the more subtle torso energy work and chi development found in small frame styles. Medium frame styles focus on both energy storage and energy distribution in Chi development.

Working With Frames in ChiFusion Tai Chi and Qigong

Large Frame styles are especially valuable to those first starting on chi development. Generally, students see benefits more quickly if they spend time on Large Frame movements first that work with the Chi "distribution system".

As such, in Level 1 and Level 2 of the Complete ChiFusion Course, we teach you a number of large frame Qigong movements to help "jump-start" your chi development, as well as provide you the "body opening" that brings noticeable physical benefits.

In Level 3, however, we begin to introduce you to Tai Chi movements that are medium-to-small in frame. Having studied Tai Chi and Qigong in all three frames and having taught all three frames, we've found that medium frame movements used in Tai Chi offer the most complete "workout" of both the chi storage and distribution systems.

When it comes to Small Frame styles, however, you won't find any "purely" small frame movements in the program. We prefer, as suggested above, to achieve similar results with non-moving Qigong rather than with small-frame movement styles. As such, you'll find non-moving Qigong practices throughout the course that provide you with energy storage benefits.

We've learned that the combination of large frame Qigong, medium frame Tai Chi, and non-moving Qigong covers all the bases most effectively. That's why we based our ChiFusion Complete Course around this combination - to give you greatest number of benefits for the mind, body, and energy systems.

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