"Stop the Flow" - Making Your Movements Flow with Chi

From The ChiFusion Tai Chi and Qigong Blog
Posted: Tuesday June 17, 2008

Greetings -

When it comes to reaching higher levels of Chi Development, students often find that a large amount of "unlearning" and "re-learning" has to take place.

Often times, we have to unlearn much of what we learned as beginners in Tai Chi and Qigong. Then we have to undertake a process of re-learning in order to prepare ourselves properly for a more in-depth awareness and control of Chi.

Of all the things we learn as a beginning student, one of the most important practices in your Tai Chi and Qigong movements to unlearn is "flow".

"Flow" refers to making smooth, well-connected movements in your Tai Chi and Qigong. Flowing movements are smooth movements performed at an even pace.

When flowing, each movement blends into the next, producing the graceful movements that most people think of as Tai Chi. As a matter of fact, the flowing, graceful movements are often what attract students to Tai Chi in the first place.

Flowing - The Wrong Way

Beginning students tend to want to make movements "flow" right from the start, in imitation of what they see their teachers and masters do. And unfortunately, in many Tai Chi and Qigong programs, you are even encouraged to do just that - to make the movement flow from the start.

The problem though is in the way most beginning students create "flowing" movements. They do so usually by making one or more mistakes in these important areas:

1. Body Structure and Alignment

   Precise body structure and alignment is required for Chi Development, but it is also what makes "flow" more difficult as a beginner.

   By hedging on body precision, students can move more easily from one movement to the next. Unfortunately, this not only increases the risk of injury, it also impairs Chi Development. Without precision, it's nearly impossible to feel the energetic alignments needed for improved Chi flow.
   
   

2. Inter-Movement Endpoints

   Each movement in Tai Chi and Qigong must be performed - from start to finish - in its entirety for Chi Development. However, students often "slur" the ending of one movement with the beginning of next movement in order to make the movements flow together.

   While this "inter-movement" slurring creates a more graceful appearance, the effect on Chi Development is almost as if you took a film and blurred a few of the frames. It produces sloppy movements that lack intention and focus - two important components for developing chi.
   
   

3. Intra-Movement Coordination

   While the last area discussed what happens between two movements, "intra-movement" refers to what happens within a single movement.

   Within a single movement, students need to coordinate many different parts. There can be movements of the feet, legs, torso, arms, hands, and head. Each movement in each part of the body must be performed precisely without slurring any of the parts.

   For example, movements of the arm have to be performed from start to finish in coordination with the movement of the torso, from start to finish. No slurring in the torso should occur, just because you are paying more attention to your arms, or vice versa.

Flowing - The Right Way

The single best way to learn Tai Chi for Chi Development as a beginner, or to "unlearn/relearn" it if you are already a student or instructor, is to work on learning a fairly rigid, almost robotic coordination of all of your movements.

As an example, look at Tai Chi Cloud Hands in Level 3 of your Complete ChiFusion course.

When we first introduce Cloud Hands in Level 3, we use a fairly rigid, robotic method. We break it down into two torso turn/weight shifts, and four arm movements. Then we coordinate these movement by pairing up a turn or shift with an arm movement.

(Make sure you look at your Complete Course for more details. You'll find Cloud Hands in Lessons 5 and 6 of Level 3. If you do not have the Complete ChiFusion course, please click here for details.)

To simplify our discussion, let's just look at the Cloud Hands coordination in one direction. This would include a shift movement and a turn movement in the torso, coordinated with a lifting of the arm and a "waving" of the hand.

With this rigid coordination, the lift is paired with the shift, and the wave is paired with the turn. If you look at a "timeline" of this half of the movement (one shift and turn, with a lift and wave), it would look something like this:

Notice that when the lift ends, the wave starts, and when the shift ends, the turn starts. In addition, the lift and shift are together, the wave and turn are together. These pairs of movements are distinct and separate. This is a precise, rigid coordination, in which each movement finishes before the next starts.

THIS IS IMPORTANT - I can't stress this enough! Do NOT be tempted to rush through this rigid coordination stage to get to the "flowing" stage.

You MUST practice this rigid coordination over and over until it becomes second nature. It must be ingrained in your body/mind BEFORE ever attempting to make the movements flow.

This rigid coordination is important when you first learn Tai Chi movements, or when you are unlearning/relearning for Chi Development. Without this rigid coordination, you'll fall into the traps we mentioned above that hinder Chi Development.

As a background note, I first encountered this rigidly coordinated way of learning from Master T. T. Liang, the greatest master I ever met personally. He and his instructors taught a long form of Tai Chi, with each movement broken into 2, 4, 6, or 8 beats. We learned the movements broken down into these beats, and performed them to music that had a heavy drum beat.

With about a beat per second, the music forced us to make our movements precise and focused much more than the "flowing" methods I had learned from earlier instructors.

While the ChiFusion courses aren't quite that regimented, we do tend to teach and practice the movements initially in this coordinated fashion.

This is important, because ...

When it comes time to make the movements "flow", instead of creating the flow by changing how the movements look, we create the flow by becoming aware of internal chi processes. We create the flow from the "inside out" as it were.

Once you have all the details and precision in your movements using rigid coordination, then you can look at "flowing". But the movement flow will be based on your awareness of the "chi flow" you are working on.

In Cloud Hands, for example, how you coordinate the lift and wave with the shift and turn should depend on the particular "energy flow" you are working on in the movement.

For example, look at Energetic Flow #2 in the Level 3 course. With Energetic Flow #2, you are attempting to create an unbroken "thread" of Chi energy from the legs through the torso and into the arms and hands. (You'll find Energetic Flow #2 in Lesson 7 of Level 3. Again, if you do not have Level 3, please click here for details.)

How you feel this energy flow moving through you is different for every individual. So I can't give you a precise description that will fit you, because this varies from person to person. But I can give you a "ballpark" approximation.

With Energetic flow #2, we can produce a "general" timeline for the energy flow during this half of the movement (a shift and turn, with a lift and wave). This is the order in which you will feel chi flow through your body in Energy flow #2:

Note that about the first third of the movement is the feeling of chi traveling up the leg to the lower spine. About a third of the movement is feeling the chi flow up the spine. The final third is feeling the chi flow from the shoulder down to the wrist.

The timing of the energy movement will probably feel something like this for most students. Again, it may not feel exactly this way for you. So trust how it actually feels for you, while keeping this general description in mind.

Sticking with this general description, let's add the shift, turn, lift, and wave to our timeline:

Notice that now the shift and turn overlap - that is, the turn starts before the shift is finished. On this timeline, you are about a quarter or a third of the way through your shift when the energy reaches your hip. (At this point, you may want to review Detail 5 in Lesson 4C in Level 3, where we discuss this coordination of shifting and turning. That detail may make more sense now that you know about Energy Flow #2.)

But the reason the shift and turn overlap is not because you are slurring movements, but because you are reacting to the Chi Flow in your body!

Also notice that the lift starts around the same time as the turn starts. Again this is to use our hands to encourage sensitivity to the energy in the spine.

Once again, these are all approximations. See how it feels to you after you've worked on it a while, so the movement becomes customized to your body/mind/energy system.

I should also point out that as you work on the other Energy Flows in ChiFusion Level 3, you might actually coordinate the movements differently, based on what you feel on that particular flow.

Over time, you'll form a mental/physical "map" or "model" for the movement that incorporates everything you learn from these energy flows in the course, and from other flows you'll discover on your own. By the time you've built (as we mention in the course) a "holistic model" of simultaneous awareness of these flows, your movement will be perfectly customized for you - and will probably not look exactly like anyone else's.

And most importantly, your movements will "flow" - but not because you are trying to make them flow. Instead, they will flow because they will reflect your in-depth awareness of Chi flow in your body.

And that's what "flow" in Tai Chi and Qigong is really all about!

As always, you have my best wishes for Chi Development,

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