Taijiquan: Light on the Feet, Your Root is the Entire Earth

The core principle of internal martial arts essentially involves the concept of ‘relaxation’ or ‘’ (song). What is the purpose of this ‘’?

The answer is that only by achieving relaxation can one attain ‘lightness’ and grace, and in terms of health, ‘’ promotes unobstructed flow of qi and blood, and on the level of cultivation, it allows one to experience the feeling of the body being hollowed out. This translates into the path to flexible and powerful combat, a combination of hardness and softness.

Martial arts practitioners all know they should relax, but the problem is that they often can’t. The reason is that firstly, they don’t know what relaxation actually is, and secondly, they don’t know how to relax.

To understand relaxation, let’s cite the teachings of Master Wu Tunan: ‘The key to ‘’ lies in raising the arms, the higher you raise your arms, the faster you descend. Some people don’t understand this principle of raising arms, thinking it’s not a relaxation technique, but in fact, when you raise your arms upwards, it’s like holding a cauldron – you can’t rise without being able to descend! If you don’t relax when you rise, how can you relax when you descend. Scholars should deeply understand this, and then they will naturally achieve it.’ ‘’ is like raising a pearl, it abruptly breaks, like a broken pearl strand, each pearl falls, like the pearl rolling in a bowl, circular and lively, each link connected, cascading downwards, demonstrating liveliness without lagging, natural movements, conforming to the laws, developing the conditions for both body and mind, and conforming to natural physiological capabilities, and it is scientifically consistent.

What is ‘’? It says, ‘like raising a pearl, it abruptly breaks, like a broken pearl strand, each pearl falls, like the pearl rolling in a bowl, circular and lively, each link connected, cascading downwards, demonstrating liveliness without lagging, natural movements, conforming to the laws, developing the conditions for both body and mind, and conforming to natural physiological capabilities, and it is scientifically consistent.’ It uses multiple examples to show that ‘’ should be lively and dynamic, smooth and natural.

At this time, we can compare it with the principles of Taijiquan: ‘Every movement should be light and graceful throughout the body.’ When practicing the forms, we can check ourselves to see if we are achieving relaxation and lightness.

Don’t learn like many martial arts practitioners now, who are deliberately pursuing a big stance and low posture, because this makes it difficult to achieve relaxation. To achieve relaxation, the key is to relax your feet.

Because the feet are the foundation, if the feet aren’t relaxed, everything else is fake relaxation. Feeling relaxed doesn’t matter if you haven’t relaxed your feet. What is the feeling of relaxing your feet? Let's look at the description in ‘’ (Jue Yun): ‘Taking steps like a cat walking, walking as if on a thin ice sheet, like stepping on a water gourd, don’t step on the water with your feet, two feet like floating on a raft, the feeling of stepping on grass…’

Only after relaxing your feet can you truly experience Master Hao Wei’s words:

When you first start, your body feels like you’re in water, your feet are on the ground, and your movements feel like resistance from the water. Secondly, your body feels like you’re in water, your feet lift off the ground, floating in the water, able to move freely. Thirdly, your body is light and graceful, your feet feel like they’re walking on the surface of the water, like stepping on the edge of a cliff, keeping your breath restrained, and not allowing any slackness.

If you don’t relax your feet when practicing Taijiquan, it will be difficult to succeed. The feet must be relaxed, and then the whole body will be relaxed.

How to relax and achieve lightness in your feet? Here are two suggestions for your reference:

1 ‘According to your ability, don’t over-arch, don’t pursue beauty, practice Taijiquan for your own health, not for others to perform.’

2 ‘Don’t step on the front foot forcefully, don’t push off with the back foot. Walk like a cat lightly, don’t make the mouse hear the sound, walk cautiously on thin ice, and step on it carefully to avoid breaking the ice.’

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