Taiji, Standing Postures and role of the "Tailbone"

[dwai]

The feeling of the "tailbone" and dropping the qi involves relaxing the lower back and dropping the "tail".

 

Sifu emphasizes using the "energetic tail" as a counter-balance to many movements. However, when one of the senior-most students of Sifu visited my home last friday, he emphasized the role of the tailbone/lower back and the relaxation of the kua. 

 

After following his directives, I noticed that the tail when dropped properly, aids in the qi flow to the legs and feet and the returning flow back to the mingmen point.

 

Also, the raising and sinking of the forms affects the "energetic" feeling of the tail and standing "too straight" ends up pinching the flow in the tail. So, always there is a little "sunken" physical form (not straightened/fully standing tall). The knees are bent slightly to allow the energy to not pinch in the tail.

[Miffymog]

I'm sure someone mentioned on these pages a while ago that often advanced practitioners of ZZ actually slowly rotate the tail bone while standing. I don't have anywhere near that level of body awareness nor control, but it might tie in with what you're saying.

[dwai]

I'm sure someone mentioned on these pages a while ago that often advanced practitioners of ZZ actually slowly rotate the tail bone while standing. I don't have anywhere near that level of body awareness nor control, but it might tie in with what you're saying.

 

The tailbone does feel "alive", if that makes sense. It adds to the feeling of a longer "energetic tail"....when your torso turns right, the tail whips to the left, in a diagonally opposite direction. Vice versa...

 

I was joking with my buddy that I feel like an alligator or a T-Rex when that tail feeling comes about...

[shazlor]

"as joking with my buddy that I feel like an alligator or a T-Rex when that tail feeling comes about..."

 

*shapeshifts into medieval mode*

" Oiii 'es a lizardwizard!! Burn 'im with the witches and the healers!! No odonic force cultivation allow'd!! That southrn poopes and 'is boys sais only the devil 'as that sweet,sweet qigongic magic juice flowing through 'im like moonlight through the ghost dance. "

 

*

 

I fell on my tailbone as a teen - it somewhat seemed to 'unleash' a slow steady stream of Qi up my spine over the next few years as opposed to the sudden rush 'kundalini' guys experience. Of course at the time I did not understand until I read a lecture by... Steiner? I forgot, (I'll edit the blurb in if I find it) where they discussed the two and the difference, and I realised hey that is what happened to me. Anywho, back on topic - I get a coolish sensation there all the time, time to play with my tail I guess, (kinda) makes up for the vitalityintoenergyintospiriters missing out playing with the front one ayyy lmao!!

[Taomeow]

The tailbone is a major player, and one may want to ascertain again and again that he/she knows what the game is.  The game is opening and closing, moving and settling, going out and returning, yin and yang.  There's no way the same position of the tailbone accommodates or facilitates both stages.  It is different for each phase.

 

Which becomes very obvious in push-hands when you're up against either a skillful player or someone much stronger physically.  In both cases, unless you have the tailbone dynamics down pat, you are toast.

 

I don't know what position you call "pinched," Dwai, but if you mean that the J-shaped spine (which is very rare in the civilized world --- even Western anatomy books promote the S-shaped spine, the source of all back problems and not only --  and which, the J that is, is over the years created by correct taiji even in people who didn't have it before), the lower tip of the J is not pointing inward constantly, and is not sticking out constantly -- both positions are wrong if maintained constantly.  It moves.  It moves inward for opening/moving/going out, and it moves outward for closing/settling/returning -- constantly.  This mobility is crucial.  So, if you mean don't pinch it in any one position, I agree.  But if you mean something else, I don't. 

 

99% of instructions regarding the tailbone I've seen exchanged online are flat out wrong (or, more often, curved in wrong. ) .  I don't know where this originates, perhaps a "master" from the time when anyone with any taiji would come to the West and make himself a name as a "master" simply because there was nothing to choose from and no exposure to assess the level of the "master" created this pseudo tradition of the wrong tailbone.  Or maybe it's one of the secrets other teachers don't share with the West -- but mine does.  At some point he picked up a child's toy, a rubber dinosaur, and showed me what the tip of the tail is supposed to be doing as pose transitions to pose.  It was very funny, and quite educational. 

[dwai]

The tailbone is a major player, and one may want to ascertain again and again that he/she knows what the game is.  The game is opening and closing, moving and settling, going out and returning, yin and yang.  There's no way the same position of the tailbone accommodates or facilitates both stages.  It is different for each phase.

 

Which becomes very obvious in push-hands when you're up against either a skillful player or someone much stronger physically.  In both cases, unless you have the tailbone dynamics down pat, you are toast.

 

I don't know what position you call "pinched," Dwai, but if you mean that the J-shaped spine (which is very rare in the civilized world --- even Western anatomy books promote the S-shaped spine, the source of all back problems and not only --  and which, the J that is, is over the years created by correct taiji even in people who didn't have it before), the lower tip of the J is not pointing inward constantly, and is not sticking out constantly -- both positions are wrong if maintained constantly.  It moves.  It moves inward for opening/moving/going out, and it moves outward for closing/settling/returning -- constantly.  This mobility is crucial.  So, if you mean don't pinch it in any one position, I agree.  But if you mean something else, I don't. 

 

99% of instructions regarding the tailbone I've seen exchanged online are flat out wrong (or, more often, curved in wrong. ) .  I don't know where this originates, perhaps a "master" from the time when anyone with any taiji would come to the West and make himself a name as a "master" simply because there was nothing to choose from and no exposure to assess the level of the "master" created this pseudo tradition of the wrong tailbone.  Or maybe it's one of the secrets other teachers don't share with the West -- but mine does.  At some point he picked up a child's toy, a rubber dinosaur, and showed me what the tip of the tail is supposed to be doing as pose transitions to pose.  It was very funny, and quite educational. 

 

 

Always awesome to read your views

 

I meant when we rise in a form (say like upward and downward). What is said about standing straight with knees locked being bad, when I stand straight like that (knees not locked, but close enough), I find the energy in the tail getting "cut-off". If I however maintain a slightly more sunken form (the physical shape being more rounded i.e.) , the tail energy stays active...

[beingnature]

The tail "stands" if you just allow to sink i think haha.

[Taomeow]

Always awesome to read your views

 

I meant when we rise in a form (say like upward and downward). What is said about standing straight with knees locked being bad, when I stand straight like that (knees not locked, but close enough), I find the energy in the tail getting "cut-off". If I however maintain a slightly more sunken form (the physical shape being more rounded i.e.) , the tail energy stays active...

 

Thank you for your kind words.

 

I wasn't sure I understood you correctly, verbal descriptions of taiji, you know... 

 

We don't lock the knees for anything, even when they appear straight, they are open internally, could be ever so slightly...  The inner locks are what my teacher has me work on constantly in push-hands, they are not in any joint though, it's the center that you lock into place, and the body expands and contracts around it, goes up and down around it, back and forth around it -- without dragging it along.  The tail pretty much helps stir the body around the rooted center the way the rudder on a boat might stir it around whatever other boats are on the collision course with it -- the trick being that the boat itself is anchored, so you don't stir it anywhere away from where it has decided to be.  "This is my personal space.  I will invade yours if you give me any force, but I won't let you invade mine."  This, your space where you have decided to take a stand, is locked.  Everything else can move and in fact should move -- if it fails to, the anchor may not hold if the collision is with something huge or something pushing the boat in the direction it is already going, expediting it along.

 

I use this a lot -- lock the anchor chain, don't lock the rudder...