Recently, I attended a Tai Chi chuan summer camp named “Light of Tai Chi” in Las Vegas, hosted by my teacher Grandmaster Chen Zhenglei, a highest-ranked Tai Chi master in China. It was a four-day workshop taught by Grandmaster himself, his two grown children Master Chen Juan and Master Chen Bin from China, and his indoor disciple Master Jack Yan from Canada.
There were three training tracks: Chen Style Old Frame Routine One (Lao Jia Yi Lu), Chen Style New Frame Routine One (Xin Jia Yi Lu), and Push Hands (Tui Shou) , a two-person sparring maneuver. Each day included six hours of classes, and on two evenings, there were lectures given by Grandmaster Chen, Chen Juan, and Chen Bin. Like most attendees, I was excited to absorb the rich content, though I was also exhausted due to the rigorous training.
Every morning and afternoon, before breaking out for individual track training, all participants joined for one-hour warm-ups led alternately by Chen Juan, Chen Bin, and Jack Yan. One day, it was Master Bin’s turn. He emphasized the importance of basic training, which includes a complete set of Joint Flexion exercises, basic Silk Reeling (Chan Si Gong) or Spiraling, and Standing Meditation (Zhan Zhuang). Through Joint Flexion exercises, we warmed up all our major joints and stretched our legs to the maximum by doing horse stance and bow stance at a crouching position. Further more we had to shift the body weight between feet in this crouching stance. My endurance – or lack thereof – forced me to quit after two sets of shifting to the left and back to the right. I could manage at least five sets when I attended the same camp in 2019 before COVID.
But that wasn’t my worse experience. Master Chen Bin led us Single-arm Silk Reeling. Silk Reeling is the foundation of Chen Style or should be the bedrock of all Tai Chi styles. It is not just the hands are twining but all the fingers, wrists, elbows, shoulders, hip joints, core, knees, and ankles are all spiraling simultaneously. He promised only five minutes for each arm. Sounds easy enough? Wrong! He guided the movement painstakingly slowly. If you ever practice Silk Reeling, you understand that you must shift body weight from one leg to the other continuously without stopping to distinguish the Yin and Yang energies. With slow movements, the solid leg, which bears most body weight, feels tremendous stress. It is extremely challenging for a practitioner to perform Tai Chi forms slowly unless he has very strong legs. Oftentimes, people thinks athletes can increase leg muscle by pushing a heavy weight machine. Next time, have them try slow Silk Reeling.
In Tai Chi practice, there are generally three stances: high, medium, and low. Additionally, some movements call for a crouching stance, such as Snake Creeps Down in Yang Style and Nimble Dragon in Chen Style. In Tai Chi chuan, there isn’t a universal standard for defining high, medium, and low stances, as the practice can vary widely among different styles. Sun Style is called Small Frame, characterized by not extending arms or legs and maintaining mostly high stances. Yang Style and Chen Style are considered Large Frame with extended arms and legs with mixed stances and in general they keep stances much lower or as low as a practitioner can sustain. Normally, lower the stance, the more weight the solid leg has to bear or harder to practice. There are some general guidelines that many practitioners and schools follow to categorize stances. Here are the guidelines:
High Stance
- Knee Bend: Knees are slightly bent, with a small angle around 10-20 degrees.
- Hip Height: Hips are kept higher, closer to a standing position but the hip joints (kuas) need to be softly bent.
- Description: The knees are only slightly bent. Imagine standing naturally and then slightly bending your knees as if you’re preparing to walk.
Medium Stance
- Knee Bend: Knees are bent at a moderate angle around 20-45 degrees.
- Hip Height: Hips are lowered significantly, roughly at the midpoint between the knees and hips while standing straight. The hip joints (kuas) are folded deep.
- Description: The knees are bent more noticeably. It is like the position you might take when you’re halfway to sitting down on a chair but then stop and hold that position.
Low Stance
- Knee Bend: Knees are deeply bent between 70 – 90-degrees or more.
- Hip Height: Hips are almost at the same height as the knees. Unless practitioners are doing a crouching stance, it is warned against having hips lower than the knees, which can damage the knees,.
- Description: This stance involves a deep bend in the knees, similar to a sitting position where your thighs are almost parallel to the ground.
One important requirement is that, regardless of the stance, the upper body should remain upright, relaxed, and not leaning forward at all times. This is very different than the western squatting exercise, which push the seat backward and lean upper body forward. This simple requirement of keeping the neck and back upright becomes more challenging to adhere to as the stance gets low even by lowering a half inch. The advice to Tai Chi beginners is not to lower the stance until one develops stronger legs and core and can maintain an erect back. Nevertheless, one’s Tai Chi skill is not judged by how low they can get, but by the proper alignment of their entire body.
My normal stance varies between medium and low depending on the movement. During those five minutes, my legs were burning and shaking, my blood was racing, my body was tense, and my mind could not focus on energy movement. Eventually, with great anguish, I raised my stance. Some others did the same or sped up their movements. It was indeed the longest five minutes I have ever experienced.
Aside from the Push Hands, the camp taught me that I really need more basic training.