Dear all, welcome to the November ‘09 issue of the Taichido newsletter. Big news on the website: as Gary describes further on, Taichido’s sister site wheelswithinwheels.net has been subsumed into Taichido, and many of the articles therein will now be on the main website.
We are probably about a couple of weeks off from launching the new website, and I’m very pleased with the way that it has gone. Taichido will be more thematically approached, and be more comprehensive. Many articles and aspects (including the range of pages under the Netguide) have been revamped, edited etc. To bring them up to date. By the next newsletter we will be celebrating the new state of the site.
In this newsletter Gary discusses the role of the tai chi syllabus in the new site, and looks at two hexagram-based complimentary areas of tai chi – the i-ching, and the eight essential forces.
Mark |
In last month's newsletter I was pleased to let you know that I had put online at taichido.com's little sister site, wheelswithinwheels.net - A Foundation Course for Tai Chi using Classic Chi Kung/Traditional Chinese Medicine Exercises to encourage the development and accumulation of Chi through the establishment of correct posture and healthy breathing techniques.
For those already experienced and/or content with their own practice, or teacher, this first 5 part section of a much larger syllabus can be studied as a six week 'stand alone' course in Chi Kung style meditative standing and breathing exercise sets culminating in the classic "Embracing the Tree" and "Connecting Heaven and Earth" Chi Kung sets.
Like those that follow (coming soon as a major new feature on a revamped taichido.com ... read on!), these first 5 sessions are presented as illustrated lesson outline notes complete with suggestions for half an hour a day ongoing practice following the self directed, week by study of each session, with each session being the equivalent of a one hour lesson.
In last month's newsletter I also confirmed our intention to publish similar session by session illustrated lesson outline notes for the whole of the Yang Long Form under the title of the "Do Tai Chi Syllabus". However, the upload of this project has be held back for a month so that when the bulk of it goes does go online it will be as a major new feature at a revamped taichido.com. A revamped taichido.com? Yes! Wheelswithinwheels is now actually no more and some pieces from that site have already been migrated to taichido.com. Others - including the "Do Tai Chi Syllabus" are currently being reformatted into the style that Mark and I refer to as "taichido blue" and eventually all will be subsumed into the one massive site that is taichido.com. When complete, this revamp will render the site considerably enhanced and enlarged ... and, least of all but visually most apparent, less blue!
At taichido.com at present, the main menu showing links to various aspect of Tai Chi are presented first as general topic/aspect options, such as "characteristics ...", "stances", "health", "philosophy", "chi" etc. On the revamped and enhanced version these topic menus are colour themed, and should you visit any page within that topic that menu then expands to show all of the separate articles within that section. Menus showing all of the other general category/aspects remains visable on all pages.
Perhaps the most dramatic navigation and visual enhancement to the site will be seen in our Tai Chi Netguide which is presently online as 133 detailed text instructions with accompanying animated images of each move in the complete Long Form. The text part of this presentation was rewritten in 2007 to meet our own "good enough is not good enough" standards on the way to being published as a booklet that is included in our instructional interactive learning media two DVD set "The Yang Long Form" designed specifically for television-based set-top DVD players.
Clearly, taichido.com is an ongoing project and my greatest ambition of it is that we remain honourable and sincere in our attempts at preserving the integrity of the ancient art of Tai Chi just 'as it is'; whilst transmitting all of this in everyday language that does not trivialize, dilute or 'dumb-down' its rich and complex essence .
With the merging of taichido.com and wheelswithinwheels.net a few articles that used to be listed under "Dojo Notes" @ wheelswithinwheels.net became homeless. But don't worry, this is temporary and it pleases me to end this month's newsletter to bring you a couple of "Dojo Notes" that I have just rewritten for the umpteenth time, ready for publication as supplements for further study within our "Do Tai Chi Syllabus", a major new feature coming soon to a revamped, enlarged and enhanced taichido.com which has been online now for twelve years.
The Eight Essential Forces |
The structure, form or design of Tai Chi tally's with many other oriental philosophies and represents the functioning of Yin and Yang in relation to eight essential forces and structures of the Universe (as perceived of by Ancient Taoists). These are: Heaven - Mountain - Earth - Wind - Fire - Thunder - Water - The Sacred Lake (inland water and 'the depths'). Each of these 'characteristics' are associated with particular phases of natures cycle and placed accordingly around the Yin Yang - with maximum Yang (3 unbroken lines, Qian/Heaven) being bright/white, and maximum Yin (3 unbroken lines, Kun/Earth) being dark/black.
This cycle operates on the micro or personal and macro or universal level and as such incorporates the coming and going of the seasons, the rise and fall of the tide, the 'birth' and 'death' of stars as well as the birth and death of all the other "ten thousand things" (all species in, above and on the planet. This theory of the waxing and waning cycle of chi is the basis of the I Ching and is therefore fundamental to all associated oriental theories.
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The Chinese character Romanised as "I" represents easiness, clarity, change and changelessness. "Ching" may be transliterated as "a classic" (book/writing). "I Ching" therefore translates as "The Classic book of Change". Interpretation suggests ways in which nature society and the individual could or should work together.
The I Ching is most known or recognised by westerners as a method of divination and often perceived as some kind of fortune telling based upon instinct or extraordinary almost supernatural ability - like reading tea leafs in the bottom of a cup or lines on a person's palm. This erroneous interpretation by many westerners is perhaps excelled only by our attempts to Feng Shui our cluttered homes with a coat of pastel paint a putting the television in a different corner!
The text of the I Ching is a set of oracular statements represented by 64 sets of six lines each called hexagrams.
"Hexagram": "Hex" is "six". "Gram" is from the Greek "grapho" meaning to write or draw. Therefore, a hexagram is a picture/graphical representation composed of 6 lines. (The Star of David is another example of a hexagram).
In the article above the eight essential forces and structures of the Universe (Heaven - Mountain - Earth - Wind - Fire - Thunder - Water - The Sacred Lake) are shown in relation to the primary eight trigrams that are then combined to produce sixty four variations.
The Yin Yang symbol is an accurate pictorial simplification of the 64 hexagrams of the I Ching. The former shows Yin as the black and Yang as the white. However, it is very important to note that each is shown with the thinnest or smallest part of one becoming equilaterally greater as the other becomes lesser. So, the Yin Yang simplistically illustrates gradients of Yin and Yang. The I Ching hexagrams go much further than that by codifying these gradients into 64 phases. Both represent cyclical change with energies or forces. The Yin Yang particularly illustrates the idea that this all goes around in an endless circle. The I Ching is a means of divination in as much that it agrees with Great Brittan's WW2 leader Winton Churchill who said "If you want to predict what will happen in the future, study the past".
The I Ching is much more than some kind of fortune telling tool that many of us westerners take it to be; it is just one element of a comprehensive and interlocking theory of how internal (personal) and external (world-wide) harmony might be achieved.
I know of many Tai Chi postures or phases of postures that are associated with and in a way, illustrated by I Ching Hexagrams. There are three that are linked to the posture "Beginning". The physical movements of this posture are designed to guide the flow of chi (vital energy) from the feet, up the spine to the top of the head, and then down the front of the body to the abdomen.
 Ch'ien/Qien or "Heaven" (hexagram number 1) represents the point at which the knees are straight and the energy has risen up through the spinal column all the way to the head. In the I Ching (the book*) "Ch'ien" is revealed as "Creative Originality" and it suggests that it is time to take action and continue with determination. Work hard but do not overreach.
 Fu "Return" or "Turning Point" (hexagram number 24) represents the descent or lowering of chi. In the I Ching "Fu" is revealed as "Returning" and the inference is: You may move freely as there is advantage in all directions with no one opposing you. Keep a firm goal in mind as this is a new cycle of growth - so let things grow. Put behind you the wrong doings of others and they will do the same for you.
 K'un or "Earth" (hexagram number 2) represents the outcome of the lowering, in which the energy has moved down to the abdomen. K'un, is revealed as "Fulfilling Destiny" and it is suggested that there is no need to force the issue and that good fortune can be derived from passive compliance.
End Notes
The oldest method for casting the hexagrams, using yarrow stalks, is a biased random number generator, and because there are more 'old yang' hexagrams than there are old yin' hexagrams the possible answers are not equi-probable. The yarrow stalk method was gradually replaced during the Han Dynasty by the three coins method. Using this method all mathematical imbalances is eliminated. Of course, the fundamental idea underlying this system of divination is that the appropriate answer will be produced, regardless of the probabilities.
There have been several arrangements of the trigrams and hexagrams over the ages. The b? gùa is a circular arrangement of the trigrams, traditionally printed on a mirror, or disk. According to legend, Fu Hsi found the b? gùa on the scales of a tortoise's back.
References: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I Ching.
* The I Ching translated by Rudolf Ritsems and Stephen Karcher. Element ISBN1-85230-536-3 |
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