Falling & Unfurling Ramakrishna Chedumbarum

Part 1

‘Falling’, or as the Chinese term would say 'Crashing in,' is one of the initial mistakes many beginners in the martial arts make. The definition of this is [paraphrasing from ‘Explaining Tai Chi Principles,’ attributed to Yang, Ban Hou; translation by Paul Brennan] “to lead with the head such that you can be controlled by the opponent.” It’s an easy mistake to spot, even in experienced fighters who throw a punch and miss causing them to fall or stumble. The reason for this issue, after so many years of training, would be lack of understanding of the foundations. How to deal with this?

If the issue is in the foundations look to foundational forms. In Tai Chi’s Old Yang Style form, our foundational form, the first three postures address this. [I’m not saying Tai Chi is the only martial art that address this, but in general the Chinese and Japanese arts seem to be the ones that address it in the most methodical and scientific way. Then again I have not done all martial arts so I cannot say they are the, ‘best,’ just the ones that have worked for myself.]

The posture in the form is p’eng. The first time we take an advancing step, the step of fire. The position of the feet can be seen below:

Figure 1

We can clearly see the diagonal line from one foot to the other. If we ignore the idea of using the waist for the moment, we see that any commitment of our weight [and by extension our power] cannot be transferred outside this line. If we do, we start to fall, see figure 2:

Figure 2

If we even deviate a millimetre [or as the Chinese would say ‘a hair’s breadth’] from transferring the power between the two anchoring points on the ground, our feet, then we will be falling outside the zone where our power can be controlled. Up to now we have ignored the arms. When we punch, it’s the waist that must direct this as we transfer our power forward or backward see Figure 3:

Figure 3

Bear in mind that if we cannot understand the transfer of power in figure 1 while trying to strike, we fall back into the bad habits described in figure 2. How does Tai Chi address this? With the set of postures called Grasping sparrow’s tail and the most basic push hands (not using a ‘power stance’). These postures and training methods emphasise the turning of the waist in conjunction with transferring out weight from one foot to the other. When we break this down we can dictate our ‘sphere of moving with power/awareness,’ in Figure 4 below:

Figure 4

Now we see that turning the waist left and right and between the two extremes of where our power sits between the feet shows the extent of our movements with our arms. Reaching beyond this sphere without adjusting the position of the feet, (without maintaining all the thing discussed above), would mean we start to crash. The last part here which underpins the concept of, ‘moving with awareness,’ is the placing and committing of weight transfer with the ability to withdraw the foot, or ‘stepping like a cat’, a Tai Chi fundamental. Of course the basic principles of, ‘suspending the head by a plumb line,’ and , ‘central equilibrium,’ all apply automatically.

To anyone who would say, ‘well thats not the way we fight. It seems overly rule based and impractical and slow,’ I would say yes, that is a correct assessment. You don’t fight like this. However if a martial artist cannot do these pre-requisites of correct movement properly without any external pressure, then how can one be expected to fight? Once we start to move and step with awareness the possibilities of our fighting range, our sphere of awareness becomes endless and varied. A blank canvas allowing us to adapt to any situation. I’ll end this part of the article with a line from the great pole boxing theory, ‘the root is to discard the self and follow men.’ If we cannot understand ourselves and, ‘discard,’ what we are doing because it has become so familiar to us, how would we be able to follow our opponents?

In part 2 of this article we will explore how the grounding in this article leads to the ability to unfurl.

All quotations and paraphrasing are taken from ‘https://brennantranslation.wordpress.com/2013/09/14/explainingtaiji-principles-taiji-fa-shuo/’ and ‘The Great Pole Boxing Theory’