What is the Waist?

When you start Tai Chi there is a lot of advice to turn the waist. We are told the waist is not the same as what we think of as the waist but then no one tells you what it is.


So you think of turning from the hips but that's not it. Nor is it turning from the Dan Tien. I remember my late teacher John Kells telling us in class that "what is the waist" was a burning question for him. Eventually he came to the realisation that it was the lumbar spine, like an iron bar and that you turned from there.

Since then a lot of Chinese writings on tai chi have been translated which give detailed information about the waist. which is defined as the Yao. This encompasses the lumbar spine as well as the muscles and tissues around it and this is the area that you turn from, but not like a brick.

Tai Chi with Zhan Zhuang

Internal Arts of Master Wang Bo - 汪波老师之内家拳术

Wow!!

Getting Older: How to Keep Energised and Joyful like a Taoist Immortal |...

Final post for this month and as I edge closer to 60 a pertinent one......

Cook Ding's Kitchen: Book Review: Laoshi and Laoshi's Legacy

I've read the first book and I wasn't too impressed with a comment about a "John Kellerman", a well know London Tai Chi teacher. Sounds too much like my late teacher John Kells.



Cook Ding's Kitchen: Book Review: Laoshi and Laoshi's Legacy: "Philosophy practiced is the goal of learning." - Thoreau Philosophy practiced is the goal of learning. To internalize what o...

Short Form

Me in 2010 practising the short form I learnt from John Kells. The matting was sticky and I almost came a cropper on the spin !

Internal Chambering

Interesting post from Scott Meredith.


Read here: Internal Chambering

If you haven't read his book Juice - Radical Taiji Energetics, then get it.