Yield

John Kells had a YIELD traffic sign in the basement room of his tai chi centre in Upper Wimpole Street, London.

It served as a reminder to all students that this was a cardinal principle. To yield is to accept, not evade. To yield is not just a physical thing, but comes from the heart. Yielding leads to transformation.

A melting acceptance so there is no ego to stand as an obstacle. No intellectual judgement, no clever words.

Stop pretending, stop tricking ourselves. The minute you think you can yield you will be found out.

The crunch comes when under pressure. John at one point used to practise with his partner attacking with knives. I didn't do this but I have found the Sun style Taiji 2 person Sword form to be useful in this regard.

Rooting and Yielding Exercise

John Kells introduced this exercise during one of our classes. I think we only did it once but it is such a killer on the weighted leg. I've done it fairly quickly in this clip so you need to slow it down a bit.

Keep the weight on the rear leg for a while, then slowly shift forwards and backward, finally keep weight on the rear leg and go up and down, imagining you are yielding to being pushed on your arms without collapsing them. This is a real killer. Repeat on the other leg

Liao Zhen Xiang

Liao Zhen Xiang is an old calligrapher who studied with Cheng Man Ching

Yielding Exercise

John Kells introduced a great exercise to help us work on yielding and making a hole for the incoming energy.

We had to stand in a bow and arrow stance with one arm held up in ward off and a pole resting gently on it which was held by another person.

That person would then slowly advance the pole towards your centre. In response we had to yield to the advancing pole and create space without forcing the pole away.

This is easier said than done as the natural inclination is to force the pole aside. This was a great training exercise to work on the attributes of yielding, acceptance,no force and creating a hole.

When Yielding..........

lay your energy alongside the incoming force so that you are not in opposition.

This puts you in a position to return the energy.

This principle is clearly demonstrated in Tenkan in Aikido.