The Ten Principles in Practice

 In yesterday's post I alluded to the Ten Principle of Taiji that guide my practice.  As a whole they are a "content" to be explored and experienced in ones practice without any expectation of reaching a time when you have mastered them and no longer need them.  It is also true that ones practice of tai chi chuan can be beneficial and progressive without ever thinking about or using the 10 Principles.  I do both, in that, I sometimes I will pick a principle to focus on to feel how it enhances my experience and other times I just feel the flow of the forms without any application of principles.

The Principles can be applied to ones daily practice individually to observe the affect, but in reality it is impossible to practice one principle without all 10 being present in your form.  For example, you may imbue your practice with the principle of "Continuous without Interruption" feeling the energy flow from the phase of gathering to expression and then to gathering again.  While observing this flow of energy you would also note that the "Upper and Lower Body are Combined and Connected.  You would also note the existence of a balance of "Empty and Full".  The four Body Alignment principles would need to be applied and ultimately the three Mind/Body principles would come into play.  Choose any other principle to start with and you can make the same case that all principles come into play.

I had the thought here to ask why Yin/Yang are not stated as a Principle.  The reason being that all principles, and their expression, contain both Yin and Yang.  In fact, during the Yin phase of a movement there is also an element of Yang. I will address this in full in a future post.