The Other Hands

I found it difficult to mark the different circles exactly.  Over time, I decided that the forms were adapted to a personal preference by the teachers.  Because I never came across a Yang or a Wu teacher that used the circles to teach the basics, I wonder if this idea was discarded in later forms of Taiji, or if this was a basic that some of my teachers decided was less important/more boring/less likely to attract students than the choreography work. 

In some forms what I referred to as the Lu posture or Earth Circle resembles a different circle that I came to associate with the Wind Gua or Pull Down or Cai.  I proceeded to see it as Cai for myself.  For the other forms, by the end of a form I usually see that all 8 circles have been employed somehow no matter what actual name the posture has.  I didn't see any reason to argue with any teacher, I still have little enough reason to believe that I am correct.

The Mountain Circle or Shoulder Stroke or Kao was one that I had to change my understanding of a few times.  The actual movement called Shoulder Stroke in the Yang form is done with both hands coming together just before White Crane Spreads It's Wings.  I was taught multiple ways of doing this transition, which I now see were different circles being used.

In Master Jou's book and the Taiji classics, Diagonal Slanted Flying is the posture specifically associated with this Gua.  Unfortunately, I was taught a different way of doing Diagonal Slanted Flying by different teachers.  I eventually made an "executive decision."  While a few teachers had shown me to do the leading arm in a positive circle, I believe Chen Man'Ching shows two circles going down and out.  This is also how Kao is entered in the San Shou two person Taiji form.  It was interesting for me to meet a prominent student of Chen Man'Ching's who said that the form wasn't static and did get modified many times.  The sequence was the same, but how movements were performed did change with time.

My Chen teacher was particularily proficient and vicious with Split.  While the movement does resemble how many people do the Diagonal Slanted Flying posture and the closed posture can be applied in a Shoulder Stroke, I went with seeing this as emphasizing energies travelling in opposite directions.  In time I became much more comfortable with what I had decided was the Mountain Circle, and that in turn made me more comfortable with what I saw as the Thunder Circle.





The question is what any line would represent in a Gua.  If the bottom line would represent the lead arm and the top line would represent the relationship between the arms, then the Mountain Circle and the Wind Circle would be demonstrated like I show in the videos.  If the bottom line was the relationship, then the Wind Circle would look like what I posted as the Lake Circle, and the Mountain Circle would look like what I posted as the Thunder Circle.  As Mountain and Thunder each had one Yang line, I had trouble seeing which was which.  Similarily, Wind and Lake each have one Yin line. 

It doesn't matter which is which for the Earth or Heaven Circles, as they are completely and clearly opposite.  The second two cardinal directions, Fire and Water, were easier to see than the four corners.  The 8 circles were still there even if I couldn't always decide which circle was associated with which of the gua.  The corners still have me questioning myself sometimes.  Sorting out Fire and Water was based on the physical shape and application or the circles.

Fire or Push or An was a source of confusion in that the Chen Form I learned (and other Chen styles, and one of the Wu styles) taught it was pushing downward, like I show here.  The Yang Form had some teachers showing a downward push, but many uprooted doing something more like the forward portion of the Cai circle above.  Others did something like the closing portion of the Mountain Trigram.  This inconsistency had me deciding if I just made the effort to learn circles well, then I could apply any type of An.  The 8 circles were there but exact shape of a specific technique would vary widely and which circle would be employed changed from person to person and style to style.  The differences between the Fire, Wind and Heaven Circles are subtle if the rising portion of the circle is being used, as is the difference between Mountain Circle closing and Fire Circle sinking.  It just helps me to see the different circles.

This one was a huge lightbulb moment.  I had been just going through all 8 circles with little idea what to call most of them when I noticed that the closing of this one very much resembles the Yang Form Press or Ji or Water.  The lead hand on the bottom is retreating and the rear hand comes forward and this works very well in push hands for me.  The Taiji poem about the coin thrown on the drumhead makes sense to me here.  The poem also talks about opening and closing in an instant, which is what this circle does.

The further use I have for this is actually in Aikido.  I talked before about the Thunder Circle resembling an Aikido Sokumen Iriminage.  My wife does a variation of this style of Iriminage that is very clearly using the Water Circle opening movement.  In Aikido, these very different things have the same name and I found I could progress past sticky Aikido debates by seeing the circles.

Elbow Stroke or Zhou or Lake was one of the basics that I had never even heard mentioned when I first learned the form.  I was surprised that it was one of the 8 core movements.  I did read that Circle Fist is also associated with Elbow Stroke.  The Taiji poem mentions that it is very widely applied and very dangerous, but I seldom heard the name used.  The Chen form taught movements called Elbow Stroke that used the Wind Circle and another form used the Thunder Circle.  I stayed with the 8 circles and I used this one as the Lake Circle.



There are many additional differences in how these circles can be employed, and in how they are done.  This was where I saw the Torso method being applied.