Now we understand that Zhǒu 肘 – Shoulder is striking further away from the body and Kào 靠 is closer, which Guà 卦 are connected to them? There are only two Guà left. One is Duì 兌 – Lake and the other is Gěn 艮 – Mountain. Now we can see the relationship between the two. A mountain is further up from ground level and a lake is beneath ground level, thus, one is out and the other in! So, the one that is further out is Zhǒu, thus it matches Gěn. The one that is in must therefore be Kào and so it matches Duì. The shoulder is close to the body and if our opponent can reach here, they can hurt us, so then we can attack with our body and head. Duì is lake, and so we need to go deep inside to reach the bottom of the lake, and then the enemy must follow and go further in. If they go further into our body, they can hurt us, but a deep lake is also very dangerous to anyone who goes deep inside.
Grandmaster Tse’s Tàijí Fist 291
If we keep developing it, then we will become spiritual and wiser. If we develop our Qì in our physical body, we will have more power for martial arts.
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This is why we must have a good Sīfú 師父 – Teacher who has higher level skill than us. Whatever we learn, if we want to be good, we need a teacher so that we can learn the proper skill. So, we need a good Sīfú to teach us the proper skill and then we can go and practise ten thousand times and get it right.
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The other side of Tàijíquán is the fighting skill. The fighting skill also has a theory and follows the principles of Yīn 陰 and Yáng 陽. This means that when we are fighting, we can use the soft skill and the hard skill.
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First thing we notice is we start to feel healthier and so for most things we feel more positive. Then we look good and our spirit is strong…
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