Root on the Front Foot

Tonight in class we worked on "push body."

Tai Chi practitioners are familiar with "push hands," an exercise where two people try to push each other off balance. It takes a lot of relaxation and skill to do this without using the upper body and the muscles of the arms. Doing so makes one vulnerable to getting pushed: it creates "kyo" (opening).

(The term "push hands" is a bit of a misnomer; a more accurate description would be "sensing hands." But that's for another time...)

"Push body" is a kind of training device for push hands (amongst other things). Instead of pushing against each other's arms, you press your body against your partner and just use your legs and hips to try and uproot the other, or to resist the other. You aren't supposed to grab or pull with the hands; instead, you extend your arms under or over your partner's arms. It looks like a cross between slam ballroom dancing and sumo wrestling.

This is a great exercise on many levels. It helps you develop your stance, your ability to root, to drop your center below that of your opponent. Done properly, you learn how to relax the upper body, root with the feet, power with the legs, give direction with the hips. You learn how to be receptive to your partner's energy and intention, how to harmonize with his or her "attack."

But, as with all great lessons, it operated for me on an entirely different level. Sensei pointed out something that instantly resonated with me as relevant to my life outside the dojo. This meta-lesson goes something like this:

I am not bad at rooting on my back foot. Stretched out in zenkutsudachi (front stance), my rear foot can plant into the ground like a Masai spear, waiting for the lion to pounce. You can push and push and I see my back foot ploughing a trench in the floor, if you can budge me at all. I won't give up an inch without a fight. But that doesn't help me move forward. It only keeps me from slipping further back. But under a strong enough attack, I'm bound to slide a little.

And there are lots of people, lots of things in life that are stronger than me. Time. Circumstance. Nature. Trying to stand still against these forces is the same as moving backwards. They will always win. Digging in, remaining immovable, holding to the status quo--those are all losing strategies. It's not enough to stand still. I need to move forward.

To move forward, one must root on the front foot. Sensei demonstrated, allowing himself to be pushed back and back and back and then, at the right instant, when his partner gave him an opening, he drove his front foot into the mat, dropped his hips and fed back the energy his partner had just given him in his push and wham! Back the other direction they went. Sensei's uke (partner), not being as skillful, had no chance to recover.

This is what I need to do in my life: not to dig in, hold on to the ground I've already gained, which is the same as holding on to the past, but rather, to root with my front foot, to relax and sense the opening of Life before me, then take all that energy and return it. I will use my intention, flowing through my mind and my hands, out my fingertips, to point in the direction I want to go. Open myself to the power that is flowing into me. Then drive forward into the future, into possibility, into new ground.