Quite a wild sequence today, with the whole class dedicated to sorting out Step Up, Deflect, Intercept, and Punch, then spontaneously deciding to make the closing round our first ever exploration of a newer idea from Master Chen: the Four Butts.
Yes, the Four Butts. Master Chen loves to have fun, part of why he has devoted students around the world. We will come back to the butts later.
In the review of Step Up, I wanted mostly to explain more fully the insight from yesterday about it being one of the hardest movements in the form. But I also wanted to touch on two flaws I had been teaching: the step up and the left hand.
Flaw #1: The step up
The third action in Step Up has 100% of our weight on the left leg as we step up with the right foot. I have been bringing my right heel up against the arch of my left foot. Wrong. The right foot moves “forward until it is a half-step from the left arch”.
I think I just mentally translated the close step not being shoulder width into an adjacency.
Flaw #2: The left hand winding up for Deflect
The second flaw was also in this third action. I have been bringing my right fist into my left palm, like a baseball pitcher with his pitching hand sequestered in his glove.
In fact, as the right fist comes back, knuckles up, to the left waist, the left hand also travels back, a full foot-and-a-half behind, and with the palms facing the left hip. So the fist is directed towards the open palm, but with a healthy separation.
I guess I just like baseball.
Discovering the four butts
We spent the full class on that, then it was time for our closing round. I suddenly remembered that I had planned on exploring the Four Butts, and on the spur of the moment gave the class a quick explanation of the upper “two” butts, our shoulder blades, and how they were to be given as much focus in upper body movements as we give the waist and hips in lower body movement.
I also shared that, together, Master Chen defines our heart as the union of the four butts, which is interesting because in tai chi we also make the dan tien and the waist central to the art.
It is too soon, after just one round, to decide, but during that one round I called out to the class all the places where one or both arms could be driven more forcefully by an imagined power source in the shoulder blades. There were dozens, and the whole form felt more powerful. The base was still the lower body, but now the power was issuing up further through the upper torso and out to the fingers.
“Sound boxing is rooted in the feet, develops in the legs, is ruled by the waist, and functions through the fingers. The feet, leg, and waist must act as one unit.” Wang Zongyue, Taiqiquan Classic
The back and the butts
I tried during Master Chen’s recent (great!) Zoom calls to draw him into a fuller discussion of the four butts, but his responses were cursory. Here is my report, anyway.
My brief experience was uncomplicated: any movement involving a strike or block with a hand began from an imagined power plant in the shoulder blade, with this power plant anchored in space by the waist rooted in the feet by the legs. The arm just absorbs the impact, as Master Chen always says.
The back felt like the missing link in my imagined martial dance. But even as it filled with power, it also felt light, unlike the waist and legs. Perhaps the separation of the total power into upper and lower butts keeps the upper butt free and light.
“When the buttocks and spine are held straight, the spirit reaches the top of the head. When the head is held as if suspended by a string, the entire body feels light and nimble.” Yang Cheng-fu, Yang Family Ten Essential Points
I had a great time with the four butts. I really felt the upper body coming alive, generating all sorts of energy I will be exploring going forward.
The butts, the back, the heart
Something new for me during the call was hearing the back described as our heart. Following that nomenclature, we might substitute upper heart and lower heart for the pairs of butts. These names work well because our hearts do have an upper chamber and lower chamber, and our thump-thump heartbeat is the upper heart firing and triggering the lower heart to fire next.
And then I do not have to talk about “butts” in class. 🙂 The only flaw in this is that the upper butts work independently of each other, not as a single organ. WIP.