Today under the gazebo at 50°F I was wondering how on earth we comfortably did tai chi at 22°F! The problem may have been that there was a solid offshore NNE wind so there was no place to hide, and there was certainly no sun, just a steady light rain.
I lasted only thirty minutes, but had plenty of time to practice my new understanding of the empty step in Master Chen’s form. We begin with Master Chen from fifty (!) years ago doing his form.
The clip begins just as Master Chen explains the balance on one leg required by the soft, graceful step. He did not use the term “empty”, but a close examination of all his stepping, and the stepping of many of his senior students seen in this Youtube playlist I assembled, shows a controlled step. It may not be a step that could be withheld at the very end, but neither is it a heavily falling step.
The Empty Step as a Controlled Step
To date, my test for the Empty Step has been, do I have the option even at the very end of not putting the foot down. This I learned from other students of Professor Cheng Man-Ch’ing, before discovering Master Chen.
I would test myself by indeed starting a given step in the form and pausing with my foot in mid-air above the intended landing spot, then retracting it without ever touching down, returning to my starting position.
For Master Chen’s empty step, I have a new test. Based on today’s experimentation, my first impression is that it is almost as challenging as the pure, retractable step: is the step taken as slowly as the rest of the form is performed?
The “mighty river” step?
Observe Master Chen’s steps that take a while to execute, because they sweep through a rotation before landing. Examples are the endings of Single Whip and Step Up, and the beginning of Retreat to Mountain Camp. We see the long, sweeping step executed as slowly as the rest of the form gestures.
“Be still as a mountain, move like a great river.” Wang Zongyue, Taijiquan Jing
And before completion, in some cases it does look as if the step could be withdrawn at the last moment.
Summary
While learning “60 Movements”, we go with the grandmaster; steps are controlled, performed at the same speed as the rest of the form gestures, and the foot eases into the ground heel first, relaxed, and yin, so empty.
And if this new step grows on me, my own style will lose the retractable quality, just as my pace for the form happily slowed 25% to match Master Chen’s pace, once I gave that a solid try.
For now, I enjoy the slightly greater rigor of the retractable step, so will continue with that as my personal tai chi chuan style.