Gravity Vault

Below you will find information to support folks learning Tai Chi at Ken’s Gravity Vault sessions. These sessions can be joined at any time, so we use an individualized approach to be followed by the student, not directed by the teacher.

Objective

When I learned the tai chi form, I studied for many weeks without ever seeing the full form executed with the final, refined flow that is our goal. This was before the internet made such things freely accessible, and my school followed the common practice of having students learn the whole form before working on flow.

I forget why, perhaps I stumbled onto a DVD by accident, but one day I popped a Terry Dunn tai chi DVD into my DVD player and saw the full form executed start to finish, with polished flow he learned from Grandmaster William CC Chen. I was stunned by what I saw, and thrilled. I gained all new energy for my own practice, knowing what awaited me. Let us start there.

This is the full form. I will be replacing this soon with abbreviated form beginners will learn, which is roughly 60% of this.

Principles

As a beginning student, you need not worry too much about the qualities listed below. You will, however, here them mentioned as we explain the ideal execution of a movement. If you can, keep them in mind and do what you can to refine your performance with them in mind.

As you can see, tai chi form execution has many facets. These form the target of our mindfulness, and enhance our execution, taking it to ever more elegant and gracious levels. I am contemplating one or two of these every time I do the form, and on which ones I focus varies as I do a single execution.

If forms practice becomes tedious, come back to this list, pick a quality and concentrate on it.

  • Smile. Show-off. “I am so cool”. Lift the spirit.
  • Poised crown. Extend the skeleton to see as far as possible, but tuck the chin, and do not strain.
  • Four “hearts” or focus of effort: two buttocks and two shoulder blades
  • Elevate the arms slightly, freeing the rib cage and underarms.
  • Three nails: big toe, inside of ball of foot, inside of heel, forming two arches used to grip the ground.
  • Squeeze the knees. Initiate steps and turns by driving from the knee.
  • Pinky finger yin, index finger yang. Wind up with pinky, activate with index.
  • Empty step, moving foot at slow speed of a mighty river.
  • Steady speed and height. Use transit to check height.
  • Just change shape. No arm movement independent of trunk.
  • Classic principles:
    • move slowly
    • move steadily, like a mighty river
    • no height change
    • everything starts together and ends together

Learning Path

Below we will be building up a list of specific skills for the student to master, using the resources we provide. The student owns their own learning. They must take the initiative, They learn at their own pace, and decide what to learn and when. They are responsible for:

  • asking for instruction from the teacher or other students;
  • using suggested resources for a movement, such as Micro Tai Chi ™ videos, other publicly available videos, and of course the description of the skill; and
  • deciding when they are ready to have their skill evaluated.

Here are the skills we have so far:

  • Warm-up
  • Posture
  • The Bow Stance, Left and Right
  • The Empty Step
  • Cloud Hands
  • Ward Off Left, Step 1
  • Ward Off Left