The Three Chi Rings is a unique visualization tool of Grandmaster Wei Shuren’s Yang style Tai Chi. The Beginning Posture is where we are introduced to how to use mental visualization to map the Chi Rings.

It is important to note that imagining the Chi Rings being created is not enough. You have to feel them even as they are being created. There are reasons why we need to be able to feel.

What you think can affect the way your body moves. So if your visualization is correct, you will feel something. This something is related to the principles of our Yang style Tai Chi. This feeling helps to inform you if your doing the Chi Rings correctly.

If you are, and you practice them consistently, refining your feeling internally, then somewhere along the line something will click and you will realize the connection between the Three Chi Rings, the Five Bows, Opening-Closing, the Nine Crooked Pearls and fajing. You have then gained a valuable insight.

The practice of Small Chi Sphere is related to the practice of the Elongated Wrist. In actual learning, we may not learn in this order. Instead, we typically learn other main principles such as the Three Chi Rings, Lowering the Elbows, Buns Under the Armpits, etc before we come to the Small Chi Sphere.

I touched on it here because the Small Chi Sphere principle is an extension of the Elongated Wrist principle. The easiest way to learn the Small Chi Sphere and make it a habit is by learning to do it when your hand is in open palm formation.

This is simplifying and dumbing down the actual process of learning to use the Small Chi Sphere but if the objective is to pick up the understanding earlier, well I suppose it is a necessary evil.

You learn about the Small Chi Sphere by learning to hold it between your fingers when you have an open palm formation. All five of your finger tips gently grasped and adhere to the Small Chi Sphere. You need to use your imagination to do it.

If you are lacking in the visualization department, get an actual small, ideally light ball, and have a feel of what it is like to grasp it. This is a quick way to get the feeling. There are limitations to learning this way but if its gets the learning moving along then why not.

Whether your palm is facing down, facing up or facing forward, always have the Small Chi Sphere grasped between your fingers. Never lose it unless the learning steps call for it to be momentarily out of your hands.

When you can grasp the Small Chi Sphere, then you can learn to manipulate it. A very simple basic manipulation occurs in the Beginning Posture where you are holding the Small Chi Sphere with your palm down, then release the sphere to fly through the air into the distance, then as you turn your palm up the sphere flies back into your hand in a quick instant (the action is performed by hold hands, eaching holding its own sphere).

Right before this action, there is an action of how each of the two spheres is formed, rolled up the body, inserted through your body, then brought back out before releasing and retrieving the sphere.

And after this, you again insert the spheres into your body, bring them out, place them on the level surface of the river (it can also be the sea or a swimming pool, but let’s make it a river) and press the spheres into the water, right up to the Kua Ring of the Three Chi Rings.

By now, you can see how easily complicated the learning has become and we are still in the Beginning Posture movement. I just described it to give you an idea of what our learning of GM Wei Shuren’s Tai Chi is like.

Along the way, you can learn to manipulate the Small Chi Sphere by rotating it, depressing it, dashing it, and even disintegrating it on cue from an external pulsing dot. Yeah, man, some of the things we do sounds just like science fiction when we describe it.

There are so many more things to talk about when it comes to the Small Chi Sphere. I think I will give my hands a rest from the typing and your mind a rest.

There’s no escape from the basics, more so if you are learning GM Wei Shuren’s Tai Chi.

A long time ago my teacher said never, never throw away the basics. The better you know your basics and understand the connection between each and every basic, the more refined your skill will be.

However, its too easy to forget the basics especially if you practice different arts. So if Tai Chi is your chosen poison make sure you make the basics part of your movements before you mess around with other arts. Even then practice regularly and check, and check again that your basics are still there.

Everyone knows that you must first learn to Sung when you do your form. Sung is the basis for main things to come, chief among them the one thing everyone loves and can’t get enough of, FAJING.

For me this is my conclusion for the importance of Sung. Sung is the first gateway to achieve different objectives. So we must somehow, by hook or by crook, get to Sung. But what does Sung mean?

Sung can mean different things to different practitioners depending on their level of mastery. For us let’s not become overly obsessed with Sung to the exclusion of everything else. Like I said its a means to an end, a tool.

We begin with a simple attainment of Sung that everyone can master……. well, almost everyone, as long as you are prepared to do the practice carefully and diligently as long as you need to get there.

The easiest way to learn to Sung is by practicing Elongated Wrist. Basically, Elongated Wrist is to physically keep your hand and wrist in a straight line, well, its actually more than that. It is more like water surging out from the wrist through the hand and the pressure of the water straightens out the wrist, elongating it.

So keeping the wrist-hand straight is not it. Keeping the flow of energy from the wrist to the hand is it. But this can be abstract so beginners can miss the point. Easier to tell them to imagine a bracelet cuffed around the wrist to straighten the wrist and hand.

If you keep practicing this way, and you keep at it, you should come to a point where you feel as if you have no hand. You can see your hand but the feeling is like the hand is not there. Well, if you want to feel your hand just bend your wrist and you can feel your hand again.

So if you can “lose” your hand you can say that you have achieved a level of Sung in your hand. If this Sung is real, not imagined, then when someone grasped your wrist with their hand he should feel a huge surge of power coming right at him. He should not feel as if you are trying to push your wrist at him.

This is why I say this is like losing your hand. Your partner grasped your hand, he can see your hand, but he does not feel your hand pushing back, he just feels this energy.

The practice of the Elongated Wrist is not an isolated practice. Whether we are forming an open palm, a fist or a hook hand we must, we must have the Elongated Wrist. This means that when we practice the form (whether 22-form, 108-form or 37-form) you must have the Elongated Wrist present from beginning to end.

And that basically is why the Elongated Wrist principle is so important.

We normally think of stepping as a means to get us to the position we want or to control our range.

However, stepping is also good for one other thing – power generation.

In 6-MS we learn how to step in a zig-zag manner. We use this stepping because 4 of the 6-MS strikes are powered by the body posture associated with this stepping.

For 6-LH we use a different posture due to the range and angling requirements.

Both methods of stepping are related and can be practiced together. However, to make the learning easier we should learn the 6-MS stepping first. Generally, this stepping is easier to practice. The problem arises when we learn the 6-MS and 6-LH stepping together.

This is when if you did not practice 6-MS stepping properly you will find that when you change from 6-MS to 6-LH stepping you can’t get the power out crisply. So its better to make yourself practice more rigorously so that you don’t have to go back to practicing like a beginner at a later stage.

I will refer to 6-MS stepping as Step-1 and 6-LH stepping as Step-2.

When you practice 6-MS it is not enough to just step out of the way of a strike. You should turn enough to maximize the range and power afforded by the turning of the body. It is when you do this that you are winding your body to the maximum.

When you do Step-2 as follow up your body will need to turn back the other way. So if your body is already well winded in Step 1 you will be able to turn back strongly when you change to Step-2. This winding and unwinding will allow you to power not just your blocks but also your strikes.

That’s why you should not skip any steps or do each step in a lackadaisical manner. Each step before affects the step after.

Perform each step carefully. As you become more familiar then you try to minimize the lag between changes. If you keep practicing there will be a time when you can perform an action in one step instead of a few steps. The speed of execution is then not so much a matter of forcing yourself to move faster but a matter of efficiency and minimizing the steps required to carry out an action.

Last comment – when practicing Step-1 do not overlook the role of the parry hand. Knowing what to do with the parry hand can help you with power generation also.

We have a simple solo sequence, 5-MS, for the 5 Major Strikes that is basically performing each of the major strikes in their order.

Now after some time training with 6-Blocks we can upgrade our practice of the 5 major strikes by combining elements from the 6-Blocks into the sequencing of the major strikes.

And I added one more technique to this sequence as a bridge between the major strikes and the other three solo bridge hand sequences 6-LH, 3-WS and 3-NS. I will call this 6-MS.

In CMA there are three levels of blocking and attacking namely :-
i) Block then counterattack
ii) Block and counterattack at the same time
iii) Move out of the way and counterattack

The sequence of 5-MS focuses on (iii) whereas 6-LH, 3-WS and 3-NS emphasizes (ii). For 6-MS we will have (ii) and (iii).

As usual, use the sticks on the ground as a guide to ensure your stepping is consistent. But do get rid of them as you progress.

6-MS-1
1) Perform right 6-Blk-1 as your right foot steps to your right
2) Pull your right hand back and execute left Yum Chui
3) You can decorate the technique with additional movements later

6-MS-2 with 6-MS-3
1) Perform right 6-Blk-1 as your right foot steps to your right
2) Pull your right hand back and execute left Gwa Chui
3) Your left hand changes to 6-Blk-7 then 6-Blk-8 as your execute right Chau Chui; your body position changes accordingly

6-MS-4
1) Perform right 6-Blk-1 as your right foot steps to your right
2) Pull your right hand back and execute left Gwa Chui
3) Perform 6-Blk-2 with right hand as if clearing the way even as your left hand moves into position
4) Once your left hand has cleared the way quickly execute Sau Chui

6-MS-5
1) Perform right 6-Blk-1 as your right foot steps to your right
2) Pull your right hand back and execute left Charp Chui (this variation is called Fan Chui)
3) As you pull your left hand back to protect your face, execute right Charp Chui
4) As option you can tack on 6-MS-4(3) and 6-MS-4(4)

6-MS-6
1) Perform right 6-Blk-1 as your right foot steps to your right
2) Pull your right hand back and execute left Snake Hand
3) Bring up your right hand over your left hand to trace a semi-circle and execute right Snake Hand
4) Complete the technique with left Snake Hand to target

Some additional things to add on to the video yesterday. Treat this as the first thing to work on because it is foundation.

Start with footwork first. Don’t rush. Step a few times first to get the hang of it. Then keep practicing until comfortable. When you think you got it, now take a video (or use a mirror) and check if what you really look like corresponds to what you think you are like.

You can break the footwork exercise in the 6-MS footwork and 6-Blk footwork. Do just the 6-MS footwork first as a way to measure the stepping length. Once you can step comfortably and easily, then add the second part to become the 6-Blk footwork.

After getting the stepping length down, checking if after every step your leading right hand can drop onto the centre stick without having to adjust. If not, check your stepping.

If the above is in place, practice 6-Blk-1 with the stepping. Work on hand leading the body which involves being able to move and intercept with minimal necessary movement of the right hand. Don’t use force. Pause, check against the centre stick as reference.

If you got this then try forming the cupping hand shape at the last moment. Again don’t use force. Keep doing it. Check if you stop at the proper level.

If you can stop at the proper level every time, then try using light force. Go slow. Feel how the hand leads the body. Is the other hand on the chest?

When you get the hang of it, continue to go slow. Now feel how your stance interacts with the right hand to add power by using gravity. If you can’t feel it, then put this aside for now.