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Posture 35. Step Back and Ride Tiger
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62
|
|
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Posture 36. Turn Body and Sweep Lotus with Leg
|
63
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Posture 37. Bend Bow and Shoot Tiger
|
64
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Posture 37A. (Repeat of Posture 14)
|
65
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Posture 37B. (Repeat of Posture 15)
|
65
|
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Posture 37C. (Repeat of Posture 16)
|
66
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Posture 37D. Conclusion
|
67
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|
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The Solo Exercise Checklist
|
68
|
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The Solo Exercise: A Photographic Sequence
|
69
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|
|
|
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|
V.
|
T'ai-chi for Sport
|
78
|
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Pushing-Hands Practice: The Basic Movements
|
80
|
|
|
Movement 1. Single-Hand Exercise
|
82
|
|
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Movement 2. Ward-off
|
84
|
|
|
Movement 3. Press
|
85
|
|
|
Movement 4. Rollback
|
86
|
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Movement 5. Push
|
87
|
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Uprooting Technique: How to Perfect It
|
88
|
|
|
|
|
|
VI.
|
T'ai-chi for Self-Defense
|
90
|
|
|
Interpreting Strength
|
90
|
|
|
Self-Defense Movements
|
92
|
|
|
Movement 1. Step Forward, Deflect Downward, Parry, and Punch
|
93
|
|
|
Movement 2. Withdraw and Push
|
94
|
|
|
Movement 3. Squatting Single Whip and Golden Cock Stands on One Leg, Right
|
95
|
|
|
Movement 4. Separate Right Foot
|
96
|
|
|
Movement 5. Fair Lady Works at Shuttles, Right
|
97
|
|
|
Movement 6. Turn Body and Sweep Lotus with Leg
|
98
|
|
|
|
|
|
VII.
|
Two Masters Look at T'ai-chi
|
99
|
|
|
Yang Cheng-fu's Twelve Important Points
|
99
|
|
|
Questions and Answers
|
101
|
|
|
|
|
|
VIII.
|
The T'ai-chi Ch'uan Classics
|
106
|
|
|
The Body as One Unit
|
106
|
|
|
Coordinating the Substantial and Insubstantial
|
109
|
|
|
The Thirteen Postures and the Mind
|
110
|
|
|
Song of the Thirteen Postures
|
111
|
|
|
Song of the Pushing-Hands Practice
|
112
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Appendices
|
|
|
|
Key to the Foot-Weighting Diagrams
|
113
|
|
|
Sequence Diagram of the Solo Exercise
|
113
|
Foreword
After twenty years of practice, Professor Cheng Man-ch'ing in 1950 published Cheng-tzu T'ai-chi Ch'uan Shih-san P'ien (Cheng's Thirteen Chapters on T'ai-chi Boxing). A decade later the growing popularity of T'ai-chi Ch'uan in the world led Cheng to publish a text in English on the art. The text suffered, however, from severe inadequacies in scope and presentation. At Cheng's request, I took the text to the present publisher, but he was as disturbed about its imperfections as I. He suggested a fresh start on an entirely new book with my full collaboration. The present book is the result. It has been built from the published versions of Cheng's two books—the one in Chinese and the other in English—as well as from the oral instructions in T'ai-chi that I received from Cheng and my own research concerning the art.
Cheng Man-ch'ing is a remarkable man. He is a versatile and brilliant master of the "Five Excellences" (Painting, Poetry, Calligraphy, Medicine, and T'ai-chi), on the wrong side of sixty, but with the vitality of a man much younger. After I knocked on his door for a year—the usual
