The Cause-effect Relationship of Rising, Dropping, Transferring & Continuing
Practicing Wang Qihe Style Tai Ji Quan all those masters stress on the techniques of following a forward step closely and, retreating with a backward step. You should have your three limbs including two arms and one foot in emptiness and the other foot, in firmness. It has absorbed the characters of stretching-out and continuous manipulation from Yang style Tai Ji and flexible and artfully practical gait from Wu style. Combining the merits of the two styles into one, Wang's Tai Ji earns another particular style as well. As a result, it manifests both the majestic bearing of Yang Style and the orderly fist-applying method of Wu Style emphasizing either stretching-out movements or coherent manipulations. Their movements of rising, dropping, transferring and continuing in coherent continuity represent the uniqueness of Wang Qihe Style Tai Ji Quan.
"Rising", is a beginning form of the Quan and "dropping", a closing one. "Transferring" refers to the linked movement between different forms, while "continuing", to continuity of a succeeding posture to its previous one. Performing the above four, the Quan player would form his Quan frame well corresponding with the chains of cause-effect relationship in philosophy system. Rising, the beginning form, acts as a cause while dropping, the closing form, as an effect. The effect of the closing form is becoming the cause of the next. Hence the transformation of various causes and effects lead the Tai Ji movements to be linked in chains performed continuously.
With the cause-effect relationship, the beginning form and the closing actually play in one as a very important part in practicing Tai Ji. The beginning form includes many basic requirements running through the whole Tai Ji practicing process, such as sinking the shoulders and hanging the elbows, rounding the chest, lifting the back up, gently leading the energy of the apex upward, loosing the crotch and relaxing the waist and, lightening and softening the whole body and etc. Therefore, the beginning form has a direct effect on the quality of Quan Jia performance. A Quan beginning form in high quality will lead to better performance of other succeeding forms. The closing form implies that all thoughts should be submitted to one as the harvest or a result. At the end of the Quan practice, your Qi and energy is to be preserved in your body then.
The previous form is referred to as cause and the succeeding one, as effect generated near the end of the pervious one. The next form is generated before the succeeding one is finished. In this way, the chains of movements circle will move marvelously as a whole. To acquire the mastery of it, you should be taught carefully by a good master.
"Transferring" and "continuing" also play a key role in the cause-effect relationship and, have important function in actual fighting. It requires you to relax every part of your body joint by joint to perform the movements of "rising", "dropping", "transferring" and "continuing" well. The application could be embodied in such a way: it's easy for a Quan player to knock down a chair with his fists, but rather hard to knock away a bag of com, for the disassembling grains of the corn would absorb and detract the striking force, just like the bump-proof design for an automobile to dispel, assimilate and abate the coming force. Reaching the sophisticated level of Kung-fu, you will attack as to dispel, to dispel as to attack, the two different intents can be combined and converted into one act being carried out by your minding only in a flash.
It is most apparent to make out the cause-effect relationship from Tai Ji Yin-Yang picture, which is the direct portrait of cause-effect relationship in Tai Ji. Besides, the transformation between hardness) and softness, opening and closing, emptiness and firmness, stillness and motion, as well as Yin and Yang, also reveals the interconvertible cause-effect relationship.