Tai Chi Journal

The Wu Chi (or Wu Ji) posture

I am using the book Step-by-Step Tai Chi, by Master Lam Kam Chuen, to help me learn to practice Tai Chi. It's divided into various sections of exercises, from easier to more difficult. I'm dipping into the second section, exercises for "Strength and Motion," now. I plan to continue doing the first exercises, "Fundamental Movements," on certain days as well.

The first "Strength and Motion" exercise is, quite simply, "Standing in the Wu Chi Position," done for two to three minutes. Most of the subsequent exercises in the section also begin by having you adopt this so-called "position of primal energy." As described by Master Lam, Wu Chi involves standing with your feet shoulder-width apart, pointing directly forward and not at an angle. With your shoulders relaxed and your hands loose at your sides, you point your face and gaze straight ahead, imagining "that your head is lightly suspended from a fine thread."

That's Part One of entering Wu Chi posture. Part Two is to slowly bend your knees such that your head is lowered about two inches. This amounts to bending your knees just enough that their fronts come roughly even with the line where your toes join your feet ... but no further. You can check this alignment from time to time by glancing down, but don't lean forward to do it. That gives you a false reading and encourages you to bend your knees too much. In fact, instead of thinking of bending the knees, you'd be better off thinking of "softening" them just a tad.

You should spend most of the Wu Chi time with your head up. Your upper body needs to stay relaxed, and your weight needs to stay "evenly distributed over both feet" and "centered in the middle of the soles of your feet."

(I cheat a bit and do this while standing sideways to a full-length mirror, with minimal clothing on. That way I can quickly check my knees-toes alignment by glancing down and my upper-body posture by glancing sideways, before returning my head to its forward-looking position.)

As you serenely maintain this posture, your breathing should remain "calm and natural." After two or three minutes, you simply come up out of the gentle crouch, stand "relaxed and still for several seconds," then move on to the next exercise ... which, of course, has you resume the Wu Chi posture before adding other movements.

A similar set of instructions for the "Standing Meditation for Taiji" posture may be found here, at the Touch of Tao website. It is by by Cynthia McMullen. "Standing Meditation" is an alternate name for Wu Chi.

Now, here's the thing. This morning I woke up feeling less-than-refreshed from my night's sleep ... so much so that I considered not practicing Tai Chi today. But I decided to do so anyway, and when I adopted the Wu Chi position, after just a minute or so I began to feel great! My body and mind felt quickly revivified, and I began to marvel at the notion that this posture has been aptly chosen indeed as the activator of "primal energy." How odd that simply standing in a particular, seemingly odd posture can have such a profound effect on the body-mind unit.

I hasten to note that you have to work up to staying in Wu Chi Standing posture for long periods of time, because it is frankly hard on the leg muscles if you're not used to it.

Also, I have found that subtle changes in upper-body posture make big differences. Today, as I was standing in Wu Chi it came into my head that I ought not to tuck my pelvis forward quite so much, but put just a little more arch in my lower back ... and doing that immediately felt "right" to me. (This is my personal experience. I note that Ms. McMullen advises "the pelvis is tucked slightly forward so the lower spine is straight." I imagine I ordinarily carry my pelvis tucked too far forward, and so I have to consciously "untuck" it a bit to get Wu Chi right.)

Update: After further experimentation, I seem to be finding that Ms. McMullen's advice about tucking the pelvis slightly forward is correct for me, after all. I also find that I was initially bending too much at the knees — because I was leaning forward slightly to check the knees-to-toes alignment, and because I was thinking the knees ought to line up with the "fronts" of the toes, not the "backs." With the knees bent that much, I was bringing on stiffness and soreness in my knees as a result of doing the exercises. And the extra bend at the knees brought my pelvis too far forward, which is why I had to consciously "untuck" it somewhat. So I was also getting stiffness and soreness at the bottom of my back.

The lesson here is to remember to do these postures and exercises gently and correctly and to make sure you're not hurting yourself! If it doesn't feel good, stop, figure out what's wrong, and correct it. (End of update.)

It works as advertised! In other words, there really do seem to be pathways or meridians along which qi, or Chi energy, flows through the body, and if you adopt just the right posture, they open up nicely!

(Another good thing: I posted earlier some questions I have about "Tai Chi and bladder control." I said that I sort of hope Tai Chi can help me with my irritating, everyday gotta-go-gotta-go urges. So at the start of this morning's session, though I had the urge to go, I decided to wait and see if the exercises had any effect on that situation. And they did! The urge to relieve my bladder vanished and I was able to go another two or three hours without visiting the bathroom.)

The lesson here is that Tai Chi is not just another form of exercise. There's something special about the exercises and postures that are chosen ... a fact which your body quickly proves to you, even if you are a rank beginner.

posted by eric @ 12:24 PM