Taijiquan - Ji

Continuing on with my haiku series around “Songs of The Eight Postures” attributed to T’an Meng-hsien and translated by Lee N. Scheele here is my third entry, Ji. Ji or Chi gave me a lot of trouble when trying to put it to words and I’ll probably need to update it at some point. I don’t think the second half, that speaks to the external is quite what I want. Nor do I feel like it captures the indirect, a rebound, so it’ll have to marinate in my head a bit. It’s often referred to as a “press”. With this one I veered off the imagery used in the song. The “six joints” is a reference to the “six harmonies” which in taijiquan mean the pairs of joints that should be connected. Shoulders and hips, elbows and knees, wrists and ankles. For the press they all need to be stacked and working together in unison. My Version - Ji/Chi six joints move as one a sealed touch with no gaps leads compressed wave forth a confident strike finds their form an inward path itself made hollow Songs of The Eight…