Polarity: Defining Space Through Differentiation in Taijiquan (Part 1)
As I was working on translating Yang Chengfu’s Ten Essential Points, I had a realization: the Ten Points are instructions for defining and reintegrating space in the body by creating polarities. Without polarization and the differential categories it creates, space cannot exist, location cannot be articulated, and transformation is impossible. I believe this insight can be a powerful framework through which to understand Taijiquan training on the most fundamental level.
By polarizing the body, I mean creating a distinction between two conditions with opposite qualities, i.e. differentiation. The term 太極 taiji itself simply means “great polarity”. If a practice does not derive from polarity, it cannot rightly be called Taijiquan. Differentiation between two poles is what enables transformation—in order for something to change from one state to another, there must be more than one possible state, and these states must exist along the same pole, connected through a differential. Power generation structures, from batteries to hydroelectric dams, all operate on this same principle.
The first axis of differentiation is vertical: Yang Chengfu’s first point, 虛靈頂勁 xuling dingjin “keep a light and lively energy at the crown”. The crown of the head, the highest point, must be stabilized upward. This creates a contrast along a vertical axis—once you have up, you must also have down. This is the first polar division because the issue of gravity must be addressed; emptiness needs to be distinguished from full in the vertical dimension because gravity is always acting on us, and if the body is already busy shouldering that burden, it will not be free to do something different. A channel between top and bottom must be established so that the effect of gravity on our mass can be neutralized. This is done by allowing our mass to sink downward and letting our awareness (神 shen) to rise up into the void that’s left behind. In order to sink, there needs to be some reference point to sink against; that reference point is the crown. The result is an empty pole at the top and a full pole at the bottom.
After the weight of the body is accounted for by suspending from the crown, it becomes possible to define front and back. This is what 含胸抜背 hanxiong babei “contain the chest and draw the back” accomplishes. The torso is differentiated into empty and full, with the empty pole in the front and the full pole in the back. The chest loses fullness and is contained (the qi no longer protrudes past the heads of the humeri), and that fullness is transferred to the back, which “draws” or distends to accommodate it. Tellingly, Yang states: 能含胸則自能拔背 “If you can contain the chest, you’ll naturally be able to draw the back”, implying that to contain the chest is the same thing as drawing the back. However, even though the qualities of empty and full are coincidental, Yang consistently focuses on emptying to produce fullness, rather than the other way around. This acknowledges the ultimate goal of Taijiquan practice: by pursuing extreme yin, we wind up with extreme yang. Cultivating one quality to the limit naturally generates its polar opposite. This is the principle of polar inversion, a sudden flipping of polarity. All Taijiquan practice is laying the groundwork for inversion.
In Point Three, the waist (腰 yao) is described as the mediator between the empty and full poles of the above two axes. It is the center of the taiji diagram around which yin and yang revolve and transform into one another. On a basic level, the waist must loosen so that the fullness at the top of the body can sink to the bottom: 能鬆腰後兩足有力，下盤穩固 “if you can loosen the waist, the feet will have strength, and the lower body will be stable”. This stability in turn enables transformation in the other dimensions: 有不得力，必於腰腿求之也 “if your power [in any dimension] is insufficient, you must seek it in the waist and legs (i.e., rectifying the vertical pole)”.
In actual practice, differentiating top and bottom is not pursued separately from distinguishing front and back. Realistically, the body opens in all directions at the same time. Yang’s fifth point, 沉肩墜肘 chenjian zhuizhou “sink the shoulders and weight the elbows”, illustrates the interdependence of the vertical and anterior-posterior axes. While sinking the shoulders and elbows corresponds to the vertical pole, this sinking is not possible without first releasing backward. If the chest is not properly contained behind the heads of the humeri, the shoulders will be locked in an upward position because they are pulled forward and bind to the chest. It is only by allowing fullness to migrate from the chest to the back that a pathway downward to sink can be found. Front and back rely on establishing up and down, but up and down also depend on resolving front and back.
Implicit in differentiating the above two polarities is a third distinction, one between the inside and outside of the body. The intersection of the vertical and anterior-posterior axes defines an internal space contained within an external boundary that corresponds to the polar ends of those same axes. In other words, the space where the poles exist is the outside, and the place between the poles is the inside. This space is an emergent phenomenon, a byproduct of achieving the first two polarities. Far from being an afterthought, though, Yang devotes Point Eight 內外相合 neiwai xianghe “harmonize inside and outside” to discuss the importance of merging inside and outside into a unified essence. Specifically, this is the point where he talks about 開 opening and 合 closing. There is only one dimension of space that can open and close, and that is the interior-exterior pole. The ability to cycle force from the inside to the outside is fundamental; without it, conducting force across the other poles is impossible.
With top-bottom and front-back defined (and inside-outside implied), Yang goes on to distinguish left and right in his fourth point, which he considers to be the most important principle of the art. The practitioner needs to clearly delineate a single point of rotation by keeping all their weight to either the left or right. Without a clean distinction between a full leg and an empty leg, the body cannot resolve to a single point of rotation; rotation around more than one point is not possible, which results in bracing. This condition is known as double weighting, often considered the most basic error in Taijiquan. Taijiquan cannot work without separating left and right, but left-right separation of empty and full itself is impossible without first establishing the other three polarities. It is a simple principle that is actually unobtainable without that foundation already in place.
Yang’s first five points thus describe the eight directions of the Taijiquan body: top and bottom, front and back, inside and outside, left and right. However, it isn’t until Point Six that Yang gives explicit instruction on how to accomplish these differentiations: 用意不用力 yong yi buyong li “use mindfulness, not force”. Each pole can only be created and sustained by using the mind to observe it into existence. Like sorting out jigsaw puzzle pieces that come jumbled together in a box, the mind must be attentive in discerning differences and detecting correspondences, separating according to categories. Once the sorting phase of the first five points is stable, the pieces can be recombined, but now into something coherent, greater than the sum of its parts. This is the content of points seven through ten, the integration phase, to be discussed in Part 2…