Tai Chi Blog 7 - High Blocks

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Alright time for some more tai chi. Like before, now that we’ve finished the form we’re currently working specific parts of it, looking to improve those tougher bits. Last class we had worked on a difficult part that I was happy to get some new insight on and this class kept it going. We covered one of the parts that I have the most trouble with and that’s the part with the weird high block. I struggled with figuring out where the arms went and how they got there plus couldn’t quite figure out the stab from the first one into the second one.

So I picked some stuff up in this class to improve it a little and even though I still don’t think I’m really doing it well…I’m at least doing it better. First I need to start rotating the high block hand around the elbow. It starts low after the kick, tracks to the other side of your body, then rotates around the elbow into the block. This rotation at the elbow seems to be in a lot of moves in tai chi and I’m pretty bad it in all of them, so I’ve got to start working on it. And now that I know it’s part of that high block I can start practicing it there too.

Then we did some more practice on the part of the form leading up to the kicks (and the kicks are the part that leads up to the high blocks. Things I picked up include sort of sliding the hands over each other as you go into the block, which I wasn’t quite doing before, keeping the hands centered on the body, which I’m always bad at, shifting the weight as you move into the block portion at the end of the movie, and bringing the top hand around into the block after sliding over the bottom hand. I was doing this a little but probably not quite enough. Then the last thing was how your hands were supposed to move right before the kick. I was just sort of pushing them to the side but they sort of need to come forward and then part, like you’re opening something, before the kick. Except for that last part with the arms right before the kick I was doing most of the stuff a little. Now I need to work on being more consistent and a little more technically sound. The end hand bit I was definitely doing wrong so that’s something I definitely need to pay attention to.

Another problem from that part of the form is unrelated to technique though. I can’t quite do the kicks. You’re supposed to do the kick slowly and it’s supposed to be pretty high. Like head height. And that requires a combination of flexibility and strength that I just don’t have. I can throw the kick high but only if I throw it quickly. If I do the kick slowly it’s really low. I’m not sure the best way to fix it though. Increasing flexibility will obviously help but which muscle should I be trying to strengthen? The quads maybe?

We also did some Chen style practice for the form that we recently started. It was a little different though. The first time we did it we made a full circle with our hands before the first move, but this time we skipped it. I was still thinking about those high blocks from the Yang style form though so I didn’t ask about it. Next time.

All in all I feel like I’m really starting to make progress in tai chi class. The first couple of classes were tough but I’m definitely getting the feel for it now.

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