Co-ordination and the benefits

When we co-ordinate the various parts of the body and move using t'ai chi principles we are able to perceive the whole of the body. To co-ordinate the body and arms and then to move those parts with the feet we must be aware of those parts and carefully connect them with a feeling which runs through the parts. The mind functions like a string running through pearls in a necklace. The pearls are like the major joints of the body. So the mind links all those joints and creates a feeling that runs through them.

To achieve this sense of the whole the mind must be spacious and cannot look at individual parts without relating them to the whole. This spacious mind is relaxed and natural.

At first the mind awareness seems separate from the natural feeling of the whole of the body. When there are more subtle levels of co-ordination the mind mixes with the experience of the whole of the body. The feeling of the whole is achieved using the subtle body of the ch'i which fills the physical body together with the result of co-ordination.

To increase the power of the postures it is helpful to co-ordinate on a deeper more subtle level. The elbow rotations in a posture may be correspond to sinking or rotation of the waist. The feeling of the force which may be directed to the hand is, in this way, unbroken.