38 Days of Yang -Opening Position

POSITION 1: Opening Position aka Preparation Posture

There are so many things going on in this seemingly simple posture.

• Head floats up like a ballon.
• Sacrum sinks down to the ground
• Tongue at the roof of your mouth
• Shoulders down
• Finger tips pointing slant forward

And that's all before you actually move!

"From the state of attention, first shift the weight to the right leg. Bend the leg slightly and sit on it. Lift the leg and move it one step to the side. Then shift the weight to the left leg. Raise the right toe and turn it to the front, placing it straight ahead."

For me this takes two breath cycles. One to prepare myself; one to begin.

The opening position is all about getting the practitioner ready for moving the chi throughout the body.  Its the weigh station for the yin and yang to separate says Cheng Tzu in the book "Cheng Tzu's Thirteen Treatises on T'ai Chi Ch'uan." I'm thumbing through my worn copy of the quintessential volume as I prepare myself to study all 38 positions of the Yang form.

Chen muses that during this opening or preparation posture, he is waiting for the opponent's move. In the early stages of my practice I always envisioned an opponent opposite me. I did this to remind myself that Tai Chi was still a warrior's study. I like making it pretty, but that imaginary opponent reminded me that these moves were still martial.

On another note...
Its my first day without yoga. I thought I'd feel guilty. I don't. I just wanted to rest. Its my first "real" day of vacation. School's out -at the college where I teach and grad school where I attend. I had one virtual meeting that took 30 minutes. Right now, at 7pm, I'm still in the pajamas I woke up in. That's rare for me. I scheduled this day as a day of rest and I see that I truly needed it!