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What is the meaning of this movement – what would a Chinese person understand by its name? The word ‘needle’ might remind them of the legend of the Monkey King, who for a weapon used a magical iron pillar, twenty feet long, that he could shrink to the size of a needle and tuck behind his ear. This iron pillar, the legend says, was used by Great Yu to “fathom and fix” the depth of the rivers and seas when he brought the Yellow River under control (the river used to flood repeatedly). This is an historical event that took place 4000 years ago; the Chinese refer to it as Great Yu Controls the Waters (大禹治水 dà yǔ zhì shuǐ). This magical weapon was found for Monkey by the Dragon King and Queen, who lived at the bottom of the sea.

But perhaps we are pushing a needle to the bottom of the sea, rather than picking one up? This may be the correct explanation, but the sea may not be where we first think it is.

In this view the sea would refer to the ‘sea of qi’ 氣 海 qì hǎi, in other words the lower dan-tien (the energy centre in the belly). There’s even an acupuncture point here with this name (CV6). The bottom of this sea 海 底 is not the seabed, but the pelvic floor. Martially, it seems that the move was originally used to attack the cavity between the hip and the groin. If the strike was not sufficient to disable the opponent, one continued downwards in order to push the opponent to the ground.

Here is Yang Cheng-fu demonstrating Needle at Sea Bottom in his book The Essence and Applications of Taijiquan. Yang describes using the movement to break free from a grab of one’s right wrist at the end of the previous ‘Brush Knee’. The opponent is pulled first towards you and then down, uprooting him. “The movement’s intent is like a needle probing the bottom of the sea”. There is no mention of striking with the hand, but we should remember that the book was written and published quite late in the development of Tai Chi: in 1931. By this time several movements had lost their original purpose; a classic example is White Snake Shoots out Tongue, whose original meaning was only preserved in oral transmission.

The way Mr Moy performed Needle at Sea Bottom himself was similar, although with a narrower base so that the weight remained in the back foot. However the way he taught it was a bit different. To beginner and intermediate students he showed a table stretch with straight legs, designed to stretch not just the legs, but the back and spine:

The coccyx stretches back and the head forwards, lengthening the spine. Additionally there is a rounding across the shoulder blades and across the back of the pelvis.

To students who were more flexible Mr Moy taught the version he himself performed in which he allowed both knees to bend. This clearly won’t stretch the tendons in the leg, but it creates more stretch across the back of the pelvis, opening the sacro-iliac joints.

Remembering that Tai Chi is an “internal” art (內家 nèi jiā), one further possibility comes to mind: perhaps the sea here is neither a figurative ocean, nor the ‘sea of qi’ of an opponent, but the one inside ourselves?

Further references

1. Jim McClanahan: The Magic Powers of the Monkey King’s Iron Staff
2. Sara Olsen: Needle at Sea Bottom

What on earth can the name of this movement mean? The names of the movements are recorded at least as early as 1931, when they appear in Yang Cheng-Fu’s book “Applications of Taijiquan“. The Chinese characters 抱虎归山 Bào hǔ guī shān literally say: “Embrace tiger, return (to) mountain”. The tiger is a fierce animal: powerful and dangerous. The mountain is its home. Here the tiger stands for a fierce opponent who is sent back whence they came, but what is the carrying/embracing about? The name has confused many, with some even speculating that bào might actually stand for its honomyn 抱, which means leopard. There’s no evidence for this at all, and it’s not the character in Yang Cheng-Fu’s book (although this would have been dictated to a senior student).

I searched the internet for 抱虎归山 and discovered this scroll by the Chinese artist Zhang Shan-Zi. The scroll dates from 1925, which is before Yang Cheng-Fu wrote his books. Zhang made many tiger scrolls including one bearing as its title the famous Chinese phrase “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon”.

The image makes clear the meaning of “embracing”, but is otherwise a bit of a red herring. The tiger tightly hugs a boulder on a steep mountain side to avoid falling. As Sun-Tzu wrote in ‘The Art of War’ (5th century BCE): “Keep your friends close; keep your enemies closer”. In the Tai-ji movement, the tiger is the enemy.

How does this relate to the mechanics of the movement? First of all, remember that “Cross hands” is a separate movement: when we cross hands, we are not really carrying the tiger, even if this is a handy aide-mémoire. Yang Cheng-Fu’s book says: “From the previous movement (Cross Hands), presume the opponent closes on me from behind at the right corner”. If the opponent is close, then the movement that follows is a trip. The right leg is picked up and placed behind the opponent’s leg. Then we push him back and trip him over.

How is this like “embracing a tiger”? The answer comes when we look at Yang style Tai-ji. In Yang style, when we step to the corner the left hand falls and the right hand rises. Yang Cheng-fu describes two applications for this movement in his book. If the opponent attempts a strike with their right hand (or foot), then the raised right forearm wraps the attacking limb. Then the left hand pushes them over. See the picture below.

So far, so good, but we still have not ’embraced’ our opponent. Yang Cheng-Fu describes another application: if the opponent attacks with their left hand then after the block the (raised) right hand circles round the back of the opponent. We hug them close, with a movement that some have described as like scooping up a child, before the left hand, continuing forward, knocks them over with a push to the face or shoulder.

In the meantime, after generations of oral transmission and evolution have obscured the meanings of the movements, it does no harm to imagine that when we cross hands, we embrace a tiger.

The name of this move puzzled me for years. 野马分鬃 – Wild horse parts mane – what does it mean?

In English this move is sometimes called Parting wild horse’s mane. This rendering leads on to the idea that the tai chi player is parting the mane of a wild horse. This always seemed a bit unlikely to me. Wild horses are, well, wild. In Taoism, the wild horse is a metaphor for the raw energy of our physical body, the energy of youth. Think of the movement in the Lok Hup set Wild horse chases wind, whose name describes how we so easily waste our energy on useless projects. The energy must be brought under control, but the idea that we will get a comb out and part the mane of a wild horse – really?

Chinese is rather terse as a language and frequently dispenses with things such as articles (a, the) and possessive pronouns (his, hers, its). It’s very tempting to add extra words to make nice English phrases, but these are not English phrases – they are Chinese. 🙂 Here the Chinese simply says, literally, wild horse parts mane. So who is doing the parting?

My answer came to me one day watching a nature documentary about mustangs, the wild horses of the North American plains. In this documentary there was some slow-motion footage of a running horse which, as its ran, was shaking its head. The slow motion footage revealed how this sent a rippling motion down the animal’s neck.

Suddenly it all became clear. As we perform Wild horse parts mane to right and left, we are the horse, shaking our mane – our neck and spine – from side to side. In the video, look at the way a wave ripples along the horse’s neck as it shakes its mane.

攆 猴 Repulse monkey is one of the repeated moves in the Tai Ji set. Why do we repulse the monkey? The simplest explanation is that to calm the mind, we must repulse or expel (攆) the chattering monkey mind.

This makes sense, but perhaps there’s more to it than this. As ever, the question to ask is: What would a Chinese person understand by the name of this move?

Monkey was a cheeky Chinese demi-god. He got up to all kinds of mischief, but the exploit that the Chinese best remember is revealed by the name of a movement in the Lok Hup set: Monkey picks fruit. According to the legend, Monkey stole the Peaches of Immortality from the garden of Xiwangmu, the Queen Mother of the West, and gorged on them. He is now an Immortal – the goal of Taoist practice – but he has taken a short cut. This is cheating, and Buddha Shakyamuni imprisons him under Five Elements Mountain for 500 years. This episode is widely depicted in Chinese art, both in paintings and sculpture.

In Repulse Monkey we try to stop Monkey from stealing the peach. Imagine a nice juicy peach in the upturned palm of your hand. As Monkey reaches for it, you withdraw it, and the rear hand delivers a palm strike, thrusting him away.

You think this image a bit fanciful? The movement just before Repulse Monkey is Fist Under Elbow. This was once explained to us as: Reach out, grab an apple, and slice it in half. Now, apples are to the West what peaches are to the East. The Chinese Peaches of Immortality should remind us of the Golden Apples of the Garden of the Hesperides in Greek mythology which also conferred immortality. One of the 12 Labours of Hercules was to steal some apples from this garden, which was guarded by a dragon. The parallels don’t stop there: the Peaches of Immortality were in the garden of the Queen Mother of the West, whilst the Hesperides were also in the far west, and situated near a mountain – the mythical Mount Atlas. The Garden of Xiwangmu is situated near a mythical Taoist mountain, Mount Kunlun. Both gardens are attended by young maidens: the Garden of Hesperides is named for the nymphs who tend them, whilst Xiwangmu’s garden is tended by her seven daughters. The Garden of Hesperides is the original paradise (the word means ‘enclosed garden’) – the Garden of Eden.

In Repulse Monkey, then, we thrust away our desire to achieve results without working for them.

If one may not steal one of the Peaches of Immortality, how can one get one? Xiwangmu would occasionally give them to deserving mortals. In other words, they cannot be taken, but only given. In the West, this is what we call grace.

A final inspiration for our practice comes from the monkey itself. The character 猴 yuan today refers to any kind of monkey but formerly it was used just for gibbons. Gibbons swing through the forest canopy on their long arms, which are beautifully extended in long, relaxed arcs, rather than locked straight, with the elbows pointing down. “Drop elbows” was the correction Mr Moy gave more than any other.