Page 33 - Simplifying T'ai Chi Rev3 2017

Chapter 8 Getting Started 61

Another common cause of knee damage to be aware of and avoid, is twisting the
knee sideways out of its alignment with the hip and ankle during weight shift.
There is further discussion on the knee position later in the description of Kua on
page 81.

Always monitor your leg and foot movement to ensure that you don't fall
into bad habits.

The Shoulders and Arms

The shoulders should be relaxed, rounded and level which each other at all times.
Do not lift one shoulder above the other as this creates shoulder and neck tension.
This is especially true when rotating the arms, which should never raise the
shoulder joint. As the shoulder joint rotates you should feel the ball of the shoulder
joint turning smoothly in its socket.

Basic Shoulder Movement

Arms should always be slightly bent, relaxed and never locked at the elbow joint.
The elbows themselves, and to a lesser extent the wrists, apart from a few
exceptions, should generally form a shallow angle even when the hands and
forearms are raised above head height. When at your side, arms should be held
loosely away from the body. Imagine there is a birds egg held under your armpit -
too tight and it will break, too loose and it will fall.

The Hands

The hands movements are very significant because of the intricate movements
and patterns they have to execute, often with a spiralling type movement. As you
will discover if you move to more advanced levels of T'ai Chi, there is a lot more
depth to hand movement than is described here.

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