| Chinese Terms | English | Chinese Audio |
| 松 | Basically this character means “relaxing,” but there are other aspects to be understood with this term. With your Taichi practice continue to breathe naturally with a relaxed mind and with a singular focus on the action being performed. Remember to ease your upper body, including your head, neck, shoulders, arms, hands, back and hips. Keep your back and head straight upward with your legs firmly holding your posture, and keep your arms in a guarding position even though they appear relaxed. You should feel your weight extending to your feet and centered to the point of the soles. The full bottom of each foot, including sole, toes, heel and edges should be firm to the ground. While in this relaxed yet focused and centered position, the larger muscles in your shoulder and arms should be at ease to allow tiny muscles underneath to work and pass your inner force to your tips. Often people say it’s to pass the inner air to the tips, but it is wiser not to overthink this concept and instead only think about these as muscles, not inner air. The purpose of this practice is to build up the hidden inner forces and combine these with the outer forces from the larger muscles. Overtime you will develop much more power, strength and control. You should practice the first routine in slow motion as you develop this concept and build up the inner forces in a smooth, moving manner. | |
| 松沉 | This is basically the same as 松 but with added emphasis on allowing your body’s weight to be all the way down to the feet. | |
| 立身中正，保持中正，不偏不倚 | Emphasis on keeping the body straight and upright. This is the main rule for the upper body parts of 松 | |
| 沉肩坠肘 | The lowering of the shoulders and elbows. This applies to the rule for the shoulder and elbow parts of 松 | |
| 含胸拔背 | Contracting the chest muscles naturally, leaving the chest relaxed (without pushing the chest backward or forward) while also keeping the back straight. Apply this rule for main body part of 松 | |
| 圆裆松胯 | Relaxing the hips and separating the thighs. Apply this rule for the hips and thighs of 松 | |
| 开胯屈膝 | Keeping the thighs separate while bending the knees. Apply this rule for thighs, legs and knees aspects of 松 | |
| 虛领顶劲 | Raising the head a bit, while keeping the neck relaxed. Apply this rule for the head and the neck aspects of 松 | |
| 气沉丹田 | Allow your breath to “sink” to the lower portion of your abdomen, letting the air flow to the bottom portion of your lungs. The rule for breathing and the abdomen of 松 | |
| 不丟不顶 | No releasing nor resisting directly, keep relaxing while still guarding. The rule for entire body of 松 | |
| 松静自然 | Mindfulness. Keeping relaxed with a calm and quiet mind. The rule for spiritual status of 松 | |
| 紧，僵硬 | Tightness and stiffness, the opposite of being relaxed. | |
| 酸 | Soreness | |
| 疼，痛 | Experiencing pain or hurt. | |
| 累 | Feeling tired. | |
| 伤，受伤 | Feeling hurt from being injured | |
| 虛 | Feeling empty or void, with no force. | |
| 虛脚 | The foot without the force of any body weight. | |
| 实 | Solid, with force. | |
| 实脚 | The foot with all the body weight resting on it. | |
| 虛与实 | The fulcrum or middle point between voidness vs solidness, empty vs full, having no force vs with force. For every movement, part of the body has no or little force while the other part holds all or most of the forces (or weight). Relates to the relationship of Yin and Yang. Also in physics, for every action there is an opposite and equal reaction. | |
| 呼与吸 | The process of breathing out and breathing in: When breathing in, your lower abdomen contracts while your chest expends to hold the air; when breathing out, you push the air to your lower abdomen, so the lower abdomen expends. | |
| 动与静 | Motion vs stillness. For every movement, part of the body is in motion while other parts remain still. | |
| 动中寓静 | Motion while maintaining stillness in parts of body | |
| 静中寓动 | Body is still but there is still motion within the body | |
| 快慢相间 | Fast action balanced with slow | |
| 合中有开 | reciprocal movement when opening to include the closing movement | |
| 开中有合 | reciprocal movement when closing to include the opening movement | |
| 柔柔刚 | Softness vs hardness. Every motion combines softness and hardness: it looks soft but with force undetectable, then at the attacking point, the hardness shows rapidly even though we do not show the hardness most of the time. | |
| 刚柔相济 | Combining hardness with softness | |
| 对立统一 | Yin and yang, the unity of opposites. | |
| 动作，招式，招术 | Action with movement. | |
| 弹簧力 | Kinetic energy stored up as a result of twisting | |
| 整劲 | all parts integrated with | |
| 懂劲 | comprehending force | |
| 练劲 | building up power/force | |
| 化劲 | dispersing force: this is to use softness and voidness and changing the direction of opponent’s force to make his force go no where and let him loose balance | |
| 內劲 | inner power, inner force, force that is from innernal mustcles, especially from lower belly | |
| 內气 | inner air (please just interpret this as inner force that is from inner muscles) | |
| 內劲潜（转）换 | inner power exchanging: this happens when changing position and direction etc: it’s lower belly that moves the rest of the body parts | |
| 落点（劲点） | attacking position | |
| 根於脚，主宰於腰，行於手指 | forces should be rooting with feet, leading with waist, and moving with fingers | |
| 以身领手 | to let your main body (actually the lower belly muscle) lead your arms (limbs): when you raise your arms, it’s not your brain telling the arms to raise: your brain needs to tell your lower belly muscle to lift up your arms. The same thing applies to your legs. The principle applies to all the actions of Taichi. As in the ending part of 金刚捣碓: you breathe in, your lower belly contracts and use that force to lift (push) your right leg up as in a level. It feels like your main body lowers down while your right leg is lifted, and your left leg keeps a solid standing posture. Then the last actiioin is to breathe out, your lower belly expends and use that force to pound your right fist and stomp your right foot. | |
| 力达拳背（面） | when breathing out, use the lower belly to push the force to the end of the fist | |
| 力达指尖 | when breathing out, use the lower belly to push the force to the finger tips | |
| 用劲不用力 | using inner force instead of the force that is just from your limbs | |
| 功夫 | fighting skills | |
| 攻防 | attack and defense; offense and defense | |
| 攻防搏击 | offensive and defensive fighting | |
| 后发制人 | striking only after being struck, while you still get to the point ahead of your opponent | |
| 精神 | mind | |
| 节节贯串 | joints’ coordinating | |
| 借力打(使）力 | transforming the coming force to attack the opponent | |
| 螺旋缠绕 | spiral twining: every motion should follow this way | |
| 上下相隨 | the harmony between the upper and lower body | |
| 修身养性 | self-cultivation | |
| 強身健体 | building up body strength and physical fitness | |
| 拳法 | boxing method | |
| 拳理 | boxing theory | |
| 拳式 | movement | |
| 姿势 | boxing posture | |
| 套路 | routine | |
| 拳架 | boxing frame; boxing posture | |
| 高架 | high frame: just bend your knees a little bit. This type of frame is used when you feel tired or when your body is not warm up enough | |
| 中架 | middle frame | |
| 低架 | low frame: bend your knees as low as possible (90 degree between upper leg and lower leg is the limit). This is used when your body is flexible enough and you want to build up your forces. Remember to relax your hips so you can move easily and pass your weight to your feet. | |
| 老架 | the old frame | |
| 新架 | the new frame. There are different opinions on the differences between the old frame and the new frame. My understanding is they are actually the same except a couple of movements are only exist in the new frame. It looks like the new frame is more complicated, but the truth is the old frame hides the twining actions without letting you notice the real movements, while the new frame shows body’s internal actions out in a exaggerate way, so learner can see what is happening inside. Other then twining, there are several different steps as well, but these are because of different purpose based on different settings: each action has different ways to do based on different purpose, if we use the same setting then the actions in the old frame and the new frame will be the same. It’s different masters set up different settings so people can follow as in a group. | |
| 重心三七开 | the weight of your body is divided into two legs, one leg has 3/10 of the wight, while the other one has 7/10 | |
| 重心四六开 | the weight of your body is divided into two legs, one leg has 4/10 of the wight, while the other one has 6/10 | |
| 瓦楞手 | the posture of the hand looks like curved roof tile: instead of stretching straight, the fingers are paired up: the thumb and the pinky lean a little bit toward each other, the index finger and the ring finger lean a little bit toward each other, while the middle finder leans backward a little bit, so the five fingers are putting together loosely shaped in a slight curve, that makes your palm shapes like a plate with the surrounding edge a little higher while the middle a little lower | |
| 站樁 | Standing like a post. – Basic posture: both feet are apart from each other at shoulder’s width; arms are stretched out with a little curve, at either shoulder’s level or DanTian’s level; both hands are apart from each other about two finger’s width, both parlms are toward inside, and fingers of both hands are pointing to each other. The curve of your body, arms and hands should be smooth and shaped like an oval. Both knees are just a little bit bending (or more look like standing at ease, don’t over bend). The rest of the requirement is the same as Relaxing posture (please refer to cell 2C on this sheet). The purpose of this practice is to get to the point of Relaxing. Stand about 5 – 15 minutes each time, you might feel the muscles in shoulders, arms and legs hurt: this is normal as long as your knees are ok. Please note: your shoulders and hips must be relaxed. Again: don’t need to care about the inner air for a while, just breathe naturally. – Variations: the ending posture of Grasping and Tucking Clothes, Single Whip, the White Crane Spreads Its Wings, Stepping Diagonaly etc can be used for this practice to build up different muscles. | |
| 缠絲 | twining. It is actually twsing, but twining sounds non-violant | |
| 顺缠 | The pinky guides the direction when twisting. If using right hand, it is clockwise twining, while if using left hand it is counterclockwise twining. | |
| 逆缠 | Inverse: the thumb guides the direction when twisting | |
| 铲脚 | sticking out the leg like a shovel then sliding the foot. When sticking out, make sure the toes are towards the front of the body, it’s inner side of the heel leads the force and touches the groud first. Once the inner side of the heel touches the gound, sliding the heel a little bit while keeping the toes still towards the front of the body and bending upward, then put the toes down, and immediately rest the hip of the leg and bend that knee | |
雪满天山 Snow Covered Tianshan Mountains 