The basic principles of traditional Tai Chi are simple to say but difficult to put into the body: calm the mind, remove unnecessary tension, distinguish empty from full, keep the body connected, let the feet and legs support the movement, use the waist to direct it, and allow the hands to express what the whole body is doing. After practicing Tai Chi and other Chinese martial arts for more than forty years, I have become less interested in how beautifully someone can repeat these principles and much more interested in whether they can actually show them when they move. The current ChenStyle author biography records more than four decades of hands-on martial arts experience, including training, competition, judging and exchanges with senior practitioners.
Many of these ideas appear in what we now call the Tai Chi Classics, especially the writings associated with Wu Yuxiang (武禹襄) and the Wu-Li tradition. The old texts are short. Sometimes a single sentence contains enough material to keep a serious student busy for years. That is one reason I think reading them as a list of inspirational quotations misses their real value. They were meant to guide practice.
Who Was Wu Yuxiang?
Wu Yuxiang was a nineteenth-century scholar and martial artist associated with what later became known as Wu (Hao)-style Tai Chi. An 1881 account written by his nephew and student Li Yiyu says Wu first gained an understanding of the art through Yang Luchan and later visited Chen Qingping in Zhaobao, where he studied for more than a month. Li himself began learning from Wu in 1853 and later became one of the important writers in this early Tai Chi literary tradition.
Wu was unusual because he approached martial arts as both a practitioner and a scholar. Later Wu-style sources describe the branch that developed from his work as compact, deliberate and especially strict about distinguishing empty and full while maintaining centeredness during advancing, retreating and turning. That combination of physical practice and careful analysis is one reason his name appears again and again whenever serious students begin studying traditional Tai Chi theory.
There is one historical caution worth mentioning. Early Tai Chi writings were copied, passed between families, edited and republished through different lineages, so modern attribution is not always as simple as saying one famous sentence was definitely written by one person on one known date. I therefore prefer to describe some passages as traditionally attributed to Wu Yuxiang or preserved in the Wu-Li tradition rather than turning uncertain history into certainty.
A Historical Memo That Still Feels Modern
One of the most useful ideas preserved in the old writings is expressed in the short phrase “先在心，后在身” — first in the mind, then in the body. Another says that even while the body moves, the practitioner should preserve inner calm. The present ChenStyle article already uses this idea, but I think it deserves much more attention because it explains something people often misunderstand about “intention” in Tai Chi.
It does not mean that you stand there imagining power and somehow movement happens by magic. In practice, the mind decides the direction, timing and purpose of the movement before unnecessary muscles begin interfering. If I reach for a cup on a table, I do not consciously tighten every muscle in my shoulder and calculate each joint angle. I know where I am going and the body organizes itself. Tai Chi tries to refine that relationship to a much higher level.
When the mind becomes chaotic, the body usually becomes chaotic with it. You rush the transition, tighten the shoulders, lose your root or move one arm before the rest of the body is ready. This is why mental calm is not just meditation added on top of martial arts. It affects the quality of the movement itself.
Principle 1: Song Does Not Mean Going Limp
The principle most people hear first is Song (松), usually translated as relaxation or loosening. Unfortunately, “relax” is also one of the easiest instructions to misunderstand. Some beginners hear it and allow the chest to collapse, the knees to wobble and the arms to lose structure. That is not useful softness; that is simply losing support.
Traditional Tai Chi asks us to remove unnecessary tension, not all muscular activity. The body still has to stand. The legs still carry weight. The arms still maintain shape. If another person touches your structure, there should be something connected underneath the softness.
In my own practice, I think of Song less as “be soft” and more as stop fighting yourself. If the shoulder is using twenty pounds of effort to do a job that needs five, the other fifteen pounds are only creating resistance inside your own body. Removing that excess makes the movement feel softer, but it can also make the body more efficient and quicker to change.
Wu Yuxiang’s Eight Body Essentials
The Wu tradition is closely associated with the Eight Body Essentials, commonly given as containing the chest, extending the back, wrapping the crotch, protecting the lower abdomen, lifting the crown, suspending the crotch, relaxing the shoulders and sinking the elbows. Sources preserving the Wu tradition identify these eight points with Wu Yuxiang’s body-method teachings.
These instructions should work together, not become eight separate poses. For example, “lifting the crown” should not mean stretching the neck until it becomes rigid. Sinking the elbows should not mean forcing them downward. Containing the chest should not turn the upper body into a hunchback. Each adjustment is supposed to make the body more connected while reducing local tension.
This is where a good teacher becomes valuable. The written sentence is short, but the difference between correct alignment and an exaggerated imitation can be only a few centimeters. You can read “sink the shoulders” in ten seconds and spend several years discovering how much unnecessary shoulder tension you were carrying.
Principle 2: Distinguish Empty and Full
One of the most important Tai Chi principles is Fen Xu Shi (分虚实), clearly separating empty and substantial. In simple terms, you need to know where your weight, support and intention are at any moment. If you cannot tell which leg is carrying you, changing direction becomes slow and unstable.
This is not simply a beginner’s weight-shifting exercise. Empty and full exist throughout the body. One leg can be substantial while one hand is becoming empty. A movement can be storing in one direction while preparing to release in another. Even attention itself can shift.
After years of practice, this principle becomes one of the easiest ways to diagnose bad Tai Chi. When both legs are equally committed at the wrong moment, movement becomes stuck. When the upper body moves without the base changing underneath it, the practitioner may look graceful but has lost the relationship between movement and support.
Principle 3: The Feet Are the Root
The current article correctly emphasizes a traditional sequence found throughout Tai Chi teaching: the movement is rooted in the feet, developed through the legs, directed by the waist and expressed through the hands. This sentence sounds simple enough that many people read it and move on. I think it deserves to be tested physically.
If I push something using only the shoulder and arm, I can immediately feel how local the effort becomes. Once the feet establish contact with the ground and the legs and waist join the action, the same hand begins to feel as though it belongs to a much larger structure. That is the beginning of whole-body power.
People sometimes describe this as “ground force,” but I would not reduce Tai Chi to a physics slogan either. The issue is coordination. The foot, knee, hip, waist, spine, shoulder, elbow and hand have to contribute without one joint suddenly becoming a dead stop in the chain.
Principle 4: Use Intention, Not Brute Force
“Use intention, not force” is probably one of the most misunderstood sentences in Tai Chi. It does not mean Tai Chi uses no physical force. A human body cannot stand, walk or raise an arm without muscular force. What the old teaching warns against is excessive, stiff or isolated force that prevents the whole body from changing.
When I teach this idea to myself during practice, I think about using the amount of effort the movement actually needs. If five units are enough, adding another fifteen does not make the technique more internal. It usually makes me slower.
This becomes especially clear in push hands. The moment you lock one joint and start pushing from that local point, your partner can often feel exactly where your force is coming from. The better approach is to remain connected enough to apply force while relaxed enough to change it.
Principle 5: The Waist Directs, but the Waist Is Not Alone
Tai Chi teachers constantly talk about the waist, and rightly so. The waist helps coordinate turning, transferring weight and changing direction. But saying “everything comes from the waist” can create another problem if the student starts twisting the torso while the feet, knees and hands remain disconnected.
The waist should function more like the center of a connected system. When it turns, the rest of the structure has a reason to turn with it. When it stops, the arms should not continue swinging simply because momentum carried them away.
I often imagine the body as a group of gears. One gear alone does not accomplish much. When they engage correctly, movement passes naturally through the whole mechanism. This is close to what the original ChenStyle article means when it describes every part moving together rather than operating independently.
Principle 6: One Movement, the Whole Body Moves
Traditional writings repeatedly emphasize that when one part moves, the rest of the body participates. This does not mean every joint travels the same distance. It means the movement has a relationship throughout the structure.
Watch a beginner perform a Tai Chi posture and you may see the hand arrive first, followed by the body. Another person may shift the body while the arm hangs behind and catches up later. Both look disconnected because the movement has been divided into separate events.
When coordination improves, the beginning and ending become much harder to separate. The foot changes, the waist responds, the hand expresses and the eyes remain connected to the intention. That is what makes a traditional form begin to look alive instead of memorized.
Principle 7: The Thirteen Postures Are Principles, Not Thirteen Poses
The phrase Thirteen Postures, or Shisan Shi, is important in the early Tai Chi writings. It commonly refers to eight fundamental methods or energies together with five directions or steps. The eight are traditionally identified as Peng, Lu, Ji, An, Cai, Lie, Zhou and Kao, combined with advancing, retreating, looking left, looking right and maintaining central equilibrium.
What matters is that these are not simply thirteen photographs of body positions. They describe ways force, direction and strategy change. Peng is not just one arm shape. Lu is not simply pulling backward. If you understand them only through the choreography of one form, you understand the surface but not necessarily the principle.
This is why the old title “Mental Elucidation of the Thirteen Postures” (十三势行功心解) is so interesting. It points the reader away from collecting external shapes and toward understanding what should be happening inside the movement.
Principle 8: Tai Chi Is the Study of Yin and Yang in Motion
Tai Chi becomes much easier to understand when Yin and Yang stop being decorative philosophy and become practical questions. Which leg is full and which is empty? Are you storing or releasing? Opening or closing? Advancing or withdrawing? Softening or issuing? Fast or slow?
The present article already describes these relationships through advancing and retreating, emptiness and fullness, firmness and softness, relaxation and tension, and storing and issuing. I would keep all of this because it goes directly to what “Tai Chi” means in practice.
The important part is change. If you become permanently soft, that is not Tai Chi. If you remain permanently hard, that is not Tai Chi either. The art lies in being able to transform one condition into the other without losing balance.
Principle 9: Store Before You Release
Old Tai Chi language often compares storing power to drawing a bow and releasing power to letting the arrow go. I like this image because it explains why Fa Jin should not begin with visible effort in the hand.
The body first creates a connected condition. Weight, structure, direction and intention align. Only then does the release have something behind it. If nothing has been stored, a sudden hand movement may look explosive but still have very little whole-body connection.
This is another reason relaxation matters. A bow that cannot bend cannot store much. At the same time, a bow with no structure cannot shoot anything. Tai Chi softness and Tai Chi strength depend on each other.
Principle 10: Breath Should Support Movement, Not Control It Artificially
Traditional Tai Chi discusses the relationship between breathing and movement, but beginners often try too hard to coordinate them. They inhale because someone told them “this movement is inhale,” then become so busy thinking about breathing that the body stiffens.
My preference, especially in ordinary form practice, is to let breathing remain natural while the movement becomes more organized. As skill develops, inhaling may naturally accompany certain collecting or storing actions while exhaling accompanies expanding or releasing actions. The original ChenStyle article makes a similar distinction between gathering and release.
Breathing should help the body become calmer and more coordinated. If a breathing method makes the face tense, shoulders rise or chest become rigid, we should ask whether we are helping the Tai Chi or simply performing a breathing ritual.
What Did Wu Yuxiang Mean by Qi?
This is where translating old martial arts language into modern English becomes difficult. Wu-era texts use terms such as qi, jing, shen and yi because these were part of the intellectual and physical vocabulary of the time. Removing those words completely changes the historical text. Treating every old statement as a modern anatomical description creates a different problem.
I prefer to keep the traditional language and then ask what it means in actual practice. When an old text says the intention leads and the qi follows, what changes physically? Does the movement become more organized? Does breathing remain calm? Does the structure connect more clearly from the feet through the body? Those are things we can actually examine.
The famous passages preserved in the Wu-Li tradition repeatedly emphasize mind, calmness, smooth movement, centered posture and the relationship between intention and body. Whatever vocabulary we prefer today, these are not instructions to abandon physical training and merely imagine energy moving around.
Principle 11: From Large and Open Toward Compact and Refined
The original ChenStyle article makes an important point from a Chen-style perspective: large-frame training gives beginners space to open the joints, understand direction and make movement visible before gradually becoming more compact. I think this is useful, but it should not be presented as the only route in every Tai Chi lineage.
Wu Yuxiang’s later style became known for relatively compact postures and subtle internal changes. Historical descriptions of Wu-style practice specifically emphasize compact movement and strict distinction between empty and full. That actually reinforces the deeper principle: the external size of the movement is not the final goal.
In my Chen-style experience, a larger frame can be a very useful classroom because mistakes are easier to see. Over time, however, the principle has to survive when the movement becomes smaller. If your Tai Chi only works when you make a huge circle, you have probably learned the circle but not yet understood what creates it.
Principle 12: Stillness Exists Inside Movement
Tai Chi is famous for slow movement, but slowness itself is not the highest principle. The useful quality is the ability to remain mentally quiet while the body continues changing. Wu-Li texts repeatedly return to this relationship between inner calm and external motion.
When the mind is calm, you begin to notice much more. You feel when one knee suddenly takes too much weight, when the shoulder lifts, when breathing becomes held or when the hand starts moving before the waist. These small errors are difficult to notice when everything is rushed.
Eventually the same awareness has to remain when movement becomes faster. Slow practice is therefore not an end in itself. It gives you enough time to see what you normally miss.
Principle 13: A Teacher Still Matters
Traditional boxing texts repeatedly remind students that written theory alone is not enough. The current ChenStyle article ends with the importance of oral transmission, repeated correction and staying close to a knowledgeable teacher. After decades around Chinese martial arts, I agree with that more now than I did when I was younger.
A book can tell you to sink the shoulder. A video can show what a shoulder looks like. A good teacher can touch your arm, change one small thing, and suddenly you realize that what you called “relaxed” was still full of tension.
That does not mean a student should blindly obey every person who calls himself a master. The classics themselves encourage careful investigation. A good teacher should gradually make the principles clearer in your body, not make you more dependent on mysterious explanations.
Tai Chi Principles Should Follow You Outside the Form
One of the final ideas in the original article is worth keeping: formal practice may occupy only a small part of the day, but awareness can continue while walking, standing, sitting and moving through normal life. I do not mean walking through a supermarket pretending to perform a form. I mean noticing unnecessary tension, posture, balance and how you use your body.
Sometimes I catch myself sitting at a computer with the shoulders creeping upward. That is Tai Chi homework too. When I stand up, do I throw my upper body forward first, or do the legs support the movement? When I turn around, do I twist from one joint or let the body coordinate?
These ordinary moments are valuable because Tai Chi principles eventually have to become habits. If you can only relax during the first posture of a form while facing the correct direction in your training room, the principle has not yet gone very deep.
The Tai Chi Classics Are Short Because Practice Is Long
Wu Yuxiang and the generations around him did not leave us enormous technical manuals explaining every angle in modern terminology. Much of the old material is compressed into short statements about mind, qi, waist, emptiness, fullness, softness, centeredness and change. That brevity can make the texts sound mystical until you spend enough time practicing.
Then one sentence begins to expand. “First in the mind, then in the body” may appear simple until you notice how often the body moves without clear intention. “Distinguish empty and full” seems obvious until you lose your balance. “The waist directs” seems straightforward until somebody applies pressure and your waist suddenly stops working.
This is why I would not try to memorize all the classics at once. Take one principle and look for it in the form. Then look for it in push hands. Look for it while stepping. Test whether the principle still works when the movement becomes smaller, faster or less predictable.
What I Believe Matters Most After Decades of Practice
If I had to reduce traditional Tai Chi principles to one idea, it would not be relaxation, qi or even the waist. I would say connection while changing. The body has to remain connected as weight shifts, the mind has to remain clear as direction changes, and softness has to remain available even when power is expressed.
That is why all these old principles keep circling back to each other. Empty and full depend on balance. Balance depends on the feet. The feet connect through the legs and waist. The waist cannot direct freely if the shoulders and hips are stiff. Intention becomes useless if the body cannot follow it, while a perfectly relaxed body without intention simply has nowhere to go.
The classics separate these ideas into sentences because language has to separate them. Practice puts them back together.
Final Thoughts
The writings associated with Wu Yuxiang and the Wu-Li Tai Chi tradition are valuable because they do not simply tell us which posture comes next. They try to explain what should happen underneath the posture: the mind leads, the body follows, empty and full remain clear, the structure stays centered, unnecessary tension is removed, the waist coordinates movement and the entire body works as one connected system.
After more than forty years around martial arts, I find myself returning to these simple ideas more often, not less. When I was younger, learning another form or another technique felt like progress. As the years passed, I became more interested in whether the same basic principle was actually present in every movement I already knew.
That may be the best way to read the old Tai Chi writings. Do not treat them as mysterious poetry and do not treat them as commandments that must never be questioned. Read one line, practice it, test it, misunderstand it, ask your teacher, practice again, and then return to the same line a few years later. You may discover that the words did not change at all, but your understanding did.
