Tan Joke Min / 2023.07

Dian Sou（掂手）is my favourite stunt. You slide forward with your legs slightly above the ground unnoticeably with your hands swingingly upward towards the direction of your opponent focusing your shen （神）on him as he may advance towards you or he may remain standstill on the spot. The moment when you are about to be in contact physically with him or perhaps even well before that and suddenly, you turn that particular moment into an instant attack by withdrawing your whole body in unison slightly backwards or forwards from the state of substantiality(positivity) or insubstantiality(negativity). In this case, we are talking about the manipulation of our right and left legs. Meanwhile don’t you ever forget your hands which are almost remaining unperturbed with the qi circulating in and out via your Yin Wei（陰維）and Yang Wei.（陽維）The similar process is also equally applicable to the Yin Qiao （陰蹻）and Yang Qiao （陽蹻）of your legs. And hence the opponent may be at this split of the second, being flung out of your territory. This may sound sophisticated, but this is the best I can describe from my personal experience.

Remember Lifting the Hand （提手上勢）or Playing the lute（手揮琵琶）in our Taiji form? They are the favourite way to uproot our opponent in a graceful manner, almost leaving no room for him or her to escape from being flung away. It may look simple in terms of executing the form, but they are no nonsense when you are practically aspiring to put them into practice. Let’s take Lifting Hands （提手上勢）as an example. While you lift your hands up with your right hand relatively longer than your left hand, you are strongly advised to lower your negative groin （胯）on your right and more crucially to allow your right heel being withdrawn to the back slightly before landing on it right in front of your left leg, Don’t forget hands stop and legs stop simultaneously with your Shen（神）spiritually upright plus your vision focusing on your opponent. Assuming that your opponent is advancing towards you, and you may comfortably uproot him or her on the moment of physical contact. On the other hand, if you choose to turn your negative right foot into positive position, the reverse is true.

But at times you may opt to execute a relatively more difficult stunt resembling Qi Luo Zuan Fan（起落鑽翻）My experience tells me that Fan（翻）is more easily to manifest with the incorporation of Qi Luo（起落）and Zhuan（轉）As far as I know, Fan（翻）is where you may execute the stunt to the fullest if only your internal qi can be justifiably utilised correctly together with the application of Shan San Guan （上三關）and Xia San Guan（下三關）And hence, the job may be amicably accomplished, smoothly and effectively. The flexibility of external and internal turning of the Fan（翻）is again depending on the action or reflection of your opponent. If everything is well taken care of, most likely, he or she will be miserably uprooted.

刊登於 2023 年《原幾》雜誌第七期