That Crease? (it's called sitting)

 

Inguinal Crease: AKA Sitting Down

A serious irony in modern Tai Chi is that the most basic human movement—sitting down—has become a lost art. That shows most when students think they are sitting back in any posture.  In the photos, you see Master Hwa doing a "sitback" with a crease (horizontal fold of clothing) across his trousers.  Also touching a wall, back of a chair, in this case a vertical pole is a recommended way to learn "sit back".  It really is the mechanics of simply sitting down in a chair. 

You then see Master Hwa motioning where to make the crease in the trousers. When Master Stephen Hwa instructs students to "sit back," he explicitly demands a precise mechanical hinge: a distinct, horizontal crease to show in the clothing, the trousers at the inguinal area (the Kua). To achieve this, the upper body must naturally and gently hinge at the hip joints to counterbalance the pelvis moving backward. This is the exact physics your body uses when you naturally sit down in a chair. When was the last time you thought about how you do it? It folds the joints, engages the core rotation, and safely routes your weight through the legs into the ground.

Yet, watch a modern seminar video or step into an "in-person" school, and you will see a rampant, uniform failure. Instead of hinging, most students and teachers look like they are dropping a vertical post straight into the floor.

In a frantic effort to keep their backs completely vertical, they refuse to fold the hips. Because they cannot create that horizontal crease in their slacks, their core stays completely locked. They aren't storing internal elastic energy (Jin); they are simply jamming their entire body weight directly into their lower back and knee joints. They have substituted proximity to a teacher for real proficiency in the art, blind to the fact that their rigid, vertical collapse is ruining the very spring tension Classical Tai Chi is built on.

In the West, martial arts are not well understood. Popular culture demands large, sweeping gestures, high-energy impact, and flashy choreography. To the untrained eye, power equals external velocity. So when a casual observer or uninitiated student watches the compact, precise movements of Classical Tai Chi, they often mistake outward stillness for inactivity.

They do not realize they are looking at what might be called internal engineering. They are looking at a system passed down in Classical Tai Chi that alters how the human body generates structural strength. True mastery does not expand outward into chaos; it refines inward into a small circle.

The Illusion of "Sitting Back"

To understand the revolutionary nature of the biomechanics, look at how mainstream practitioners handle basic weight shifting.

In many commercialized Tai Chi styles, when a student is told to shift their weight to the rear leg, they perform what looks like a smooth, sliding dance move. They push their hips backward, dropping their weight over a vertical post. On the outside, it looks clean. Inside, it is a structural vacuum. By dropping vertically onto the rear leg, they compress the lower back, lock the knee, and completely sever the connection between the feet and the hands.

They have created a static monument, not a dynamic engine.

The Engineering of the Inguinal Crease

Classical Tai Chi solves this structural flaw through the precise, logical engagement of the Kua (the inguinal crease).

When you shift weight in Classical Tai Chi, you do not slide backward. You first need to fold at your pelvis. The movement calls for a deep, conscious articulation right at the crease where the thigh meets the torso. If you are wearing trousers, correct alignment creates a sharp, distinct horizontal crease in the fabric directly at the inguinal area.

This horizontal fold is the physical evidence of internal efficiency. By folding the Kua (Inguinal area) correctly:

The Spine remains upright and lengthened, rather than tilting or jamming into the lower back.

The Hip Joint acts as a true socket, storing kinetic energy like a tightly coiled compression spring.

The Torso achieves a state of "hollow" readiness, allowing energy (Jin) to transfer seamlessly from the ground up through the spine without hitting a point of tension.

This is why a slinky or a flexible spring is a good scientific analogy for internal energy. A spring doesn't get stronger by getting bigger; it stores great potential precisely because its coils are compact, perfectly aligned, and capable of micro-compression.

Moving Beyond the Academic Archive

It is incredibly easy to sit in the bleachers of martial arts. Today, the digital world is filled with "paper teachers" with voluminous biographies who write extensive theoretical essays on internal energy, yet never step onto the floor to face the public.

Theory is a beautiful blueprint, but blueprints have never survived a storm. Actually teaching—and truly understanding the inguinal crease—calls for stepping into the arena. It means managing the real-world friction of frenetic skeptics, combative beginners, and those who throw around advanced expressions like "double-weighted" to mask their lack of coordination.

When you stand in front of a student and physically guide their structure until that horizontal fold appears in their trousers, you are no longer an academic. You are an Architect of Stillness.

Enough Pain to Quit

 

                                                     

Square Form

an instruction video

 

Welcome!

 

Subject: 

 Why the Square Form Practice is the Ultimate Shield Against Knee Pain (Chondromalacia Patellae, which is what I suffered and was diagnosed with after doing “other tai chi” for only 1 1/2 years, in, ahem, 19_ _.)

Hi everyone,

Ever wonder why Classical Tai Chi Square Form is so meticulous, distinct, and block-like? It isn't just an educational blueprint—it is a highly scientific shield for your joints, specifically designed to prevent chondromalacia of the patella (runner's knee).

Chondromalacia of the patella, as a Sports Medicine M.D. told me, is caused by the kneecap tracking out of alignment, grinding against the cartilage, softening it, and creating pain. Pain enough to want to quit all Tai Chi. This usually happens due to two errors: knee buckling (inward twisting) and over-extension.

Quite honestly, Master Stephen Hwa is the only teacher out of 5 over the “other tai chi” first 25 years to now in the second 23 to give empathy and explicit attention to how, why, and what my stance is doing. Sadly informative, but he visited me and visited the “other”.  In a conversation, he confirmed what I had painfully learned. No one corrected beginners when it was obvious their derrières were sticking out all over the place. A setup for knee injury!

Here is exactly how the Square Form fixes this:

No Simultaneous Twisting and Loading:

In the Square Form, we never turn the hips while transitioning weight across a bent knee. Weight shifts and rotations are strictly separated. The knee stays safely locked in its "hinge" plane.

Flawless Tracking:

Because every step has a clear beginning, middle, and end, we can consciously verify that the kneecap's center is pointing precisely toward the toes. This balanced tracking stops cartilage wear dead in its tracks.

Offloading Joint Pressure to the Core:

By cultivating internal discipline and using quarter-body mechanics, we learn to move from our core and hips rather than relying on our knees as brakes or levers.

Let's keep paying close attention to the stillness, that “pause” between  transitions this week. It is exactly where your knees are being protected and rebuilt!

Happy training,

Jim

Correct alignment and structure is not a myth in Classical Tai Chi

A student recently told me that he was somewhat surprised at the statement in the Tai Chi Classics from Wu Chien Chuan : “The failure of drooping the buttocks is a hindrance to the loosening of one's waist". See: Wu Chien Chuan's Six Essential Points: Point III on Tucking or Drooping the Buttocks . I think he was surprised that the drooping or tucking as it is most often called is so directly related to “loosening”.

Wu is referring to the lumbar vertebrae or as it is sometimes called "the tailbone" and it normally protrudes near the sacrum. It is also a "junction" which acts as a Yin/Yang junction. One can say the junction defines vertical and horizontal between vertebrae and sacrum and has its own particular/normal angle of protrusion from such vertical. When one bends their legs however, the tailbone should also "normally" begin to reposition itself from its protruding angle and toward a more vertical position. In such movement, the curve of the tailbone allows it to "tuck" under the sacrum. One only has to duplicate the act of standing and bending the knees to feel this. This can be duplicated without forcibly jamming under the tailbone as though one were aiming to cement it into position and hold it there. Unfortunately, there is much misunderstanding about this both from students and the uninitiated who tend to think it has to be forced and held, thus resulting in undesirable and detrimental body positions.

This is also where it is important to remember to "suspend the head as though held from above by a string" and tuck the chin under...gently One's chest or thoracic vertebrae is not to be pushed outward in order to accomplish this. In doing so, one can feel quite a dynamic but pleasant stretch of the spine and para-spinal musculature both up and down the back. One also feels a stretch up the front and side of the torso as the rib cage feels as though it is "opening", for that is indeed what it is doing.

In allowing the "buttocks to droop" one can begin to feel the response of a pull of gravity from the earth. After all you are literally "dropping" something and it is quite natural for gravity to mazimize its influence. The body above this area has its own natural response which is the "opposing force". It should reflexively, repeat "reflexively", all conditions being equal, stretch up in response to the pull of gravity on the sacrum.

When these conditions are met, true “loosening” means cultivating the ability to actually turn the waist and not the rib cage/thoracic vertebrae, shoulders/arms; we mean the actual waist beneath the belly button.  This is a twisting or turning of the lower or lumbar vertebrae wherein the belly button actually moves in horizontal/left and right directions. It is recommended by this teacher, and well documented and video by Master Stephen Hwa that students begin to experience this by sitting down.  Why sitting down?  Well, for one thing the hips become stationary so there is no turning of the hips that can occur.  What does the twist comprise?  The twist should comprise a turning of the core around the lumbar vertebrae from sternum down to pelvic bone.

As we have previously stated in the blog about anterior vs. posterior tucking what is considered “normal” standing keeps an “s” curve in the lumbar region of the back.  This type of standing which is the darling anatomical pose of so many anatomy books and super model photographs,  actually keeps a great deal of tension in the abdomen and small of the back.  In fact while standing in the “s” curve, I observe most even lock their knees. In this position one can feel consistent pressure in the heels and ankles. These are quite small bone structures that are really not designed to carry and support one’s weight. That is opposed to the superior weight bearing capabilities of the long bones of the legs and quadriceps muscles.

Now we must further understand the reasoning and method of “drooping” or “tucking” in the buttocks. This is further explained by Master Hwa as he has used an important term by stating that “energizing” the waist is really the key.  “Energizing is a selective utilization of certain muscles for certain functions. Energizing has the character of agility, a sudden surge and ebb and is not static.  Even the “tuck in” should be fluid in nature. Even if one is fully tucked in, one should still have suppleness or (SOONG).

The problem of not “loosening” seems to occur most often when students use the rectus abdominus  (front of abdomen) muscle which pulls the belly backward.  Then they attempt to engage the external and internal oblique muscles and also use the transverse abdominal muscles to turn the waist. Inevitably beginners find that they cannot turn the waist fluidly because all the muscles in that area remain tight.  What they need to do is called by different terms such as open the back, droop the buttocks, lower the tailbone but most of all straighten the back and fluidly straighten the “s” curve.  I say fluidly because this is a dynamic function not a static one, the “s” curve, straightens, then returns, straightens, then returns.

A simple image to keep in mind might be the action of very flexible spring such as a ‘Slinky” toy. The Slinky has the ability to not only flex at any point but to lengthen and contract.  In this regard  a simple lengthening of the back can be understood as a straight forward lengthening of the device.  Drooping or tucking as a lengthening and subsequent flexion or “J” curve at the very tail end of the slinky. A full tuck or full drooping of the buttocks is well within the capabilities of any student  but an understanding of how to use it also comes with experience. One might say as we have said before, it is “dynamic” which also comprises “selective utilization” of muscles.

A student progresses in overall understanding of such “selective utilization of certain muscles” largely via the feedback of body sensation. A student progresses in overall understanding through the experience of doing this. A student progresses in overall understanding hopefully through early realization that a teacher applies rigor to teaching methodology for many reasons. Not the least of which is how set in their physical and mental ways and how un-responsive to change the majority of students can naturally be. After all, we have formed habits over the course of a lifetime but we expect to ditch them in a series of "Introductory Tai Chi lessons"?


Not so much of a surprise if one thinks of how much the core muscles are in located in such proximity to each other and how difficult it is to specifically isolate individual muscles.  Also not so much of a surprise if one has come to a visceral understanding of the sensations one experiences when one is energizing the rectus abdominus muscles to pullback or sitback the body.  Master Hwa has previously stated that the rectus abdominus and external/internal oblique muscles are next to each other in the same region.  In terms of sensation this means that one can receive muscle signals that seem mixed.  However with an eye to eliminating both mental and indiscriminate muscle tension a student learns as Master Hwa states: to mentally and physically “sharpen the yin-yang differentiation in any movement so that only the necessary muscle is energized while the rest of the body is relaxed”.