Taijiquan deflections #1: cloud hands and “expansion”

This is the first of 2 videos discussing deflections as they occur in Chen Pan Ling Taijiquan.

The applications are being shown slowly because of the nature of the class and I’m under no obligation to show hard and fast versions with resistance (been there and done that).

So, a note to the trolls who ask questions like “I… is this meant to be a self defence class?” No. It’s a tai chi class. Occasionally I happen to discuss applications because it helps to correct form. None of the students attend this class with defence in mind. We have other classes for that. I’m not interested in debating with people about what “works” or establishing my credentials. I don’t apologise for holding a health class and I don’t apologise for discussing applications occasionally. If none of this interests you, find another video to watch.

To the troll who opined that deflecting to the outside leaves your ribs open to being pulverised”:

First, please note that I’m not really showing the full body movement (which is to the outside and takes you away from the second punch - I show that just once): I’m focusing on the spiralling essence of the arm movement *in a hand drill*.

Second, there’s nothing stopping you dropping your arm for a low deflection - if you wanted to apply this statically as per the isolated hand drill (see “third” for “but that leaves you open to…”).

Third, everything you do leaves an opening - every punch, kick, deflection - everything.

To the troll who pointed out that I’m a little bit out of range: bravo Sherlock, yes - that’s because I’m recovering from a minor stroke and don’t want to risk being hit when my reflexes aren’t quite what they used to be. See also my earlier comments above re: showing things “realistically”.