Transfer of Weight Experiments: 70/30%, 80/20%, 100/0%, 50/50%, Which is Best?

 

50/50%

If you have had only one tai chi teacher in your training, most likely in the final position of a posture such as Brush Knee and Push, you will have been taught an 80/20% weight stance between the forward and backward leg, a 70/30%, uncommonly a 50/50%, and perhaps to the extreme, 100/0% front foot/back foot percentage split.

The longer you practice one particular style, the more subtle the awareness becomes with your ability to discern between the minute shifts in weight forward or backward.  Although you must be firmly rooted, especially in the transitional movements between postures, you probably manifest 'root' (stability, immovability, steadiness, balance) best in the end positions.

Over years of practice, if you stood on a scale, you would see you had become expert at putting exact
amounts of ground pressure on the front foot,and exact amounts of ground pressure on the back foot. And over that period of time, you would come to believe that your 80/20% front foot/back foot split, or your 50/50% front foot/back foot split, or another variation,  is the 'proper' way to do form.


Yet, if you look at the thousands of styles of tai chi on You Tube, it becomes apparent that styles differing from your own require different demands for per centage splits between forward and backward legs. And they all claim to be correct! How can that be?


The pictures above display the end positions for Brush Knee and Push. They all have different weight distributions between the front and back foot. They vary from 100/0% (front foot/back foot) to 50/50% (front foot/back foot).


Can you tell which postures are which? 


Now each style claims a particular benefit. For example, Robert Chuckhow (a student of Chen Man Ching) states, "The longer the stance, the longer the rearward movement during neutralization. Since the lower the stance, the longer it becomes, practitioners constantly work on sinking into lower and lower stances."...from  an excellent book,  The Tai Chi Book: Refining and Enjoying a Lifetime of Practice,  Robert Chuckrow, pg. 160


The 50/50% stance favoured by Master Henry Wang encourages an energetic style of tai chi. One sinks into the back foot 
root of the back foot and issues forth the energy ball which connects with the energy ball of the partner/opponent.
This style has a very short base. There is little bending of the knees (compared to the long and low stances of some Chen
styles and does not duplicate the 'forward' displacement of the body  that Chuckhow would want in his style. 


Ed Cooper  in Campbell Riveer will often put 100% on the forward foot. Combined with waist rotation, the 100% weight shift 
to the forward leg in the Brush Knee and Push posture can be a devastating manoeuver to offset the stability of his push hands partner, 
or as preparation for the next posture Roll Back. The weight shift is even harder to deal with because Ed can choose the option to use 
that weight shift at any time he chooses. 


So which is best posture?


Practice, practice, practice. Only by playing with the percentages can you discern the costs and benefits of each weight distribution.
And if you vary what you have always done consistently before, the discomfort you initially meet may eventually take you deeper into 
the complexities and the subtleties of your posture's stance, and deeper into the complexities and subtleties of the tai chi form itself.