Episode 99 - Footwork

"A teacher only teaches hand techniques to his student; the footwork is kept to himself. If not, the student can defeat the teacher."


Footwork is not really that secret but it is true that the same is often taught in the advanced level in most martial art systems. In the preliminary stage, a junior student learns how to coordinate his mind and body in a static position. There is no point to teach the juniors any footwork as their body condition is not fit enough to master the skill. The demand for coordination is much greater if one moves forward or backward. Yet, footwork is not limited to coordinating the body and mind whilst moving forward and backward.

Footwork provides a martial artist an additional momentum in action.

The old saying "if your feet do not follow the hands, you are not able to hit your opponent; if your feet come together with your hands, hitting your opponent is as easy as picking up a grass from the ground", refers to the effect of this additional momentum.

Furthermore, and perhaps most importantly, it enables a martial artist to take a good offending / defending position by moving around his opponent. Some footwork are designed to get oneself to an advantageous position in split seconds without alerting his opponent - I see you, but you don't see me; I was in front of you a moment ago, but I am now at your back.

In the taiji martial art system, footwork is not explicit in the taijiquan form. Other than some turn arounds, you move forward in a straight line in the form training. If you move in a straight line, how can you execute centripetal force or centrifugal force effectively in action? The best you can do is to "roll" vertically or horizontally or in whatever angle a static ball can do.

The taijiquan form is not an all inclusive system. Whilst it may be arguably correct to say that the form has footwork embedded in it (e.g. before stepping forward, the front leg should make a slight outward turn), you need a teacher to decipher it for you - just like you need a teacher to decipher the application techniques embedded in the form. In any event, you have to train on the footwork as deciphered separately and intensively, as the movements in the form training are far from sufficient to enable a practitioner to be fit enough to apply the technique. You are then in fact practising a different set of skill. That is not to say practising the form is useless - it is an essential element in fine tuning the body / mind control (if you know how to do it) - but a practitioner should know its limitation.

The circular footwork are taught at the advanced stage. The disclosed form (i.e. what you can see from the published material) is the "Da Lei" push hand form, which include a variety of circular footwork.

Footwork in Taiji enables movement of the body like a spinning top. You move from the outer ring into the centre; your opponent is driven from the centre to the outer ring.