Swimming on dry land and Snake Body in tai chi and the internal arts

[kung fu fighter]

Hi Guys!

Just wondering if you could tell me what the phrase "swimming on dry land" means in tai chi as well as the meaning of "snake Body"?

And how one should train to develop this?


Thanks

[Doc Stier]

Just wondering if you could tell me what the phrase "swimming on dry land" means in tai chi as well as the meaning of "snake body"?

And how one should train to develop this?

A traditional Tai-Chi Chuan analogy of imagining that you are standing in water at a depth of your neck and shoulders when practicing your form set can help in visualizing "swimming on dry land". By imagining that your body is thus supported by the water with a natural buoyancy, as if lightly floating in a relaxed state, you can then transpose this visualization to imagine that the air surrounding your body on dry land has a greater degree of viscosity like water does which causes relaxed arm and hand joints to flexibly bend in the opposite direction of their movements, without any rigidity or stiffness of shape, and also with slower than normal movement, again as if moving in shoulder high water. This is "swimming on dry land". :)

References to "snake body" also allude to this same type of relaxed flexibility of the body parts in motion, as well as painting a mental picture of the undulating, serpentine movements of a snake's body. Specific to Tai-Chi Chuan performance, this may refer to the rounded movement patterns of the arms and hands as they essentially draw circles, S-shaped lines, and figures of 8 patterns within the forms.

These skills can be developed by mentally visualizing such movement patterns while simultaneously observing your movements with your physical eyes in order to synchronize the inner and outer aspects for a matching picture, and by tuning into the imagined feeling of moving the body as if you were in the water. ;)

Doc Stier