Tai Chi Partner Rooting Exercises

Video Transcript

"So in this segment we're going to continue with the idea of testing rooting with a partner. So as in the last one we already, the idea is that Ray is using his mind to redirect my force downward. But as I start pushing harder and harder, there is a mind set that you want to resist that. So what, what a lot of times happens is the person leans into it to not let you push them. They think that that's rooting. But really it's not rooting because look at what happened. Right, so also the other mistake is that you are pushing hard and not able to root so you start leaning back, leaning back, and then you could push that person over. So it's very important that it's a good partner relationship. So as I start pushing, if I start pushing too hard, he's not able to root and he feels himself resisting, he tells me, back off a little bit. Or if I find that he's resisting, then I back off a little bit. Again, it's not win, lose, it's the idea to increase the sensitivity of our rootedness. So as I push, he roots, he roots, he roots, and I'm pushing pretty hard right now. Now why do we do it this way? It's the most vulnerable position. So if he just stands up and doesn't try and root and I push him, it takes no effort to push him over. That's why we do it here so you can really see that you really were rooting that energy."