The Three Situations of “Double Weighted” in Tai Chi

Double Weighted is a mistake in Tai Chi and Tai Chi Push hands. Double Weighted can be explained in many ways. They all involves in empty and solid. From my point of view, it can be conclude into three situations:

1. During Push Hands, When person B pushes against person A, person A also tries to push against person B. This is a good example of being Double Weighted. When person A pulls back while person B pulls back, this is also called Double Weighted. In these cases, Double Weighted causes pause of the movements.

2. You try to have a foot movement in Tai Chi. You don’t transfer weight from one leg to the another and you lift the other leg while it still has weight on it, this is also called double Weighted. In this case, Double Weighted was caused by lifting weights and the use of force.

3. When you try to unbalance someone while doing push hands, you try to use your right arm push him to the left. At the same time, you tried to use your left arm to push him to the right. You are against yourself and make your opponent balanced. In this case, making the opponent balanced caused the double weight.

When the above three situations happen to you, you’ll know you are Double Weighted. To avoid being double weighted, you need to know how to transfer from Empty to Solid and vise Versa. During push hands, you also need to understand how to listen to energy and determining if it’s a solid energy or empty one. Without Double Weighted, your Tai Chi will flow smoothly like a continuous long running river.

Copyrighted By Huan's Tai Chi '09

Tai Chi under the Table

( Picture on right: Wu Tu Nan doing Push hands)
Famous Wu and Yang Style Tai Chi Master Wu Tu Nan is a Mongolian Chinese. He had a lot of sickness and had to take medication every day while he was a child. Wu Tu Nan passed away 1989 and was 105 years old. Tai Chi really helped him to stay healthy and live longer.


Even though there is a debating that if he really learned from the Yang family, he is truly a Tai Chi Master. According to the book he wrote on his life on Tai Chi, he was sent to Quan Yu’s Tai Chi school (creator of Wu Style Tai Chi) to learn Tai Chi when he was 9 years old. Quan Yu asked his son Wu Jian Chuan to teach him. After 8 years learning from Wu Jian Chuan. He then learned from Yang Shao Hou ( Yang Chen Fu’s brother). Yang Shao Hou trained him really hard. When Yang taught him martial arts application, Yang bounced him to the chair. Chair’s back fell off. Without a back, the chair became a stool. Later, he fell on the stool again because Yang taught him more applications, and the stool just broken completely.


Another thing that Yang trained him is to have Wu practice Tai Chi under the oil table. Oil table is a higher kitchen table that Chinese chef use which you don’t have to bend you back to cut the meat and veggies. Still, it’s much lower than regular stance. It’s really hard for the legs. Yang use this to train Wu’s “Seven Inch Lean” which is a technique you use your shoulder to lean on opponent’s lower leg’s seven inch point. You can see how low it is.


Now, some students asked me how low they can practice Tai Chi. I told them that they can see the limit from Wu Tu Nan.

Copyright 2009 Huan's Tai Chi