In the initial phase of learning Taiji and in training the waist, we need to first ascertain where the waist is.
If we look at a skeleton, the second main large lumbar vertebra, above the first lumbar vertebra attached to the sacrum, is classified as the “waist” in the initial learning stages.
This is where we should first start to think of and use in our practice of the waist.
Later, once this skeletal area has become free and relaxed in movement, then it will start to have more of a feeling of energy and sensitivity rather than just be solid bone, or a solid structural entity.
This energy base will then start to extend up and down through the body and become our central equilibrium, or our invisible centre or “Zhong Ding”; which in later higher levels of practice is no longer confined to a centre just within the body’s structure, but can also extend around the body, or in front and behind and is no longer fixed to the spine.
The waist and Dan Tian are also interconnected; the waist is in command and the centre of movement, but the Dan Tian acts as an energy support for the waist and works in harmony with it. Think of them as the Yin – Yang partnership that finally defines the waist.
Again at first we can picture the Dan Tian as an area within the abdomen, but later one will feel that the Dan Tian is a part of the energy around us, and extends out and becomes part of our Shen Qi and as such can be everywhere, in and around us; it is no longer confined to the physical body.