Gyroscopes take the ideas of Central Equilibrium and single-weightedness a step farther. (Figure 2) Once you set a gyroscope spinning, the entire device will writhe and twist like a living body when you pick it up and handle it. Because of the flywheel-like spin of the rotor, a gyroscope has almost exactly the same weight at every degree of its circumference. And because of this absolute equilibrium throughout the body of the gyroscope—rotor, gimbal, and frame—all the weight of the gyroscope is focused down into its single foot. Remarkably, you can lay a spinning gyroscope almost onto its side, with only its foot touching a pedestal or table edge, and it will seemingly float there, sideways, in apparent contravention of the pull of gravity. Since all the forces of the gyroscope are directed down into the foot, even a canted gyroscope has a Central Equilibrium that roots itself directly to Earth’s gravity at the central point of its foot. (2)

 

In fact, a spinning gyroscope can give a good sense of how rootedness can develop natural resistance—by this I mean internal energy rather than strength—against outside force. Set a gyroscope spinning, place it on its foot, and try giving it a gentle shove from the side with your finger. You’ll feel pressure pushing back, even though the gyroscope has neither muscle, motors, nor intent.

 

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Drum Monkey

 

Another amusing toy that is similar in its reliance on Central Equilibrium is what I used to call a twizzle drum until I learned the term “drum monkey,” which is much more colorful. (Figure 3) It’s also more commonly called a hand drum, though lots of small drums that are struck with the hands, such as bongos and tambourines, also are called hand drums.

 

Apparently the drum monkey has no specific origin since it can be found in Asian, African, and Native American cultures. The real use of drum monkeys is ceremonial, though most people think of them as novelty toys. But their import for Tai Chi can be seen during the climactic fight in Karate Kid II when the villagers twizzle drum monkeys to encourage Ralph Macchio’s character to go with the flow so he can defeat his opponent.

 

When you look at the action of a drum monkey, it’s easy to see the message Macchio’s cheerleaders were sending: Loosen and relax your shoulders, and let the twisting of the body around Central Equilibrium (the handle) naturally rotate the drum (the torso), powering the arms and fists (the strings with the beads attached to their ends) in the appropriate directions. After all, a drum monkey has absolutely no strength in its arms, yet the rotation of its body around Central Equilibrium causes the strings and terminal beads to whip quite furiously back and forth against the drum heads. In Tai Chi, one simply uses the legs to powerfully twist the waist, whipping the upper body, which is controlled through refinements of the arm and hand movements to produce desired martial effects.

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Rubber Bands

 

Rubber bands might be the only “toy” that can be found in every office. You can stretch them, shoot them, cat’s-cradle them, and twist them. Not only are they fun, they are instructive for Tai Chi.

 

The way that a twisted rubber band can store energy then release it is amply demonstrated by rubber-band airplanes: those balsa wood toy fliers with red plastic propellers and tiny wheels mounted on springy wires. Twist the propeller for a large number of turns, then let the plane go, and the uncoiling energy of the rubber band spins the prop, which pulls the plane through the air.

 

Tai Chi, too, relies on twisting movements to coil energy that then uncoils into, against, or away from an opponent. The main difference is that the rubber band in the airplane is twisted for a large number of turns, while the Tai Chi Chuanist only twists part way around. But the elastic bands of the human body—known as ligaments, tendons, and fascia—are considerably more powerful than the rubber band in a toy airplane, and the latter two are connected to major muscles and muscle groups. Even a partial twist and recoil of the body, appropriately applied and augmented by proper muscular action, is powerful enough to send the opponent flying. Interestingly, the uncoiling often is accompanied by a corkscrewing movement of a limb—usually an arm—that aids in expressing the power of the uncoiling, just as the uncoiling of the rubber band in the airplane activates the corkscrew of the propeller, which is what actually manifests the energy from the coiled rubberband. (See Natural Patterns for a discussion of spirals and corkscrewing action.)

 

Rubber bands can be stretched and released as well as twisted. Who among us hasn’t shot a rubber band across the room—probably at somebody? In a very similar way, the Tai Chi player can stretch or compress tendons and fascia, loading them with elastic energy that can be suddenly released against or away from an opponent. Often the energy that is loaded comes from the opponent’s own force, which then, in that mysterious interface that exists between yin and yang, is transformed into the exponent’s power. Depending on the method of release, the resulting surge of energy can be controlled as a dull wave front that can surgingly expel an opponent, or as a sharp jolt that will penetrate his body.

 

I have employed a large rubber band in my classes as a teaching tool. It’s a big one that I found at Office Depot, and the darn thing cost about $7! (Figure 5) You also could also use a bungee cord whose ends have been hooked and duct-taped together. I have the student loop the band around both wrists, for example, and do split movements such as Slant Flying or Single Whip, telling them to feel the growing tension and to control it not through the band but through their shoulders and back. In essence, the rubber band amplifies the elastic stretch and release of the tendons and fascia and gives even a novice a tangible sensation of stretching out and then releasing the stretch instead of simply moving the limbs without internal energy. In effect, the rubber band gives a dynamic sensation of using the elastic power of the Tai Chi Bow. In some split movements, the stretch can be released to effect from either end (Slant Flying, for example), while in others, the release is primarily unidirectional (Single Whip, for example).

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I've also seen one prominent Tai Chi teacher employ a rubber band as a teaching device. He has his students string the band around their legs at knee height. The band is of a size that will tighten as the student stretches into Bow Stance. This would give the novice student the tangible sensation of having to press the knees slightly outward to increase stability and rooting.

 

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Magnets

 

Magnets are everywhere, from toy horseshoe magnets to the sun and other celestial bodies. They’re found in motors, generators, loudspeakers, electric guitar pickups, computer drives, compasses, and the rubber seal around your refrigerator door—and in the kitschy kitchen magnets you’ve stuck on the outside of that door. Every electrical wire and device is surrounded by an electromagnetic field, we live totally immersed in the magnetic field generated by Earth, and each of us generates our own magnetic field, albeit a weak one. Magnets are ubiquitous, and they are quite useful as well as being quite natural. Even alone, they make interesting toys as evidenced by the horseshoe magnets you can find in a large number of toy boxes. In fact, electromagnetism is one of the four fundamental forces of nature, along with the strong nuclear force, the weak nuclear force, and gravity. (Many physicists now do not consider gravity to be a fundamental force, but simply the effect of mass warping space-time. Okay. But if I stumble, gravity, whatever it is, will instantly take over and whop me with that mass.)

 

Most of us know that a magnet generates a field of force called a magnetic field around itself and that it has two poles: positive and negative. (Figure 6) There, in a nutshell, is the yin and yang of it. The force of the magnetic field emerges from the positive pole, cycles through the space around the magnet in a toroidal pattern, and reenters the magnet at the negative pole. Magnetic fields do not have boundaries and theoretically extend infinitely outward, though in practical terms, the effects diminish greatly with distance. Also, magnetic fields will pass unimpeded or with only minor diminishment through many—but not all—forms of matter, so they’re kind of supernatural in that regard.

 

The Eurocentric view of Earth orients the negative pole of planet Earth at the top and the positive pole at the bottom. This is undoubtedly an artifact of the age of European exploration, when the compass was the mariner's major guiding tool. The magnetized needle of a compass points north because the positively charged end of the needle e charge is attracted to the Earth's negative pole, and the Earth's magnetic polarity was not understood at the time. Had it been, we might be adhering to the ancient Chinese view, which was just the opposite and orients the globe with the South Pole at the top. It is probably a more accurate view if we consider the fountaining of energy to go upward and the reabsorption of it to come in from the bottom, as occurs with any magnet, including the human body.

 

However you look at it, the polarity of magnets demonstrates the yin and yang of things through magnetic attraction and repulsion. If you bring two magnets together at the opposite poles—negative meeting positive—there will be a mutual attraction. (Figure 7) But if you bring the magnets together at similar poles—negative to negative or positive to positive—the two magnets will push against each other with invisible force. The former could be considered an example of single-weightedness and cooperation, while the last two might be examples of double-weightedness and the attendant confrontation of energies that results. If you cooperate and blend your energies, you and your opponent become one, but if you meet force with force, only struggle results.

 

Many Tai Chi folks know how to play with this repelling force when they roll a ball of chi between their hands. (Figure 8) What is happening here is that positive chi energy—which is, at its base, electromagnetic in nature—is emerging from both palms. When positive meets positive, the result is repulsion, and this can be felt as a tangible force between the two palms. Using rotating movements of the hips and waist to motivate the arms and hands gives this force the character of a ball, and this ball can be “rolled” in front of the body, creating a controlled swirl in the individual’s chi/electromagnetic field. (Figure 9) The rotating of the hips not only causes the rolling action, but it also helps power the energy that creates the ball by sending alternating pulses of chi up the legs as you rotate back and forth, amplifying the chi running down the arms and emerging from the palms. The closer the hands roll and the smaller the ball, the greater the pressure between the palms, and the father apart the hands are and the larger the ball, the less the pressure. Again, the power of a magnetic field diminishes over distance.

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Newton’s Cradle

 

Next, we’ll look at Newton’s Cradle, also called Collision Balls and Executive Desk Balls. (Figure 10) The former name comes from it’s creator, Isaac Newton, the middle name is obvious, and the last one comes, presumably, because 1) only executives can afford to waste money on frivolous items that occupy valuable desk space that they’re not using because executives do so little real work, 2) executives have so little to do that they have time to play with such frivolities, 3) executives have so little real creativity that they can easily become mesmerized by a simple mechanical device, 4) executives like to give housekeeping staff difficult objects to dust, or 5) executives perpetually study the middle ball which remains static when two end balls are set in motion, demonstrating the chief tactic of the middleman: Do absolutely nothing but transfer something one way or another and reap profits off the efforts and energy of others.

 

Okay, I’ll stop, though it’s easy to be cynical these days. Back to Newton’s Cradle. This from Wikipedia:

 

Newton’s cradle…is a device that demonstrates conservation of momentum and energy using a series of swinging spheres. When one on the end is lifted and released, it strikes the stationary spheres; a force is transmitted through the stationary spheres and pushes the last one upward…. A typical Newton’s cradle consists of a series of identically sized metal balls suspended in a metal frame so that they are just touching each other at rest. Each ball is attached to the frame by two wires of equal length angled away from each other. This restricts the pendulums’ movements to the same plane.

         If one ball is pulled away and is let to fall, it strikes the first ball in the series and comes to a nearly dead stop. The ball on the opposite side acquires most of the velocity and almost instantly swings in an arc almost as high as the release height of the first ball. [In the absence of friction or other external forces besides gravity, the opposite ball would swing exactly the same height.] This shows that the final ball receives most of the energy and momentum that was in the first ball. The impact produces a compression wave that propagates through the intermediate balls. Any efficiently elastic material such as steel will do this as long as the kinetic energy is temporarily stored as potential energy in the compression of the material rather than being lost as heat.

         With two balls dropped, exactly two balls on the opposite side swing out and back. With three balls dropped, three balls will swing back and forth, with the central ball appearing to swing without interruption. (6)

 

I’ve quoted the Wikipedia entry at length since the presentation was pretty succinct and I’d waste time and clarity paraphrasing it. There’s some fancy mathematics involved in the details of the motions of the balls, such as whether or not the balls at rest actually touch or not and other factors that I don’t dare attempt to go into. But I think at least one Tai Chi lesson is clear from the motion of Newton’s Cradle.

 

Most of us Tai Chi folks have seen, have demonstrated, or been pushed by a trick Tai Chi application. This is when the demonstrator holds a Press posture and has one person push against his raised arm while several other people line up behind, all pushing, too. As they push, the demonstrator gives a pop of peng energy from his Press posture, and all the people who are pushing move slightly backward except for the last person in line, who is jolted back farther, often several feet. Clearly this is the same conservation of momentum and energy shown by Newton’s Cradle.

 

In this demonstration, Peng energy can easily be seen propagating through the line of people and finally manifesting in the last person in line. But the more important propagation is less visible because it happens inside the Tai Chi Chuanist’s body. We often think of bouncing our energy down into our feet then back up through the legs and torso, into the arms and hands. This movement of internal energy, combined with physical compression and release, acts very similarly to the energy system demonstrated by Newton’s Cradle.

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