no tail wagging dog taiji

 

the tail wags the dog

1. the less important or subsidiary factor, person, or thing dominates a situation; the usual roles are reversed.

   "the financing system is becoming the tail that wags the dog"

This is one of the most common problems  in practitioners of  taiji quan, even long time players, even some experts.

With the beginner learning the form, it's easy to see why.  They watch the model, look at what the model's hands and arms are doing, and then try to follow along with their own arm motions. The legs, core, are an after thought. The result is the motion is rooted in the hands and arms, and then the hand wags the whole body. Tail wags the dog. 

This is why there are guidelines for good taiji, such as sinking the qi, originating motion in the feet, turning the waist, etc. All of those details are to try make sure the dog wags the tail, and not getting the bad tail wagging dog situation. But if you slavishly follow those detailed taiji rules and don't understand the purpose behind them, then you can still get some problems. Really what you want, rather than this part moves first, then that part, then another part of the body, is you want your mind, body, motion to be completely unified and moving all at once in perfect harmony. But if you're going to err slightly, much better to err with dog wagging tail, and if the tail lags the mind and intention of the dog, that's far better than the discombobulated scattered energy of the tail wagging dog.

The relevance to jhana force equation and ekaggata

 Tail wagging dog is not just an aesthetic issue. For jhana meditators who do taiji, this is an important concept to grasp, because it affects the power of jhanic force and ekaggata. 

In western boxing, if the boxer is a 'tail wag dog' type of puncher, his opponent feels like the punches 'sting'. In contrast,  the boxer who is a 'dog wag tail' guy, the result is the opponent has 'heavy hands', like the whole weight of the dog's entire body is in the had. Instead of being lightly stung by a punch with the weight of a hand, it feels like running into a brick wall where the hand makes contact.

Another example, a golfer swinging the club, if the arm gets decoupled from the whole body as he uncoils his swing, then his power only goes a small fraction of his full whole body power, losing more than half the distance of a coordinated, unified full body swing.