Sweep Lotus: The Move Unlike Any Other – Part 1: First Impressions

By Reiwa no Rei

There are 108 moves in our Tai Chi set.  However, technically speaking, there are a total of give or take 50 “distinct” moves, which is to say, all the others are repeats.  Learning and practicing the moves is part of the fun of Tai Chi, and over time those moves become like old friends.  Some are relatively easy to execute, others more challenging.  The names of the moves vary from straight forward to flowery.  Simply put, the journey that is Tai Chi involves deepening one’s appreciation of each move at the physical and intellectual levels.

Of the aforementioned 50 “distinct” moves, it is my personal view that Turn Around to Sweep Lotus stands out from all the others in a variety of interesting ways.  To make that point, I intend to write several short articles exploring this move from different perspectives.

While I didn’t start learning Tai Chi (i.e., Taoist Tai Chi^®) until 2007, I had my first introduction to the art via a black-and-white TV program that was broadcast weekly in the mid-1970s.  It was around the time that the Kung Fu series was capturing the imagination of many young teenagers. 

I spent about a month or so taking notes during the weekly half-hour instructional program.  The slow, highly controlled movements were fascinating to me.  Moreover, everything was being demonstrated by one or two young, Caucasian Americans, and explained in clear English.  

It was a kind of revelation that Chinese martial arts could be learned in North America.  I didn’t have to stand outside the gates of the Shaolin Temple in China for days on end just to gain access to the secrets of traditional Chinese fighting styles.  What’s more, there was a clear difference between them and Japanese fighting styles that had already made inroads in the West.  In a word, the Chinese martial arts seemed graceful, as opposed to the regimented Japanese ones.

In 1978, I moved to Toronto to begin my post-secondary studies at the University of Toronto.  Kung Fu and Tai Chi were just fascinations from my youth, but they still managed to catch my attention.  I remember going to Hart House one evening in my first or freshman year to attend a Tai Chi demonstration.  A group of about 20 people performed the set together in silence.  

Their movements seemed to conform more or less to what I recalled from the TV program I had watched a few years earlier.  However, when the group reached Turn Around to Sweep Lotus, the swift motion of the kicking leg and the sweeping arms combined with the loud noise of synchronized slaps woke me out of my trance.  

I remember at that very moment thinking to myself, “these people do not know how to do Tai Chi properly.”  I was convinced that Tai Chi was composed exclusively of slow and steady movements.  But my opinion was based on only having seen a dozen or so of the first moves in the set on TV. 

Needless to say, I was misinformed.  But then again, there is always more to the story.

Thinking back all these years later, I realize now that I may just have witnessed a group of Master Moy’s early students.  And all because of Turn Around and Sweep Lotus, the one Tai Chi move that seems not conform to all the others, I decided not to join classes with them.

So there are two aspects of Turn Around to Sweep Lotus that I would like to discuss here.  First is the sudden change in speed.  Second is the audible break in silence.

Arguably, the majority of Yang Style Tai Chi practitioners execute this move in a rapid fashion.  Even though Master Moy Lin-shin had his own unique approach to the Yang Style set, he kept the swift brushing of the palms over the toes of the right foot as the foot rises up quickly in front of the torso.  These are the instructions straight out of the TTCS reference guide (2004):

Straighten the right leg in front of you in a quick kicking motion as you sweep the arms from right to left, hitting your foot at the top of the kick and continuing to the left, ending in a cross-hands position.

No other move in the set involves such a flurry of arm and leg movement.  In that sense alone, Sweep Lotus can be called a move unlike any other.

But there are those who actually execute Turn Around to Sweep Lotus in a slow and controlled manner.  The prime example of that is Zheng Manqing (commonly written as Cheng Man-chi’ing).  Zheng studied Tai Chi in China under Yang Chengfu for six years, and ended up ghostwriting a book for Yang.  He went on to teach Tai Chi at the Nationalist government’s Huangpu Military Academy in Shanghai, and even created his own shorter 37-move version of the set.  In 1964, he began teaching that set to a bevy of loyal students in New York City. The rest, as they say, is history. 

Why then does the traditional Yang Style set have this one rapid move?  One approach to answering that question is to examine Chen Style Tai Chi, which was the original inspiration for Yang Luchan when he developed his own style.  Yang began studying Tai Chi in 1820 under Chen Changxing.  Chen Style Tai Chi had been around for almost 500 years.  One of the unique characteristics of Chen Style Tai Chi is the alternation of slow and fast movements.  Tai Chi, or “Taiji Boxing”, models itself on the principles of Yin and Yang, and thus slow movements are Yin, whereas fast movements are Yang. 

Turn Around to Sweep Lotus actually comes from a move in the Chen Style set, known as Lotus Sweep (lit. Sweep Lotus Leg).  In Chen Style Tai Chi, this move is done with a springing movement that sends the right leg circling up high in an explosive manner.  It is a crisp kicking movement that begins and ends with utmost control.

When Yang Luchan first devised the Yang Style set, he decided to keep the quick kicking movement of Lotus Sweep, while eliminating similar quick kicks found in other parts of the Chen Style set.  In the end, the Yang Long Form, as it is sometimes called, is made up of a sequence of slow and steady movements … except for this one move that comes near the end of the set.  It is a remnant of Chen Style Tai Chi both in name and method of execution.  In principle, the rapid speed of this kick should have been modified to match the slow and steady way in which the Yang Style set is performed.  But it wasn’t.

When pressed on this point, some practitioners in modern-day China state that this particular move is easier to do if done fast.  Perhaps the answer is as simple as that. 

Now, let’s turn to the unique sound produced by the contact of the hands with the foot.  This technique is common in Chinese martial arts.  The hands provide a target for kicks, especially high kicks.  The sound created is like proof that the kicks hit their targets.  Holding the hands out and up high may also help with posture and balance.  Whatever the case, most if not all kicks in the Chen Style set involve a hand held out for the foot to make contact.  It is precisely because the kicks are done with both speed and force that a loud sound is produced.  So both the speed of execution and the sound of contact in the way we do Turn Around to Sweep Lotus can be traced back to Chen Style Tai Chi.

But before leaving the subject of the unique clapping sound generated by performing Sweep Lotus, I want to bring up one of its potentially important functions.  Most people reading this will have had the in-class experience of sets done in a perfectly synchronized manner.  The best marker for this is hearing everyone in a group of 10 or more people slapping their right foot at exactly the same time.  But hearing a machine-gun effect, pah-pah-pah-pah (or worse still, a sputter, pah … pah, pah … pah, pah, pah), is instant evidence that the collective timing is off. 

Timing in Tai Chi is everything, after all.  That applies not only at the individual level but also at the group level.  According to various reports, Master Moy would frequently tell students, “Timing no good.”  He was also said to have stopped groups of students after starting a set, and told them to start again when he saw that their moves were not synchronized.  Perhaps, the preservation of the fast kick to generate a loud sound at the end of the set is actually meant to remind students that they need to synchronize their movements. 

In conclusion, Yang Style Tai Chi (upon which Taoist Tai Chi® is based) can be viewed as a kind of moving meditation, involving for the most part slow and steady movements performed in silence.  Turn Around to Sweep Lotus breaks those principles.  It is a flashy move, the “most dynamic” or “fanciest” kick in the set.  It disrupts the quiet mind cultivated throughout the set leading up to this point.  For the most part, our style of Tai Chi is done for the health benefits, but Sweep Lotus is a potent reminder that Tai Chi was originally a form of martial art.

With just these things in mind, perhaps the reader will start to appreciate Turn Around to Sweep Lotus as a move unlike any other.

Translated by Cathy Filion, Jordi Awarita