Our hands play a crucial, multifaceted role both in our everyday lives as well as in our practice of Tai Chi. They are truly a constant connection to everything and everyone crossing our path. And in Tai Chi, the various postures we perform transmit our energy or Qi both inwardly and outwardly.
Before we delve fully into the Tai Chi aspect, let’s briefly review the wondrous anatomy of the hands in order to better appreciate their role in our practice.
Our hands each have 27 bones that form the wrists, palms, fingers and thumbs; that’s almost one quarter of the bones in our body! The ligaments hold these bones together, and the palmar fascia is what binds the muscles and skin to the bones.
The hand movements are controlled by both hand and forearm muscles with long tendons that extend to each fingertip and thumb. Interestingly, these tendons’ attachments begin all the way up at the lower bony ends of the humerus (upper arm bone). This helps explain why the spiraling of our hands actually comes from our shoulders in our Tai Chi Jongs, for example, even though we may not be actively moving them.
This also means the shoulder girdle comes into play when our hands turn, followed by a scapula (shoulder blade) release that opens and gently spirals the upper spine. It’s all connected!
Now, about our Tai Chi Hands.
In preparing this article, it was rather eye opening to discover the multiple, repeated action words related to our hand gestures. Here are the ones I was able to find:
Grasp, Raise, Brush, Strum, Chop, Punch, Carry, Deflect, Ward off, Strike, Close, Cross, Wave, Sweep, Draw, Whip, Shoot, Parting.
That’s a lot of hand gestures! What do they all mean?
In Tai Chi, our hands have not only an aesthetic aspect that helps our movements flow with ease, but there is a healthful energetic quality to each posture we adopt. Generally speaking, our hands are relaxed and open, but firm enough to hold intention. They are alive. Our fingers are separated without being overextended while our thumbs are gently held outward while keeping the palm open and slightly curved inwards (tiger’s mouth). Our wrists are well aligned with each posture.
In Tai Chi, it is understood that our hands are tools of connection, healing and expression. Its origin in martial arts is also clearly reflected in some of the action words used in describing the movements1.
Open palms are expressive and project Qi outwardly during Yang phases of the set. Contrastingly, more concave palms gather and draw Qi inwardly during the Yin phases. An example of this would be the sequence of wave hands like clouds. In this move, each arm performs slow, circular movements while the hand postures alternate back and forth to express energy both outwardly (palms out and away) and inwardly (palms in and back). This allows stagnant energy to be released (palms out) and fresh energy to be gathered (palms in). Our Qi energy flows not only across the meridians of the arm, but because of the coordination with the pelvis and spine, our dantians also receive great benefit and the entire body becomes cleansed and energetically nourished.
The mind-body connection of the hands
As was noted earlier, there are several and varied hand gestures within the Tai Chi set. And if we appreciate the principle of energy flow, we can agree these hand postures are not arbitrary. Instead, they seem to be deliberate methods that either engage, store or transmit energy. It is also worth noting that each hand is often moving in the opposite manner of the other during the set. When we think of the need for energy to flow both in and out in a continuous manner, this alternation between hand gestures begins to make sense.
From a mind-body perspective, our mind (brain) must connect with each specific hand posture as well in order to perform them. As we do so, we are quietly listening to the energy we feel as we move, thus enhancing the mind-body connection. As a result of this connection, we eventually learn that we can consciously guide our life energy or Qi by hand postures alone. How truly remarkable and healing are the hands of Tai Chi! I encourage you to perhaps take a moment to reflect on each hand posture you make the next time you perform the Tai Chi set. Can you feel which way is your energy is moving?
As always, we extend gratitude to Master Moy for teaching us how feel our precious life energy through the beautiful movements of Tai Chi.
Copyright ©️ 2025 Lila Zitouni
Translation by Jordi Awarita, Cathy Filion