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Weight Distribution in the Zheng Manqing Taijiquan 37 Posture Form

7/6/17

The weight distribution, what percent of your weight is on each foot, is important in all martial arts, but especially in taijiquan. We often talk about 70-30 (that is 70% of your weight on one foot and 30% of your weight in the other foot), 100-0, and very rarely 50-50 or close to it. These weight distributions need to be felt, but one can actually measure these. Simply do your taijiquan postures with each foot standing on a scale.

Consider the following table. I list all postures and "sub postures" I could think of as well as the percent of weight that is in the left and right foot. In every posture, the weight distribution obviously transitions through a range of %. However, I listed the weight distribution which I believe "defines" the posture. That is, the posture you'd make if someone asked you to hold the posture.

Posture Number
Posture Name
% weight in Left Foot
% weight in Right Foot
1 preparation 0 100
2 beginning 49 51
3 ward off left 70 30
4 ward off right 30 70
5 rollback 100 0
6 press 30 70
7 push 30 70
8 single whip 70 30
9 lift hands 100 0
10 shoulder strike 30 70
11 white crane spreads wings 0 100
12 brush knee left 70 30
13 play the pipa 0 100
14 brush knee left 70 30
15 step forward 0 100
16 deflect 0 100
17 parry 70 30
18 punch 70 30
19 withdraw 0 100
20 push 70 30
21 apparent closure, cross hands 51 49
22 embrace tiger, return to mountain 30 70
23 rollback 100 0
24 press 30 70
25 push 30 70
26 diagonal single whip 70 30
27 rely on fist, fist under elbow 0 100
28 retreating monkey, right 100 0
29 retreating monkey, left 0 100
30 retreating monkey, right 100 0
31 retreating monkey, left 0 100
32 retreating monkey, right 100 0
33 diagonal flying 30 70
34 cloud hands, left 100 0
35 cloud hands, right 0 100
36 cloud hands, left 100 0
37 cloud hands, right 0 100
38 cloud hands, left 100 0
39 cloud hands, right 0 100
40 cloud hands, left 100 0
41 single whip 70 30
42 squatting single whip, snake creeps down 0 100
43 golden rooster stands on one leg, left 100 0
44 golden rooster stands on one leg, right 0 100
45 separate right foot 100 0
46 separate left foot 0 100
47 turn and strike with heel 0 100
48 brush knee left 70 30
49 brush knee right 30 70
50 low punch 70 30
51 ward off right 30 70
52 rollback 100 0
53 press 30 70
54 push 30 70
55 single whip 70 30
56 fair lady left 70 30
57 fair lady right 30 70
58 fair lady left 70 30
59 fair lady right 30 70
60 ward off left 70 30
61 ward off right 30 70
62 rollback 100 0
63 press 30 70
64 push 30 70
65 single whip 70 30
66 squatting single whip, snake creeps down 0 100
67 seven stars step forward 100 0
68 step back and ride tiger 0 100
69 turn body and sweep lotus with leg 100 0
70 bend bow, shoot tiger 30 70
71 step forward 0 100
72 deflect 0 100
73 parry 70 30
74 punch 70 30
75 withdraw 0 100
76 push 70 30
77 cross hands 30 70
78 conclusion 30 70
79 bow/saying thanks 49 51

Here is a graph of the % weight in Left Foot vales.

Note the "up down" part in the middle, the many 0-100 changes. These correspond to the Rely on fist to Turn and strike with heel section.

It is interesting to look at some statistics of the % weight in left foot and the % weight in right foot numbers. The left foot has 0% weight in it about 27% of the time (this is 21 times out of 79 postures), and has 100% weight in it 16% of the time. The right foot, of course, has these same percentages but flipped. So we can say approximately 50% of the time (27% plus 20%), the left or right foot has either 0% or 100% weight in it. The average weight in the left foot is about 47% (and 53% for the right foot), and the median weight in the left foot is 30% (and 70% for the right foot).

Thanks for reading. Happy practice!

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