Cloud hands – ” The Pips move”

The posture cloud hands from Tai Chi Chuan is a brilliantly defensive posture. I demonstrate the use of the upper hand and the transition that I call ” The Pips move” because it is reminiscent of a hand gesture used by Gladys Knight’s back up singers ,The Pips. The action is simply to turn the waist and present a ward off thus rolling the person off of your center. This can also be accompanied with a Neutralizing step. The rolling action of ” The Pips move ” allows me to pass my opponents wrist from the ward off hand into the grasp while placing a ward off from underneath to come up and touch the elbow joint. This acts to lock the elbow and a quick snapping turn rotating on the center axis will create the necessary Yin and Yang energies that I need to control or injure the elbow joint. Once in position you can prevent a follow up strike from your contact point. This is a prominent feature of Tai Chi Chuan , to control your opponent from the point of contact. If my opponent is flexible enough to release his elbow then I merely go to the inside of the joint grabbing the Fascia and pull the joint down and away from his hips causing his body to lose its position and fall into a counterstrike to the throat in this instance. This is a way the clouds/arms obscure the path to the mountaintop/head.