Torque

"I've been returning to Karin Lessing's poetry, that helps too. The way she cracks a line apart cracks my mind, in kind, open, creating the necessary curves of thought, a certain pace -- torque! -- that loosens the poetry in me." Joseph Massey


Torque, in taichi at least, is just the twist required to bind together two or more opposing forces that would otherwise not abide together, not without canceling each other out anyway. It enables yield and attack to be simultaneous rather than consequent. It is generated in the heart and waist (is feeling as well as physical) and from there extends into the legs and torso and arms to such a degree that all of you becomes a twisting (torquing) waist. It requires a certain attitude – a torque, pull, in the heart – a certain feeling for the other and the wonderful potential your coming together represents – before it comes into existence. It is greedy – consuming all it can – and advances right into the heart of all it touches, transforming. It's intensity – probably its most obvious characteristic – is all spirit, yet its extension – its ability to catch the before and after – is all soul. It makes peace, not by deadening spirit, fighting or otherwise, but by giving communal purpose: by forcing a third heart to spring into existence and convincing the other two hearts that their best function is to serve this living expression of their togetherness rather than themselves. Marriage. In a sense the more incompatible – opposing – the two energies torquing together, the greater the magic in that torquing. If that magic becomes the focus then differences are forgotten. Practising torque develops a very active and human – warm – compassion. It is the expression of life.