Deep Roots, Living Shoots: Evolving Rooting, Aging

by Sherry Kent

Rooting can be misunderstood as only sinking low. While practicing and holding lower postures is a useful training method at certain stages of life, especially for younger practitioners with bodies that repair easily, how low you can go is not the definition of rooting. Rooting is a living relationship with the ground that can remain available throughout all the stages of life. Cheng Man-ch’ing emphasized that tai chi must remain practice-able into old age or it has missed its purpose. However, “how” you practice may be different at different ages.

My Reasons for Writing This

Since beginning tai chi practice, I have had knee issues. My teacher, Patrick Watson, told me these would pass, but they did not. I tried my best to be careful with knee and body alignment, yet my knees were not happy when doing tai chi. I listened to my teachers, consulted physical therapists and doctors, but was never able to find help that successfully addressed my knee issues.

Finally, in my 70s, after repeatedly experiencing how sinking low, holding positions and intensive tai chi adversely affects my knees, I decided to research the knees more deeply and relate this to my years of practice and understanding of tai chi. This article is the result. I sincerely hope it helps others respect the signals of their knees and bodies, and prevent or moderate future knee or other injuries.

What is Rooting?

True rooting includes the body’s capacity to receive and transmit force through the legs and feet into the ground, while remaining stable and responsive. Rooting is dynamic, not static. Once achieved, as tai chi classics describe, the energy is then free to travel back from the earth through open feet and legs, and governed by the waist can be expressed up and out through the hands.

Responsiveness Versus Depth

Responsiveness is an important measure of rootedness. If one cannot yield, neutralize, and be flexible when rooting, one is not rooted, regardless of stance depth.

Why Rooting is Not Necessarily the Same as Sinking Low

Sinking low is an external strategy, which can make stability and rooting easier to feel and is especially useful for supple younger bodies that recover quickly. As one gets older, however, excessive depth can compress and stiffen the knee, hip, and ankle joints, cause pain and reduce adaptability.

Cheng Man Ch’ing taught that stiffness and straining block the ability to root. Yang Chengfu’s oral teachings passed down the understanding: “sink the qi, not the weight.”1.

Many of us were trained through low postures and long holds, and the perspective I’m writing about here arises not in opposition to that training, but in service to our long-term continuity of practice. As we all know, over time, practitioners can refine external straightness to internal straightness. Consider that over time, practitioners can also refine external sinking to internal sinking.

Connection and the Arches of the Feet

Connection, through both the center of the arch of the foot and the Bubbling Well, is about relaxing naturally into an aligned structural support, and opening and connecting with the earth. I see the center of the arch of the foot as an important place for physical alignment and flexibility, and the Bubbling Well as enabling energetic connection. Both important.

For sure rooting is not about pressing weight downward or collapsing the arches of the feet. When weight is forced downwards, the joints of the foot can compress, and the arches can collapse, creating a physical “flat foot” condition. Our goal is not that the foot becomes so flat that the whole bottom of the foot touches the ground, as this would be recommending that we develop a flat foot condition, and we are not recommending that. When a person has the condition of flat feet, the arches in the foot have unfortunately been lost.

Rather, we want to keep the natural structural integrity of the arches of the feet, which help the foot’s ability to respond to changes of terrain. And we want to relax, center and distribute the weight over the whole foot (not tending towards the outside, inside, front or back).

When we relax the feet, they do open and spread to enable us to receive and center the weight, while also retaining the integrity and function of the arch. Retaining the arch of the foot is advantageous because the arch provides the keystone functions of both stability and flexibility. The feet remain springy, responsive, and buoyant while we connect deeply to the ground and root.

Channel Connecting Earth and Heaven

Cheng Man-ch’ing distinguishes true rooting from heaviness, or dead weight, suggesting that pressing the weight downward destroys liveliness, and can collapse the vital, alive integrity of the body and the capacity to move appropriately in response to any situation.

This is why lengthening the body, developing peng, and connecting to the heavens are also important. The upward lift towards heaven enables space creation… a lengthening of the spine, and opening the hip joints between the pelvis and leg bones, and actually all joints. All the joints need space to function optimally. If we maintain our structural integrity, relax while releasing our weight and muscles to open the qi energy flow within the body to connect deep into the earth, we also open a vertical channel that allows us to connect energetically and dynamically both up and down, connecting down to the gravity of earth and up to the levity of heaven. 

Rooting Evolves with Age

Nature has determined that our bodies change as we go through the different stages of life. The body and experience of youth is very different to that of a middle-aged person or of a senior. As our bodies age, and we hopefully become wise elders, physically the cartilage thins and the menisci stiffens, which means, for example, that the body’s tolerance for bending the knee decreases.

Research

In my research on this subject, sources from doctors and physiotherapists state that as one ages and certainly in the 70’s age group, if one has knee issues, a general reaccommodation is to limit deep sinking, squatting or sitting on the knees past more than 90° (or past 110° if a person is pain free, and well aligned) 2.  and of course there are always exceptions.

Even if one comes from a culture where people are used to squatting their whole lives, deep squatting remains mechanically challenging 3, increases joint stress, and can also contribute to the development of knee arthritis at older ages 4.

These findings support the idea that the bending range of the knees in tai chi should be approached with care and continuing awareness. As we age, we need to continue to move within our own range of movement and listen to and acknowledge the signals of the body. Then, hopefully, we prevent injury by not pushing deeper just because of tradition or habit.

Good News

The good news is that at the same time as we age, our experience and awareness of body alignment, and the sensitivity to internal energy pathways can actually increase.

The ability to achieve external depth may naturally diminish some, but internal connectivity can continue to be refined. This does not mean weaker rooting — it means rooting becomes more subtle and more precise. Rather than using external sinking as our guide, we can focus on internal rooting, connectivity, intention, deep listening, and the open flow of energy.

Consider

How we use the body and how we root both change as we age. The value of rooting in tai chi does not change with age, only its expression changes.

When we embrace the changing realities of physical aging with kindness and grace, and fully welcome the value of age-appropriate self-care of delicate tissues, rooting becomes less about achieving external sinking or lengthy holding of postures, and more about inner refinement, inner strength, softness, releasing, connecting, listening, and conscious direction of energy. This is the tai chi that allows rooting at any age.

Footnotes:

Sources compiled with digital research tools and independently reviewed by the author.

1. Taijiquan Ti Yong  Shu, The Essence and Applications of Taijiquan, Yang Chengfu. Yang Chengfu and Cheng Man-ch’ing on Tai Chi, edited by Stuart Alve Olson.

2. Multiple sources:

• • Age-Related Changes in Knees: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/21511482/.
  • NHS Royal Orthopedic Hospital: https://roh.nhs.uk/services-information/therapy/exercises-for-osteoarthritis-of-the-knee?utm_source=chatgpt.com.
  • Journal of Orthopaedics: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/21511482/.
  • Peak Potential Physical Therapy & Wellness: https://peakpotentialpt.com/knee-arthritis-exercises-to-avoid/?utm_source=chatgpt.com.
  • Kaiser Permanente organization: https://mydoctor.kaiserpermanente.org/ncal/structured-content/physical-therapy-for-knee-osteoarthritis-501861?utm_source=chatgpt.com.
  • Cleveland Clinic: https://health.clevelandclinic.org/knee-arthritis-exercises?utm_source=chatgpt.com.

3. Age-related changes in kinematics of the knee joint during deep squat: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/21511482/.

4. Beijing OA Study, 2004: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/15077301/.

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