Ding Tin Laap Dei - ????

Ding Tin Laap Dei - ???? - (Ding Tian Li Di in mandarin) is a basic motto of Siu
Nim Tau, and it is often not applied. Beacuse of this, many errors in the posture
come out, even in the execution of the forms, which are one of the basic tools to
train and to get those many little ideas.

? [ding] has many meanings, like "bring on the head", or other times "to go
against" or "push from underneath or from behind". The simplified form is ? and it
comes from ? [ding], used for his phoneme, and from ?( o ?) [ye], 'head'. In
cantonese is /Deng/ o /Ding/.

? [tian] is the 'heaven' or the 'sky'. It's a picture of a person with a very big
head. The head nowadays is written with an horizontal high line (?). In cantonese
it is /Tin/.

? [li] means 'to be stable', 'stand', or 'to be vertical'. The ideogram represents
a man (?) standing firmly on the ground (?). In cantonese is /Laahp/.

? [di] is the 'earth'. Often it is used to mean 'background', 'position' or

'ground'. It comes from ? [tu], the 'earth', and from the phonetic use of ? [y],
which means 'hips'. The pronunciation has slowly changed, and ? [di] now sounds
differently from ? [y]. In cantonese is /Dei/.

'Push the head against the sky and stand firmly on the ground' is a good
translation. Actually we have to do this during the performance of the Siu Nim Tau,
and more in general in all the workshops at this level. We can imagine a light (so
not heavy but always present) object on the top of the head, in correspondance of
the point Baihui. In the same time, sink the point Huiyin at the center of the
perineum: the effect is a stretching and an extension of the spine, in order to
create a central axis which in chinese we can call Zhong Ding, or vertical mid-
line, very important for the correct balance. This level requires indeed the
comprehension of the space and of the concepts of Heaven - Man - Earth.

This is also why this motto is that important in order to connect strongly the mind
and the body.