OPENING & CLOSING

Opening and closing the hands into fists or open palms is skill that does need practice but above and beyond that it has some other special meanings. We can refer to such as 'doing' and 'undoing' which are seldom considered beyond the practical ways of most ordinary considerations. Technically, these 'OPERATIONS' are called commutative. They can be done and undone. In mathematics, this is easily shown by the facts that addition can be 'undone' by substraction. Division is repeated subtraction while multiplication is repeated addition. Some things in mathematics as well as in life cannot be undone, or if attempted, the results are not 'even' or desired,etc. In martial arts, an example of operations that cannot be undone or reversed is KILLING SOMEONE. You may be able, if you simply injure or knock someone out, help them or revive them,etc. but once you kill someone you cannot bring them back to life! That is a non-commutative operation. There are some in mathematics but discussing all this 'theory' is not needed for this discussion. PLACING the clenched fists in various postions,particularly in salutary or ceremonial or ritual positions, such as, bowing, has a lot of things that can be discussed according to the arts, the disciplines, the schools,etc. that exist. One formation is that of the fists forming the SYMBOL OF TAO (DAO). If you know what this symbol looks like then you can form your hands this way: the right hand in a fist is grasped by the left hand which wraps about it to form the symbol of the Tao. If you then take it a step further, you can see the formation of THE OCTAGON or BAGUA/PAKUA symbol. The esoteric aspects of this are usually ignored or overlooked except in certain circumstances, as when one is meeting certain masters or groups and wishes to silently communicate,etc.