Red-Blue | Yang-Yin | In-Yo | Heat-Cold

The great tai chi symbol originally was red and white. It occurred to me that there may be more interpretations to the symbol not covered in my previous postings. We see in today's symbol the colors black and white. I discovered that long ago when first created there were no dye's for black and of course white is usually a byproduct of creating paper or bamboo where no color could be interpreted later as white. I would suggest that if dye's were available for blue it might have been the opposite to the red.

I can only speculate that we see the common black-white as an interpretation of dark and light or the night sky vs. the sun's daylight. All of these to my mind work and have a sense of truth.

I have come to understand that if the red and blue has been used we could then use the forging of a Japanese sword, the Katana, as representative of the forging we as martial artist must endure to create a balance enlightened person.

The color red represents fire and heat. Fire and heat are used to heat the metals of the soon to be blade of the katana. If we were to allow that to occur and then stop with out consideration for the entire process the sword would actually be brittle. If we heat it then simply dip it once in the cool blue water then it will cool rapidly and once again if not considered as a whole process leave a brittle blade. It is a repetitive process of hot/red and cool/blue to work the metal until it reaches that stage where it adheres to a strength that allows it to endure battle yet flexibility that prevents it from breaking. It allows just enough of a combination in forging to create one of the finest blades known to man.

Red is also representative of anger. Anger if not cooled and tempered will create a brittle mind and body easily defeated in all crises. Using a cool mind represented by blue which is related to cool, peaceful and a comfort we can temper the minds anger from red to blue until we reach a mind and body that remain present and balanced.

Is this a viable hypothesis?