I’ve been having an interesting time teaching a simple exercise. We start to do it standing in the legs with little steps. At first I have the class do it as sort of an easy movement. Essentially we perform the movement, but it is sort of a glob. No real skill is being utilized. We “do” it.
Next, I begin to break it down in greater and greater specificity. This means that I’m looking at ways to accomplish the same movement but using relaxation and non-doing. As I articulate how to make it one whole non-doing movement, slowly but surely the students start to lose the movement altogether. Then they go through a time period where they feel they have mostly lost the movement. It falls apart in their hands.
One student commented that the more we work on it, the harder it gets. This is because the focus has shifted. As an unskilled glob, it was easy. But now we are relying on a whole body movement where all parts are integrated and working together. Each part individually is not required to hold you together. The whole is holding you together. One part is all parts. So each individual part has little to do, but more importantly each part must communicate with every other part.
Harder to not "do" it? How fascinating.
Of course, this is impossible to nail in print here because this is an experiential experiment. But the class goes from being able to “do” it, to not being able to “do” it. Nor are they able to NOT “do” it. We perpetually lock ourselves into the habit of doing in order to accomplish what is essentially a simple simple movement.
Or to put it another way, we only know how to do things, we don’t know how to allow things. Allowing relaxation, air, ground, structure, whole body integration to be the tools that hold us together and create a movement. Our habit, and therefore our experience, is that a sense of our doing things is how we get things done. If that support system is removed, we fall apart. Yet to utilize this other support system makes a world of sense because it requires much much less effort. It makes life easy. And now we have a surplus of energy. All that fuss and stiffness is gone.
I see our American sense of personality as a way of forcing results to happen as well. We throw this around like a calling card to help identify who we are and get what we want. This would be OK except this is often unnecessary, tiresome and inefficient. And it is so hard to let this go. Who are you and how do you act if you don't access your personality? And so many times it actually gets in the way and prevents us from getting what we want.
This comes up a great deal in the work place where most of us are on automatic, getting things done as quickly as possible, and relying on habit to do so. Doing what comes naturally, which usually means how we have always done it via "doing". The spaciousness and potential of non-doing is completely lost: mistakes are made, feelings are hurt, work is poorly executed, working relationships are damanged, information is misinterpreted and so on. Ever happen to you?
Oddly, in our culture, presenting who you are – your personality – is considered a necessary means of getting to know each other. But it is primarily this habit of doing that we are presenting. Maybe this is a good thing because it is this habit that we ultimately have to deal with. Isn’t it an insult to say "Mr. Jones" has no personality? Yet when we complain about someone, it is the personality that we are annoyed with. How ironic.
If nothing else, I would like to suggest that adding “non-doing”, or allowing, as a tool to get things done is a worthy pursuit and an invaluable practice. The art of tai chi is one way to study this (although not the only way.) Certainly you will add energy to your day since you now need less of it to do what you used to do. You get out of the way of what needs to be done. Your energy goes where it needs to go to accomplish tasks. You are no longer this stiff glob, but free flowing energy.
Yes, this IS difficult to do! Because we don’t practice this. Is "non-doing" on your to do list? It requires great focus and a certain kind of commitment. But the pleasure of tasting even a little bit of this is what tai chi students love. The thrill is palpable. Non-doing is a challenge, yes, but is also thrilling.
Saturday, December 12, 2009
Monday, November 2, 2009
Tai Chi: To Change or Not to Change -- That Is the Question
I spoke with a successful friend a while ago and asked: In the last ten years, how have you changed?
Answer: No change at all!
I was momentarily stunned. I see life AS change and assume if you are alive, you are changing. I guess this is not so for all.
Personally, I’ve had to change because there were so many things that I needed to let go of and address. I resented this for a long time. So it makes sense that I have taken up a practice that is about change.
My teacher of many years, Maggie Newman, is still looking for what can be improved in her tai chi form. It’s just part of the fun at this point. Change in tai chi ultimately means better functionality, more relaxation, more balance, and greater whole body unified movement. You will feel better as you discover new ways to accomplish these goals. She carries this into her non-tai chi life as well. Maggie is always exploring new ways to encounter reality in order to better meet up with reality.
They say in business that if you are not growing, you are dying. I have the privilege of talking to accomplished individuals in science and engineering and business. They are always on the prowl for improvement: Improvement in either themselves, or in the operations that they are involved in. Most work very hard and rarely do they rest on their achievements. One goal is accomplished and off to the next one. Yes, this can be form of workaholism. But it doesn’t have to be. It can be a source of creativity and liveliness, a form of being fully engaged.
We can rest in a comfort zone, or repeat endlessly the niche that we do well. This can lead to a success of sorts. But it is also dead in a way. It’s inert, complacent, self-satisfied, unmoving. At a Zen talk one day, the monk speaking noted that it is good to do things we don’t do well. I didn’t get the point then, but I do now. The point is not about success or failure. It’s about a willing connection with whatever you are doing without judgment or motive. It’s about pure engagement.
Change can come naturally, without effort or conscious intent. Or one can consciously decide to work at it, perhaps motivated towards a better world, a better me, a better you. Change, therefore, can be a choice. You decide to engage with the changing world and therefore you will need to change. It is possible to decide what aspects that you want to change. It could be small, incremental changes, or large sweeping changes. It can be internal changes, or external involvement effecting change. I suspect either way, the arrow will go in both directions. By this I mean, if you decide you need to make an internal change, this will create changes in the external world. If you want to make real changes in the external world, it will cause changes in your internal world. External forces may create or even force internal changes. We grow into new perspectives this way.
Tai chi is a very internal art. The changes are mostly about your physical and mental state. It will definitely impact your external world. Since there is so much to study and work on in tai chi, in one way you can select what’s next on the study list. Or you can ask your teacher or fellow student what they think you might tackle next. This can be a very exciting journey.
I tend to be fearful of change, but fear is not really a part of tai chi. I also tend to change slowly and that is fundamental to tai chi because the changes in tai chi are very deep and very subtle. They take time to manifest. Fear tends to actually block progress and it is harder to change in a fearful environment (internal or external). One has to deal with, or at least minimize, fear.
Mostly, tai chi feels like experimental play. You experiment with various aspects until you are ready to attempt play in a potentially fearful environment (as in aggressive push-hands partners). But even then, there are ways to minimize the fear and maximize your ability to experiment.
The mindset of discovery, to learn something new, is a way of engaging life. As you change your tai chi form, you could be changing your life. You never really arrive, settle, or land with a final “product”. You are always experimenting and playing with SOMETHING. In this way, tai chi is endlessly fascinating.
Do you know how to stop growing in tai chi (or life)? Assume that what you are doing is right, or that the path you are on is the right path. OK, in fact, it may be that your path is the best path for you, but you always need to test it. And test it again. Is there a better way? Did this really work? Is there something else? Did I miss something? How do others manage this?
I hold high the example of those who think they really have it nailed down. I hold them high because I know I don’t want to replicate them. They prove my point. They don’t improve. They repeat some “technique”. They may even be very, very good at what they do. But this doesn’t make them right or better or successful. Often, it makes them stuck. It is easy to delude ourselves when we “win” using some “technique”. In push hands, it’s easy for me to confuse a beginner by doing something other than using real tai chi principles. I can fool myself into a feeling of superiority.
These last paragraphs may give you the impression that you have to constantly second guess yourself and never feel secure. That’s not the point. You only have to work towards freedom of movement, relaxation and ease, and to keep working on ways to accomplish this. It’s the difference between saying, “Here’s how it’s done – here’s the answer” versus “Currently, this seems to work best for me. It feels good. What works for you?”
Catch that shift? You can feel good about the experience you are having right now. You don’t have to close the door to something new. Nor do you have to invalidate someone else’s experience to prove your own.
I love most the example of those who keep learning and experimenting and playing with the principles of tai chi. Sure, I’m a sucker for a new “technique”. But growth and learning don’t end there. This is where it begins.
Answer: No change at all!
I was momentarily stunned. I see life AS change and assume if you are alive, you are changing. I guess this is not so for all.
Personally, I’ve had to change because there were so many things that I needed to let go of and address. I resented this for a long time. So it makes sense that I have taken up a practice that is about change.
My teacher of many years, Maggie Newman, is still looking for what can be improved in her tai chi form. It’s just part of the fun at this point. Change in tai chi ultimately means better functionality, more relaxation, more balance, and greater whole body unified movement. You will feel better as you discover new ways to accomplish these goals. She carries this into her non-tai chi life as well. Maggie is always exploring new ways to encounter reality in order to better meet up with reality.
They say in business that if you are not growing, you are dying. I have the privilege of talking to accomplished individuals in science and engineering and business. They are always on the prowl for improvement: Improvement in either themselves, or in the operations that they are involved in. Most work very hard and rarely do they rest on their achievements. One goal is accomplished and off to the next one. Yes, this can be form of workaholism. But it doesn’t have to be. It can be a source of creativity and liveliness, a form of being fully engaged.
We can rest in a comfort zone, or repeat endlessly the niche that we do well. This can lead to a success of sorts. But it is also dead in a way. It’s inert, complacent, self-satisfied, unmoving. At a Zen talk one day, the monk speaking noted that it is good to do things we don’t do well. I didn’t get the point then, but I do now. The point is not about success or failure. It’s about a willing connection with whatever you are doing without judgment or motive. It’s about pure engagement.
Change can come naturally, without effort or conscious intent. Or one can consciously decide to work at it, perhaps motivated towards a better world, a better me, a better you. Change, therefore, can be a choice. You decide to engage with the changing world and therefore you will need to change. It is possible to decide what aspects that you want to change. It could be small, incremental changes, or large sweeping changes. It can be internal changes, or external involvement effecting change. I suspect either way, the arrow will go in both directions. By this I mean, if you decide you need to make an internal change, this will create changes in the external world. If you want to make real changes in the external world, it will cause changes in your internal world. External forces may create or even force internal changes. We grow into new perspectives this way.
Tai chi is a very internal art. The changes are mostly about your physical and mental state. It will definitely impact your external world. Since there is so much to study and work on in tai chi, in one way you can select what’s next on the study list. Or you can ask your teacher or fellow student what they think you might tackle next. This can be a very exciting journey.
I tend to be fearful of change, but fear is not really a part of tai chi. I also tend to change slowly and that is fundamental to tai chi because the changes in tai chi are very deep and very subtle. They take time to manifest. Fear tends to actually block progress and it is harder to change in a fearful environment (internal or external). One has to deal with, or at least minimize, fear.
Mostly, tai chi feels like experimental play. You experiment with various aspects until you are ready to attempt play in a potentially fearful environment (as in aggressive push-hands partners). But even then, there are ways to minimize the fear and maximize your ability to experiment.
The mindset of discovery, to learn something new, is a way of engaging life. As you change your tai chi form, you could be changing your life. You never really arrive, settle, or land with a final “product”. You are always experimenting and playing with SOMETHING. In this way, tai chi is endlessly fascinating.
Do you know how to stop growing in tai chi (or life)? Assume that what you are doing is right, or that the path you are on is the right path. OK, in fact, it may be that your path is the best path for you, but you always need to test it. And test it again. Is there a better way? Did this really work? Is there something else? Did I miss something? How do others manage this?
I hold high the example of those who think they really have it nailed down. I hold them high because I know I don’t want to replicate them. They prove my point. They don’t improve. They repeat some “technique”. They may even be very, very good at what they do. But this doesn’t make them right or better or successful. Often, it makes them stuck. It is easy to delude ourselves when we “win” using some “technique”. In push hands, it’s easy for me to confuse a beginner by doing something other than using real tai chi principles. I can fool myself into a feeling of superiority.
These last paragraphs may give you the impression that you have to constantly second guess yourself and never feel secure. That’s not the point. You only have to work towards freedom of movement, relaxation and ease, and to keep working on ways to accomplish this. It’s the difference between saying, “Here’s how it’s done – here’s the answer” versus “Currently, this seems to work best for me. It feels good. What works for you?”
Catch that shift? You can feel good about the experience you are having right now. You don’t have to close the door to something new. Nor do you have to invalidate someone else’s experience to prove your own.
I love most the example of those who keep learning and experimenting and playing with the principles of tai chi. Sure, I’m a sucker for a new “technique”. But growth and learning don’t end there. This is where it begins.
Saturday, October 10, 2009
Tai Chi - Stress Buster! How?
Tai Chi is well known for its ability to reduce stress. How does this happen?
Stress is ultimately a body issue. The causes of stress are many and inevitable in life. One type of stress (the garden variety) is self induced – we think too much about things that we have no control over, or on problems that have no acceptable solutions, or solutions we do not like. We want what we want. Perhaps we lack patience, or acceptance of “what is.” Perhaps we are too needy. Maybe we only think of others, or only of ourselves.
While one might claim that all stress is self induced, I tend to think that life offers experiences that are sometimes threatening, uncomfortable or unhappy. Tsunami’s do, in fact, happen. Partners decide they want something different in life and leave us. We lose our jobs because markets change. Or a new boss doesn’t like us. We can’t concentrate on our work. We fail crucial exams. Children die prematurely. Spouses get hit by cars. We are rejected by a university we want to attend. The car breaks down on the freeway at midnight. Cancer invades our lives. It is raining cats and dogs and we forgot to pack an umbrella.
“Life happens” and it doesn’t match our game plan. Some solutions lie in changing how we think. Some solutions lie in simply going with the experience and allowing ourselves to feel where we are (without judgment) and letting it go. (Letting it go is the difficult part.) Or meeting the situation head on with total acceptance. Oy!
Stress is a body issue. Regardless of the source, it will damage your body. Research confirms that stress causes obesity, heart disease, lowers immunity, premature aging, even damages your DNA. We all know of someone under stress and how they “age” suddenly. The New York Times published the following article, October 8, 2009: When Stress Takes a Toll on Your Teeth. Yep, some dentists are seeing an increase in patients with teeth grinding, up 20 to 25 percent from last year due to economic worries on the part of patients. Dr. Steven Butensky reports, “I’m seeing a lot more people that are anxious, stressed out and very concerned about their financial futures and they’re taking it out on their teeth.” Teeth are under attack from stress? Who knew?
The study of tai chi is synonymous with the study of relaxation, whether you are relaxing throughout your form, push hands, sword form or sword dueling. It’s relax relax relax. We use the tools that are always available: gravity, the ground, the air, your muscles, tendons, ligaments and bones. These are the tools we have to experience relaxation. Throughout the study of tai chi, we discover real relaxation, a physical condition inherent to the body you are now “renting.” We gain insight into our own tension and how to let it go. This is the detailed work of a soft martial art. We come back again and again to what is relax? What is letting go? What is a whole body movement? What does it feel like to be “centered”? And we come to experience that particular state and begin to inhabit this state not only during practice, but in our everyday lives.
One way to counter stress is to acknowledge its presence. Awareness, a key element to any study, comes into play, but in tai chi, the particular area of awareness is the body, its tension, and relaxation. Awareness: we are on alert that stress has arrived. Some people are so tense they don’t know what life is like without it. In fact, some people equate life with tension. Prisons, of course, are filled with them. Guards and prisoners bounce off one another like a set of billiard balls. Tension can be motivating to some people. I call this beating the egg whites: lots of activity, lots of effort, lots of motion, lots of noise, lots of thinking, improved muscle tone and then a small result.
Tai chi gives students a way to feel something different and to feel this while they are in motion. Actually, relaxation is the cause of motion. You can relieve stress by going jogging, but you will not let go of muscular holding patterns when you go for a jog. You simply carry them with you, burn yourself out, and then feel what you think is relaxation. Ah! Relief! Actually what you are feeling is exhaustion. Not bad but this isn’t a solution to stress. Exhaustion is the body’s way of escaping stress. Many confuse exhaustion with relaxation and stress relief. Beat those egg whites, exhaust yourself. This is a lifestyle for many. We even admire it at times!
Compare exhaustion to relaxation. Ultimately, with exhaustion, you can’t move, nor do you want to move. The sudden absence of extraneous movement will feel good to those who are prone to exhaustion. But with relaxation, in the tai chi sense of the word, you are simultaneously alert and ready to move. In fact, it feels good to move. It is a source of joy. Just watch any infant in a waking state. Moving is a source of fun. With relaxation you are ready to respond! You are ready to explore and engage.
I was teaching a class to some beginners in a less than desirable situation. We had half of a basketball court. The other half of the court had a group of young athletes having fun shooting hoops. Renegade basketballs inevitably came bouncing our way. One student was hit twice. Not very relaxing! These were beginner students, but if this had been an advanced class, this would be a GREAT way to train. The advanced student would pay attention to the instructions, follow the exercise, but also be aware of the other half of the basketball court. You take in the whole picture and include it. One aspect of tai chi training is being aware of the external world so that you can protect yourself. Alert, but not tense. You align yourself with what is. I feel more relaxed just thinking about this as a possibility.
A while back on a wet cold icy day, I was walking to work very carefully to make sure that I wouldn’t fall. I have delicate knees and I am careful to prevent giving them an unwanted twist. I walked all the way to the building safe and sound. But as I was walking on the hard linoleum in the halls indoors, I struck upon a hidden wet spot and took a complete fall to the ground. Wham! I simply got up without any injury. I think the sense of being whole, relaxed and round helped me with that fall. Somehow I did it right. (We do not train in tai chi in how to fall!)
Once you are aware of stress and tension, does the alternative experience that you are learning from tai chi come to the rescue? You may have to go through some feelings of stress. But if you are a tai chi student you do have some tools in dealing with it. For one, the increased awareness that your body is out of kilter will help you identify the Not-Relaxed state. The second thing is that you can practice tai chi or simple standing meditation to help get you back on track. Even this may not necessarily help when you are in a stressful situation. But what does help is that, knowing you are out of kilter and tense, you will more readily want to find a way to return to a state of centered relaxation.
I do get knocked off center, but my body wants to get back to a whole relaxed state as soon as possible. It seems that I return to “normal” more quickly these days. I look for solutions, or go through the stressful process knowing that something else exists.
I know it because I’ve been practicing it, every day, for years.
My body knows it. Yours can too!
Stress is ultimately a body issue. The causes of stress are many and inevitable in life. One type of stress (the garden variety) is self induced – we think too much about things that we have no control over, or on problems that have no acceptable solutions, or solutions we do not like. We want what we want. Perhaps we lack patience, or acceptance of “what is.” Perhaps we are too needy. Maybe we only think of others, or only of ourselves.
While one might claim that all stress is self induced, I tend to think that life offers experiences that are sometimes threatening, uncomfortable or unhappy. Tsunami’s do, in fact, happen. Partners decide they want something different in life and leave us. We lose our jobs because markets change. Or a new boss doesn’t like us. We can’t concentrate on our work. We fail crucial exams. Children die prematurely. Spouses get hit by cars. We are rejected by a university we want to attend. The car breaks down on the freeway at midnight. Cancer invades our lives. It is raining cats and dogs and we forgot to pack an umbrella.
“Life happens” and it doesn’t match our game plan. Some solutions lie in changing how we think. Some solutions lie in simply going with the experience and allowing ourselves to feel where we are (without judgment) and letting it go. (Letting it go is the difficult part.) Or meeting the situation head on with total acceptance. Oy!
Stress is a body issue. Regardless of the source, it will damage your body. Research confirms that stress causes obesity, heart disease, lowers immunity, premature aging, even damages your DNA. We all know of someone under stress and how they “age” suddenly. The New York Times published the following article, October 8, 2009: When Stress Takes a Toll on Your Teeth. Yep, some dentists are seeing an increase in patients with teeth grinding, up 20 to 25 percent from last year due to economic worries on the part of patients. Dr. Steven Butensky reports, “I’m seeing a lot more people that are anxious, stressed out and very concerned about their financial futures and they’re taking it out on their teeth.” Teeth are under attack from stress? Who knew?
The study of tai chi is synonymous with the study of relaxation, whether you are relaxing throughout your form, push hands, sword form or sword dueling. It’s relax relax relax. We use the tools that are always available: gravity, the ground, the air, your muscles, tendons, ligaments and bones. These are the tools we have to experience relaxation. Throughout the study of tai chi, we discover real relaxation, a physical condition inherent to the body you are now “renting.” We gain insight into our own tension and how to let it go. This is the detailed work of a soft martial art. We come back again and again to what is relax? What is letting go? What is a whole body movement? What does it feel like to be “centered”? And we come to experience that particular state and begin to inhabit this state not only during practice, but in our everyday lives.
One way to counter stress is to acknowledge its presence. Awareness, a key element to any study, comes into play, but in tai chi, the particular area of awareness is the body, its tension, and relaxation. Awareness: we are on alert that stress has arrived. Some people are so tense they don’t know what life is like without it. In fact, some people equate life with tension. Prisons, of course, are filled with them. Guards and prisoners bounce off one another like a set of billiard balls. Tension can be motivating to some people. I call this beating the egg whites: lots of activity, lots of effort, lots of motion, lots of noise, lots of thinking, improved muscle tone and then a small result.
Tai chi gives students a way to feel something different and to feel this while they are in motion. Actually, relaxation is the cause of motion. You can relieve stress by going jogging, but you will not let go of muscular holding patterns when you go for a jog. You simply carry them with you, burn yourself out, and then feel what you think is relaxation. Ah! Relief! Actually what you are feeling is exhaustion. Not bad but this isn’t a solution to stress. Exhaustion is the body’s way of escaping stress. Many confuse exhaustion with relaxation and stress relief. Beat those egg whites, exhaust yourself. This is a lifestyle for many. We even admire it at times!
Compare exhaustion to relaxation. Ultimately, with exhaustion, you can’t move, nor do you want to move. The sudden absence of extraneous movement will feel good to those who are prone to exhaustion. But with relaxation, in the tai chi sense of the word, you are simultaneously alert and ready to move. In fact, it feels good to move. It is a source of joy. Just watch any infant in a waking state. Moving is a source of fun. With relaxation you are ready to respond! You are ready to explore and engage.
I was teaching a class to some beginners in a less than desirable situation. We had half of a basketball court. The other half of the court had a group of young athletes having fun shooting hoops. Renegade basketballs inevitably came bouncing our way. One student was hit twice. Not very relaxing! These were beginner students, but if this had been an advanced class, this would be a GREAT way to train. The advanced student would pay attention to the instructions, follow the exercise, but also be aware of the other half of the basketball court. You take in the whole picture and include it. One aspect of tai chi training is being aware of the external world so that you can protect yourself. Alert, but not tense. You align yourself with what is. I feel more relaxed just thinking about this as a possibility.
A while back on a wet cold icy day, I was walking to work very carefully to make sure that I wouldn’t fall. I have delicate knees and I am careful to prevent giving them an unwanted twist. I walked all the way to the building safe and sound. But as I was walking on the hard linoleum in the halls indoors, I struck upon a hidden wet spot and took a complete fall to the ground. Wham! I simply got up without any injury. I think the sense of being whole, relaxed and round helped me with that fall. Somehow I did it right. (We do not train in tai chi in how to fall!)
Once you are aware of stress and tension, does the alternative experience that you are learning from tai chi come to the rescue? You may have to go through some feelings of stress. But if you are a tai chi student you do have some tools in dealing with it. For one, the increased awareness that your body is out of kilter will help you identify the Not-Relaxed state. The second thing is that you can practice tai chi or simple standing meditation to help get you back on track. Even this may not necessarily help when you are in a stressful situation. But what does help is that, knowing you are out of kilter and tense, you will more readily want to find a way to return to a state of centered relaxation.
I do get knocked off center, but my body wants to get back to a whole relaxed state as soon as possible. It seems that I return to “normal” more quickly these days. I look for solutions, or go through the stressful process knowing that something else exists.
I know it because I’ve been practicing it, every day, for years.
My body knows it. Yours can too!
Saturday, September 19, 2009
Tai chi, amoebic flow and freeways
It strikes me that in tai chi, a central theme has to do with working with two aspects at once. And these two aspects are polar opposites of a spectrum.
The first polarity would be the sense that you are an amoeba. You have no real form, but you definitely are in space and flowing as you want to flow. You fill here, you empty there. You explore here, you dip there. It is easy, unforced, undirected, open. In fact, the lack of force or effort or even too much intention allows you to be flowing and easy.
Then there is the fact that you are definitely moving through a very very specific shape with a specific purpose. It reminds me of the perfection of a freeway system. To get the traffic to flow in a meaningful way, we create channels that form the turns of the freeway so that the cars can accommodate the freeway and the other cars. The specificity of the channel gives order and meaning to the flow of the cars. It perfectly accommodates the situation in order to get you where you need to go. The curves are elegant. They are specific, fixed, smooth, well defined. I’ve often admired the clover like shape of two intersecting freeways. Once you enter into the correct pathway, you zoom in the right direction, adjusting your speed as needed, always accommodating other cars and the sides of the curving pathway.
Tai chi is, of course, a martial art. The tai chi form has a shape with well defined curves and vectors. Yet the way the entire operation moves is from the perspective of an amoeba. The practice, the challenge, is to find the specificity of the shape and flow from within the easy, relaxed, open, directionless feel of the amoeba. The form is the intersection of both qualities. If it looks, from the outside, too much like an amoeba, lacking form or direction, then it lacks the specificity of the martial art. It becomes fuzzy. If it starts to look like slo-mo Karate, then it has lost the open, relaxed, exploratory feel of an amoeba. That’s the edge. It’s neither and it’s both.
Even more, the pathway and the flowing amoeba like quality are actually one. If the freeway is the channel, the pathway, the amoeba quality itself is the fuel that creates that freeway. It fulfills itself as the pathway. So the pathway itself can easily change as the amoeba flow (chi) changes. Another way to think of this is that air itself simply flows around aimlessly, but air can also be a tornado which has a real strength and direction and force and path. The air in the tornado eventually returns to its aimless air-like state of being. Yet another example is water in the ocean. Water molecules are mostly free floating, aimless and flowing, until they become a wave of force, power, direction… and then again relax into a quiet random flow.
As a martial art, both ends work to make tai chi functional. Yet another challenge! If your perfect shape cannot accommodate some force that invades this perfect shape, then you are relying on shape itself, and you will clash with this incoming force. The strongest will “win”. But we say in tai chi “the soft overcomes the hard”. The amoeba quality is there to allow an infinite amount of variation in responding to a force. You are not trapped in your shape. It holds you but you hold it.
On the other hand, if a force invades your shape and you don’t have skill for redirecting that vector force off your center (neutralizing) and then turning it around so that your new shape maximally returns that force back to the attacker, you merely crumble from the attack. Just like that freeway system, you have to be able to find the correct path to redirect that force. Out of this, you then need to find the curve that allows you to return that force right back to the perpetrator. This is very high level skill. This is where your sense of shape comes into play. You need to understand the right shape that will deliver the right results. You momentarily dissolve your old shape (the one that has been attacked) and then regroup so that this force is being redirected back to the attacker.
The form trains you to be sensitive to the forming and dissolving and reforming of various martial arts shapes in a manner similar to an amoeba. Push hands trains you to functionally do the same thing when presented with an actual force. These qualities of flow and shape give you an experience of your body that is hard to find in other disciplines. The matter at hand (you, air, amoeba) has the ability to change and flow and change and flow and ….. endlessly.
Tai chi is a superb method to explore this area and to find shapes that maximize the potential for holding energy (chi, air) and use it efficiently to accomplish your goals.
The mind that is aware of all of this also benefits in similar fashion.
The first polarity would be the sense that you are an amoeba. You have no real form, but you definitely are in space and flowing as you want to flow. You fill here, you empty there. You explore here, you dip there. It is easy, unforced, undirected, open. In fact, the lack of force or effort or even too much intention allows you to be flowing and easy.
Then there is the fact that you are definitely moving through a very very specific shape with a specific purpose. It reminds me of the perfection of a freeway system. To get the traffic to flow in a meaningful way, we create channels that form the turns of the freeway so that the cars can accommodate the freeway and the other cars. The specificity of the channel gives order and meaning to the flow of the cars. It perfectly accommodates the situation in order to get you where you need to go. The curves are elegant. They are specific, fixed, smooth, well defined. I’ve often admired the clover like shape of two intersecting freeways. Once you enter into the correct pathway, you zoom in the right direction, adjusting your speed as needed, always accommodating other cars and the sides of the curving pathway.
Tai chi is, of course, a martial art. The tai chi form has a shape with well defined curves and vectors. Yet the way the entire operation moves is from the perspective of an amoeba. The practice, the challenge, is to find the specificity of the shape and flow from within the easy, relaxed, open, directionless feel of the amoeba. The form is the intersection of both qualities. If it looks, from the outside, too much like an amoeba, lacking form or direction, then it lacks the specificity of the martial art. It becomes fuzzy. If it starts to look like slo-mo Karate, then it has lost the open, relaxed, exploratory feel of an amoeba. That’s the edge. It’s neither and it’s both.
Even more, the pathway and the flowing amoeba like quality are actually one. If the freeway is the channel, the pathway, the amoeba quality itself is the fuel that creates that freeway. It fulfills itself as the pathway. So the pathway itself can easily change as the amoeba flow (chi) changes. Another way to think of this is that air itself simply flows around aimlessly, but air can also be a tornado which has a real strength and direction and force and path. The air in the tornado eventually returns to its aimless air-like state of being. Yet another example is water in the ocean. Water molecules are mostly free floating, aimless and flowing, until they become a wave of force, power, direction… and then again relax into a quiet random flow.
As a martial art, both ends work to make tai chi functional. Yet another challenge! If your perfect shape cannot accommodate some force that invades this perfect shape, then you are relying on shape itself, and you will clash with this incoming force. The strongest will “win”. But we say in tai chi “the soft overcomes the hard”. The amoeba quality is there to allow an infinite amount of variation in responding to a force. You are not trapped in your shape. It holds you but you hold it.
On the other hand, if a force invades your shape and you don’t have skill for redirecting that vector force off your center (neutralizing) and then turning it around so that your new shape maximally returns that force back to the attacker, you merely crumble from the attack. Just like that freeway system, you have to be able to find the correct path to redirect that force. Out of this, you then need to find the curve that allows you to return that force right back to the perpetrator. This is very high level skill. This is where your sense of shape comes into play. You need to understand the right shape that will deliver the right results. You momentarily dissolve your old shape (the one that has been attacked) and then regroup so that this force is being redirected back to the attacker.
The form trains you to be sensitive to the forming and dissolving and reforming of various martial arts shapes in a manner similar to an amoeba. Push hands trains you to functionally do the same thing when presented with an actual force. These qualities of flow and shape give you an experience of your body that is hard to find in other disciplines. The matter at hand (you, air, amoeba) has the ability to change and flow and change and flow and ….. endlessly.
Tai chi is a superb method to explore this area and to find shapes that maximize the potential for holding energy (chi, air) and use it efficiently to accomplish your goals.
The mind that is aware of all of this also benefits in similar fashion.
Thursday, September 10, 2009
The Tai Chi Habit
The Tai Chi Habit.
Well, not so fast. Let’s look at habits in general....
I was at the Zendo some time ago and I saw something that has stuck in my mind. There was this male sitting in Zen meditation and, along with all of us, he was at it for roughly an hour with a kin-kin walking meditation in the middle. But unlike the rest of the group, his torso was not vertically upright. He held it leaning back, perhaps at a 20 degree angle off the vertical. This was not someone with a disability. He was merely in the habit of leaning back while sitting zazen. In order to do this, he had to be holding muscles tightly to maintain the angle for an hour. Looking at him made my back ache, but I'd guess this felt normal to him. I don’t know where he learned sitting meditation and I suspect he doesn’t have a teacher. But generally, one is taught to sit erect in order to find a line of balance that is comfortable. Just like in tai chi.
So here was a good example of someone with a poor habit, at least in terms of a comfortable posture. Perhaps his habit gave him a sense that what he was doing was comfortable. His muscle holding pattern had been sufficiently developed so that what would hurt the average person felt OK as far as he was concerned. And if you corrected him, the new posture would feel uncomfortable to him. Such are the ways of habit. What’s “wrong” feels right and what’s “right” feels wrong.
In a way, of course, we are all like my example here. The only difference is that our patterns may not be as visible or dramatic. We are in a somewhat correct place, but still, there are uncomfortable holding patterns that are hard to see, and even more difficult to feel, because we have become accustomed to the position. What feels normal is not correct, but merely a habit that blinds us to what would be truly comfortable. There are 656 to 850 muscles in the body (depending on which expert you consult) and to arrange them properly is a science and an art.
In tai chi we are aiming for perfect relaxation so that precisely the muscles that are needed in any given movement are free to do the job exactly as required. Improper muscle usage blocks freedom of movement. This is why the study of tai chi requires great attention. It is very difficult to discern habit and improper use of muscles, tendons, ligaments and joints, from relaxation and proper muscular tonus.
Holding a posture for a long time can be a double edged sword. Often it will reveal that you are tensing some muscle improperly. But habit can also hide poor muscular usage and actually make the habit itself WORSE. We unconsciously tell ourselves, “I am right because it feels right." But it is the habit that makes it feel right. The mind assumes that what you are doing is correct and this will override the actual experience in the body.
Answers? Here are a few but I can’t claim this is a complete list.
1. A good teacher. (In addition to tai chi, The Alexander Technique is a superb method to focus on recognizing and changing habits.)
2. Aim for comfort. Since comfort may in fact be habit, search for deeper comfort than the level you currently inhabit.
3. Try it different ways to experiment.
4. Aim for the whole picture, not just the isolated area of concern.
5. Do the posture as if you are a marionette and see if you can find a way let the structure fall into place.
6. Use non-doing as a guide.
7. Let the body fill from the inside out and see if you can find a feeling of releasing into space and ground.
8. Balance the top of your head with the bottom of your feet with the right and the left and front and back of the room and the four corners. Be balanced in space so you can let your body relax but in a round way.
9. It may be helpful from time to time to look at a mirror and see if what you think you are doing IS what you are doing. It is not a good idea to rely on mirrors, however.
I haven’t bothered here to note habitual ways of THINKING. That is yet another level.
The tai chi habit is to practice on a regular basis, and to examine again and again any habitual patterns (mind and body) that may be interfering with relaxation. We need to play with our structure and test it out.
Let go of being right. Let go of being wrong.
Get in the habit of trying something new.
That’s the tai chi habit!
Well, not so fast. Let’s look at habits in general....
I was at the Zendo some time ago and I saw something that has stuck in my mind. There was this male sitting in Zen meditation and, along with all of us, he was at it for roughly an hour with a kin-kin walking meditation in the middle. But unlike the rest of the group, his torso was not vertically upright. He held it leaning back, perhaps at a 20 degree angle off the vertical. This was not someone with a disability. He was merely in the habit of leaning back while sitting zazen. In order to do this, he had to be holding muscles tightly to maintain the angle for an hour. Looking at him made my back ache, but I'd guess this felt normal to him. I don’t know where he learned sitting meditation and I suspect he doesn’t have a teacher. But generally, one is taught to sit erect in order to find a line of balance that is comfortable. Just like in tai chi.
So here was a good example of someone with a poor habit, at least in terms of a comfortable posture. Perhaps his habit gave him a sense that what he was doing was comfortable. His muscle holding pattern had been sufficiently developed so that what would hurt the average person felt OK as far as he was concerned. And if you corrected him, the new posture would feel uncomfortable to him. Such are the ways of habit. What’s “wrong” feels right and what’s “right” feels wrong.
In a way, of course, we are all like my example here. The only difference is that our patterns may not be as visible or dramatic. We are in a somewhat correct place, but still, there are uncomfortable holding patterns that are hard to see, and even more difficult to feel, because we have become accustomed to the position. What feels normal is not correct, but merely a habit that blinds us to what would be truly comfortable. There are 656 to 850 muscles in the body (depending on which expert you consult) and to arrange them properly is a science and an art.
In tai chi we are aiming for perfect relaxation so that precisely the muscles that are needed in any given movement are free to do the job exactly as required. Improper muscle usage blocks freedom of movement. This is why the study of tai chi requires great attention. It is very difficult to discern habit and improper use of muscles, tendons, ligaments and joints, from relaxation and proper muscular tonus.
Holding a posture for a long time can be a double edged sword. Often it will reveal that you are tensing some muscle improperly. But habit can also hide poor muscular usage and actually make the habit itself WORSE. We unconsciously tell ourselves, “I am right because it feels right." But it is the habit that makes it feel right. The mind assumes that what you are doing is correct and this will override the actual experience in the body.
Answers? Here are a few but I can’t claim this is a complete list.
1. A good teacher. (In addition to tai chi, The Alexander Technique is a superb method to focus on recognizing and changing habits.)
2. Aim for comfort. Since comfort may in fact be habit, search for deeper comfort than the level you currently inhabit.
3. Try it different ways to experiment.
4. Aim for the whole picture, not just the isolated area of concern.
5. Do the posture as if you are a marionette and see if you can find a way let the structure fall into place.
6. Use non-doing as a guide.
7. Let the body fill from the inside out and see if you can find a feeling of releasing into space and ground.
8. Balance the top of your head with the bottom of your feet with the right and the left and front and back of the room and the four corners. Be balanced in space so you can let your body relax but in a round way.
9. It may be helpful from time to time to look at a mirror and see if what you think you are doing IS what you are doing. It is not a good idea to rely on mirrors, however.
I haven’t bothered here to note habitual ways of THINKING. That is yet another level.
The tai chi habit is to practice on a regular basis, and to examine again and again any habitual patterns (mind and body) that may be interfering with relaxation. We need to play with our structure and test it out.
Let go of being right. Let go of being wrong.
Get in the habit of trying something new.
That’s the tai chi habit!
Friday, August 28, 2009
Investing in Loss (in tai chi)
In tai chi, investing in loss usually refers to absolutely refusing to use strength during push hands. How do you push someone using four ounces of strength? When you give up using strength, you tend to lose the game for a long time... Then a new understanding appears in that empty space where once you used strength. Something new appears.
Here is some verse to think upon.
Investing in Loss.
8/28/09
Investing in loss is
the tough choice
of choosing
to give up
something you want
to see what happens
when you don't get it.
It is an action
you choose
to do
then feel
then experience...
Then you decide
if what you lose
is worth the price
of what you gain
or if what you gained
is worth the price
of what you lose
Invest in loss is
blood guts sweat and tears
shame and pride.
Your body must do it
as does the mind.
It may be MIRACULOUS, too.
It may open doors
unseen before and locked
Now they swing wide open.
So choose carefully,
wring the towel dry
of all hope of getting something
in return
(because pretty words will never get you there,
no matter how inspiring...)
Here is some verse to think upon.
Investing in Loss.
8/28/09
Investing in loss is
the tough choice
of choosing
to give up
something you want
to see what happens
when you don't get it.
It is an action
you choose
to do
then feel
then experience...
Then you decide
if what you lose
is worth the price
of what you gain
or if what you gained
is worth the price
of what you lose
Invest in loss is
blood guts sweat and tears
shame and pride.
Your body must do it
as does the mind.
It may be MIRACULOUS, too.
It may open doors
unseen before and locked
Now they swing wide open.
So choose carefully,
wring the towel dry
of all hope of getting something
in return
(because pretty words will never get you there,
no matter how inspiring...)
Friday, June 12, 2009
Tai Chi Push Hands, a journey from small to BIG Mind
Tai Chi Push Hands, a journey from small to BIG Mind
For a long time we work on sticking, relaxing, yielding, structure, connection to the ground, connection to the partner, connecting the partner to the ground and so on. But what is the end game? Here’s one thought. Once you have ironed out the major questions of structure, relaxation, yielding and ground, then the mind can be free to feel the large circle. The large circle is the circle that surrounds the two of you. When the error of a partner is noticed, the large circle – the mind – can now work with “solving” the question that the error presents. This awareness of the whole is aligned with “being”. It is aligned with being in real time, not delayed time. By this I mean that their move is your move instead of your move is a reaction to their move.
Let’s look at push hands from a different perspective. When we push each other, essentially we are finding an error with our partner and thus an opportunity presents itself. The error creates a question in our push hands dialogue. The answer to the question is the push and the question can be several things. It can be, are you too tense? It can be, how can you respond to my action? It could ask, is your neutralization in sync with what I am doing? There is a conversation here.
When I am pushed, this is because of something I did or did not do. It is our job to NOT get pushed. We are responsible for preventing getting pushed. It is our job to answer the question of the pusher such that we remain comfortable and responsive. Of course, there are partners who are greedy and will take advantage of your inexperience in push hands, or some handicap for which you may have no solution. A good push hands partner will match your level and then the two of you can progress to the next level. I don’t have to take advantage of every opportunity. A good push hands partner is asking questions (with the body.)
When you begin push hands, there are so many questions that responding to anything seems impossible. There are too many places your partner can catch you. You are multiple knots and the partner keeps pointing them out. This is what push hands is: a method to show you where you are stuck.
The game that I am describing above assumes that the errors of form are errors that are localized: A tense shoulder, a stuck hip joint, not hearing the direction of the push, lack of relaxation in the chest and so on. Your mind is attentive to the small problems contained in your body. It’s a small mind game. It is a first step and this can last for a long time. I am pushed because I am tense, I need to learn how to relax that area within the context of the game of push hands, that is, within a context that is continually changing. We are solving our problems together and ridding ourselves of limitations.
When we are solving the small problems, we tend to have a mind that is focused on the small problems. This is like having a flashlight that scans the body looking for places that are not relaxed or responsive or.… The limited freedom you have is to address a finite point. Your mind is solving the small problems. In this sense, your mind is also narrow because it has a narrow area of focus. You have little agility of mind.
But what if all those small problems are no longer a problem? The game changes. Now we are talking about the agility and freedom of the mind. The flashlight now becomes like one of those huge grand opening lights that beams up into the sky. This light beams on the two of you. It reveals an interlocking puzzle where two bodies perfectly match each other. Each half is the answer/solution to the other half. The two of you are one complete circle. It is your job to match the other half of the circle like two sides of a coin. This is in real time, not delayed time.
From this perspective, the push comes out of a "crack" in the perfect interlocking circle. Perhaps you accidentally create this crack in the circle by mistake, or you initiate one to test your partner's ability to perceive and answer the question. The crack is a question. One answer is a push. Another answer is to not get pushed. For example: I accidentally violate the circle (I disrupt the perfection), he/she responds by pushing me out. This is the perfect answer to the question of the whole. I may test my partner by presenting a question (violating the circle), and my partner may miss it. Then I push my partner out (the answer). He/she didn’t hear me clearly enough, so the push is one of “are you paying attention?” In another situation, I may test my partner by presenting a question, and my partner may hear it loud and clear. Then the partner answers by pushing me out. A new question gets created which demands a new answer.
By doing so, we are now working on the next level, the mind’s agility to see and respond. Try this just for fun: go slow and forget the small game of hands and elbows. Let the mind see the whole of both of you and allow it to surround all of you. Keep your mind on this large circle. Keep the push-hands form going for a while and see what you notice. Then go ahead and push or respond to a push, but don’t solve the small problem of the tense shoulder. Be the big solution of the observing mind. Be spontaneous.
The push hands form is a beautiful arrangement of mechanics. I adore them. They fascinate me. They are important. But if you think of push hands as a collection of mechanics, the power of the practice is gone. You are solving small problems and the mind shrinks accordingly. Yes, you need to solve these small problems but they are not the whole, nor the big solution. Mechanics can get in the way of the chi/energy. The mechanics serve the integrity of the whole, but they themselves are not the whole. The whole is greater than the sum of its parts.
A metaphor comes to mind, perhaps not as accurate as my fantasy suggests, but here goes. If you are in the jungle in a battle, the enemy is hard to see. He/she may be behind a tree, in a ditch, around the bend, over the hill. You don’t see him until he is right in front of you. But if you are in a helicopter above it all, the battle will be much clearer. The enemy is visible and you can direct your troupes accordingly. The whole that I’m looking at is like being in that helicopter taking in a large view of the situation.
I have played with some who have a good sense of the whole, but lack proper mechanics. Here a certain physical flexibility is lost. They are limited by this lack and get into trouble when the game heads in the direction of their physical limitations. They are forced to play a game that avoids their physical limitation. The vocabulary is limited.
I have played with some who have good mechanics, but do not have their mind on the whole. Spontaneity is lost as well as early detection of a valid solution. Often, force is needed to make these mechanics work and the potential of chi is blocked. Often they see one answer to all questions and miss other options. They rely on strategy.
Then there are those who have both. I am thinking of two such individuals. Try as I might, and I mean try with ALL my might, I can’t get my hands on them. They are perpetually out of reach and they do this in a flash. Suddenly, they are in my space and I am pushed.
At the very least, awareness of the whole will most likely clarify the smaller problems and make them more visible. At the very best, you will have developed a mind that is agile and responsive. The end game may be a good place to start with from time to time while you solve those small problems.
For a long time we work on sticking, relaxing, yielding, structure, connection to the ground, connection to the partner, connecting the partner to the ground and so on. But what is the end game? Here’s one thought. Once you have ironed out the major questions of structure, relaxation, yielding and ground, then the mind can be free to feel the large circle. The large circle is the circle that surrounds the two of you. When the error of a partner is noticed, the large circle – the mind – can now work with “solving” the question that the error presents. This awareness of the whole is aligned with “being”. It is aligned with being in real time, not delayed time. By this I mean that their move is your move instead of your move is a reaction to their move.
Let’s look at push hands from a different perspective. When we push each other, essentially we are finding an error with our partner and thus an opportunity presents itself. The error creates a question in our push hands dialogue. The answer to the question is the push and the question can be several things. It can be, are you too tense? It can be, how can you respond to my action? It could ask, is your neutralization in sync with what I am doing? There is a conversation here.
When I am pushed, this is because of something I did or did not do. It is our job to NOT get pushed. We are responsible for preventing getting pushed. It is our job to answer the question of the pusher such that we remain comfortable and responsive. Of course, there are partners who are greedy and will take advantage of your inexperience in push hands, or some handicap for which you may have no solution. A good push hands partner will match your level and then the two of you can progress to the next level. I don’t have to take advantage of every opportunity. A good push hands partner is asking questions (with the body.)
When you begin push hands, there are so many questions that responding to anything seems impossible. There are too many places your partner can catch you. You are multiple knots and the partner keeps pointing them out. This is what push hands is: a method to show you where you are stuck.
The game that I am describing above assumes that the errors of form are errors that are localized: A tense shoulder, a stuck hip joint, not hearing the direction of the push, lack of relaxation in the chest and so on. Your mind is attentive to the small problems contained in your body. It’s a small mind game. It is a first step and this can last for a long time. I am pushed because I am tense, I need to learn how to relax that area within the context of the game of push hands, that is, within a context that is continually changing. We are solving our problems together and ridding ourselves of limitations.
When we are solving the small problems, we tend to have a mind that is focused on the small problems. This is like having a flashlight that scans the body looking for places that are not relaxed or responsive or.… The limited freedom you have is to address a finite point. Your mind is solving the small problems. In this sense, your mind is also narrow because it has a narrow area of focus. You have little agility of mind.
But what if all those small problems are no longer a problem? The game changes. Now we are talking about the agility and freedom of the mind. The flashlight now becomes like one of those huge grand opening lights that beams up into the sky. This light beams on the two of you. It reveals an interlocking puzzle where two bodies perfectly match each other. Each half is the answer/solution to the other half. The two of you are one complete circle. It is your job to match the other half of the circle like two sides of a coin. This is in real time, not delayed time.
From this perspective, the push comes out of a "crack" in the perfect interlocking circle. Perhaps you accidentally create this crack in the circle by mistake, or you initiate one to test your partner's ability to perceive and answer the question. The crack is a question. One answer is a push. Another answer is to not get pushed. For example: I accidentally violate the circle (I disrupt the perfection), he/she responds by pushing me out. This is the perfect answer to the question of the whole. I may test my partner by presenting a question (violating the circle), and my partner may miss it. Then I push my partner out (the answer). He/she didn’t hear me clearly enough, so the push is one of “are you paying attention?” In another situation, I may test my partner by presenting a question, and my partner may hear it loud and clear. Then the partner answers by pushing me out. A new question gets created which demands a new answer.
By doing so, we are now working on the next level, the mind’s agility to see and respond. Try this just for fun: go slow and forget the small game of hands and elbows. Let the mind see the whole of both of you and allow it to surround all of you. Keep your mind on this large circle. Keep the push-hands form going for a while and see what you notice. Then go ahead and push or respond to a push, but don’t solve the small problem of the tense shoulder. Be the big solution of the observing mind. Be spontaneous.
The push hands form is a beautiful arrangement of mechanics. I adore them. They fascinate me. They are important. But if you think of push hands as a collection of mechanics, the power of the practice is gone. You are solving small problems and the mind shrinks accordingly. Yes, you need to solve these small problems but they are not the whole, nor the big solution. Mechanics can get in the way of the chi/energy. The mechanics serve the integrity of the whole, but they themselves are not the whole. The whole is greater than the sum of its parts.
A metaphor comes to mind, perhaps not as accurate as my fantasy suggests, but here goes. If you are in the jungle in a battle, the enemy is hard to see. He/she may be behind a tree, in a ditch, around the bend, over the hill. You don’t see him until he is right in front of you. But if you are in a helicopter above it all, the battle will be much clearer. The enemy is visible and you can direct your troupes accordingly. The whole that I’m looking at is like being in that helicopter taking in a large view of the situation.
I have played with some who have a good sense of the whole, but lack proper mechanics. Here a certain physical flexibility is lost. They are limited by this lack and get into trouble when the game heads in the direction of their physical limitations. They are forced to play a game that avoids their physical limitation. The vocabulary is limited.
I have played with some who have good mechanics, but do not have their mind on the whole. Spontaneity is lost as well as early detection of a valid solution. Often, force is needed to make these mechanics work and the potential of chi is blocked. Often they see one answer to all questions and miss other options. They rely on strategy.
Then there are those who have both. I am thinking of two such individuals. Try as I might, and I mean try with ALL my might, I can’t get my hands on them. They are perpetually out of reach and they do this in a flash. Suddenly, they are in my space and I am pushed.
At the very least, awareness of the whole will most likely clarify the smaller problems and make them more visible. At the very best, you will have developed a mind that is agile and responsive. The end game may be a good place to start with from time to time while you solve those small problems.
Monday, May 25, 2009
Tai Chi is a sensory path to sanity
In the documentary, Taxi to the Dark Side, it is reported from a Canadian researcher that to put a human being in goggles, ear muffs and gloves has the following effect: within 24 hours that person will have hallucinations and within 48 hours that person will have a mental breakdown. The CIA grabbed this information and made use of it on terror suspects. In other words, the goal here is sensory deprivation. Our sanity is grounded in our sensory experience, at least on one level. This appears to be very primal. To me, this is amazing.
In tai chi, we are doing the exact opposite of sensory deprivation. We are becoming more and more involved with our sensory apparatus. We use sight and physical feeling to ground us. The air is used as if it were water – “swimming on land”. The hands are used as if they are listening to the air. We are directed to be aware of the real sounds around us. This is one reason that you don’t have to have a particularly quiet or isolated place to practice. The feet feel the ground and the weight of the body on that ground. The head is suspended as if from above and this is again a feeling. We notice the structure of the body, the parts in relationship to each other. There is also the awareness of your body in space, along with awareness of the space you are in. While we are not actively looking around, the eyes are open and letting the scenery come to you – a soft focus (not to be confused with making your own eyes blurry.) This reminds me of fish in a fish tank, aware of all that is surrounding us, sort of floating in the space itself.
In tai chi, we are actively using the senses to connect us to our bodies and the surroundings. Many of us have jobs, or mental habits, that disconnect us from our bodies and the surroundings. Have you ever mulled over a problem in your mind only to discover that you didn’t hear the phone ring? Or that you are holding the object that you are looking for? Or the time passes and you didn’t realize you were late for your next activity? Or you missed your subway stop? Or any number of results whereby you are momentarily separated from what is immediately in front of you. We all have!
Tai chi training is about being here now (just like many meditation practices.) The way that tai chi does this is through physical grounding. I suspect those of us who like our physical experience tend to like tai chi, in contrast to our mental or emotional worlds.
Regardless – the tai chi experience uses sensory awareness to connect us to the immediate. The added benefit here is that it is a moving awareness so that it not only adds to your awareness of body and space, but you are moving with your body through space. Your body itself is changing as you move, so there is much to be aware of, and connect to. This level of sensory awareness and movement makes for a challenging and enjoyable experience, one that will carry itself forward into your every day life. I believe this is one reason those of us who love tai chi enjoy it so much: physical awareness feels good.
In tai chi, we are doing the exact opposite of sensory deprivation. We are becoming more and more involved with our sensory apparatus. We use sight and physical feeling to ground us. The air is used as if it were water – “swimming on land”. The hands are used as if they are listening to the air. We are directed to be aware of the real sounds around us. This is one reason that you don’t have to have a particularly quiet or isolated place to practice. The feet feel the ground and the weight of the body on that ground. The head is suspended as if from above and this is again a feeling. We notice the structure of the body, the parts in relationship to each other. There is also the awareness of your body in space, along with awareness of the space you are in. While we are not actively looking around, the eyes are open and letting the scenery come to you – a soft focus (not to be confused with making your own eyes blurry.) This reminds me of fish in a fish tank, aware of all that is surrounding us, sort of floating in the space itself.
In tai chi, we are actively using the senses to connect us to our bodies and the surroundings. Many of us have jobs, or mental habits, that disconnect us from our bodies and the surroundings. Have you ever mulled over a problem in your mind only to discover that you didn’t hear the phone ring? Or that you are holding the object that you are looking for? Or the time passes and you didn’t realize you were late for your next activity? Or you missed your subway stop? Or any number of results whereby you are momentarily separated from what is immediately in front of you. We all have!
Tai chi training is about being here now (just like many meditation practices.) The way that tai chi does this is through physical grounding. I suspect those of us who like our physical experience tend to like tai chi, in contrast to our mental or emotional worlds.
Regardless – the tai chi experience uses sensory awareness to connect us to the immediate. The added benefit here is that it is a moving awareness so that it not only adds to your awareness of body and space, but you are moving with your body through space. Your body itself is changing as you move, so there is much to be aware of, and connect to. This level of sensory awareness and movement makes for a challenging and enjoyable experience, one that will carry itself forward into your every day life. I believe this is one reason those of us who love tai chi enjoy it so much: physical awareness feels good.
Saturday, May 9, 2009
Tai Chi, Stress and Struggle – NOT!
Our world, our lives, at many times, involves stress and struggle. It is one of those things that actually creates growth and innovation. Tai chi has a great deal to teach us regarding stress and struggle. While we are programmed for fight or flight, there is an alternative.
There is stress, and then there is STRESS!!!!! And depending on our conditioning, this is either a good thing or a bad thing. We all know of that individual (perhaps you?) that actually finds the challenge of overcoming stress to be enjoyable. There are those of us who want nothing more than to avoid it. It’s too uncomfortable. We avoid it to the extent that when we can’t, we have stress on top of stress. I often see stress as “good” stress or “bad” stress. One motivates, the other defeats! That boundary, the shift from good to bad varies with each individual.
Learning tai chi for most beginners is a challenge. We are asked to be very specific in what we are doing with the hands and feet and pelvis and torso and head and the “center” (tan t’ien). The effort to be correct is anything but relaxing, yet we are encouraged to be correct, and then relax. Or more perplexing, relax and this will correct you. Of course both are true, but underneath all of this is a stressful situation. It is inherent in the learning process. In this way, tai chi replicates life.
I recall my own beginning. I was sort of good at putting the hands and feet in the right place. Then my teacher noted, “You work very hard…. TOO hard!” Man, you can’t win! I thought. But that is the teaching of tai chi – there are layers and looking correct is not necessarily correct. To be in the right shape, but not hold the shape, to relax the shape, to allow the shape to emerge from the movement, from the ground, from the air, from the center – all of this is going on. We tend to put ourselves in a vise, to squeeze ourselves into what we think is correct.
So to begin tai chi is to volunteer to work with something that looks easy, but in fact is not. This is dealing with stress in a good way, a playful way. Beginners need to pick at it bit by bit and enjoy the small victories until the day when it finally falls, more or less, into place. It is a pleasurable process. This is one reason that we learn it so slowly. We can’t be overwhelmed by the process in order to learn. We deal with enough stress to learn, but we do this slowly so that eventually there is some ease and relaxation too. Sometimes you just have to hang in there with the discomfort before grace falls from above.
My teacher, Maggie Newman, is always looking for a way to make it more comfortable. That may seem trivial, but in fact it is essential. Consider what Laurence Gonzales in Deep Survival, Who Lives, Who Dies, and Why has to say about children aged 6 and under. This group has one of the highest survival rates when caught in a disastrous situation, better than experienced hunters, physically fit hikers, former members of the military or skilled sailors. One aspect is that they try to make themselves comfortable, and staying comfortable helps keep them alive.
It is hard to say what will create real relaxation and comfort – each of us responds to something different, though each of us must maintain some level of effort to continue on. For some, this can take quite a while. This can feel like a struggle. Yet, stay with it long enough and it will happen. I have never seen anyone not make progress in their work on tai chi.
But wait! It gets worse! Now you have to be all of that, and let someone attack you. A new stress and a very complicated struggle. How on earth can relaxation lead to a martial art? Put two bodies together – any two bodies – and you have a struggle. In fact you have two layers of struggle: the first is within your own body, which now refuses to maintain all the hard won relaxation (mysteriously vanished!) and the second struggle is between two bodies as you try to deal with your partner’s attack.
Here, again, the wonder of tai chi gives you a new challenge. I often work with advanced form students who think that because they have skill in the form that this will automatically translate into good push-hands. They don’t realize that they have to take what skill they have and add to it. The only way to add to it is to practice push-hands with a partner. Because push-hands is complex, this requires great attention and time. The more you practice, the more you learn and the more interesting it becomes. But at first, it is usually a mystery (and a frustrating one at that!)
Of course, you have been practicing some of these skills while learning the form, but this context is very different. Now you have to adjust to an outside force that is moving at you. What are these new skills? Fundamentally, you need to stick and follow the direction of your partner. You have to play THEIR tune, and this requires listening with your physical body. You intentionally create harmony. You become as easy to move as a helium balloon, but as grounded as the Empire State Building. Stick, follow, listen… stick, follow, listen. AND keep connecting them into your feet. Make the two of you one big ball. You are only half of the equation at this point, no longer the whole ball that you were when doing the form. Don’t disturb their pathway. Again, find a way to make this comfortable. This becomes YOUR responsibility. If a pressure presents itself, be sure it connects to your rooted foot. These are rather new skills that you add to your relaxed, structurally sound, whole body movement from the form. One teacher told a push hands class to NOT STRUGGLE. Give up struggling. How? That is part of the struggle, discovering how to give up struggling. Again, there is intentionality at play here, and new skills to be learned.
So in a special way, tai chi replicates stress and struggle in life, but simultaneously offers you solutions to that very stress and struggle. Tai chi is about solving that problem. What a wonderful problem to solve!
There is stress, and then there is STRESS!!!!! And depending on our conditioning, this is either a good thing or a bad thing. We all know of that individual (perhaps you?) that actually finds the challenge of overcoming stress to be enjoyable. There are those of us who want nothing more than to avoid it. It’s too uncomfortable. We avoid it to the extent that when we can’t, we have stress on top of stress. I often see stress as “good” stress or “bad” stress. One motivates, the other defeats! That boundary, the shift from good to bad varies with each individual.
Learning tai chi for most beginners is a challenge. We are asked to be very specific in what we are doing with the hands and feet and pelvis and torso and head and the “center” (tan t’ien). The effort to be correct is anything but relaxing, yet we are encouraged to be correct, and then relax. Or more perplexing, relax and this will correct you. Of course both are true, but underneath all of this is a stressful situation. It is inherent in the learning process. In this way, tai chi replicates life.
I recall my own beginning. I was sort of good at putting the hands and feet in the right place. Then my teacher noted, “You work very hard…. TOO hard!” Man, you can’t win! I thought. But that is the teaching of tai chi – there are layers and looking correct is not necessarily correct. To be in the right shape, but not hold the shape, to relax the shape, to allow the shape to emerge from the movement, from the ground, from the air, from the center – all of this is going on. We tend to put ourselves in a vise, to squeeze ourselves into what we think is correct.
So to begin tai chi is to volunteer to work with something that looks easy, but in fact is not. This is dealing with stress in a good way, a playful way. Beginners need to pick at it bit by bit and enjoy the small victories until the day when it finally falls, more or less, into place. It is a pleasurable process. This is one reason that we learn it so slowly. We can’t be overwhelmed by the process in order to learn. We deal with enough stress to learn, but we do this slowly so that eventually there is some ease and relaxation too. Sometimes you just have to hang in there with the discomfort before grace falls from above.
My teacher, Maggie Newman, is always looking for a way to make it more comfortable. That may seem trivial, but in fact it is essential. Consider what Laurence Gonzales in Deep Survival, Who Lives, Who Dies, and Why has to say about children aged 6 and under. This group has one of the highest survival rates when caught in a disastrous situation, better than experienced hunters, physically fit hikers, former members of the military or skilled sailors. One aspect is that they try to make themselves comfortable, and staying comfortable helps keep them alive.
It is hard to say what will create real relaxation and comfort – each of us responds to something different, though each of us must maintain some level of effort to continue on. For some, this can take quite a while. This can feel like a struggle. Yet, stay with it long enough and it will happen. I have never seen anyone not make progress in their work on tai chi.
But wait! It gets worse! Now you have to be all of that, and let someone attack you. A new stress and a very complicated struggle. How on earth can relaxation lead to a martial art? Put two bodies together – any two bodies – and you have a struggle. In fact you have two layers of struggle: the first is within your own body, which now refuses to maintain all the hard won relaxation (mysteriously vanished!) and the second struggle is between two bodies as you try to deal with your partner’s attack.
Here, again, the wonder of tai chi gives you a new challenge. I often work with advanced form students who think that because they have skill in the form that this will automatically translate into good push-hands. They don’t realize that they have to take what skill they have and add to it. The only way to add to it is to practice push-hands with a partner. Because push-hands is complex, this requires great attention and time. The more you practice, the more you learn and the more interesting it becomes. But at first, it is usually a mystery (and a frustrating one at that!)
Of course, you have been practicing some of these skills while learning the form, but this context is very different. Now you have to adjust to an outside force that is moving at you. What are these new skills? Fundamentally, you need to stick and follow the direction of your partner. You have to play THEIR tune, and this requires listening with your physical body. You intentionally create harmony. You become as easy to move as a helium balloon, but as grounded as the Empire State Building. Stick, follow, listen… stick, follow, listen. AND keep connecting them into your feet. Make the two of you one big ball. You are only half of the equation at this point, no longer the whole ball that you were when doing the form. Don’t disturb their pathway. Again, find a way to make this comfortable. This becomes YOUR responsibility. If a pressure presents itself, be sure it connects to your rooted foot. These are rather new skills that you add to your relaxed, structurally sound, whole body movement from the form. One teacher told a push hands class to NOT STRUGGLE. Give up struggling. How? That is part of the struggle, discovering how to give up struggling. Again, there is intentionality at play here, and new skills to be learned.
So in a special way, tai chi replicates stress and struggle in life, but simultaneously offers you solutions to that very stress and struggle. Tai chi is about solving that problem. What a wonderful problem to solve!
Friday, May 1, 2009
New York Times editorial: Slow practice may be the stuff of genius.
We emphasize slow practice in tai chi. This editorial notes just how important slow deliberate practice can be. Tom
May 1, 2009
Op-Ed Columnist
Genius: The Modern View
By DAVID BROOKS
Some people live in romantic ages. They tend to believe that genius is the product of a divine spark. They believe that there have been, throughout the ages, certain paragons of greatness — Dante, Mozart, Einstein — whose talents far exceeded normal comprehension, who had an other-worldly access to transcendent truth, and who are best approached with reverential awe.
We, of course, live in a scientific age, and modern research pierces hocus-pocus. In the view that is now dominant, even Mozart’s early abilities were not the product of some innate spiritual gift. His early compositions were nothing special. They were pastiches of other people’s work. Mozart was a good musician at an early age, but he would not stand out among today’s top child-performers.
What Mozart had, we now believe, was the same thing Tiger Woods had — the ability to focus for long periods of time and a father intent on improving his skills. Mozart played a lot of piano at a very young age, so he got his 10,000 hours of practice in early and then he built from there.
The latest research suggests a more prosaic, democratic, even puritanical view of the world. The key factor separating geniuses from the merely accomplished is not a divine spark. It’s not I.Q., a generally bad predictor of success, even in realms like chess. Instead, it’s deliberate practice. Top performers spend more hours (many more hours) rigorously practicing their craft.
The recent research has been conducted by people like K. Anders Ericsson, the late Benjamin Bloom and others. It’s been summarized in two enjoyable new books: “The Talent Code” by Daniel Coyle; and “Talent Is Overrated” by Geoff Colvin.
If you wanted to picture how a typical genius might develop, you’d take a girl who possessed a slightly above average verbal ability. It wouldn’t have to be a big talent, just enough so that she might gain some sense of distinction. Then you would want her to meet, say, a novelist, who coincidentally shared some similar biographical traits. Maybe the writer was from the same town, had the same ethnic background, or, shared the same birthday — anything to create a sense of affinity.
This contact would give the girl a vision of her future self. It would, Coyle emphasizes, give her a glimpse of an enchanted circle she might someday join. It would also help if one of her parents died when she was 12, infusing her with a profound sense of insecurity and fueling a desperate need for success.
Armed with this ambition, she would read novels and literary biographies without end. This would give her a core knowledge of her field. She’d be able to chunk Victorian novelists into one group, Magical Realists in another group and Renaissance poets into another. This ability to place information into patterns, or chunks, vastly improves memory skills. She’d be able to see new writing in deeper ways and quickly perceive its inner workings.
Then she would practice writing. Her practice would be slow, painstaking and error-focused. According to Colvin, Ben Franklin would take essays from The Spectator magazine and translate them into verse. Then he’d translate his verse back into prose and examine, sentence by sentence, where his essay was inferior to The Spectator’s original.
Coyle describes a tennis academy in Russia where they enact rallies without a ball. The aim is to focus meticulously on technique. (Try to slow down your golf swing so it takes 90 seconds to finish. See how many errors you detect.)
By practicing in this way, performers delay the automatizing process. The mind wants to turn deliberate, newly learned skills into unconscious, automatically performed skills. But the mind is sloppy and will settle for good enough. By practicing slowly, by breaking skills down into tiny parts and repeating, the strenuous student forces the brain to internalize a better pattern of performance.
Then our young writer would find a mentor who would provide a constant stream of feedback, viewing her performance from the outside, correcting the smallest errors, pushing her to take on tougher challenges. By now she is redoing problems — how do I get characters into a room — dozens and dozens of times. She is ingraining habits of thought she can call upon in order to understand or solve future problems.
The primary trait she possesses is not some mysterious genius. It’s the ability to develop a deliberate, strenuous and boring practice routine.
Coyle and Colvin describe dozens of experiments fleshing out this process. This research takes some of the magic out of great achievement. But it underlines a fact that is often neglected. Public discussion is smitten by genetics and what we’re “hard-wired” to do. And it’s true that genes place a leash on our capacities. But the brain is also phenomenally plastic. We construct ourselves through behavior. As Coyle observes, it’s not who you are, it’s what you do.
May 1, 2009
Op-Ed Columnist
Genius: The Modern View
By DAVID BROOKS
Some people live in romantic ages. They tend to believe that genius is the product of a divine spark. They believe that there have been, throughout the ages, certain paragons of greatness — Dante, Mozart, Einstein — whose talents far exceeded normal comprehension, who had an other-worldly access to transcendent truth, and who are best approached with reverential awe.
We, of course, live in a scientific age, and modern research pierces hocus-pocus. In the view that is now dominant, even Mozart’s early abilities were not the product of some innate spiritual gift. His early compositions were nothing special. They were pastiches of other people’s work. Mozart was a good musician at an early age, but he would not stand out among today’s top child-performers.
What Mozart had, we now believe, was the same thing Tiger Woods had — the ability to focus for long periods of time and a father intent on improving his skills. Mozart played a lot of piano at a very young age, so he got his 10,000 hours of practice in early and then he built from there.
The latest research suggests a more prosaic, democratic, even puritanical view of the world. The key factor separating geniuses from the merely accomplished is not a divine spark. It’s not I.Q., a generally bad predictor of success, even in realms like chess. Instead, it’s deliberate practice. Top performers spend more hours (many more hours) rigorously practicing their craft.
The recent research has been conducted by people like K. Anders Ericsson, the late Benjamin Bloom and others. It’s been summarized in two enjoyable new books: “The Talent Code” by Daniel Coyle; and “Talent Is Overrated” by Geoff Colvin.
If you wanted to picture how a typical genius might develop, you’d take a girl who possessed a slightly above average verbal ability. It wouldn’t have to be a big talent, just enough so that she might gain some sense of distinction. Then you would want her to meet, say, a novelist, who coincidentally shared some similar biographical traits. Maybe the writer was from the same town, had the same ethnic background, or, shared the same birthday — anything to create a sense of affinity.
This contact would give the girl a vision of her future self. It would, Coyle emphasizes, give her a glimpse of an enchanted circle she might someday join. It would also help if one of her parents died when she was 12, infusing her with a profound sense of insecurity and fueling a desperate need for success.
Armed with this ambition, she would read novels and literary biographies without end. This would give her a core knowledge of her field. She’d be able to chunk Victorian novelists into one group, Magical Realists in another group and Renaissance poets into another. This ability to place information into patterns, or chunks, vastly improves memory skills. She’d be able to see new writing in deeper ways and quickly perceive its inner workings.
Then she would practice writing. Her practice would be slow, painstaking and error-focused. According to Colvin, Ben Franklin would take essays from The Spectator magazine and translate them into verse. Then he’d translate his verse back into prose and examine, sentence by sentence, where his essay was inferior to The Spectator’s original.
Coyle describes a tennis academy in Russia where they enact rallies without a ball. The aim is to focus meticulously on technique. (Try to slow down your golf swing so it takes 90 seconds to finish. See how many errors you detect.)
By practicing in this way, performers delay the automatizing process. The mind wants to turn deliberate, newly learned skills into unconscious, automatically performed skills. But the mind is sloppy and will settle for good enough. By practicing slowly, by breaking skills down into tiny parts and repeating, the strenuous student forces the brain to internalize a better pattern of performance.
Then our young writer would find a mentor who would provide a constant stream of feedback, viewing her performance from the outside, correcting the smallest errors, pushing her to take on tougher challenges. By now she is redoing problems — how do I get characters into a room — dozens and dozens of times. She is ingraining habits of thought she can call upon in order to understand or solve future problems.
The primary trait she possesses is not some mysterious genius. It’s the ability to develop a deliberate, strenuous and boring practice routine.
Coyle and Colvin describe dozens of experiments fleshing out this process. This research takes some of the magic out of great achievement. But it underlines a fact that is often neglected. Public discussion is smitten by genetics and what we’re “hard-wired” to do. And it’s true that genes place a leash on our capacities. But the brain is also phenomenally plastic. We construct ourselves through behavior. As Coyle observes, it’s not who you are, it’s what you do.
Wednesday, April 29, 2009
Basics in How to Progress in Tai Chi Chuan
Over the years, I have seen many students come and go. Of those that stay, some progress, and some actually regress. I wanted to state a few basics on what I see in those who progress.
The first requirement, of course, is a GOOD TEACHER. By that I mean someone who has something you want to learn. It’s that simple. Some are more articulate than others, or can demonstrate what they want from you with greater accuracy, but your teacher has to have the goods you want in your life.
The next major requirement is ATTENDING AS MANY CLASSES AS POSSIBLE. Some students have a “yoga” mindset. You drop in when you feel like it. I think yoga is great, but tai chi is not like yoga at all. Attending all or most classes is crucial in tai chi development. Attending every other class, or when you feel like it, or when it doesn’t get in the way of your social schedule never ever leads to progress. You have to be there to get it. Books and videos may be of interest, or even help you, but nothing replaces uninterrupted class attendance.
PRACTICE ON A REGULAR BASIS is another requirement. My teacher’s teacher, Prof. Cheng Man-Ch’ing claimed it was better to practice twice a day and, if needed, skip meals or get less sleep.
Next, students that really progress TAKE NOTES and review them to capture details or nuances that they know they need to work on. There is simply too much to learn to keep it all in your head. Some habits are so deep that you need to devote a portion of your practice time to breaking the habit. Writing it down keeps you on track. You are less likely to forget what you already don’t know.
The next item on my list would be to periodically LOOK AT WHAT YOU ARE NOT DOING. How? Just ask the question – what do I not give attention to in my practice? Maybe you are really good about how you use your feet, the placement, the weight on your feet, the transfer of weight into your feet, etc. So the opposite would be: what are you doing with your head placement and relaxation? If “sinking” is your joy, what about the counterbalance of the up movement? And so on.
Lastly, REFOCUS ON "NON-DOING". You can always work on non-doing in tai chi. When we learn tai chi, initially we do a lot of “doing”. Non-doing is the essence of tai chi, the most challenging aspect to manifest. We need to come back to it again and again because in our zeal to master the tai chi postures, we tend to get caught up in what we need to do. The question of doing less of something (muscle use, effort) or simply “being” while moving through the postures can get lost in the effort to succeed.
These observations come from looking at fellow students and teachers since 1982.
The first requirement, of course, is a GOOD TEACHER. By that I mean someone who has something you want to learn. It’s that simple. Some are more articulate than others, or can demonstrate what they want from you with greater accuracy, but your teacher has to have the goods you want in your life.
The next major requirement is ATTENDING AS MANY CLASSES AS POSSIBLE. Some students have a “yoga” mindset. You drop in when you feel like it. I think yoga is great, but tai chi is not like yoga at all. Attending all or most classes is crucial in tai chi development. Attending every other class, or when you feel like it, or when it doesn’t get in the way of your social schedule never ever leads to progress. You have to be there to get it. Books and videos may be of interest, or even help you, but nothing replaces uninterrupted class attendance.
PRACTICE ON A REGULAR BASIS is another requirement. My teacher’s teacher, Prof. Cheng Man-Ch’ing claimed it was better to practice twice a day and, if needed, skip meals or get less sleep.
Next, students that really progress TAKE NOTES and review them to capture details or nuances that they know they need to work on. There is simply too much to learn to keep it all in your head. Some habits are so deep that you need to devote a portion of your practice time to breaking the habit. Writing it down keeps you on track. You are less likely to forget what you already don’t know.
The next item on my list would be to periodically LOOK AT WHAT YOU ARE NOT DOING. How? Just ask the question – what do I not give attention to in my practice? Maybe you are really good about how you use your feet, the placement, the weight on your feet, the transfer of weight into your feet, etc. So the opposite would be: what are you doing with your head placement and relaxation? If “sinking” is your joy, what about the counterbalance of the up movement? And so on.
Lastly, REFOCUS ON "NON-DOING". You can always work on non-doing in tai chi. When we learn tai chi, initially we do a lot of “doing”. Non-doing is the essence of tai chi, the most challenging aspect to manifest. We need to come back to it again and again because in our zeal to master the tai chi postures, we tend to get caught up in what we need to do. The question of doing less of something (muscle use, effort) or simply “being” while moving through the postures can get lost in the effort to succeed.
These observations come from looking at fellow students and teachers since 1982.
Saturday, April 11, 2009
Tai Chi, Immunity and Shingles. New York Times article.
April 17, 2007
Exercise: A Little Tai Chi Can Go a Long Way Against Shingles
By ERIC NAGOURNEY
Older people who practice tai chi may be better equipped to fight off the virus that causes shingles or, if they do get the disease, may have a milder case of it, researchers say.
Shingles, a painful nerve condition, is caused by the virus that causes chickenpox. The virus, varicella-zoster, can linger in the body for many years after a case of chickenpox and then emerge as shingles. The disease generally affects people older than 50, as their level of antibodies to the virus decreases.
Tai chi, the centuries-old practice from China, is considered a martial art, but it includes aerobic activity, relaxation and meditation. It has been found in the past to strengthen people’s immune systems.
In a study paid for by the National Institutes of Health, researchers took 112 volunteers ages 59 to 86 and split them into two groups. One was given 40-minute tai chi lessons three times a week for 16 weeks. The other was given health-counseling classes.
The researchers, led by Dr. Michael R. Irwin of the University of California, Los Angeles, found that the people who did tai chi improved their immunity to varicella-zoster. They also found that when the volunteers were vaccinated later against the virus, the tai chi practitioners had a better response to the vaccine. The study appears in the current issue of The Journal of the American Geriatrics Society.
The finding that the exercise significantly raised the volunteers’ immunity to the shingles virus suggests that it may also offer help fighting off other viruses, the study said.
Exercise: A Little Tai Chi Can Go a Long Way Against Shingles
By ERIC NAGOURNEY
Older people who practice tai chi may be better equipped to fight off the virus that causes shingles or, if they do get the disease, may have a milder case of it, researchers say.
Shingles, a painful nerve condition, is caused by the virus that causes chickenpox. The virus, varicella-zoster, can linger in the body for many years after a case of chickenpox and then emerge as shingles. The disease generally affects people older than 50, as their level of antibodies to the virus decreases.
Tai chi, the centuries-old practice from China, is considered a martial art, but it includes aerobic activity, relaxation and meditation. It has been found in the past to strengthen people’s immune systems.
In a study paid for by the National Institutes of Health, researchers took 112 volunteers ages 59 to 86 and split them into two groups. One was given 40-minute tai chi lessons three times a week for 16 weeks. The other was given health-counseling classes.
The researchers, led by Dr. Michael R. Irwin of the University of California, Los Angeles, found that the people who did tai chi improved their immunity to varicella-zoster. They also found that when the volunteers were vaccinated later against the virus, the tai chi practitioners had a better response to the vaccine. The study appears in the current issue of The Journal of the American Geriatrics Society.
The finding that the exercise significantly raised the volunteers’ immunity to the shingles virus suggests that it may also offer help fighting off other viruses, the study said.
Friday, April 10, 2009
Tai Chi Shows Help for Stroke Patients. New York Times reports.
April 7, 2009. New York Times report by Eric Nagourney:
Stroke patients who practice tai chi may improve their balance — reducing the risk of falls, researchers say.
Writing in the journal Neurorehabilitation and Neural Repair, the researchers reported improvement in volunteers after as little as six weeks of training. The lead author was Stephanie S. Y. Au-Yeung of Hong Kong Polytechnic University.
In earlier research, one of the article’s co-authors, Christina W. Y. Hui-Chan, found that tai chi improved balance among healthy elderly people. For this study, the researchers wanted to see if the same effect would occur among stroke patients.
They took 136 people who had a stroke six months or more earlier and divided them into two groups. Over 12 weeks, one group did general exercise, the other a modified version of tai chi.
The tai chi group met once a week for an hour, and were asked to practice at home about three hours a week.
While the exercise group showed little improvement in balance, the tai chi group made significant gains when they were tested on weight-shifting, reaching and how well they could maintain their stability on a platform that moved like a bus.
The benefit of tai chi, the researchers said, is that once the forms are mastered, they can be done without supervision.
Still, they said, some patients lapsed in their practice after the training was over. They might be more likely to continue, the study said, if tai chi were available at places like community centers.
Stroke patients who practice tai chi may improve their balance — reducing the risk of falls, researchers say.
Writing in the journal Neurorehabilitation and Neural Repair, the researchers reported improvement in volunteers after as little as six weeks of training. The lead author was Stephanie S. Y. Au-Yeung of Hong Kong Polytechnic University.
In earlier research, one of the article’s co-authors, Christina W. Y. Hui-Chan, found that tai chi improved balance among healthy elderly people. For this study, the researchers wanted to see if the same effect would occur among stroke patients.
They took 136 people who had a stroke six months or more earlier and divided them into two groups. Over 12 weeks, one group did general exercise, the other a modified version of tai chi.
The tai chi group met once a week for an hour, and were asked to practice at home about three hours a week.
While the exercise group showed little improvement in balance, the tai chi group made significant gains when they were tested on weight-shifting, reaching and how well they could maintain their stability on a platform that moved like a bus.
The benefit of tai chi, the researchers said, is that once the forms are mastered, they can be done without supervision.
Still, they said, some patients lapsed in their practice after the training was over. They might be more likely to continue, the study said, if tai chi were available at places like community centers.
Sunday, March 8, 2009
Tai Chi Chuan and Change
One Fundamental aspect of tai chi is change. The one constant in the tai chi form as well as push hands is change. You are always doing it. You are never fixed or solid. The only moment of solidity may be when you discharge during a push, the moment when you have the advantage and can take it. You take advantage of your advantage. You undermine your partner’s momentary lack of change. Actually, I’m not sure if solid is the right way, this is still a question. Certainly, you are more full when you discharge, but maybe not solid.
Some changes are large. Like during push hands you run into the hard spot, the stuck moment of your partner. Then you change direction so that you are going under this hard spot, or going into the weak spot, or like a current of water that hits a rock, goes around the hard spot. All are big changes. Green light to red light to green light.
But there are small micro changes too. As you move through the form, your shape keeps morphing, amoeba like, into a new shape. And this happens in analog fashion, smoothly, effortlessly and within each tiny moment. It is like you can take a three second sequence and chop it up into 1000 tiny bits. Each bit is a complete change. Our minds can’t quite keep up with this, but it shows up when you don’t do it.
Often we don’t change. When you don’t change, the “not-change” hangs on. So the movement gets stuck or off balance or out of kilter. The whole is no longer whole, but in two parts. One part static, another part fluid. It feels wrong somehow. Or worse, it feels OK because you can’t feel the part that isn’t changing. You assume something that isn’t true. This now feels normal somehow. Habit creates a sort of blindness and you don’t see or feel your stuck unchanging places. You can fool yourself for a while, but when you get to partner work in push-hands, you will get pushed. We push each other to help each other find our stuck places.
In tai chi, as in life, we deeply need each other to learn what is stuck and how to free it. When you get pushed, the best attitude is one of gratitude. This is not some sort of false piety or humility. How else will you grow? Of course, in the normal course of our human interactions in push-hands, we often get frustrated or angry. Even more amusing, we blame them for doing it wrong when they push us! How backwards we get it. It takes great skill to create a situation to see what is really needed and to appreciate it.
I can recall an interaction when I literally stopped the game and left the “ring” because I was so angry. I really needed a huge change! But so did my partner. In retrospect, thinking about my anger, it amuses me to think how much I enjoy that memory today. I even really love that partner – he’s a lovable person. Yet in that moment, in that context, what he was doing drove me out of the room in anger. Or so I thought. You have to go through certain experiences to find a new change. I couldn’t change then, I simply reacted. Today, the same situation would be totally different. I have a more mature understanding, more options, and I wouldn’t have to flee. I can thank him now for driving me nuts then!
The tai chi space has to be carefully tended so that we can practice in a spirit of mutual cooperation and trust. This is something very delicate to achieve, though it can be done. We need to find the right balance to get it right. In one sense, you are always creating this safe space, a space where real play, and exchange, and change can happen. Generosity of spirit is needed. A lack of being judgmental is needed. Playing the game at the right level needs to be agreed upon. The changes here are very very fine indeed. It is an act of mutually creating a playing space that works for both of you. It takes two to do this.
The point of practicing change goes beyond your physical ability. Clearly it is advantageous to be able to change. Fast, instantly, in a microsecond. Because sometimes life itself is like that. A still body, at rest, has tremendous change due to breathing and blood flow. A static body simply doesn’t exist until it dies.
In a deep way, you have to listen to your body to hear what is stuck, and then you have to let go. You may not even be able to let go. You may not know how to let go. But this fundamental practice, noticing what is stuck and then letting go, is a basic practice in your form and push hands work.
This is what tai chi is about: living, life, fluidity, change. Change is our issue, our blood, our breath. You are not solid, the ground is solid. Even the ground is not solid, but by comparison it is more solid than your body. To be able to change, to practice change, to see change, to have the options that change provides is a high level. It feels right. It creates health, physical as well as mental health. When you give up changing, you begin the process of dying.
Tai chi = Life. This is one of the most primary and deep aspects of practice. Is it not better to be able to change, anywhere, at any time, for any reason, than to not change?
Change is the option always on the table. It's a good thing to practice.
Some changes are large. Like during push hands you run into the hard spot, the stuck moment of your partner. Then you change direction so that you are going under this hard spot, or going into the weak spot, or like a current of water that hits a rock, goes around the hard spot. All are big changes. Green light to red light to green light.
But there are small micro changes too. As you move through the form, your shape keeps morphing, amoeba like, into a new shape. And this happens in analog fashion, smoothly, effortlessly and within each tiny moment. It is like you can take a three second sequence and chop it up into 1000 tiny bits. Each bit is a complete change. Our minds can’t quite keep up with this, but it shows up when you don’t do it.
Often we don’t change. When you don’t change, the “not-change” hangs on. So the movement gets stuck or off balance or out of kilter. The whole is no longer whole, but in two parts. One part static, another part fluid. It feels wrong somehow. Or worse, it feels OK because you can’t feel the part that isn’t changing. You assume something that isn’t true. This now feels normal somehow. Habit creates a sort of blindness and you don’t see or feel your stuck unchanging places. You can fool yourself for a while, but when you get to partner work in push-hands, you will get pushed. We push each other to help each other find our stuck places.
In tai chi, as in life, we deeply need each other to learn what is stuck and how to free it. When you get pushed, the best attitude is one of gratitude. This is not some sort of false piety or humility. How else will you grow? Of course, in the normal course of our human interactions in push-hands, we often get frustrated or angry. Even more amusing, we blame them for doing it wrong when they push us! How backwards we get it. It takes great skill to create a situation to see what is really needed and to appreciate it.
I can recall an interaction when I literally stopped the game and left the “ring” because I was so angry. I really needed a huge change! But so did my partner. In retrospect, thinking about my anger, it amuses me to think how much I enjoy that memory today. I even really love that partner – he’s a lovable person. Yet in that moment, in that context, what he was doing drove me out of the room in anger. Or so I thought. You have to go through certain experiences to find a new change. I couldn’t change then, I simply reacted. Today, the same situation would be totally different. I have a more mature understanding, more options, and I wouldn’t have to flee. I can thank him now for driving me nuts then!
The tai chi space has to be carefully tended so that we can practice in a spirit of mutual cooperation and trust. This is something very delicate to achieve, though it can be done. We need to find the right balance to get it right. In one sense, you are always creating this safe space, a space where real play, and exchange, and change can happen. Generosity of spirit is needed. A lack of being judgmental is needed. Playing the game at the right level needs to be agreed upon. The changes here are very very fine indeed. It is an act of mutually creating a playing space that works for both of you. It takes two to do this.
The point of practicing change goes beyond your physical ability. Clearly it is advantageous to be able to change. Fast, instantly, in a microsecond. Because sometimes life itself is like that. A still body, at rest, has tremendous change due to breathing and blood flow. A static body simply doesn’t exist until it dies.
In a deep way, you have to listen to your body to hear what is stuck, and then you have to let go. You may not even be able to let go. You may not know how to let go. But this fundamental practice, noticing what is stuck and then letting go, is a basic practice in your form and push hands work.
This is what tai chi is about: living, life, fluidity, change. Change is our issue, our blood, our breath. You are not solid, the ground is solid. Even the ground is not solid, but by comparison it is more solid than your body. To be able to change, to practice change, to see change, to have the options that change provides is a high level. It feels right. It creates health, physical as well as mental health. When you give up changing, you begin the process of dying.
Tai chi = Life. This is one of the most primary and deep aspects of practice. Is it not better to be able to change, anywhere, at any time, for any reason, than to not change?
Change is the option always on the table. It's a good thing to practice.
Friday, January 9, 2009
Tai Chi and Life: Lessons to be Learned
Tai Chi and Life: Lessons to be Learned.
Initially, you cannot see your own deficiencies – you need an outside source to guide or inform you of the right path. You can learn from a beginner as well as advanced players. Of course, life itself will eventually point out what you need to know -- we just have to be able to hear the messages. You may need to go back one step in order to go forward two steps. The answer is in the whole, not the parts. All aspects need to be considered. Tai chi is always 4 dimensions at minimum.
Cellular, structural and unifying aspects begin to make up a tai chi posture. Ultimately, you are creating a circle that surrounds you. Cellular is each cell’s involvement, structural are the vector forces that balance each other, and the unifying aspect is the movement as a whole piece with all the parts assisting to make the entire body function as one smooth sculpture without gaps or hollows.
Tai chi has a strong psychological aspect. For many, this is the most important lesson of all: be aware of your own sense of self and your feelings within the form and about the form. This is a world view that you carry with you and it can be addressed through the small world of tai chi. (Are you better than others? Have the answers? Always need to be paid attention to? Afraid of being corrected? Want to be admired? Want to be invisible? Resist practicing? Feel tense? Feel tired? Feel energetic? Feel full and relaxed?)
How you relate to space -- the air -- is another way you relate to the world. Is it there? Does it feel good? Is it in the way? Is it friendly, or your friend? Do you like it? Can you mesh with it seamlessly? Do you thrash through it like it doesn't matter?
Your body communicates many things instantly. The neutral tai chi body allows you to see those messages, change or drop them altogether. It also helps you “hear” the world. You are no longer in the way of receiving information. Your internal static has been neutralized. First this is done with the body, and then it extends into the mind.
Consider what you don’t look at in your form. Consider what you don’t look at in your life.
You can’t micro manage balance of the whole. You have to be aware of the whole, and allow it to balance itself. Balance is an allowing condition, not a control issue. You let it happen; tai chi is about letting things happen. It reflects what is happening and responds to what is happening. Tai chi is not about controlling or manipulating yourself or others. It is about being with, and ultimately just being.
Learning tai chi is about learning how to stick and follow. This is a crucial first step in your own self growth as a person. Even a little goes a long way!
The biggest deficiencies are those you don’t see or feel. It comes down to you don't know what you don't know. So searching for it can be a challenge. There is a marvelous quote by Dr. William Thurston, Cornell University, as follows: "You don't see what you see until you see it, but when you do see it, it let's you see many other things." This happens in tai chi alot!
The classics teach that all is lead by the mind. So it is good to start from there. What is mind? It seems, however, one clue to what your mind is up to is contained in the holding or releasing patterns in the body.
While relaxation is a central part of the answer, it is in relationship to balance. That is, if you are relaxed, you are balanced; If you are balanced, you are relaxed. To be relaxed, but not balanced, would be useless. To be balanced, but not relaxed, would waste precious energy.
Tai chi, in general, is about relationships, and balancing those relationships. Removing the sense of separation within the world is the goal. You are part of the world and the world is part of you. Be connected. Be with. Tai chi allows you to fit in and go with the flow. This allows greater awareness of opportunity and the ability to take it.
I am not suggesting that what I have noted above happens automatically. We can sabotage anything it seems, and to let the best of tai chi happen, it helps to consider what it teaches and then try to apply this in your life.
Initially, you cannot see your own deficiencies – you need an outside source to guide or inform you of the right path. You can learn from a beginner as well as advanced players. Of course, life itself will eventually point out what you need to know -- we just have to be able to hear the messages. You may need to go back one step in order to go forward two steps. The answer is in the whole, not the parts. All aspects need to be considered. Tai chi is always 4 dimensions at minimum.
Cellular, structural and unifying aspects begin to make up a tai chi posture. Ultimately, you are creating a circle that surrounds you. Cellular is each cell’s involvement, structural are the vector forces that balance each other, and the unifying aspect is the movement as a whole piece with all the parts assisting to make the entire body function as one smooth sculpture without gaps or hollows.
Tai chi has a strong psychological aspect. For many, this is the most important lesson of all: be aware of your own sense of self and your feelings within the form and about the form. This is a world view that you carry with you and it can be addressed through the small world of tai chi. (Are you better than others? Have the answers? Always need to be paid attention to? Afraid of being corrected? Want to be admired? Want to be invisible? Resist practicing? Feel tense? Feel tired? Feel energetic? Feel full and relaxed?)
How you relate to space -- the air -- is another way you relate to the world. Is it there? Does it feel good? Is it in the way? Is it friendly, or your friend? Do you like it? Can you mesh with it seamlessly? Do you thrash through it like it doesn't matter?
Your body communicates many things instantly. The neutral tai chi body allows you to see those messages, change or drop them altogether. It also helps you “hear” the world. You are no longer in the way of receiving information. Your internal static has been neutralized. First this is done with the body, and then it extends into the mind.
Consider what you don’t look at in your form. Consider what you don’t look at in your life.
You can’t micro manage balance of the whole. You have to be aware of the whole, and allow it to balance itself. Balance is an allowing condition, not a control issue. You let it happen; tai chi is about letting things happen. It reflects what is happening and responds to what is happening. Tai chi is not about controlling or manipulating yourself or others. It is about being with, and ultimately just being.
Learning tai chi is about learning how to stick and follow. This is a crucial first step in your own self growth as a person. Even a little goes a long way!
The biggest deficiencies are those you don’t see or feel. It comes down to you don't know what you don't know. So searching for it can be a challenge. There is a marvelous quote by Dr. William Thurston, Cornell University, as follows: "You don't see what you see until you see it, but when you do see it, it let's you see many other things." This happens in tai chi alot!
The classics teach that all is lead by the mind. So it is good to start from there. What is mind? It seems, however, one clue to what your mind is up to is contained in the holding or releasing patterns in the body.
While relaxation is a central part of the answer, it is in relationship to balance. That is, if you are relaxed, you are balanced; If you are balanced, you are relaxed. To be relaxed, but not balanced, would be useless. To be balanced, but not relaxed, would waste precious energy.
Tai chi, in general, is about relationships, and balancing those relationships. Removing the sense of separation within the world is the goal. You are part of the world and the world is part of you. Be connected. Be with. Tai chi allows you to fit in and go with the flow. This allows greater awareness of opportunity and the ability to take it.
I am not suggesting that what I have noted above happens automatically. We can sabotage anything it seems, and to let the best of tai chi happen, it helps to consider what it teaches and then try to apply this in your life.
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