I might add, the NECESSITY of quiet. Tom
December 29, 2011
NewYork Times
The Joy of Quiet
By PICO IYER
LAST year, I flew to Singapore to join the writer Malcolm Gladwell, the fashion designer Marc Ecko and the graphic designer Stefan Sagmeister in addressing a group of advertising people on “Marketing to the Child of Tomorrow.” Soon after I arrived, the chief executive of the agency that had invited us took me aside. What he was most interested in, he began — I braced myself for mention of some next-generation stealth campaign — was stillness.
A few months later, I read an interview with the perennially cutting-edge designer Philippe Starck. What allowed him to remain so consistently ahead of the curve? “I never read any magazines or watch TV,” he said, perhaps a little hyperbolically. “Nor do I go to cocktail parties, dinners or anything like that.” He lived outside conventional ideas, he implied, because “I live alone mostly, in the middle of nowhere.”
Around the same time, I noticed that those who part with $2,285 a night to stay in a cliff-top room at the Post Ranch Inn in Big Sur pay partly for the privilege of not having a TV in their rooms; the future of travel, I’m reliably told, lies in “black-hole resorts,” which charge high prices precisely because you can’t get online in their rooms.
Has it really come to this?
In barely one generation we’ve moved from exulting in the time-saving devices that have so expanded our lives to trying to get away from them — often in order to make more time. The more ways we have to connect, the more many of us seem desperate to unplug. Like teenagers, we appear to have gone from knowing nothing about the world to knowing too much all but overnight.
Internet rescue camps in South Korea and China try to save kids addicted to the screen.
Writer friends of mine pay good money to get the Freedom software that enables them to disable (for up to eight hours) the very Internet connections that seemed so emancipating not long ago. Even Intel (of all companies) experimented in 2007 with conferring four uninterrupted hours of quiet time every Tuesday morning on 300 engineers and managers. (The average office worker today, researchers have found, enjoys no more than three minutes at his or her desk without interruption.) During this period the workers were not allowed to use the phone or send e-mail, but simply had the chance to clear their heads and to hear themselves think. A majority of Intel’s trial group recommended that the policy be extended to others.
THE average American spends at least eight and a half hours a day in front of a screen, Nicholas Carr notes in his eye-opening book “The Shallows,” in part because the number of hours American adults spent online doubled between 2005 and 2009 (and the number of hours spent in front of a TV screen, often simultaneously, is also steadily increasing).
The average American teenager sends or receives 75 text messages a day, though one girl in Sacramento managed to handle an average of 10,000 every 24 hours for a month. Since luxury, as any economist will tell you, is a function of scarcity, the children of tomorrow, I heard myself tell the marketers in Singapore, will crave nothing more than freedom, if only for a short while, from all the blinking machines, streaming videos and scrolling headlines that leave them feeling empty and too full all at once.
The urgency of slowing down — to find the time and space to think — is nothing new, of course, and wiser souls have always reminded us that the more attention we pay to the moment, the less time and energy we have to place it in some larger context. “Distraction is the only thing that consoles us for our miseries,” the French philosopher Blaise Pascal wrote in the 17th century, “and yet it is itself the greatest of our miseries.” He also famously remarked that all of man’s problems come from his inability to sit quietly in a room alone.
When telegraphs and trains brought in the idea that convenience was more important than content — and speedier means could make up for unimproved ends — Henry David Thoreau reminded us that “the man whose horse trots a mile in a minute does not carry the most important messages.” Even half a century ago, Marshall McLuhan, who came closer than most to seeing what was coming, warned, “When things come at you very fast, naturally you lose touch with yourself.” Thomas Merton struck a chord with millions, by not just noting, “Man was made for the highest activity, which is, in fact, his rest,” but acting on it, and stepping out of the rat race and into a Cistercian cloister.
Yet few of those voices can be heard these days, precisely because “breaking news” is coming through (perpetually) on CNN and Debbie is just posting images of her summer vacation and the phone is ringing. We barely have enough time to see how little time we have (most Web pages, researchers find, are visited for 10 seconds or less). And the more that floods in on us (the Kardashians, Obamacare, “Dancing with the Stars”!), the less of ourselves we have to give to every snippet. All we notice is that the distinctions that used to guide and steady us — between Sunday and Monday, public and private, here and there — are gone.
We have more and more ways to communicate, as Thoreau noted, but less and less to say. Partly because we’re so busy communicating. And — as he might also have said — we’re rushing to meet so many deadlines that we hardly register that what we need most are lifelines.
So what to do? The central paradox of the machines that have made our lives so much brighter, quicker, longer and healthier is that they cannot teach us how to make best use of them; the information revolution came without an instruction manual. All the data in the world cannot teach us how to sift through data; images don’t show us how to process images. The only way to do justice to our onscreen lives is by summoning exactly the emotional and moral clarity that can’t be found on any screen.
MAYBE that’s why more and more people I know, even if they have no religious commitment, seem to be turning to yoga, or meditation, or tai chi; these aren’t New Age fads so much as ways to connect with what could be called the wisdom of old age. Two journalist friends of mine observe an “Internet sabbath” every week, turning off their online connections from Friday night to Monday morning, so as to try to revive those ancient customs known as family meals and conversation. Finding myself at breakfast with a group of lawyers in Oxford four months ago, I noticed that all their talk was of sailing — or riding or bridge: anything that would allow them to get out of radio contact for a few hours.
Other friends try to go on long walks every Sunday, or to “forget” their cellphones at home. A series of tests in recent years has shown, Mr. Carr points out, that after spending time in quiet rural settings, subjects “exhibit greater attentiveness, stronger memory and generally improved cognition. Their brains become both calmer and sharper.” More than that empathy, as well as deep thought, depends (as neuroscientists like Antonio Damasio have found) on neural processes that are “inherently slow.” The very ones our high-speed lives have little time for.
In my own case, I turn to eccentric and often extreme measures to try to keep my sanity and ensure that I have time to do nothing at all (which is the only time when I can see what I should be doing the rest of the time). I’ve yet to use a cellphone and I’ve never Tweeted or entered Facebook. I try not to go online till my day’s writing is finished, and I moved from Manhattan to rural Japan in part so I could more easily survive for long stretches entirely on foot, and every trip to the movies would be an event.
None of this is a matter of principle or asceticism; it’s just pure selfishness. Nothing makes me feel better — calmer, clearer and happier — than being in one place, absorbed in a book, a conversation, a piece of music. It’s actually something deeper than mere happiness: it’s joy, which the monk David Steindl-Rast describes as “that kind of happiness that doesn’t depend on what happens.”
It’s vital, of course, to stay in touch with the world, and to know what’s going on; I took pains this past year to make separate trips to Jerusalem and Hyderabad and Oman and St. Petersburg, to rural Arkansas and Thailand and the stricken nuclear plant in Fukushima and Dubai. But it’s only by having some distance from the world that you can see it whole, and understand what you should be doing with it.
For more than 20 years, therefore, I’ve been going several times a year — often for no longer than three days — to a Benedictine hermitage, 40 minutes down the road, as it happens, from the Post Ranch Inn. I don’t attend services when I’m there, and I’ve never meditated, there or anywhere; I just take walks and read and lose myself in the stillness, recalling that it’s only by stepping briefly away from my wife and bosses and friends that I’ll have anything useful to bring to them. The last time I was in the hermitage, three months ago, I happened to pass, on the monastery road, a youngish-looking man with a 3-year-old around his shoulders.
“You’re Pico, aren’t you?” the man said, and introduced himself as Larry; we’d met, I gathered, 19 years before, when he’d been living in the cloister as an assistant to one of the monks.
“What are you doing now?” I asked.
“I work for MTV. Down in L.A.”
We smiled. No words were necessary.
“I try to bring my kids here as often as I can,” he went on, as he looked out at the great blue expanse of the Pacific on one side of us, the high, brown hills of the Central Coast on the other. “My oldest son” — he pointed at a 7-year-old running along the deserted, radiant mountain road in front of his mother — “this is his third time.”
The child of tomorrow, I realized, may actually be ahead of us, in terms of sensing not what’s new, but what’s essential.
The author, most recently, of the forthcoming book “The Man Within My Head.”
Friday, December 30, 2011
Sunday, December 25, 2011
Tai Chi Chuan - True Relaxation
Tai Chi Chuan – True Relaxation
I was practicing push hands with a good beginner who hasn’t yet discovered how to relax his arms. You can feel him immediately and this error gives me the upper hand, at least in a slow game. You might think stiff arms would be an asset, but not so in tai chi. It locks you in and limits your choices should you be attacked. You are pre-stuck.
I tried to get him to relax his arms more and to reengineer his understanding of what push hands “stick and follow” is.
By holding his wrist and allowing his arm to just hang, we were testing to see how much he could simply let me hold up his arm. He couldn’t do it. He HAD to hold up his arm, even though I was already holding it up at the wrist. Eventually he did let go a bit more. There were a few more ideas that helped as well. But in our play, he didn’t really get it. Not to the extent that we could then focus more on to the next issue, that of function.
His question to me was: Is there an exercise to get a handle on relaxing the arms? The answer is basically NO.
The feel of relaxed arms is more or less an experiential understanding of relaxed arms. That understanding comes from the many ways that you use the body and how you conceive of relaxation in physical terms. Many elements are at play. And until you get a feel for it, well, you don’t know what you don’t know. That is why to tell someone to not use strength or to simply relax often doesn’t really help. Such advice has to tap into their knowledge base and if they don’t have it already, the knowledge base won’t help them now. (As I’ve stated before, this is like telling an angry person to not be angry, or an uptight person to stop getting worked up.)
What are some elements?
Allowing the body to melt into the ground.
Relaxing into the leg you are on before you shift to the next leg.
Elbows that are non-doing, non-held and sinking or heavy.
Letting the hands be weightless and floating.
Supporting the arms with the whole body.
Using the ground to support the whole body.
Moving everything at the same time (even if one part LOOKS like it is not moving.)
Allowing the spine to hang and the tailbone to be heavy.
Rest the arms in space; rest the elbows on a table top (that isn’t really there.)
Activate the whole chi of the body in moving the body and therefore the arms.
Keep the elbows relating to the hips/waste and dropping into the hips/waste.
No doubt there are more….
To understand relaxation, you have to keep chipping away at the stone to create a new sculpture. There is no simple one thing that you do. It is a complex of things that you do (or don’t do) that allows this relaxation to manifest. One fellow student sees the art of relaxation as a lifelong endeavor.
One general approach is to keep looking for ways relaxation moves the form. We look to increase relaxation and see how it functions. We don’t focus on the tension and try to get rid of it. Let relaxation grow and consume tension. These are two sides of the same coin, of course, but one way is that the glass is half empty; the other the glass is half full. Denial notwithstanding, which feels better to you?
Hey, you can always go back to using tension. But why bother? Ever look at someone who thrives on conflict, anger, force, hostility? Once relaxation enters your life, these folk look foolish.
Needless to say, this is a life challenge for all of us. We are sculpting ourselves into a new reality that opens many doors.
I was practicing push hands with a good beginner who hasn’t yet discovered how to relax his arms. You can feel him immediately and this error gives me the upper hand, at least in a slow game. You might think stiff arms would be an asset, but not so in tai chi. It locks you in and limits your choices should you be attacked. You are pre-stuck.
I tried to get him to relax his arms more and to reengineer his understanding of what push hands “stick and follow” is.
By holding his wrist and allowing his arm to just hang, we were testing to see how much he could simply let me hold up his arm. He couldn’t do it. He HAD to hold up his arm, even though I was already holding it up at the wrist. Eventually he did let go a bit more. There were a few more ideas that helped as well. But in our play, he didn’t really get it. Not to the extent that we could then focus more on to the next issue, that of function.
His question to me was: Is there an exercise to get a handle on relaxing the arms? The answer is basically NO.
The feel of relaxed arms is more or less an experiential understanding of relaxed arms. That understanding comes from the many ways that you use the body and how you conceive of relaxation in physical terms. Many elements are at play. And until you get a feel for it, well, you don’t know what you don’t know. That is why to tell someone to not use strength or to simply relax often doesn’t really help. Such advice has to tap into their knowledge base and if they don’t have it already, the knowledge base won’t help them now. (As I’ve stated before, this is like telling an angry person to not be angry, or an uptight person to stop getting worked up.)
What are some elements?
Allowing the body to melt into the ground.
Relaxing into the leg you are on before you shift to the next leg.
Elbows that are non-doing, non-held and sinking or heavy.
Letting the hands be weightless and floating.
Supporting the arms with the whole body.
Using the ground to support the whole body.
Moving everything at the same time (even if one part LOOKS like it is not moving.)
Allowing the spine to hang and the tailbone to be heavy.
Rest the arms in space; rest the elbows on a table top (that isn’t really there.)
Activate the whole chi of the body in moving the body and therefore the arms.
Keep the elbows relating to the hips/waste and dropping into the hips/waste.
No doubt there are more….
To understand relaxation, you have to keep chipping away at the stone to create a new sculpture. There is no simple one thing that you do. It is a complex of things that you do (or don’t do) that allows this relaxation to manifest. One fellow student sees the art of relaxation as a lifelong endeavor.
One general approach is to keep looking for ways relaxation moves the form. We look to increase relaxation and see how it functions. We don’t focus on the tension and try to get rid of it. Let relaxation grow and consume tension. These are two sides of the same coin, of course, but one way is that the glass is half empty; the other the glass is half full. Denial notwithstanding, which feels better to you?
Hey, you can always go back to using tension. But why bother? Ever look at someone who thrives on conflict, anger, force, hostility? Once relaxation enters your life, these folk look foolish.
Needless to say, this is a life challenge for all of us. We are sculpting ourselves into a new reality that opens many doors.
Monday, December 5, 2011
Tai Chi Chuan - Do THIS!
Tai Chi Chuan – Do THIS!
Learning this most rarefied of arts is subject to many many pitfalls. I just learned something my teacher (Maggie Newman) has been saying for YEARS. And yet it just registered. As if I had heard it for the very first time. You see, my understanding of the words was incorrect. I interpreted them one way and she meant them a different way. And somehow when she demonstrated, I thought my misinterpretation was still valid, as if I was doing what she was demonstrating and doing what she was saying. Though she was very clear (I now see) it hadn’t been clear to me. The computer sort of deleted reality and created a default program.
Recently another aspect of tai chi just mentally and physically registered – a similar realization. I’ve heard the words for years, but suddenly I have a new interpretation (and execution) of those words. Like YEARS of not getting it. I have to wonder why I bother to stick with this since the error rate in tai chi is very very high.
I guess because when I do get it, there is a thrill that can’t be beat. It is the thrill of the small articulate detail that gains in meaning if only because it took so long to make the shift and understand those words and feel a deeper level of relaxation or integrated execution. And I have to wonder, what else do I not see? What else do I not get?
Embedded here is a lesson in life that frankly I don’t care to learn. By this I mean I wish that what is being demonstrated in tai chi – and my experience in tai chi – was not also true in life. Alas, I think it is!
What is generally true is that by keeping at something, it will/can change and get better. What I really want in life – how I wish life operated – is to arrive at some place and not have to be so attentive and persistent in my effort. My vision of “effortlessness” is more like going on automatic pilot where everything falls into place without any thought, focus, attention or effort. (We are trying to be effortless in tai chi.) I want to say, “It can’t be THIS hard to get from here to there can it?”
Well, it depends on how deep you want to go. Yes, it can be THIS hard if you want to continue to go into something deeply.
How often do I hear of a musician or classical singer claim that they are always in the process of learning, of becoming? I secretly react to this statement with a snicker and subtly think that they say this out of false modesty. As if they don’t REALLY mean what they are saying; it is a crowd pleaser statement. A humble diva is a good thing to be. Often they are already successful when they say this, so I wonder if they need to improve at all. Haven’t they arrived?
Well, yes, they have. They have arrived at the place that inspires them to want more. And in the case of the singer (and the tai chi practitioner) wanting more has to come from a place of love for the art itself and some internal relevance. If it comes out of ego or self aggrandizement, the art will eat you up.
Which brings one back to the art of life. New word, same deal. To get more, you have to give more (to you, to them, to it.) And if it isn’t out of love (for you, for them, for it,) life will be very very painful.
It sounds cliché to put it into terms like this. “Love” is a fuzzy word, loaded with cultural nonsense. For me, love in this instance is a desire to fully absorb and be one with the art, to submerge the self and become the art. To let the art become you. And in doing so, you join with others who have the same desire.
“Desire” has a bad rap in some circles. But I’d like to suggest that this desire is 70-30: 70% desire to give to that art and 30% desire for enjoyment of giving to that art and any treasures that may result. Love is the lubricant; it’s not an object that you own. It only keeps the joints well oiled and allows a smoother ride….
Learning this most rarefied of arts is subject to many many pitfalls. I just learned something my teacher (Maggie Newman) has been saying for YEARS. And yet it just registered. As if I had heard it for the very first time. You see, my understanding of the words was incorrect. I interpreted them one way and she meant them a different way. And somehow when she demonstrated, I thought my misinterpretation was still valid, as if I was doing what she was demonstrating and doing what she was saying. Though she was very clear (I now see) it hadn’t been clear to me. The computer sort of deleted reality and created a default program.
Recently another aspect of tai chi just mentally and physically registered – a similar realization. I’ve heard the words for years, but suddenly I have a new interpretation (and execution) of those words. Like YEARS of not getting it. I have to wonder why I bother to stick with this since the error rate in tai chi is very very high.
I guess because when I do get it, there is a thrill that can’t be beat. It is the thrill of the small articulate detail that gains in meaning if only because it took so long to make the shift and understand those words and feel a deeper level of relaxation or integrated execution. And I have to wonder, what else do I not see? What else do I not get?
Embedded here is a lesson in life that frankly I don’t care to learn. By this I mean I wish that what is being demonstrated in tai chi – and my experience in tai chi – was not also true in life. Alas, I think it is!
What is generally true is that by keeping at something, it will/can change and get better. What I really want in life – how I wish life operated – is to arrive at some place and not have to be so attentive and persistent in my effort. My vision of “effortlessness” is more like going on automatic pilot where everything falls into place without any thought, focus, attention or effort. (We are trying to be effortless in tai chi.) I want to say, “It can’t be THIS hard to get from here to there can it?”
Well, it depends on how deep you want to go. Yes, it can be THIS hard if you want to continue to go into something deeply.
How often do I hear of a musician or classical singer claim that they are always in the process of learning, of becoming? I secretly react to this statement with a snicker and subtly think that they say this out of false modesty. As if they don’t REALLY mean what they are saying; it is a crowd pleaser statement. A humble diva is a good thing to be. Often they are already successful when they say this, so I wonder if they need to improve at all. Haven’t they arrived?
Well, yes, they have. They have arrived at the place that inspires them to want more. And in the case of the singer (and the tai chi practitioner) wanting more has to come from a place of love for the art itself and some internal relevance. If it comes out of ego or self aggrandizement, the art will eat you up.
Which brings one back to the art of life. New word, same deal. To get more, you have to give more (to you, to them, to it.) And if it isn’t out of love (for you, for them, for it,) life will be very very painful.
It sounds cliché to put it into terms like this. “Love” is a fuzzy word, loaded with cultural nonsense. For me, love in this instance is a desire to fully absorb and be one with the art, to submerge the self and become the art. To let the art become you. And in doing so, you join with others who have the same desire.
“Desire” has a bad rap in some circles. But I’d like to suggest that this desire is 70-30: 70% desire to give to that art and 30% desire for enjoyment of giving to that art and any treasures that may result. Love is the lubricant; it’s not an object that you own. It only keeps the joints well oiled and allows a smoother ride….
Saturday, October 22, 2011
Confidence Buster - New York Times article
“Overconfidence arises because people are often blind to their own blindness.”
This looooong article on the habit and comfort of confidence is well worth your time. Why do I include it here in tai chi blog? Consider how confidence gets in the way of true practice and real progress. Consider how your own take on “failure” really has little to do with ANYTHING, let alone your progress in tai chi.
Tai chi is much more aligned with “don’t know” and the reality of right now.
I see long term students confidently do the same thing year after year after year and never question the very thing they are confident in. And believe me, many of us take the wrong turn and keep chiseling away at that stone.
A real student of tai chi keeps asking real questions.
Tom
October 19, 2011
New York Times
Don’t Blink! The Hazards of Confidence
By DANIEL KAHNEMAN
Many decades ago I spent what seemed like a great deal of time under a scorching sun, watching groups of sweaty soldiers as they solved a problem. I was doing my national service in the Israeli Army at the time. I had completed an undergraduate degree in psychology, and after a year as an infantry officer, I was assigned to the army’s Psychology Branch, where one of my occasional duties was to help evaluate candidates for officer training. We used methods that were developed by the British Army in World War II.
One test, called the leaderless group challenge, was conducted on an obstacle field. Eight candidates, strangers to one another, with all insignia of rank removed and only numbered tags to identify them, were instructed to lift a long log from the ground and haul it to a wall about six feet high. There, they were told that the entire group had to get to the other side of the wall without the log touching either the ground or the wall, and without anyone touching the wall. If any of these things happened, they were to acknowledge it and start again.
A common solution was for several men to reach the other side by crawling along the log as the other men held it up at an angle, like a giant fishing rod. Then one man would climb onto another’s shoulder and tip the log to the far side. The last two men would then have to jump up at the log, now suspended from the other side by those who had made it over, shinny their way along its length and then leap down safely once they crossed the wall. Failure was common at this point, which required starting over.
As a colleague and I monitored the exercise, we made note of who took charge, who tried to lead but was rebuffed, how much each soldier contributed to the group effort. We saw who seemed to be stubborn, submissive, arrogant, patient, hot-tempered, persistent or a quitter. We sometimes saw competitive spite when someone whose idea had been rejected by the group no longer worked very hard. And we saw reactions to crisis: who berated a comrade whose mistake caused the whole group to fail, who stepped forward to lead when the exhausted team had to start over.
Under the stress of the event, we felt, each man’s true nature revealed itself in sharp relief.
After watching the candidates go through several such tests, we had to summarize our impressions of the soldiers’ leadership abilities with a grade and determine who would be eligible for officer training. We spent some time discussing each case and reviewing our impressions. The task was not difficult, because we had already seen each of these soldiers’ leadership skills. Some of the men looked like strong leaders, others seemed like wimps or arrogant fools, others mediocre but not hopeless. Quite a few appeared to be so weak that we ruled them out as officer candidates. When our multiple observations of each candidate converged on a coherent picture, we were completely confident in our evaluations and believed that what we saw pointed directly to the future. The soldier who took over when the group was in trouble and led the team over the wall was a leader at that moment. The obvious best guess about how he would do in training, or in combat, was that he would be as effective as he had been at the wall. Any other prediction seemed inconsistent with what we saw.
Because our impressions of how well each soldier performed were generally coherent and clear, our formal predictions were just as definite. We rarely experienced doubt or conflicting impressions. We were quite willing to declare: “This one will never make it,” “That fellow is rather mediocre, but should do O.K.” or “He will be a star.” We felt no need to question our forecasts, moderate them or equivocate. If challenged, however, we were fully prepared to admit, “But of course anything could happen.”
We were willing to make that admission because, as it turned out, despite our certainty about the potential of individual candidates, our forecasts were largely useless. The evidence was overwhelming. Every few months we had a feedback session in which we could compare our evaluations of future cadets with the judgments of their commanders at the officer-training school. The story was always the same: our ability to predict performance at the school was negligible. Our forecasts were better than blind guesses, but not by much.
We were downcast for a while after receiving the discouraging news. But this was the army. Useful or not, there was a routine to be followed, and there were orders to be obeyed. Another batch of candidates would arrive the next day. We took them to the obstacle field, we faced them with the wall, they lifted the log and within a few minutes we saw their true natures revealed, as clearly as ever. The dismal truth about the quality of our predictions had no effect whatsoever on how we evaluated new candidates and very little effect on the confidence we had in our judgments and predictions.
I thought that what was happening to us was remarkable. The statistical evidence of our failure should have shaken our confidence in our judgments of particular candidates, but it did not. It should also have caused us to moderate our predictions, but it did not. We knew as a general fact that our predictions were little better than random guesses, but we continued to feel and act as if each particular prediction was valid. I was reminded of visual illusions, which remain compelling even when you know that what you see is false. I was so struck by the analogy that I coined a term for our experience: the illusion of validity.
I had discovered my first cognitive fallacy.
Decades later, I can see many of the central themes of my thinking about judgment in that old experience. One of these themes is that people who face a difficult question often answer an easier one instead, without realizing it. We were required to predict a soldier’s performance in officer training and in combat, but we did so by evaluating his behavior over one hour in an artificial situation. This was a perfect instance of a general rule that I call WYSIATI, “What you see is all there is.” We had made up a story from the little we knew but had no way to allow for what we did not know about the individual’s future, which was almost everything that would actually matter. When you know as little as we did, you should not make extreme predictions like “He will be a star.” The stars we saw on the obstacle field were most likely accidental flickers, in which a coincidence of random events — like who was near the wall — largely determined who became a leader. Other events — some of them also random — would determine later success in training and combat.
You may be surprised by our failure: it is natural to expect the same leadership ability to manifest itself in various situations. But the exaggerated expectation of consistency is a common error. We are prone to think that the world is more regular and predictable than it really is, because our memory automatically and continuously maintains a story about what is going on, and because the rules of memory tend to make that story as coherent as possible and to suppress alternatives. Fast thinking is not prone to doubt.
The confidence we experience as we make a judgment is not a reasoned evaluation of the probability that it is right. Confidence is a feeling, one determined mostly by the coherence of the story and by the ease with which it comes to mind, even when the evidence for the story is sparse and unreliable. The bias toward coherence favors overconfidence. An individual who expresses high confidence probably has a good story, which may or may not be true.
I coined the term “illusion of validity” because the confidence we had in judgments about individual soldiers was not affected by a statistical fact we knew to be true — that our predictions were unrelated to the truth. This is not an isolated observation. When a compelling impression of a particular event clashes with general knowledge, the impression commonly prevails. And this goes for you, too. The confidence you will experience in your future judgments will not be diminished by what you just read, even if you believe every word.
I first visited a Wall Street firm in 1984. I was there with my longtime collaborator Amos Tversky, who died in 1996, and our friend Richard Thaler, now a guru of behavioral economics. Our host, a senior investment manager, had invited us to discuss the role of judgment biases in investing. I knew so little about finance at the time that I had no idea what to ask him, but I remember one exchange. “When you sell a stock,” I asked him, “who buys it?” He answered with a wave in the vague direction of the window, indicating that he expected the buyer to be someone else very much like him. That was odd: because most buyers and sellers know that they have the same information as one another, what made one person buy and the other sell? Buyers think the price is too low and likely to rise; sellers think the price is high and likely to drop. The puzzle is why buyers and sellers alike think that the current price is wrong.
Most people in the investment business have read Burton Malkiel’s wonderful book “A Random Walk Down Wall Street.” Malkiel’s central idea is that a stock’s price incorporates all the available knowledge about the value of the company and the best predictions about the future of the stock. If some people believe that the price of a stock will be higher tomorrow, they will buy more of it today. This, in turn, will cause its price to rise. If all assets in a market are correctly priced, no one can expect either to gain or to lose by trading.
We now know, however, that the theory is not quite right. Many individual investors lose consistently by trading, an achievement that a dart-throwing chimp could not match. The first demonstration of this startling conclusion was put forward by Terry Odean, a former student of mine who is now a finance professor at the University of California, Berkeley.
Odean analyzed the trading records of 10,000 brokerage accounts of individual investors over a seven-year period, allowing him to identify all instances in which an investor sold one stock and soon afterward bought another stock. By these actions the investor revealed that he (most of the investors were men) had a definite idea about the future of two stocks: he expected the stock that he bought to do better than the one he sold.
To determine whether those appraisals were well founded, Odean compared the returns of the two stocks over the following year. The results were unequivocally bad. On average, the shares investors sold did better than those they bought, by a very substantial margin: 3.3 percentage points per year, in addition to the significant costs of executing the trades. Some individuals did much better, others did much worse, but the large majority of individual investors would have done better by taking a nap rather than by acting on their ideas. In a paper titled “Trading Is Hazardous to Your Wealth,” Odean and his colleague Brad Barber showed that, on average, the most active traders had the poorest results, while those who traded the least earned the highest returns. In another paper, “Boys Will Be Boys,” they reported that men act on their useless ideas significantly more often than women do, and that as a result women achieve better investment results than men.
Of course, there is always someone on the other side of a transaction; in general, it’s a financial institution or professional investor, ready to take advantage of the mistakes that individual traders make. Further research by Barber and Odean has shed light on these mistakes. Individual investors like to lock in their gains; they sell “winners,” stocks whose prices have gone up, and they hang on to their losers. Unfortunately for them, in the short run going forward recent winners tend to do better than recent losers, so individuals sell the wrong stocks. They also buy the wrong stocks. Individual investors predictably flock to stocks in companies that are in the news. Professional investors are more selective in responding to news. These findings provide some justification for the label of “smart money” that finance professionals apply to themselves.
Although professionals are able to extract a considerable amount of wealth from amateurs, few stock pickers, if any, have the skill needed to beat the market consistently, year after year. The diagnostic for the existence of any skill is the consistency of individual differences in achievement. The logic is simple: if individual differences in any one year are due entirely to luck, the ranking of investors and funds will vary erratically and the year-to-year correlation will be zero. Where there is skill, however, the rankings will be more stable. The persistence of individual differences is the measure by which we confirm the existence of skill among golfers, orthodontists or speedy toll collectors on the turnpike.
Mutual funds are run by highly experienced and hard-working professionals who buy and sell stocks to achieve the best possible results for their clients. Nevertheless, the evidence from more than 50 years of research is conclusive: for a large majority of fund managers, the selection of stocks is more like rolling dice than like playing poker. At least two out of every three mutual funds underperform the overall market in any given year.
More important, the year-to-year correlation among the outcomes of mutual funds is very small, barely different from zero. The funds that were successful in any given year were mostly lucky; they had a good roll of the dice. There is general agreement among researchers that this is true for nearly all stock pickers, whether they know it or not — and most do not. The subjective experience of traders is that they are making sensible, educated guesses in a situation of great uncertainty. In highly efficient markets, however, educated guesses are not more accurate than blind guesses.
Some years after my introduction to the world of finance, I had an unusual opportunity to examine the illusion of skill up close. I was invited to speak to a group of investment advisers in a firm that provided financial advice and other services to very wealthy clients. I asked for some data to prepare my presentation and was granted a small treasure: a spreadsheet summarizing the investment outcomes of some 25 anonymous wealth advisers, for eight consecutive years. The advisers’ scores for each year were the main determinant of their year-end bonuses. It was a simple matter to rank the advisers by their performance and to answer a question: Did the same advisers consistently achieve better returns for their clients year after year? Did some advisers consistently display more skill than others?
To find the answer, I computed the correlations between the rankings of advisers in different years, comparing Year 1 with Year 2, Year 1 with Year 3 and so on up through Year 7 with Year 8. That yielded 28 correlations, one for each pair of years. While I was prepared to find little year-to-year consistency, I was still surprised to find that the average of the 28 correlations was .01. In other words, zero. The stability that would indicate differences in skill was not to be found. The results resembled what you would expect from a dice-rolling contest, not a game of skill.
No one in the firm seemed to be aware of the nature of the game that its stock pickers were playing. The advisers themselves felt they were competent professionals performing a task that was difficult but not impossible, and their superiors agreed. On the evening before the seminar, Richard Thaler and I had dinner with some of the top executives of the firm, the people who decide on the size of bonuses. We asked them to guess the year-to-year correlation in the rankings of individual advisers. They thought they knew what was coming and smiled as they said, “not very high” or “performance certainly fluctuates.” It quickly became clear, however, that no one expected the average correlation to be zero.
What we told the directors of the firm was that, at least when it came to building portfolios, the firm was rewarding luck as if it were skill. This should have been shocking news to them, but it was not. There was no sign that they disbelieved us. How could they? After all, we had analyzed their own results, and they were certainly sophisticated enough to appreciate their implications, which we politely refrained from spelling out. We all went on calmly with our dinner, and I am quite sure that both our findings and their implications were quickly swept under the rug and that life in the firm went on just as before. The illusion of skill is not only an individual aberration; it is deeply ingrained in the culture of the industry. Facts that challenge such basic assumptions — and thereby threaten people’s livelihood and self-esteem — are simply not absorbed. The mind does not digest them. This is particularly true of statistical studies of performance, which provide general facts that people will ignore if they conflict with their personal experience.
The next morning, we reported the findings to the advisers, and their response was equally bland. Their personal experience of exercising careful professional judgment on complex problems was far more compelling to them than an obscure statistical result. When we were done, one executive I dined with the previous evening drove me to the airport. He told me, with a trace of defensiveness, “I have done very well for the firm, and no one can take that away from me.” I smiled and said nothing. But I thought, privately: Well, I took it away from you this morning. If your success was due mostly to chance, how much credit are you entitled to take for it?
We often interact with professionals who exercise their judgment with evident confidence, sometimes priding themselves on the power of their intuition. In a world rife with illusions of validity and skill, can we trust them? How do we distinguish the justified confidence of experts from the sincere overconfidence of professionals who do not know they are out of their depth? We can believe an expert who admits uncertainty but cannot take expressions of high confidence at face value. As I first learned on the obstacle field, people come up with coherent stories and confident predictions even when they know little or nothing. Overconfidence arises because people are often blind to their own blindness.
True intuitive expertise is learned from prolonged experience with good feedback on mistakes. You are probably an expert in guessing your spouse’s mood from one word on the telephone; chess players find a strong move in a single glance at a complex position; and true legends of instant diagnoses are common among physicians. To know whether you can trust a particular intuitive judgment, there are two questions you should ask: Is the environment in which the judgment is made sufficiently regular to enable predictions from the available evidence? The answer is yes for diagnosticians, no for stock pickers. Do the professionals have an adequate opportunity to learn the cues and the regularities? The answer here depends on the professionals’ experience and on the quality and speed with which they discover their mistakes.
Anesthesiologists have a better chance to develop intuitions than radiologists do. Many of the professionals we encounter easily pass both tests, and their off-the-cuff judgments deserve to be taken seriously. In general, however, you should not take assertive and confident people at their own evaluation unless you have independent reason to believe that they know what they are talking about. Unfortunately, this advice is difficult to follow: overconfident professionals sincerely believe they have expertise, act as experts and look like experts. You will have to struggle to remind yourself that they may be in the grip of an illusion.
Daniel Kahneman is emeritus professor of psychology and of public affairs at Princeton University and a winner of the 2002 Noble Prize in Economics. This article is adapted from his book “Thinking, Fast and Slow,” out this month from Farrar, Straus & Giroux.
Editor: Dean Robinson
This looooong article on the habit and comfort of confidence is well worth your time. Why do I include it here in tai chi blog? Consider how confidence gets in the way of true practice and real progress. Consider how your own take on “failure” really has little to do with ANYTHING, let alone your progress in tai chi.
Tai chi is much more aligned with “don’t know” and the reality of right now.
I see long term students confidently do the same thing year after year after year and never question the very thing they are confident in. And believe me, many of us take the wrong turn and keep chiseling away at that stone.
A real student of tai chi keeps asking real questions.
Tom
October 19, 2011
New York Times
Don’t Blink! The Hazards of Confidence
By DANIEL KAHNEMAN
Many decades ago I spent what seemed like a great deal of time under a scorching sun, watching groups of sweaty soldiers as they solved a problem. I was doing my national service in the Israeli Army at the time. I had completed an undergraduate degree in psychology, and after a year as an infantry officer, I was assigned to the army’s Psychology Branch, where one of my occasional duties was to help evaluate candidates for officer training. We used methods that were developed by the British Army in World War II.
One test, called the leaderless group challenge, was conducted on an obstacle field. Eight candidates, strangers to one another, with all insignia of rank removed and only numbered tags to identify them, were instructed to lift a long log from the ground and haul it to a wall about six feet high. There, they were told that the entire group had to get to the other side of the wall without the log touching either the ground or the wall, and without anyone touching the wall. If any of these things happened, they were to acknowledge it and start again.
A common solution was for several men to reach the other side by crawling along the log as the other men held it up at an angle, like a giant fishing rod. Then one man would climb onto another’s shoulder and tip the log to the far side. The last two men would then have to jump up at the log, now suspended from the other side by those who had made it over, shinny their way along its length and then leap down safely once they crossed the wall. Failure was common at this point, which required starting over.
As a colleague and I monitored the exercise, we made note of who took charge, who tried to lead but was rebuffed, how much each soldier contributed to the group effort. We saw who seemed to be stubborn, submissive, arrogant, patient, hot-tempered, persistent or a quitter. We sometimes saw competitive spite when someone whose idea had been rejected by the group no longer worked very hard. And we saw reactions to crisis: who berated a comrade whose mistake caused the whole group to fail, who stepped forward to lead when the exhausted team had to start over.
Under the stress of the event, we felt, each man’s true nature revealed itself in sharp relief.
After watching the candidates go through several such tests, we had to summarize our impressions of the soldiers’ leadership abilities with a grade and determine who would be eligible for officer training. We spent some time discussing each case and reviewing our impressions. The task was not difficult, because we had already seen each of these soldiers’ leadership skills. Some of the men looked like strong leaders, others seemed like wimps or arrogant fools, others mediocre but not hopeless. Quite a few appeared to be so weak that we ruled them out as officer candidates. When our multiple observations of each candidate converged on a coherent picture, we were completely confident in our evaluations and believed that what we saw pointed directly to the future. The soldier who took over when the group was in trouble and led the team over the wall was a leader at that moment. The obvious best guess about how he would do in training, or in combat, was that he would be as effective as he had been at the wall. Any other prediction seemed inconsistent with what we saw.
Because our impressions of how well each soldier performed were generally coherent and clear, our formal predictions were just as definite. We rarely experienced doubt or conflicting impressions. We were quite willing to declare: “This one will never make it,” “That fellow is rather mediocre, but should do O.K.” or “He will be a star.” We felt no need to question our forecasts, moderate them or equivocate. If challenged, however, we were fully prepared to admit, “But of course anything could happen.”
We were willing to make that admission because, as it turned out, despite our certainty about the potential of individual candidates, our forecasts were largely useless. The evidence was overwhelming. Every few months we had a feedback session in which we could compare our evaluations of future cadets with the judgments of their commanders at the officer-training school. The story was always the same: our ability to predict performance at the school was negligible. Our forecasts were better than blind guesses, but not by much.
We were downcast for a while after receiving the discouraging news. But this was the army. Useful or not, there was a routine to be followed, and there were orders to be obeyed. Another batch of candidates would arrive the next day. We took them to the obstacle field, we faced them with the wall, they lifted the log and within a few minutes we saw their true natures revealed, as clearly as ever. The dismal truth about the quality of our predictions had no effect whatsoever on how we evaluated new candidates and very little effect on the confidence we had in our judgments and predictions.
I thought that what was happening to us was remarkable. The statistical evidence of our failure should have shaken our confidence in our judgments of particular candidates, but it did not. It should also have caused us to moderate our predictions, but it did not. We knew as a general fact that our predictions were little better than random guesses, but we continued to feel and act as if each particular prediction was valid. I was reminded of visual illusions, which remain compelling even when you know that what you see is false. I was so struck by the analogy that I coined a term for our experience: the illusion of validity.
I had discovered my first cognitive fallacy.
Decades later, I can see many of the central themes of my thinking about judgment in that old experience. One of these themes is that people who face a difficult question often answer an easier one instead, without realizing it. We were required to predict a soldier’s performance in officer training and in combat, but we did so by evaluating his behavior over one hour in an artificial situation. This was a perfect instance of a general rule that I call WYSIATI, “What you see is all there is.” We had made up a story from the little we knew but had no way to allow for what we did not know about the individual’s future, which was almost everything that would actually matter. When you know as little as we did, you should not make extreme predictions like “He will be a star.” The stars we saw on the obstacle field were most likely accidental flickers, in which a coincidence of random events — like who was near the wall — largely determined who became a leader. Other events — some of them also random — would determine later success in training and combat.
You may be surprised by our failure: it is natural to expect the same leadership ability to manifest itself in various situations. But the exaggerated expectation of consistency is a common error. We are prone to think that the world is more regular and predictable than it really is, because our memory automatically and continuously maintains a story about what is going on, and because the rules of memory tend to make that story as coherent as possible and to suppress alternatives. Fast thinking is not prone to doubt.
The confidence we experience as we make a judgment is not a reasoned evaluation of the probability that it is right. Confidence is a feeling, one determined mostly by the coherence of the story and by the ease with which it comes to mind, even when the evidence for the story is sparse and unreliable. The bias toward coherence favors overconfidence. An individual who expresses high confidence probably has a good story, which may or may not be true.
I coined the term “illusion of validity” because the confidence we had in judgments about individual soldiers was not affected by a statistical fact we knew to be true — that our predictions were unrelated to the truth. This is not an isolated observation. When a compelling impression of a particular event clashes with general knowledge, the impression commonly prevails. And this goes for you, too. The confidence you will experience in your future judgments will not be diminished by what you just read, even if you believe every word.
I first visited a Wall Street firm in 1984. I was there with my longtime collaborator Amos Tversky, who died in 1996, and our friend Richard Thaler, now a guru of behavioral economics. Our host, a senior investment manager, had invited us to discuss the role of judgment biases in investing. I knew so little about finance at the time that I had no idea what to ask him, but I remember one exchange. “When you sell a stock,” I asked him, “who buys it?” He answered with a wave in the vague direction of the window, indicating that he expected the buyer to be someone else very much like him. That was odd: because most buyers and sellers know that they have the same information as one another, what made one person buy and the other sell? Buyers think the price is too low and likely to rise; sellers think the price is high and likely to drop. The puzzle is why buyers and sellers alike think that the current price is wrong.
Most people in the investment business have read Burton Malkiel’s wonderful book “A Random Walk Down Wall Street.” Malkiel’s central idea is that a stock’s price incorporates all the available knowledge about the value of the company and the best predictions about the future of the stock. If some people believe that the price of a stock will be higher tomorrow, they will buy more of it today. This, in turn, will cause its price to rise. If all assets in a market are correctly priced, no one can expect either to gain or to lose by trading.
We now know, however, that the theory is not quite right. Many individual investors lose consistently by trading, an achievement that a dart-throwing chimp could not match. The first demonstration of this startling conclusion was put forward by Terry Odean, a former student of mine who is now a finance professor at the University of California, Berkeley.
Odean analyzed the trading records of 10,000 brokerage accounts of individual investors over a seven-year period, allowing him to identify all instances in which an investor sold one stock and soon afterward bought another stock. By these actions the investor revealed that he (most of the investors were men) had a definite idea about the future of two stocks: he expected the stock that he bought to do better than the one he sold.
To determine whether those appraisals were well founded, Odean compared the returns of the two stocks over the following year. The results were unequivocally bad. On average, the shares investors sold did better than those they bought, by a very substantial margin: 3.3 percentage points per year, in addition to the significant costs of executing the trades. Some individuals did much better, others did much worse, but the large majority of individual investors would have done better by taking a nap rather than by acting on their ideas. In a paper titled “Trading Is Hazardous to Your Wealth,” Odean and his colleague Brad Barber showed that, on average, the most active traders had the poorest results, while those who traded the least earned the highest returns. In another paper, “Boys Will Be Boys,” they reported that men act on their useless ideas significantly more often than women do, and that as a result women achieve better investment results than men.
Of course, there is always someone on the other side of a transaction; in general, it’s a financial institution or professional investor, ready to take advantage of the mistakes that individual traders make. Further research by Barber and Odean has shed light on these mistakes. Individual investors like to lock in their gains; they sell “winners,” stocks whose prices have gone up, and they hang on to their losers. Unfortunately for them, in the short run going forward recent winners tend to do better than recent losers, so individuals sell the wrong stocks. They also buy the wrong stocks. Individual investors predictably flock to stocks in companies that are in the news. Professional investors are more selective in responding to news. These findings provide some justification for the label of “smart money” that finance professionals apply to themselves.
Although professionals are able to extract a considerable amount of wealth from amateurs, few stock pickers, if any, have the skill needed to beat the market consistently, year after year. The diagnostic for the existence of any skill is the consistency of individual differences in achievement. The logic is simple: if individual differences in any one year are due entirely to luck, the ranking of investors and funds will vary erratically and the year-to-year correlation will be zero. Where there is skill, however, the rankings will be more stable. The persistence of individual differences is the measure by which we confirm the existence of skill among golfers, orthodontists or speedy toll collectors on the turnpike.
Mutual funds are run by highly experienced and hard-working professionals who buy and sell stocks to achieve the best possible results for their clients. Nevertheless, the evidence from more than 50 years of research is conclusive: for a large majority of fund managers, the selection of stocks is more like rolling dice than like playing poker. At least two out of every three mutual funds underperform the overall market in any given year.
More important, the year-to-year correlation among the outcomes of mutual funds is very small, barely different from zero. The funds that were successful in any given year were mostly lucky; they had a good roll of the dice. There is general agreement among researchers that this is true for nearly all stock pickers, whether they know it or not — and most do not. The subjective experience of traders is that they are making sensible, educated guesses in a situation of great uncertainty. In highly efficient markets, however, educated guesses are not more accurate than blind guesses.
Some years after my introduction to the world of finance, I had an unusual opportunity to examine the illusion of skill up close. I was invited to speak to a group of investment advisers in a firm that provided financial advice and other services to very wealthy clients. I asked for some data to prepare my presentation and was granted a small treasure: a spreadsheet summarizing the investment outcomes of some 25 anonymous wealth advisers, for eight consecutive years. The advisers’ scores for each year were the main determinant of their year-end bonuses. It was a simple matter to rank the advisers by their performance and to answer a question: Did the same advisers consistently achieve better returns for their clients year after year? Did some advisers consistently display more skill than others?
To find the answer, I computed the correlations between the rankings of advisers in different years, comparing Year 1 with Year 2, Year 1 with Year 3 and so on up through Year 7 with Year 8. That yielded 28 correlations, one for each pair of years. While I was prepared to find little year-to-year consistency, I was still surprised to find that the average of the 28 correlations was .01. In other words, zero. The stability that would indicate differences in skill was not to be found. The results resembled what you would expect from a dice-rolling contest, not a game of skill.
No one in the firm seemed to be aware of the nature of the game that its stock pickers were playing. The advisers themselves felt they were competent professionals performing a task that was difficult but not impossible, and their superiors agreed. On the evening before the seminar, Richard Thaler and I had dinner with some of the top executives of the firm, the people who decide on the size of bonuses. We asked them to guess the year-to-year correlation in the rankings of individual advisers. They thought they knew what was coming and smiled as they said, “not very high” or “performance certainly fluctuates.” It quickly became clear, however, that no one expected the average correlation to be zero.
What we told the directors of the firm was that, at least when it came to building portfolios, the firm was rewarding luck as if it were skill. This should have been shocking news to them, but it was not. There was no sign that they disbelieved us. How could they? After all, we had analyzed their own results, and they were certainly sophisticated enough to appreciate their implications, which we politely refrained from spelling out. We all went on calmly with our dinner, and I am quite sure that both our findings and their implications were quickly swept under the rug and that life in the firm went on just as before. The illusion of skill is not only an individual aberration; it is deeply ingrained in the culture of the industry. Facts that challenge such basic assumptions — and thereby threaten people’s livelihood and self-esteem — are simply not absorbed. The mind does not digest them. This is particularly true of statistical studies of performance, which provide general facts that people will ignore if they conflict with their personal experience.
The next morning, we reported the findings to the advisers, and their response was equally bland. Their personal experience of exercising careful professional judgment on complex problems was far more compelling to them than an obscure statistical result. When we were done, one executive I dined with the previous evening drove me to the airport. He told me, with a trace of defensiveness, “I have done very well for the firm, and no one can take that away from me.” I smiled and said nothing. But I thought, privately: Well, I took it away from you this morning. If your success was due mostly to chance, how much credit are you entitled to take for it?
We often interact with professionals who exercise their judgment with evident confidence, sometimes priding themselves on the power of their intuition. In a world rife with illusions of validity and skill, can we trust them? How do we distinguish the justified confidence of experts from the sincere overconfidence of professionals who do not know they are out of their depth? We can believe an expert who admits uncertainty but cannot take expressions of high confidence at face value. As I first learned on the obstacle field, people come up with coherent stories and confident predictions even when they know little or nothing. Overconfidence arises because people are often blind to their own blindness.
True intuitive expertise is learned from prolonged experience with good feedback on mistakes. You are probably an expert in guessing your spouse’s mood from one word on the telephone; chess players find a strong move in a single glance at a complex position; and true legends of instant diagnoses are common among physicians. To know whether you can trust a particular intuitive judgment, there are two questions you should ask: Is the environment in which the judgment is made sufficiently regular to enable predictions from the available evidence? The answer is yes for diagnosticians, no for stock pickers. Do the professionals have an adequate opportunity to learn the cues and the regularities? The answer here depends on the professionals’ experience and on the quality and speed with which they discover their mistakes.
Anesthesiologists have a better chance to develop intuitions than radiologists do. Many of the professionals we encounter easily pass both tests, and their off-the-cuff judgments deserve to be taken seriously. In general, however, you should not take assertive and confident people at their own evaluation unless you have independent reason to believe that they know what they are talking about. Unfortunately, this advice is difficult to follow: overconfident professionals sincerely believe they have expertise, act as experts and look like experts. You will have to struggle to remind yourself that they may be in the grip of an illusion.
Daniel Kahneman is emeritus professor of psychology and of public affairs at Princeton University and a winner of the 2002 Noble Prize in Economics. This article is adapted from his book “Thinking, Fast and Slow,” out this month from Farrar, Straus & Giroux.
Editor: Dean Robinson
Monday, October 17, 2011
Tai Chi Chuan - Happiness Failure Change
Tai Chi Chuan – Happiness Failure Change
I was recently introduced to a delightful phrase, famous I’m told, from one of my wisest (and wisdom seeking) friends.
From the web(1):
§
The Secret of Happiness:
Nasrudin is known as much for his wisdom as his foolishness, and many are those who have sought out his teaching. One devotee tracked him down for many years before finding him in the marketplace sitting atop a pile of banana peels--no one knows why.
"Oh great sage, Nasrudin," said the eager student. "I must ask you a very important question, the answer to which we all seek: What is the secret to attaining happiness?"
Nasrudin thought for a time, then responded. "The secret of happiness is good judgment."
"Ah," said the student. "But how do we attain good judgment?"
"From experience," answered Nasrudin.
"Yes," said the student. "But how do we attain experience?"
"Bad judgment."
The earliest credible source I can find is the great Sufi sage/fool Mulla Nasrudin, born circa 1208.
§
Why do I bring this up in the context of a tai chi blog?
I think advanced tai chi leads to good judgment. Learning tai chi brings the student face to face with failure much of the time. And failure can be linked to bad judgment, though while learning tai chi poor judgment is more or less linked to ignorance and poor habits, both of which lead to bad judgment. We do what we do. But when we get pushed around in tai chi push hands, many changes are required. In making these changes, and learning these hard won lessons, it can affect how you approach the rest of your life.
I’ve talked about change in other blogs on my site before but it is always worth another look. If failing and frustration stimulate a desire to change, HOW do we change in the first place?
To my thinking, two elements are required. The first is to look closely at what is going on. Awareness. Examine where your actions lead. Or ask, as Dr. Phil does, “How’s it working for you?”
A colleague at work told me that he was frustrated with another worker and he had told her she was “rude.” He asked me if telling her that she was “rude” was wrong. He wasn’t really looking for advice on his interaction; he was looking for reassurance that he was right. He truly felt it was a legitimate statement.
I agreed with him that his impression and his statement were accurate, but that is not the point. To label a co-worker “rude” doesn’t move a business conversation towards resolving the work being discussed. He basically changed the focus and redirected the conversation towards their (lack of) interpersonal skills. Work is now off the table, and how she treats him is what they will be discussing. Even worse, he has veered off facts and put forth his judgment. In tai chi terms, this is a push using force. (And tai chi-ers don’t use force!)
I suggested that it wasn’t a good move and that it was better to bypass the rudeness and stick to the facts that will move work forward. Ignore the attitude – it is mostly fluff anyway.
He could not accept my suggestion. He felt entitled to his self-expression (we always are!). Yet, to me, calling a co-worker “rude” is like adding gasoline to a fire. With this fire you can now roast marshmallows, break into a sweat, inhale smoke, watch the fireworks or heat the room, but not resolve any work related issues.
[I interact with Miss Rude as well. I always focus on her words and address what the facts are. Instead of being aggravated by her stance, I find her amusing and comical. I even admire her spunk. Big picture here – most likely she is not going to change and like all comic characters in TV sitcom, she does as they do (always the same thing show after show.) If the situation gets worse, I’ll take it to my supervisor.]
I think my tai chi buddies would agree. For my work buddy to change, he’d have to take a bigger view of the situation. He’d have to look closely at his conversation with his co-worker instead of assuming his approach is legitimate. But habits win the day if you are not willing to closely examine what you are doing and the results from your actions. Alas, all we know is habit, which we are condemned to repeat and repeat and repeat….
What is the lesson we need to learn? Choose your habits wisely, and drop them when they get in the way. The implicit challenge here is that we have a hard time making the distinction between a helpful habit and a poor habit. The nature of the habitual is that we don’t examine this.
The second element is being willing to fail. Yes, it’s not a happy prospect, but how do you find the right pathway without trying a few options that do not rely on the habitual? It takes some experimenting and a high tolerance for failure. (Ours is a funny society. We are encouraged to take risk, but we are often punished if the risk doesn’t work out!)
In our efforts to change, a good mentor or teacher is a huge advantage and may speed the process along. But even that is not a guarantee. (Because now you need two more tai chi qualities: trust and listening!)
Happiness? It’s an art. Just like living and tai chi.
(1) http://virtualbumperstickers.blogspot.com/2007/06/good-judgment-comes-from-experience.html: The Beggar King and the Secret of Happiness by Joel Ben Izzy, Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill, 2003.
I was recently introduced to a delightful phrase, famous I’m told, from one of my wisest (and wisdom seeking) friends.
From the web(1):
§
The Secret of Happiness:
Nasrudin is known as much for his wisdom as his foolishness, and many are those who have sought out his teaching. One devotee tracked him down for many years before finding him in the marketplace sitting atop a pile of banana peels--no one knows why.
"Oh great sage, Nasrudin," said the eager student. "I must ask you a very important question, the answer to which we all seek: What is the secret to attaining happiness?"
Nasrudin thought for a time, then responded. "The secret of happiness is good judgment."
"Ah," said the student. "But how do we attain good judgment?"
"From experience," answered Nasrudin.
"Yes," said the student. "But how do we attain experience?"
"Bad judgment."
The earliest credible source I can find is the great Sufi sage/fool Mulla Nasrudin, born circa 1208.
§
Why do I bring this up in the context of a tai chi blog?
I think advanced tai chi leads to good judgment. Learning tai chi brings the student face to face with failure much of the time. And failure can be linked to bad judgment, though while learning tai chi poor judgment is more or less linked to ignorance and poor habits, both of which lead to bad judgment. We do what we do. But when we get pushed around in tai chi push hands, many changes are required. In making these changes, and learning these hard won lessons, it can affect how you approach the rest of your life.
I’ve talked about change in other blogs on my site before but it is always worth another look. If failing and frustration stimulate a desire to change, HOW do we change in the first place?
To my thinking, two elements are required. The first is to look closely at what is going on. Awareness. Examine where your actions lead. Or ask, as Dr. Phil does, “How’s it working for you?”
A colleague at work told me that he was frustrated with another worker and he had told her she was “rude.” He asked me if telling her that she was “rude” was wrong. He wasn’t really looking for advice on his interaction; he was looking for reassurance that he was right. He truly felt it was a legitimate statement.
I agreed with him that his impression and his statement were accurate, but that is not the point. To label a co-worker “rude” doesn’t move a business conversation towards resolving the work being discussed. He basically changed the focus and redirected the conversation towards their (lack of) interpersonal skills. Work is now off the table, and how she treats him is what they will be discussing. Even worse, he has veered off facts and put forth his judgment. In tai chi terms, this is a push using force. (And tai chi-ers don’t use force!)
I suggested that it wasn’t a good move and that it was better to bypass the rudeness and stick to the facts that will move work forward. Ignore the attitude – it is mostly fluff anyway.
He could not accept my suggestion. He felt entitled to his self-expression (we always are!). Yet, to me, calling a co-worker “rude” is like adding gasoline to a fire. With this fire you can now roast marshmallows, break into a sweat, inhale smoke, watch the fireworks or heat the room, but not resolve any work related issues.
[I interact with Miss Rude as well. I always focus on her words and address what the facts are. Instead of being aggravated by her stance, I find her amusing and comical. I even admire her spunk. Big picture here – most likely she is not going to change and like all comic characters in TV sitcom, she does as they do (always the same thing show after show.) If the situation gets worse, I’ll take it to my supervisor.]
I think my tai chi buddies would agree. For my work buddy to change, he’d have to take a bigger view of the situation. He’d have to look closely at his conversation with his co-worker instead of assuming his approach is legitimate. But habits win the day if you are not willing to closely examine what you are doing and the results from your actions. Alas, all we know is habit, which we are condemned to repeat and repeat and repeat….
What is the lesson we need to learn? Choose your habits wisely, and drop them when they get in the way. The implicit challenge here is that we have a hard time making the distinction between a helpful habit and a poor habit. The nature of the habitual is that we don’t examine this.
The second element is being willing to fail. Yes, it’s not a happy prospect, but how do you find the right pathway without trying a few options that do not rely on the habitual? It takes some experimenting and a high tolerance for failure. (Ours is a funny society. We are encouraged to take risk, but we are often punished if the risk doesn’t work out!)
In our efforts to change, a good mentor or teacher is a huge advantage and may speed the process along. But even that is not a guarantee. (Because now you need two more tai chi qualities: trust and listening!)
Happiness? It’s an art. Just like living and tai chi.
(1) http://virtualbumperstickers.blogspot.com/2007/06/good-judgment-comes-from-experience.html: The Beggar King and the Secret of Happiness by Joel Ben Izzy, Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill, 2003.
Sunday, October 2, 2011
Tai Chi Chuan - The Push NOT! Part II
Tai Chi Chuan – The Push NOT!
Part II
An illusion happens once all three are sequenced correctly. It is not enough to be able to do each of these singularly. Tying it all together is yet another skill. All three become one continuous movement. There is a fluid change going on continuously. A push is not some static shove or thrust. It is a dynamic, organic world in motion.
There are two feelings that occur to those who are pushed. The first is that this is inevitable and inescapable. The second is that you don’t “feel” the pusher.
I actually think you do feel the pusher, but only after it is too late, once you hit the wall. You can’t “catch” the feeling of the push until you have already been pushed. This creates a sensation of “softness”. The sequence masks your ability to track it from a feeling perspective. If it goes wrong, you feel it.
To the pushee, a good push feels like this: if I get stuck or trapped, the pusher seems to drop out of site for a brief moment and my body is confused. My body thought it was getting a pressure and suddenly it is gone. My body reacts a bit by falling in space and trying to reorient itself, even if for just a micro-second. By this time the pusher has moved her body under (the drop in the hip joint) and forward. As her body does this, her arms stay connected to my body. The pressure between us is being transferred to the partner’s feet. My energy is being put into her feet. By the time I realize that her body is moving forward, I’m hitting the wall.
The sequence, if done well, confuses my expectations and my body can’t register what is really going on. My expectations are turned upside down. My body thinks it should be other than where it is. In essence, I am relating to my stuck place; the pusher is relating to my entire body and to the ground.
§
Is there anything more? Is this it? (Did you notice that in this sequence, you never actually “push”?)
Of course there is more! Lots more! But this is quite enough for the time being.
Frankly, it’s about as much as I can handle!
Part II
An illusion happens once all three are sequenced correctly. It is not enough to be able to do each of these singularly. Tying it all together is yet another skill. All three become one continuous movement. There is a fluid change going on continuously. A push is not some static shove or thrust. It is a dynamic, organic world in motion.
There are two feelings that occur to those who are pushed. The first is that this is inevitable and inescapable. The second is that you don’t “feel” the pusher.
I actually think you do feel the pusher, but only after it is too late, once you hit the wall. You can’t “catch” the feeling of the push until you have already been pushed. This creates a sensation of “softness”. The sequence masks your ability to track it from a feeling perspective. If it goes wrong, you feel it.
To the pushee, a good push feels like this: if I get stuck or trapped, the pusher seems to drop out of site for a brief moment and my body is confused. My body thought it was getting a pressure and suddenly it is gone. My body reacts a bit by falling in space and trying to reorient itself, even if for just a micro-second. By this time the pusher has moved her body under (the drop in the hip joint) and forward. As her body does this, her arms stay connected to my body. The pressure between us is being transferred to the partner’s feet. My energy is being put into her feet. By the time I realize that her body is moving forward, I’m hitting the wall.
The sequence, if done well, confuses my expectations and my body can’t register what is really going on. My expectations are turned upside down. My body thinks it should be other than where it is. In essence, I am relating to my stuck place; the pusher is relating to my entire body and to the ground.
§
Is there anything more? Is this it? (Did you notice that in this sequence, you never actually “push”?)
Of course there is more! Lots more! But this is quite enough for the time being.
Frankly, it’s about as much as I can handle!
Friday, September 30, 2011
Tai Chi Chuan - The Push NOT! Part 1
Tai Chi Chuan – The Push NOT!
Part I
I’ve been having fun with the push in push hands. I may be deluding myself – it has happened before – but I have a really solid feeling for what I think goes into a push. I owe this to many teachers, but the two that come to mind are Lenzie Williams and Wei Ming. Each has a very different approach. Recently Wei Ming has put forth what feels like a diagram for pushing, and as I go through the motions, Lenzie exercises come to mind. Something has been clarified.
Not that I can execute a perfect push and certainly when it comes to the “game” of challenging and being challenged, there are many more elements at play.
§
Three elements that grab my attention today go like this:
1. Once you have discovered your partner is stuck in some way, you lighten your touch and sit down a bit. Let me clarify this tiny moment. The main error here is that in the sitting down, you let your knee move forward. It shouldn’t. It should remain stable and your pelvis will go back slightly. It feels like you are sitting down, but you sit down to the back of the foot. If your knee was to be placed against a hard surface, and you sat down a bit, your pelvis would be forced to go away from the knee. Your knee would not go forward because it can’t.
2. That being accomplished, your partner has been fooled into thinking that you are no longer going towards her. In that “sitting down”, your elbows would elongate just a tiny bit. Your hands lighten at the point of contact with your partner, but they don’t leave the partner. They maintain this as a reference point. This all took place with point number one above. Now your body moves forward and your hands go into your partner’s body. Your body moves your arms forward. Your arms do nothing but let their body melt into your hands. Melt is a good way to feel this because you don’t want your arms to jut out ahead of the body. Your body is doing the pushing, as if there is someone behind you pushing your back forward.
As an experiment, simply be still and let your partner fall into your hands. Your arms don’t move, or bend, and there is a pressure that builds up because you are now holding them up. More accurately, your FEET are holding them up. They are going through your arms into your feet. You have to let your body do the work. Not your arms. Your arms have just enough strength to maintain the proper shape. So whether your partner falls into you, or you press into the partner, from the perspective of the arms, it is exactly the same: minimum use of muscles so that the shape of the arms is stable, but no more. Certainly the goal is NOT to push them. The goal is to move your body forward. Some have a tendency to want to flex at the elbows. But at this point, you don’t flex your elbows!
One of my partners was confused. He was looking to “release” at this point. This usually meant he added some arm strength to move the partner. He didn’t like the pressure that was building up between the two of us. It seemed wrong.
But isolating this small section of the push is not a real push. It is only aimed at feeling the sensation that the arms have when you push. This sensation is one of having the body move forward and not collapsing the arms, nor gripping the arms. Lenzie’s short push exercise focuses on this.
I see a variation like this from Professor Cheng in the films. He finds the place (he is on his front foot.) He then shifts to the back foot and his arms elongate to accommodate this change. He keeps this space and the shape of the arms and moves the body forward, pushing the partner.
In what I am describing, I begin on the front foot and remain there. The coming forward with the body is actually a very small movement. Now the knee moves forward as the body moves forward.
3. I’ve talked about arms, sitting down in the legs and a movement forward. You might have the sense that this is all about the upper body. But as you move forward, that empty buttock and tailbone is relaxing very very deeply to the bitter end. That “end” is in the full foot. So as the buttocks and tailbone relax relax relax relax into the front foot, the body moves forward. This is the engine that drives the final section of the push, the forward movement of the body. The direction of the hands is slightly upward to balance the downward of the backside.
§
These are three basic mechanical aspects. Words here are very confusing, but give it a try.
Each part has its own sensation and its own function.
Continue, Part II
Part I
I’ve been having fun with the push in push hands. I may be deluding myself – it has happened before – but I have a really solid feeling for what I think goes into a push. I owe this to many teachers, but the two that come to mind are Lenzie Williams and Wei Ming. Each has a very different approach. Recently Wei Ming has put forth what feels like a diagram for pushing, and as I go through the motions, Lenzie exercises come to mind. Something has been clarified.
Not that I can execute a perfect push and certainly when it comes to the “game” of challenging and being challenged, there are many more elements at play.
§
Three elements that grab my attention today go like this:
1. Once you have discovered your partner is stuck in some way, you lighten your touch and sit down a bit. Let me clarify this tiny moment. The main error here is that in the sitting down, you let your knee move forward. It shouldn’t. It should remain stable and your pelvis will go back slightly. It feels like you are sitting down, but you sit down to the back of the foot. If your knee was to be placed against a hard surface, and you sat down a bit, your pelvis would be forced to go away from the knee. Your knee would not go forward because it can’t.
2. That being accomplished, your partner has been fooled into thinking that you are no longer going towards her. In that “sitting down”, your elbows would elongate just a tiny bit. Your hands lighten at the point of contact with your partner, but they don’t leave the partner. They maintain this as a reference point. This all took place with point number one above. Now your body moves forward and your hands go into your partner’s body. Your body moves your arms forward. Your arms do nothing but let their body melt into your hands. Melt is a good way to feel this because you don’t want your arms to jut out ahead of the body. Your body is doing the pushing, as if there is someone behind you pushing your back forward.
As an experiment, simply be still and let your partner fall into your hands. Your arms don’t move, or bend, and there is a pressure that builds up because you are now holding them up. More accurately, your FEET are holding them up. They are going through your arms into your feet. You have to let your body do the work. Not your arms. Your arms have just enough strength to maintain the proper shape. So whether your partner falls into you, or you press into the partner, from the perspective of the arms, it is exactly the same: minimum use of muscles so that the shape of the arms is stable, but no more. Certainly the goal is NOT to push them. The goal is to move your body forward. Some have a tendency to want to flex at the elbows. But at this point, you don’t flex your elbows!
One of my partners was confused. He was looking to “release” at this point. This usually meant he added some arm strength to move the partner. He didn’t like the pressure that was building up between the two of us. It seemed wrong.
But isolating this small section of the push is not a real push. It is only aimed at feeling the sensation that the arms have when you push. This sensation is one of having the body move forward and not collapsing the arms, nor gripping the arms. Lenzie’s short push exercise focuses on this.
I see a variation like this from Professor Cheng in the films. He finds the place (he is on his front foot.) He then shifts to the back foot and his arms elongate to accommodate this change. He keeps this space and the shape of the arms and moves the body forward, pushing the partner.
In what I am describing, I begin on the front foot and remain there. The coming forward with the body is actually a very small movement. Now the knee moves forward as the body moves forward.
3. I’ve talked about arms, sitting down in the legs and a movement forward. You might have the sense that this is all about the upper body. But as you move forward, that empty buttock and tailbone is relaxing very very deeply to the bitter end. That “end” is in the full foot. So as the buttocks and tailbone relax relax relax relax into the front foot, the body moves forward. This is the engine that drives the final section of the push, the forward movement of the body. The direction of the hands is slightly upward to balance the downward of the backside.
§
These are three basic mechanical aspects. Words here are very confusing, but give it a try.
Each part has its own sensation and its own function.
Continue, Part II
Tuesday, August 9, 2011
Living With Mistakes - New York Times article by David Brooks
This article reinforces a statement I’ve made previously. Learning from failure is an excellent way to really learn tai chi. So acceptance of failure is something that we need to embrace in order to learn. Apparently, this is true in life as well. Tom
June 13, 2011, 12:01 pm
New York Times
by David Brooks
Living With Mistakes
Some of the blogs I follow have given ample attention to Tim Harford’s new book, “Adapt: Why Success Always Starts with Failure.” So I solipsistically assumed that everybody must be aware of it. But then I happened to glance at this book’s Amazon ranking, which as I write is down on the wrong side of 1,500. This is an outrage, people! For the good of the world, a bigger slice of humanity should be aware of its contents.
So I’m doing my bit to publicize it. (I don’t know Harford in any way, shape or form.) Harford starts out with the premise that the world is a very complicated and difficult place. At the dawn of the automobile industry roughly 2,000 car companies sprang into being. Less than 1 percent of them survived. Even if you make it to the top, it is very hard to stay there. The historian Leslie Hannah identified the ten largest American companies in 1912. None of those companies ranked in the top 100 companies by 1990.
Harford’s basic lesson is you have to design your life to make effective use of failures. You have to design systems of trial and error, or to use a natural word, evolution. Most successful enterprises are built through a process of groping and adaptation, not planning.
The Russian thinker Peter Palchinsky understood the basic structure of smart change. First seek out new ideas and new things. Next, try new things on a scale small enough so that their failure is survivable. Then find a feedback mechanism so you can tell which new thing is failing and which is succeeding.
That’s the model—variation, survivability, selection.
Harford then illustrates how this basic process can work across a variety of contexts, from business to war to poetry. He’s an able guide to the world of human fallibility. For example, he cites James Reason who identifies three kinds of error.
First, there are slips. In 2005 a young Japanese trader meant to sell one share of stock at 600,000 yen but accidentally sold 600,000 shares at 1 yen.
Then there are violations, when someone intentionally breaks the rules. This is what Bernie Madoff did.
Then there are mistakes—things you do on purpose but with unintentional consequences.
Errors can be very hard for outsiders to detect. A study by Alexander Dyck, Adair Morse and Luigi Zingales looked at 216 allegations of corporate fraud. Regulators and auditors uncovered the fraud in only one out of six of those cases. It was people inside the companies who were most likely to report fraud, because they have local knowledge. And yet 80 percent of these whistleblowers regret having reported the crimes because of the negative consequences they suffered. This is not the way to treat people who detect error.
Harford is an economic journalist, so he doesn’t get into the psychological and spiritual traits you need to live with error and look it in the face, but he offers a very useful guide for people preparing to live in the world as it really is.
June 13, 2011, 12:01 pm
New York Times
by David Brooks
Living With Mistakes
Some of the blogs I follow have given ample attention to Tim Harford’s new book, “Adapt: Why Success Always Starts with Failure.” So I solipsistically assumed that everybody must be aware of it. But then I happened to glance at this book’s Amazon ranking, which as I write is down on the wrong side of 1,500. This is an outrage, people! For the good of the world, a bigger slice of humanity should be aware of its contents.
So I’m doing my bit to publicize it. (I don’t know Harford in any way, shape or form.) Harford starts out with the premise that the world is a very complicated and difficult place. At the dawn of the automobile industry roughly 2,000 car companies sprang into being. Less than 1 percent of them survived. Even if you make it to the top, it is very hard to stay there. The historian Leslie Hannah identified the ten largest American companies in 1912. None of those companies ranked in the top 100 companies by 1990.
Harford’s basic lesson is you have to design your life to make effective use of failures. You have to design systems of trial and error, or to use a natural word, evolution. Most successful enterprises are built through a process of groping and adaptation, not planning.
The Russian thinker Peter Palchinsky understood the basic structure of smart change. First seek out new ideas and new things. Next, try new things on a scale small enough so that their failure is survivable. Then find a feedback mechanism so you can tell which new thing is failing and which is succeeding.
That’s the model—variation, survivability, selection.
Harford then illustrates how this basic process can work across a variety of contexts, from business to war to poetry. He’s an able guide to the world of human fallibility. For example, he cites James Reason who identifies three kinds of error.
First, there are slips. In 2005 a young Japanese trader meant to sell one share of stock at 600,000 yen but accidentally sold 600,000 shares at 1 yen.
Then there are violations, when someone intentionally breaks the rules. This is what Bernie Madoff did.
Then there are mistakes—things you do on purpose but with unintentional consequences.
Errors can be very hard for outsiders to detect. A study by Alexander Dyck, Adair Morse and Luigi Zingales looked at 216 allegations of corporate fraud. Regulators and auditors uncovered the fraud in only one out of six of those cases. It was people inside the companies who were most likely to report fraud, because they have local knowledge. And yet 80 percent of these whistleblowers regret having reported the crimes because of the negative consequences they suffered. This is not the way to treat people who detect error.
Harford is an economic journalist, so he doesn’t get into the psychological and spiritual traits you need to live with error and look it in the face, but he offers a very useful guide for people preparing to live in the world as it really is.
Tuesday, August 2, 2011
Tai Chi Chuan - It Ain't Lady Gaga, That's For Sure!
Tai Chi Chuan – It Ain’t Lady Gaga, That’s For Sure!
I’m always alarmed at the cultural tendency in Western Society towards honoring and celebrating Individualism. It seems to me that Individualism ends up with Lady Gaga, who is shoveling it in to the bank in truck loads. I haven’t been all that impressed with her music. Her main “success” is clever outrageous costumes of one sort or other. It is a talent, if only for the tireless effort to keep up the momentum. (Queen Elizabeth I did the same thing I’m told.) Are we not tired of this self promotion?
Our love of celebrity, our cheering of high level performers, the awe at those 400 super rich Americans who have the wealth of all of the lowest 150 million Americans combined, the applauding of making it to top and the approval of aggressive ANYTHING that results in “success” does not add up to much in my book. (Aggression is the new good in our desperate economically challenged society. It is highly regarded and often rewarded without regard to collateral damage.)
The trickledown theory shows up in body piercing and tattoos and body building. A way for the “common man” to differentiate himself. We have a cultural disdain for “bureaucrats.” We will do just about anything to make ourselves seen as somehow different or special or unique. To be separate. Our sense of differentiation and judgment become more and more developed.
In tai chi, we are not concerned with such fluff. We are cutting away the excess and finding the common denominator within our bodies and with each other. Less is more, and being “empty” creates integrated movement and action. Being like others in a group, moving with them and not standing out per se, is what you aim for in tai chi.
Yes, hard work, real talent, excellence, determined effort – all to the good. We love to see our human potential manifested before our eyes. It can be thrilling.
I’m not suggesting that you eliminate or diminish your individuality or that you need to hide yourself under a burka or have no personality. Tai chi is not an act of suppression. It is an act of realization of where we connect to others.
Becoming one block of chi with others is intrinsically satisfying and ultimately more meaningful. Allowing your body to unify and move as one block of chi is intrinsically satisfying and ultimately more meaningful.
To separate from yourself or the group creates disharmony. Lady Gaga might feel out of place in the tai chi world.
Unless she gave up her act.
I’m always alarmed at the cultural tendency in Western Society towards honoring and celebrating Individualism. It seems to me that Individualism ends up with Lady Gaga, who is shoveling it in to the bank in truck loads. I haven’t been all that impressed with her music. Her main “success” is clever outrageous costumes of one sort or other. It is a talent, if only for the tireless effort to keep up the momentum. (Queen Elizabeth I did the same thing I’m told.) Are we not tired of this self promotion?
Our love of celebrity, our cheering of high level performers, the awe at those 400 super rich Americans who have the wealth of all of the lowest 150 million Americans combined, the applauding of making it to top and the approval of aggressive ANYTHING that results in “success” does not add up to much in my book. (Aggression is the new good in our desperate economically challenged society. It is highly regarded and often rewarded without regard to collateral damage.)
The trickledown theory shows up in body piercing and tattoos and body building. A way for the “common man” to differentiate himself. We have a cultural disdain for “bureaucrats.” We will do just about anything to make ourselves seen as somehow different or special or unique. To be separate. Our sense of differentiation and judgment become more and more developed.
In tai chi, we are not concerned with such fluff. We are cutting away the excess and finding the common denominator within our bodies and with each other. Less is more, and being “empty” creates integrated movement and action. Being like others in a group, moving with them and not standing out per se, is what you aim for in tai chi.
Yes, hard work, real talent, excellence, determined effort – all to the good. We love to see our human potential manifested before our eyes. It can be thrilling.
I’m not suggesting that you eliminate or diminish your individuality or that you need to hide yourself under a burka or have no personality. Tai chi is not an act of suppression. It is an act of realization of where we connect to others.
Becoming one block of chi with others is intrinsically satisfying and ultimately more meaningful. Allowing your body to unify and move as one block of chi is intrinsically satisfying and ultimately more meaningful.
To separate from yourself or the group creates disharmony. Lady Gaga might feel out of place in the tai chi world.
Unless she gave up her act.
Wednesday, July 27, 2011
Tai Chi Chuan – A TCC State of Mind
Tai Chi Chuan – A TCC State of Mind
Push hands is a very revealing experience. We tend to fall into several traps and I suspect these are the same traps that we encounter in life.
Trap one: They are doing this wrong! Here we criticize what the other is doing without taking a good hard look at what we are doing.
Trap two: I’m here to help you. Thus, we give our sage advice at every turn. Sages abound in tai chi because it feels so good to think what we have to offer is so right, so correct, so good. (This is MY favorite trap!)
Trap three: I am helpless and can’t do a thing. That may be true, but to engage in push hands from that angle usually leads to trap one and two down the road.
Trap four: That’s good that’s good that’s good. Here we flatter our partner and compliment them, even if you are being so cooperative that a bum on the street would be just as skilled. Here we are silently being superior. After all, we are the judge of what is good. So we must know.
Trap five: Finding the tiniest of the tiny flaw in your partner. I am a microscope. I will find SOMETHING to criticize regardless of the good things that the partner may be executing.
There must be others. I wonder if my ultimate trap is simply something I don’t want to see or acknowledge. Hard to say. I know I really want to be on top of this thing we call push hands. But let’s face it, push hands is VAST.
Given these tendencies, how can we engage in practice that avoids these traps?
For one, notice your tendency and try to stop it. Good luck! (Why do you think they call it a “trap”?)
Two, give your partner 5 minutes of free zone time to just try things. Here you are not allowed to coach, criticize, comment, judge. Here you don’t have an opinion. They need time to simply feel things. You need time to simply feel things.
If your partner gives you some free zone time, you might be taking a good close look at what is going on without the judgment. See what you feel is good about what you did. See where you think you need to develop in what you just did.
Then share with your partner your own observations. Give a few more tries and see if they concur with your observation.
What I’m advocating here is that we sometimes practice with each other as witnesses to the process, not so much as critics (towards them or towards yourself) or coaches.
I can’t tell you how many times I’m trying to do something different and before I’ve gone halfway with my experiment my partner has a comment to make. I needed 10 tries, but he/she comments halfway into my first attempt.
The other experience I have is when I’m trying to explain something I think may be true, but I know I can’t do it yet. I’m experimenting or even demonstrating, knowing that before I do it, I won’t truly succeed. Here the partner quickly jumps in and tells me that they didn’t see or feel the very thing I just noted that I can’t really do. It seems ridiculous to me, but this is what happens. Even more amusing is that though THEY can’t do this either, they have an alternate plan to discuss.
I would advocate giving each other some time to fail with impunity. That’s where we mostly begin anyway. Let the critic take a break. Let the witness enjoy.
Push hands is far too messy a process to be saddled with perfection. You have to start with where you are, with simple ideas, with a simple practice. At some point you can take out the microscope and begin to untangle knots. Yes, your partner’s observations here will be extremely helpful, crucial in fact.
But we need to take care to note that we are also always beginners at some level, and we all need time to just experiment. The next phase is always just beyond our grasp, and yet grasping for it will defeat you. Not trying also goes nowhere. Letting play happen is extremely important. Do kids at play criticize each other relentlessly?
“Have no fear of perfection, you'll never reach it.” Salvador Dali
Or to alter that a bit, if you don’t find perfection, know it doesn’t exist. Have fun with the journey. You will never be perfect. Your partner will never be perfect.
Actor Dustin Hoffman once stated that we are all deeply flawed. I tend to agree. Like death, we really don’t want to go there. Yet here we are looking for perfection, either in ourselves or others. What to do?
Let your partner (and you) experiment. Free imperfect exploration. If they want feedback, you might (or you might not) give it to them. Practice the free zone practice. You may even find relief within the play!
Push hands is a very revealing experience. We tend to fall into several traps and I suspect these are the same traps that we encounter in life.
Trap one: They are doing this wrong! Here we criticize what the other is doing without taking a good hard look at what we are doing.
Trap two: I’m here to help you. Thus, we give our sage advice at every turn. Sages abound in tai chi because it feels so good to think what we have to offer is so right, so correct, so good. (This is MY favorite trap!)
Trap three: I am helpless and can’t do a thing. That may be true, but to engage in push hands from that angle usually leads to trap one and two down the road.
Trap four: That’s good that’s good that’s good. Here we flatter our partner and compliment them, even if you are being so cooperative that a bum on the street would be just as skilled. Here we are silently being superior. After all, we are the judge of what is good. So we must know.
Trap five: Finding the tiniest of the tiny flaw in your partner. I am a microscope. I will find SOMETHING to criticize regardless of the good things that the partner may be executing.
There must be others. I wonder if my ultimate trap is simply something I don’t want to see or acknowledge. Hard to say. I know I really want to be on top of this thing we call push hands. But let’s face it, push hands is VAST.
Given these tendencies, how can we engage in practice that avoids these traps?
For one, notice your tendency and try to stop it. Good luck! (Why do you think they call it a “trap”?)
Two, give your partner 5 minutes of free zone time to just try things. Here you are not allowed to coach, criticize, comment, judge. Here you don’t have an opinion. They need time to simply feel things. You need time to simply feel things.
If your partner gives you some free zone time, you might be taking a good close look at what is going on without the judgment. See what you feel is good about what you did. See where you think you need to develop in what you just did.
Then share with your partner your own observations. Give a few more tries and see if they concur with your observation.
What I’m advocating here is that we sometimes practice with each other as witnesses to the process, not so much as critics (towards them or towards yourself) or coaches.
I can’t tell you how many times I’m trying to do something different and before I’ve gone halfway with my experiment my partner has a comment to make. I needed 10 tries, but he/she comments halfway into my first attempt.
The other experience I have is when I’m trying to explain something I think may be true, but I know I can’t do it yet. I’m experimenting or even demonstrating, knowing that before I do it, I won’t truly succeed. Here the partner quickly jumps in and tells me that they didn’t see or feel the very thing I just noted that I can’t really do. It seems ridiculous to me, but this is what happens. Even more amusing is that though THEY can’t do this either, they have an alternate plan to discuss.
I would advocate giving each other some time to fail with impunity. That’s where we mostly begin anyway. Let the critic take a break. Let the witness enjoy.
Push hands is far too messy a process to be saddled with perfection. You have to start with where you are, with simple ideas, with a simple practice. At some point you can take out the microscope and begin to untangle knots. Yes, your partner’s observations here will be extremely helpful, crucial in fact.
But we need to take care to note that we are also always beginners at some level, and we all need time to just experiment. The next phase is always just beyond our grasp, and yet grasping for it will defeat you. Not trying also goes nowhere. Letting play happen is extremely important. Do kids at play criticize each other relentlessly?
“Have no fear of perfection, you'll never reach it.” Salvador Dali
Or to alter that a bit, if you don’t find perfection, know it doesn’t exist. Have fun with the journey. You will never be perfect. Your partner will never be perfect.
Actor Dustin Hoffman once stated that we are all deeply flawed. I tend to agree. Like death, we really don’t want to go there. Yet here we are looking for perfection, either in ourselves or others. What to do?
Let your partner (and you) experiment. Free imperfect exploration. If they want feedback, you might (or you might not) give it to them. Practice the free zone practice. You may even find relief within the play!
Exercise and Brain Fitness-New York Times article
JULY 27, 2011, 12:01 AM
NEW YORK TIMES
How Exercise Can Keep the Brain Fit
By GRETCHEN REYNOLDS
For those of us hoping to keep our brains fit and healthy well into middle age and beyond, the latest science offers some reassurance. Activity appears to be critical, though scientists have yet to prove that exercise can ward off serious problems like Alzheimer’s disease. But what about the more mundane, creeping memory loss that begins about the time our 30s recede, when car keys and people’s names evaporate? It’s not Alzheimer’s, but it’s worrying. Can activity ameliorate its slow advance — and maintain vocabulary retrieval skills, so that the word “ameliorate” leaps to mind when needed?
Obligingly, a number of important new studies have just been published that address those very questions. In perhaps the most encouraging of these, Canadian researchers measured the energy expenditure and cognitive functioning of a large group of elderly adults over the course of two to five years. Most of the volunteers did not exercise, per se, and almost none worked out vigorously. Their activities generally consisted of “walking around the block, cooking, gardening, cleaning and that sort of thing,” said Laura Middleton, an associate professor at the University of Waterloo in Ontario and lead author of the study, which was published last week in Archives of Internal Medicine.
But even so, the effects of this modest activity on the brain were remarkable, Dr. Middleton said. While the wholly sedentary volunteers, and there were many of these, scored significantly worse over the years on tests of cognitive function, the most active group showed little decline. About 90 percent of those with the greatest daily energy expenditure could think and remember just about as well, year after year.
“Our results indicate that vigorous exercise isn’t necessary” to protect your mind, Dr. Middleton said. “I think that’s exciting. It might inspire people who would be intimidated about the idea of quote-unquote exercising to just get up and move.”
The same message emerged from another study published last week in the same journal. In it, women, most in their 70s, with vascular disease or multiple risk factors for developing that condition completed cognitive tests and surveys of their activities over a period of five years. Again, they were not spry. There were no marathon runners among them. The most active walked. But there was “a decreasing rate of cognitive decline” among the active group, the authors wrote. Their ability to remember and think did still diminish, but not as rapidly as among the sedentary.
“If an inactive 70-year-old is heading toward dementia at 50 miles per hour, by the time she’s 75 or 76, she’s speeding there at 75 miles per hour,” said Jae H. Kang, an assistant professor of medicine at Brigham and Women’s Hospital at Harvard Medical School and senior author of the study. “But the active 76-year-olds in our study moved toward dementia at more like 50 miles per hour.” Walking and other light activity had bought them, essentially, five years of better brainpower.
“If we can push out the onset of dementia by 5, 10 or more years, that changes the dynamics of aging,” said Dr. Eric Larson, the vice president of research at Group Health Research Institute in Seattle and author of an editorial accompanying the two studies.
“None of us wants to lose our minds,” he said. So the growing body of science linking activity and improved mental functioning “is a wake-up call. We have to find ways to get everybody moving.”
Which makes one additional new study about exercise and the brain, published this month in Neurobiology of Aging, particularly appealing. For those among us, and they are many, who can’t get excited about going for walks or brisk gardening, scientists from the Aging, Mobility and Cognitive Neuroscience Laboratory at the University of British Columbia and other institutions have shown, for the first time, that light-duty weight training changes how well older women think and how blood flows within their brains. After 12 months of lifting weights twice a week, the women performed significantly better on tests of mental processing ability than a control group of women who completed a balance and toning program, while functional M.R.I. scans showed that portions of the brain that control such thinking were considerably more active in the weight trainers.
“We’re not trying to show that lifting weights is better than aerobic-style activity” for staving off cognitive decline, said Teresa Liu-Ambrose, an assistant professor at the university and study leader. “But it does appear to be a viable option, and if people enjoy it, as our participants did, and stick with it,” then more of us might be able, potentially, to ameliorate mental decline well into late life.
NEW YORK TIMES
How Exercise Can Keep the Brain Fit
By GRETCHEN REYNOLDS
For those of us hoping to keep our brains fit and healthy well into middle age and beyond, the latest science offers some reassurance. Activity appears to be critical, though scientists have yet to prove that exercise can ward off serious problems like Alzheimer’s disease. But what about the more mundane, creeping memory loss that begins about the time our 30s recede, when car keys and people’s names evaporate? It’s not Alzheimer’s, but it’s worrying. Can activity ameliorate its slow advance — and maintain vocabulary retrieval skills, so that the word “ameliorate” leaps to mind when needed?
Obligingly, a number of important new studies have just been published that address those very questions. In perhaps the most encouraging of these, Canadian researchers measured the energy expenditure and cognitive functioning of a large group of elderly adults over the course of two to five years. Most of the volunteers did not exercise, per se, and almost none worked out vigorously. Their activities generally consisted of “walking around the block, cooking, gardening, cleaning and that sort of thing,” said Laura Middleton, an associate professor at the University of Waterloo in Ontario and lead author of the study, which was published last week in Archives of Internal Medicine.
But even so, the effects of this modest activity on the brain were remarkable, Dr. Middleton said. While the wholly sedentary volunteers, and there were many of these, scored significantly worse over the years on tests of cognitive function, the most active group showed little decline. About 90 percent of those with the greatest daily energy expenditure could think and remember just about as well, year after year.
“Our results indicate that vigorous exercise isn’t necessary” to protect your mind, Dr. Middleton said. “I think that’s exciting. It might inspire people who would be intimidated about the idea of quote-unquote exercising to just get up and move.”
The same message emerged from another study published last week in the same journal. In it, women, most in their 70s, with vascular disease or multiple risk factors for developing that condition completed cognitive tests and surveys of their activities over a period of five years. Again, they were not spry. There were no marathon runners among them. The most active walked. But there was “a decreasing rate of cognitive decline” among the active group, the authors wrote. Their ability to remember and think did still diminish, but not as rapidly as among the sedentary.
“If an inactive 70-year-old is heading toward dementia at 50 miles per hour, by the time she’s 75 or 76, she’s speeding there at 75 miles per hour,” said Jae H. Kang, an assistant professor of medicine at Brigham and Women’s Hospital at Harvard Medical School and senior author of the study. “But the active 76-year-olds in our study moved toward dementia at more like 50 miles per hour.” Walking and other light activity had bought them, essentially, five years of better brainpower.
“If we can push out the onset of dementia by 5, 10 or more years, that changes the dynamics of aging,” said Dr. Eric Larson, the vice president of research at Group Health Research Institute in Seattle and author of an editorial accompanying the two studies.
“None of us wants to lose our minds,” he said. So the growing body of science linking activity and improved mental functioning “is a wake-up call. We have to find ways to get everybody moving.”
Which makes one additional new study about exercise and the brain, published this month in Neurobiology of Aging, particularly appealing. For those among us, and they are many, who can’t get excited about going for walks or brisk gardening, scientists from the Aging, Mobility and Cognitive Neuroscience Laboratory at the University of British Columbia and other institutions have shown, for the first time, that light-duty weight training changes how well older women think and how blood flows within their brains. After 12 months of lifting weights twice a week, the women performed significantly better on tests of mental processing ability than a control group of women who completed a balance and toning program, while functional M.R.I. scans showed that portions of the brain that control such thinking were considerably more active in the weight trainers.
“We’re not trying to show that lifting weights is better than aerobic-style activity” for staving off cognitive decline, said Teresa Liu-Ambrose, an assistant professor at the university and study leader. “But it does appear to be a viable option, and if people enjoy it, as our participants did, and stick with it,” then more of us might be able, potentially, to ameliorate mental decline well into late life.
Saturday, July 9, 2011
Tai Chi Chuan - Study Demonstrates Mood Enhancement with Heart Failure Patients
Tai Chi Improves Moods of Heart Failure Patients
By FYI Health Writer on Jun 13, 2011
Summary
Evidence indicates that exercise involving meditation may have some benefits for patients who suffer from heart conditions such as heart failure. This hypothesis has, however, not been proved in clinical studies. This study was conducted to see if an exercise form such as tai chi, along with supportive regular therapy, helps for a prolonged duration patients with heart failure. Results showed that, although there was no reversal of the disease process, there was an improvement in the patients’ perception regarding their quality of life, exercise capacity, and general mood.
Introduction
Earlier it was believed that patients suffering from heart failure should not be permitted physical exercise. This belief persisted through the 1980s before new studies showed that regular moderate exercise can benefit patients with heart failure. Exercise modifies their disease, improves their quality of life and alleviates mental ailments like depression. Recent studies have shown that meditation-related physical exercises may help heart failure patients to a large extent. Tai chi, an ancient oriental exercise form, involves meditation as well as gentle balancing body movements and breathing techniques. Studies have shown that tai chi may help lower blood pressure and improve balance, mood, muscle diseases and exercise capacity. This study evaluated the effectiveness of tai chi in heart failure patients.
Methodology
For this study, 100 heart failure patients with an average age of 67 years from different centers were chosen and involved in the study between 1st May 2005 and 30th September 2008.
Half of the participants (50) were included in a 12-week tai chi program involving one-hour group classes. The other half was given educational material regarding good health and exercise practices for the same duration. All patients also received standard heart failure care.
At the beginning and end of the training, all participants were assessed for how much exercise they could undertake (a measure of the heart health) and also how they perceived health, quality of life, mood etc.
Tests were done on participants’ blood samples, for measurement of catecholamines and inflammation factors. Another questionnaire asked about medications taken, and healthcare visits, accidents, falls and symptoms of illness.
Key findings
Results showed that at the end of the study there was no marked difference in capacity of exercise in the two patient groups
.
However, those in the tai chi group reported a better perceived quality of life at the end of the study.
Patients in the tai chi group reported that perceived efficacy of the exercise was high and they had improved mood after the tai chi program.
Next steps/shortcomings
Authors write that patients in the education program group were aware that the other group was receiving tai chi classes and this could have affected their reports on quality of life at end of the study. However, researchers had tried to reduce this problem by promising those in the control group tai chi training at the end of the study. They also agree that the study sample was small. A larger sample could define the benefits of tai chi further. Also, the authors admit uncertainty regarding the mechanism by which tai chi benefits heart failure patients.
Conclusion
This study concludes that tai chi – a meditative form of physical exercise – is acceptable and effective in the improvement of daily quality of living, mood, and exercise efficacy in frail patients with heart failure. However, tai chi does not appear to change the disease process significantly. Further studies are needed to see how these findings can be applied to the general population in terms of effectiveness, cost, and feasibility. Further research is also necessary to see exactly how tai chi and its components of meditation, deep breathing, balance and aerobic exercises aid in benefiting patients with heart failure. This attempt would guide caregivers in improving the quality of life and mental health of heart failure patients.
By FYI Health Writer on Jun 13, 2011
Summary
Evidence indicates that exercise involving meditation may have some benefits for patients who suffer from heart conditions such as heart failure. This hypothesis has, however, not been proved in clinical studies. This study was conducted to see if an exercise form such as tai chi, along with supportive regular therapy, helps for a prolonged duration patients with heart failure. Results showed that, although there was no reversal of the disease process, there was an improvement in the patients’ perception regarding their quality of life, exercise capacity, and general mood.
Introduction
Earlier it was believed that patients suffering from heart failure should not be permitted physical exercise. This belief persisted through the 1980s before new studies showed that regular moderate exercise can benefit patients with heart failure. Exercise modifies their disease, improves their quality of life and alleviates mental ailments like depression. Recent studies have shown that meditation-related physical exercises may help heart failure patients to a large extent. Tai chi, an ancient oriental exercise form, involves meditation as well as gentle balancing body movements and breathing techniques. Studies have shown that tai chi may help lower blood pressure and improve balance, mood, muscle diseases and exercise capacity. This study evaluated the effectiveness of tai chi in heart failure patients.
Methodology
For this study, 100 heart failure patients with an average age of 67 years from different centers were chosen and involved in the study between 1st May 2005 and 30th September 2008.
Half of the participants (50) were included in a 12-week tai chi program involving one-hour group classes. The other half was given educational material regarding good health and exercise practices for the same duration. All patients also received standard heart failure care.
At the beginning and end of the training, all participants were assessed for how much exercise they could undertake (a measure of the heart health) and also how they perceived health, quality of life, mood etc.
Tests were done on participants’ blood samples, for measurement of catecholamines and inflammation factors. Another questionnaire asked about medications taken, and healthcare visits, accidents, falls and symptoms of illness.
Key findings
Results showed that at the end of the study there was no marked difference in capacity of exercise in the two patient groups
.
However, those in the tai chi group reported a better perceived quality of life at the end of the study.
Patients in the tai chi group reported that perceived efficacy of the exercise was high and they had improved mood after the tai chi program.
Next steps/shortcomings
Authors write that patients in the education program group were aware that the other group was receiving tai chi classes and this could have affected their reports on quality of life at end of the study. However, researchers had tried to reduce this problem by promising those in the control group tai chi training at the end of the study. They also agree that the study sample was small. A larger sample could define the benefits of tai chi further. Also, the authors admit uncertainty regarding the mechanism by which tai chi benefits heart failure patients.
Conclusion
This study concludes that tai chi – a meditative form of physical exercise – is acceptable and effective in the improvement of daily quality of living, mood, and exercise efficacy in frail patients with heart failure. However, tai chi does not appear to change the disease process significantly. Further studies are needed to see how these findings can be applied to the general population in terms of effectiveness, cost, and feasibility. Further research is also necessary to see exactly how tai chi and its components of meditation, deep breathing, balance and aerobic exercises aid in benefiting patients with heart failure. This attempt would guide caregivers in improving the quality of life and mental health of heart failure patients.
Saturday, July 2, 2011
Tai Chi Chuan - one more time with the chatter already!
Tai Chi Chuan – one more time with the chatter already!
1. Yet AGAIN the same issue came up. Very few get it. It’s truly difficult to get. It’s the lesson that keeps on giving.
“Is it OK for you to grip my wrist?” was his question.
We were practicing push hands. The question might have also been:
“Is it correct form for you to grip my wrist?”
“Should you be gripping my wrist?”
“Isn’t it wrong in push hands for you to grip my wrist?”
His question might have been a hidden statement of: “I thought gripping the wrist is wrong!”
Strictly speaking, it doesn’t matter what your partner does. There is no Wrong, Should, Correct, OK in what your partner does. The focus is on HOW YOU RESPOND to whatever it is that grabs your attention. It’s what YOU do that matters, not what THEY do.
They are free to do anything at any time.
2. Principles vs. Rules. We have principles in push hands and tai chi. We don’t have rules. You can bend a principle. You can’t bend a rule. We strive to get closer to the principle. Rules are there to limit us (and this is not a bad thing, either!)
The reason we don’t have rules is that we want great latitude within the context of the experience of tai chi and push-hands.
And yet in push hands, this distinction gets blurred. We do limit the game in early training and there are rules. These rules are there to create strong boundaries such that the players can learn basics. Later, when you let the rules go, you hope that principles are being practiced and applied to a variety, an infinite variety if you will, of situations.
3. What is the question that is relevant?
It goes like this:
“What can I do when I feel you gripping my wrist?”
Here you can focus on your reaction or action to that grip. This does not control your partner or tell them what to do. Here is a problem for you and you are the solution.
4. Let’s look at that “grip.” For one thing, it may be helpful to look closely at what exactly is being labeled a “grip.” The gripee may have strong ideas about what just went on. The gripper may also have feelings about what just went on. A grip can be many many things. We may not see eye to eye here. This conflict often goes nowhere.
Here is a debatable proposition: I believe that if you are ready for a push hands exchange where the “rules of engagement” are broadened, and a grip occurs, that grip is helpful for the gripee and not helpful for the gripper. I feel this way because the gripper is using (possibly!) strength and is engaged in a doing action, and we want to minimize strength and doing in all exchanges. So the gripper is not getting the most out of his practice.
That stated, the larger picture tells us that this is a choice of the gripper. Since ultimately we can do anything, it is not wrong. He will befuddle many a tai chi player with his gripping. From the outside, often it looks like an effective tool. Getting back to “wrong,” he may be testing the skill of the gripee. He may not yet understand better ways of playing the game. He may not be adding skills to his own game. But WRONG is a useless concept in push hands. It is simply a judgment that leads us down a path to nowhere.
On the other hand, the gripee is given an opportunity to see what she can do with that grip within the context of non-doing and not using strength. Pure gold! How else do we take the principles of tai chi and apply them to a situation that doesn’t suit our comfort zone or skill level? Can relaxation and non-doing serve us when confronted with a player who grips our wrist?
5. So that gripper is getting you annoyed? Again, a good way to keep the game going and not create a rule or make grand claims about Right or Wrong is to speak up and suggest that this level of challenge is beyond your skill level just now. It is perfectly fine to create a practice that allows you to work with a partner and not deal with the ultimate challenges, or challenges that you are not prepared to take.
Another option is to take that moment of doing/force and slow it down such that it is more manageable, so you can see what is going on, to see how you react to that situation, to see what might be a solution. Perhaps you can’t access this at a regular speed, but it may open your eyes to the possibility that the principles can and do work.
[Often I see an exchange that is all or nothing. The gripper has the upper hand, the gripee is lost and confused and sees no way out. The gripper feels like the winner, the gripee is confused OR claims that the gripper is breaking the rules of engagement (verbally attacks the gripper and takes the moral high road.) What do we learn here?]
6. The ultimate confusion – one that I personally look at a great deal – is that THEY do not create YOUR reality. YOU DO! This is extremely hard to see, let alone understand and live by.
The best way to work in push hands is to avoid accusations (direct or implied) or declare a moral code. The best way to work in push hands is to seek out solutions within the context of the principles.
If you have a partner where you can do this, you have a great thing going…
1. Yet AGAIN the same issue came up. Very few get it. It’s truly difficult to get. It’s the lesson that keeps on giving.
“Is it OK for you to grip my wrist?” was his question.
We were practicing push hands. The question might have also been:
“Is it correct form for you to grip my wrist?”
“Should you be gripping my wrist?”
“Isn’t it wrong in push hands for you to grip my wrist?”
His question might have been a hidden statement of: “I thought gripping the wrist is wrong!”
Strictly speaking, it doesn’t matter what your partner does. There is no Wrong, Should, Correct, OK in what your partner does. The focus is on HOW YOU RESPOND to whatever it is that grabs your attention. It’s what YOU do that matters, not what THEY do.
They are free to do anything at any time.
2. Principles vs. Rules. We have principles in push hands and tai chi. We don’t have rules. You can bend a principle. You can’t bend a rule. We strive to get closer to the principle. Rules are there to limit us (and this is not a bad thing, either!)
The reason we don’t have rules is that we want great latitude within the context of the experience of tai chi and push-hands.
And yet in push hands, this distinction gets blurred. We do limit the game in early training and there are rules. These rules are there to create strong boundaries such that the players can learn basics. Later, when you let the rules go, you hope that principles are being practiced and applied to a variety, an infinite variety if you will, of situations.
3. What is the question that is relevant?
It goes like this:
“What can I do when I feel you gripping my wrist?”
Here you can focus on your reaction or action to that grip. This does not control your partner or tell them what to do. Here is a problem for you and you are the solution.
4. Let’s look at that “grip.” For one thing, it may be helpful to look closely at what exactly is being labeled a “grip.” The gripee may have strong ideas about what just went on. The gripper may also have feelings about what just went on. A grip can be many many things. We may not see eye to eye here. This conflict often goes nowhere.
Here is a debatable proposition: I believe that if you are ready for a push hands exchange where the “rules of engagement” are broadened, and a grip occurs, that grip is helpful for the gripee and not helpful for the gripper. I feel this way because the gripper is using (possibly!) strength and is engaged in a doing action, and we want to minimize strength and doing in all exchanges. So the gripper is not getting the most out of his practice.
That stated, the larger picture tells us that this is a choice of the gripper. Since ultimately we can do anything, it is not wrong. He will befuddle many a tai chi player with his gripping. From the outside, often it looks like an effective tool. Getting back to “wrong,” he may be testing the skill of the gripee. He may not yet understand better ways of playing the game. He may not be adding skills to his own game. But WRONG is a useless concept in push hands. It is simply a judgment that leads us down a path to nowhere.
On the other hand, the gripee is given an opportunity to see what she can do with that grip within the context of non-doing and not using strength. Pure gold! How else do we take the principles of tai chi and apply them to a situation that doesn’t suit our comfort zone or skill level? Can relaxation and non-doing serve us when confronted with a player who grips our wrist?
5. So that gripper is getting you annoyed? Again, a good way to keep the game going and not create a rule or make grand claims about Right or Wrong is to speak up and suggest that this level of challenge is beyond your skill level just now. It is perfectly fine to create a practice that allows you to work with a partner and not deal with the ultimate challenges, or challenges that you are not prepared to take.
Another option is to take that moment of doing/force and slow it down such that it is more manageable, so you can see what is going on, to see how you react to that situation, to see what might be a solution. Perhaps you can’t access this at a regular speed, but it may open your eyes to the possibility that the principles can and do work.
[Often I see an exchange that is all or nothing. The gripper has the upper hand, the gripee is lost and confused and sees no way out. The gripper feels like the winner, the gripee is confused OR claims that the gripper is breaking the rules of engagement (verbally attacks the gripper and takes the moral high road.) What do we learn here?]
6. The ultimate confusion – one that I personally look at a great deal – is that THEY do not create YOUR reality. YOU DO! This is extremely hard to see, let alone understand and live by.
The best way to work in push hands is to avoid accusations (direct or implied) or declare a moral code. The best way to work in push hands is to seek out solutions within the context of the principles.
If you have a partner where you can do this, you have a great thing going…
Saturday, June 11, 2011
Tai Chi Chuan - Merging and the Gap
Tai Chi Chuan – Merging and the Gap
I’m going for a new attitude. Push hands seems to do that to you if you continue on its path and strive to learn more and better ways to be full, soft and effective.
I’m intrigued with the neutralization part of the sequence. That happens to be most of the sequence. How might we frame our efforts here?
For the most part, I’m trying to not get pushed. This results in trying to get away.
This can be obvious, this can be subtle. I know that I need to stay connected and listening at all times, yet I frame those guidelines to serve the purpose of not getting pushed, being out of harm’s way, trying to get away.
WRONG!
The neutralization should afford you an opportunity not to get AWAY, but to get WITH. If you put your mind and body into serving that goal, I think you will be in a far superior position. The closer you get, the more you will have in your hands.
Tai chi always reminds me of the adage: “Be close to your friends; be closer to your enemy.”
In a way, we turn our opponent, our enemy, into our closest friend.
But in addition to getting closer, merging as a goal in the neutralization, the follow up to this is to never attack your opponent. Never. Attacking is a “doing” agenda and we are committed to “non-doing”. (Getting away is a “doing” activity as well.)
[In push-hands, we are attempting to push someone with “four ounces of strength.” Masters can blast you off your feet into the air for many feet doing just this.]
So if you have a great neutralization, what should happen next is to experience a place in your opponent that is an opening in their wholeness. The place that is vulnerable. A gap. The Yin place. The place you will follow and fill up. The place you move into. Even better, you don’t look for this place or try to find it. It should appear before your eyes (and hands.) It’s simply there like turning the corner and suddenly Niagara Falls appears.
This has nothing to do with attacking!
If you find that opening, you have the key to a great push. If you take up that space, they will be uprooted. This is following the logical conclusion to a round in the push hands form. The energy gap in their energy field gives you a place to fill. Of course, this is a mechanical gap in their external shape as well. However you conceptualize it, there is a break in their external shell and you simply go into that space. No attacking, just filling up the space. Just following the logical conclusion of the connection between the two of you.
Needless to say, HOW you fill up that space is yet another topic. But I think a good start is to NOT ATTACK that opportunity but to let their gap give you a direction to move into. The “gappy” partner will be surprised because we rarely feel our own “gaps.”
This is yet another reason that “invest in loss” is so valuable. If you don’t defend or fight off your partner, you will be pushed a great deal. Not fun! But a great return on investment because you are learning to hear what they are doing and what you are doing in response to their doing. To go into defense mode, getting away, stopping them from what they want to do or go where they want to go, this clouds your ability to see what is LITERALLY right in front of you. Clear yourself of all intention, let them win, see what is happening TOTALLY. Do this for a few years and you will be the wiser for it. That invaluable experience will only point the way towards a valid, non-doing response, and then the clarity to see/feel the gap in their attack.
Yes, if they “attack” you, this is a doing movement, and they should be the one that gets pushed out. Odd to think that “to do” is to die!
Here are some of the tell tale signs that you have attacked: For one, they get hard and resist you. Or they sense something is wrong, and start to flail about. Or they accelerate some attempt to run away, to get away. Or they go into rooting mode (not a good way to neutralize a push but many do this!)
If a red flag goes off in your partner when you attempt to fill the gap, most likely you are simply doing a clever softer version of attacking. Or you haven’t really identified the gap to begin with. Or you are relying on speed to catch them off guard. If there REALLY is a gap, the “gappy” partner will only realize it once you are in and they are becoming unbalanced, that is, when it is too late.
My thoughts for today for Push Hands 101. Next blog will be on Push Hands 102.
When I get there.
I’m going for a new attitude. Push hands seems to do that to you if you continue on its path and strive to learn more and better ways to be full, soft and effective.
I’m intrigued with the neutralization part of the sequence. That happens to be most of the sequence. How might we frame our efforts here?
For the most part, I’m trying to not get pushed. This results in trying to get away.
This can be obvious, this can be subtle. I know that I need to stay connected and listening at all times, yet I frame those guidelines to serve the purpose of not getting pushed, being out of harm’s way, trying to get away.
WRONG!
The neutralization should afford you an opportunity not to get AWAY, but to get WITH. If you put your mind and body into serving that goal, I think you will be in a far superior position. The closer you get, the more you will have in your hands.
Tai chi always reminds me of the adage: “Be close to your friends; be closer to your enemy.”
In a way, we turn our opponent, our enemy, into our closest friend.
But in addition to getting closer, merging as a goal in the neutralization, the follow up to this is to never attack your opponent. Never. Attacking is a “doing” agenda and we are committed to “non-doing”. (Getting away is a “doing” activity as well.)
[In push-hands, we are attempting to push someone with “four ounces of strength.” Masters can blast you off your feet into the air for many feet doing just this.]
So if you have a great neutralization, what should happen next is to experience a place in your opponent that is an opening in their wholeness. The place that is vulnerable. A gap. The Yin place. The place you will follow and fill up. The place you move into. Even better, you don’t look for this place or try to find it. It should appear before your eyes (and hands.) It’s simply there like turning the corner and suddenly Niagara Falls appears.
This has nothing to do with attacking!
If you find that opening, you have the key to a great push. If you take up that space, they will be uprooted. This is following the logical conclusion to a round in the push hands form. The energy gap in their energy field gives you a place to fill. Of course, this is a mechanical gap in their external shape as well. However you conceptualize it, there is a break in their external shell and you simply go into that space. No attacking, just filling up the space. Just following the logical conclusion of the connection between the two of you.
Needless to say, HOW you fill up that space is yet another topic. But I think a good start is to NOT ATTACK that opportunity but to let their gap give you a direction to move into. The “gappy” partner will be surprised because we rarely feel our own “gaps.”
This is yet another reason that “invest in loss” is so valuable. If you don’t defend or fight off your partner, you will be pushed a great deal. Not fun! But a great return on investment because you are learning to hear what they are doing and what you are doing in response to their doing. To go into defense mode, getting away, stopping them from what they want to do or go where they want to go, this clouds your ability to see what is LITERALLY right in front of you. Clear yourself of all intention, let them win, see what is happening TOTALLY. Do this for a few years and you will be the wiser for it. That invaluable experience will only point the way towards a valid, non-doing response, and then the clarity to see/feel the gap in their attack.
Yes, if they “attack” you, this is a doing movement, and they should be the one that gets pushed out. Odd to think that “to do” is to die!
Here are some of the tell tale signs that you have attacked: For one, they get hard and resist you. Or they sense something is wrong, and start to flail about. Or they accelerate some attempt to run away, to get away. Or they go into rooting mode (not a good way to neutralize a push but many do this!)
If a red flag goes off in your partner when you attempt to fill the gap, most likely you are simply doing a clever softer version of attacking. Or you haven’t really identified the gap to begin with. Or you are relying on speed to catch them off guard. If there REALLY is a gap, the “gappy” partner will only realize it once you are in and they are becoming unbalanced, that is, when it is too late.
My thoughts for today for Push Hands 101. Next blog will be on Push Hands 102.
When I get there.
Friday, June 10, 2011
Tai Chi Chuan - research on post chemo benefit and the brain
Tai chi boosts function for those with 'chemo brain,’ study finds
ADRIANA BARTON
VANCOUVER— From Friday's Globe and Mail
Published Thursday, Jun. 09, 2011 3:00PM EDT
Last updated Thursday, Jun. 09, 2011 3:22PM EDT
For cancer survivors, “chemo brain” seems like an unfair blow. Long after radiation and chemotherapy treatments are over, many patients suffer from memory lapses, poor concentration and a general feeling of being “spaced out.”
The fuzzy-headedness may persist for years, researchers have found. But there’s a chance tai chi can help.
In a pilot study, women who previously had chemotherapy and took a 60-minute tai chi class twice a week had sharper thinking at the end of 10 weeks of training in the Chinese martial art.
Before and after the study period, researchers assessed participants’ physical and psychological well-being and measured their cognitive skills in areas such as attention and multitasking.
“In terms of their thinking, there were improvements over time in pretty much all of our tests,” says Stephanie Reid-Arndt, a psychologist at the University of Missouri and lead author of the study.
In addition, participants had improved balance and reported lower stress levels, Dr. Reid-Arndt says.
The study, published online in the journal Complementary Therapies in Clinical Practice,is the first to measure cognitive abilities in former chemotherapy patients in relation to a specific exercise program.
Dr. Reid-Arndt notes the study is small, involving 23 women with mild to moderate cognitive impairment a year or more after chemotherapy treatments.
According to the Canadian Cancer Society, about 177,800 Canadians will be diagnosed with cancer this year, not including 74,100 cases of non-melanoma skin cancer.
Scientists don’t know why some people develop thinking problems after chemotherapy. It is unclear whether having chemotherapy is a direct cause of cognitive impairment or whether changes in hormones or the vascular system during treatment are involved, Dr. Reid-Arndt says.
Nevertheless, “we think about a third of people experience these [cognitive] difficulties after chemotherapy.”
The Canadian Cancer Society recommends that patients who notice changes in memory and concentration use coping skills such as keeping tracking of things by making lists and scheduling activities that require focused attention at times when they’re well rested.
Behavioural changes may help, Dr. Reid-Arndt says. But she adds that tai chi combines exercise, learning and mindfulness – all of which have been shown in previous research to improve cognitive abilities.
Tai chi students learn intricate routines and mind-body skills that emphasize breathing awareness, active relaxation and slow movements, which are well suited for cancer survivors who have physical impairments.
Similar benefits might be found by studying activities such as yoga for patients who have had chemotherapy, Dr. Reid-Arndt says.
Meanwhile, she adds, a larger study is needed to establish that tai chi really can help clear up chemo fog.
ADRIANA BARTON
VANCOUVER— From Friday's Globe and Mail
Published Thursday, Jun. 09, 2011 3:00PM EDT
Last updated Thursday, Jun. 09, 2011 3:22PM EDT
For cancer survivors, “chemo brain” seems like an unfair blow. Long after radiation and chemotherapy treatments are over, many patients suffer from memory lapses, poor concentration and a general feeling of being “spaced out.”
The fuzzy-headedness may persist for years, researchers have found. But there’s a chance tai chi can help.
In a pilot study, women who previously had chemotherapy and took a 60-minute tai chi class twice a week had sharper thinking at the end of 10 weeks of training in the Chinese martial art.
Before and after the study period, researchers assessed participants’ physical and psychological well-being and measured their cognitive skills in areas such as attention and multitasking.
“In terms of their thinking, there were improvements over time in pretty much all of our tests,” says Stephanie Reid-Arndt, a psychologist at the University of Missouri and lead author of the study.
In addition, participants had improved balance and reported lower stress levels, Dr. Reid-Arndt says.
The study, published online in the journal Complementary Therapies in Clinical Practice,is the first to measure cognitive abilities in former chemotherapy patients in relation to a specific exercise program.
Dr. Reid-Arndt notes the study is small, involving 23 women with mild to moderate cognitive impairment a year or more after chemotherapy treatments.
According to the Canadian Cancer Society, about 177,800 Canadians will be diagnosed with cancer this year, not including 74,100 cases of non-melanoma skin cancer.
Scientists don’t know why some people develop thinking problems after chemotherapy. It is unclear whether having chemotherapy is a direct cause of cognitive impairment or whether changes in hormones or the vascular system during treatment are involved, Dr. Reid-Arndt says.
Nevertheless, “we think about a third of people experience these [cognitive] difficulties after chemotherapy.”
The Canadian Cancer Society recommends that patients who notice changes in memory and concentration use coping skills such as keeping tracking of things by making lists and scheduling activities that require focused attention at times when they’re well rested.
Behavioural changes may help, Dr. Reid-Arndt says. But she adds that tai chi combines exercise, learning and mindfulness – all of which have been shown in previous research to improve cognitive abilities.
Tai chi students learn intricate routines and mind-body skills that emphasize breathing awareness, active relaxation and slow movements, which are well suited for cancer survivors who have physical impairments.
Similar benefits might be found by studying activities such as yoga for patients who have had chemotherapy, Dr. Reid-Arndt says.
Meanwhile, she adds, a larger study is needed to establish that tai chi really can help clear up chemo fog.
Thursday, April 28, 2011
Tai Chi Chuan - Basketball, Baseball and Bowling
Tai Chi Chuan – Is Basketball, Baseball and Bowling
The Three B’s?
Tai chi replicates aspects of each of these sports, in its own way, and by doing so, you are working on each one.
With basketball, you are always dribbling the ball. The ball bounces off the ground, and you give it a little push downward to take advantage of gravity, the floor, even the basic fabric of the ball itself. You need to give it just the right amount of impetus to keep control of the ball and your body in relationship to that ball.
We dribble in tai chi too. We do this by dropping our own weight into the ground. We are the ball and we let gravity drop us onto the ground so that we can bounce off the ground. With that bounce, we move our body forward. Drop, rebound, drop, rebound, drop, rebound… and so forth. Notice the same is true for walking?
With bowling, you take an under curve and a forward motion and you let the ball go to find its way down the lane. Your body, the ball, gravity, the right angle when you let the ball go, the mind’s vision of the intended path of the ball, even an inclusive big picture of the pins at the end of the lane are included.
In tai chi, with each drop, rebound, we follow an impetus that moves us forward. We let ourselves go. Just like that bowling ball, we are being moved. And just like that bowling ball, we follow that movement which drives us to the next shape. In bowling, your eyes tend to follow the path of the ball. In tai chi, we watch an internal sense of a path moving us forward. We follow our chi.
In baseball, the strong connection to tai chi is when the baseball player is catching a fly ball. The body lines itself up with the trajectory coming its way, the mitt has to give a little and continue this line, and the whole body has to connect all of the above into the ground for support.
In the Yin part of the postures, we have to align our weight and energy such that it is smoothly transferred into the ground. It is no different than catching a fly ball. Again, we become the ball, the mitt, the body and connect it all to the ground. We catch ourselves as we transfer our weight into the ground. It might be better to say the ground catches us and we direct ourselves seamlessly into that ground. This requires exquisite alignment so that all of YOU transfer (energetically) into the ground.
Hitting a baseball has tai chi qualities too. The timing in actually connecting bat to baseball is so fast that you internally predict the outcome – the strike of the bat to the ball – and give it a whack. Scientifically there is a point in the process where the mind subliminally calculates what the body must do to hit the ball. It is another big picture action because this is not linear. Truly you and the ball need to become ONE for this to happen. It all happens too fast for this to be the result of mental calculation. This is a feeling, not a mental strategy. The timing is a calculated guess. Most of tai chi is a feeling too.
We might want to contrast this with football. While catching and throwing a football has similarities to baseball, the brutal force of blocking the other team members or forcing the quarterback to the ground IS NOT like tai chi. Here force is what is needed. Force and tai chi are opposites. It’s what you might technically call a “no-no.”
Interesting to note that in all these ball sports, no matter where you are on the field, the ball is the center of attention. It is the center. Everyone is connected to that ball. Even those watching the game are connected to that ball. The actual time any player is in physical contact with the ball is minimal, but the focus on the ball is constant and optimal. We might say that in tai chi, the tan tien is the center of the focus. We are always in touch with the tan tien as the hands feet and head reorganize themselves around that center. We keep our (feeling) eye on the center.
Someone mentioned to me that many players in the stadium sports have to focus so intently on the game that their mind literally eliminates any awareness of the screaming fans. Yep, to these players, the fans are an unnecessary distraction and therefore are not included in the task in hand. A mental block is needed in order to play at a higher level.
Tai chi has a similar intensity of focus, but there is a difference. A tai chi player would include all of that distraction and incorporate it into the “game.” We develop a much larger mental arena and change our relationship to such distractions. In this case the distraction becomes a source of added energy, much like what runners in a marathon experience when the crowd cheers them on. Another way to look at this is to say that distractions are also players in the game.
So I like to think of tai chi as three sports in one. (There’s a little bit of ping-pong, soccer, golf and .. well, you get the picture.)
Let’s hit that ball, catch it, dribble it and let it go….
The Three B’s?
Tai chi replicates aspects of each of these sports, in its own way, and by doing so, you are working on each one.
With basketball, you are always dribbling the ball. The ball bounces off the ground, and you give it a little push downward to take advantage of gravity, the floor, even the basic fabric of the ball itself. You need to give it just the right amount of impetus to keep control of the ball and your body in relationship to that ball.
We dribble in tai chi too. We do this by dropping our own weight into the ground. We are the ball and we let gravity drop us onto the ground so that we can bounce off the ground. With that bounce, we move our body forward. Drop, rebound, drop, rebound, drop, rebound… and so forth. Notice the same is true for walking?
With bowling, you take an under curve and a forward motion and you let the ball go to find its way down the lane. Your body, the ball, gravity, the right angle when you let the ball go, the mind’s vision of the intended path of the ball, even an inclusive big picture of the pins at the end of the lane are included.
In tai chi, with each drop, rebound, we follow an impetus that moves us forward. We let ourselves go. Just like that bowling ball, we are being moved. And just like that bowling ball, we follow that movement which drives us to the next shape. In bowling, your eyes tend to follow the path of the ball. In tai chi, we watch an internal sense of a path moving us forward. We follow our chi.
In baseball, the strong connection to tai chi is when the baseball player is catching a fly ball. The body lines itself up with the trajectory coming its way, the mitt has to give a little and continue this line, and the whole body has to connect all of the above into the ground for support.
In the Yin part of the postures, we have to align our weight and energy such that it is smoothly transferred into the ground. It is no different than catching a fly ball. Again, we become the ball, the mitt, the body and connect it all to the ground. We catch ourselves as we transfer our weight into the ground. It might be better to say the ground catches us and we direct ourselves seamlessly into that ground. This requires exquisite alignment so that all of YOU transfer (energetically) into the ground.
Hitting a baseball has tai chi qualities too. The timing in actually connecting bat to baseball is so fast that you internally predict the outcome – the strike of the bat to the ball – and give it a whack. Scientifically there is a point in the process where the mind subliminally calculates what the body must do to hit the ball. It is another big picture action because this is not linear. Truly you and the ball need to become ONE for this to happen. It all happens too fast for this to be the result of mental calculation. This is a feeling, not a mental strategy. The timing is a calculated guess. Most of tai chi is a feeling too.
We might want to contrast this with football. While catching and throwing a football has similarities to baseball, the brutal force of blocking the other team members or forcing the quarterback to the ground IS NOT like tai chi. Here force is what is needed. Force and tai chi are opposites. It’s what you might technically call a “no-no.”
Interesting to note that in all these ball sports, no matter where you are on the field, the ball is the center of attention. It is the center. Everyone is connected to that ball. Even those watching the game are connected to that ball. The actual time any player is in physical contact with the ball is minimal, but the focus on the ball is constant and optimal. We might say that in tai chi, the tan tien is the center of the focus. We are always in touch with the tan tien as the hands feet and head reorganize themselves around that center. We keep our (feeling) eye on the center.
Someone mentioned to me that many players in the stadium sports have to focus so intently on the game that their mind literally eliminates any awareness of the screaming fans. Yep, to these players, the fans are an unnecessary distraction and therefore are not included in the task in hand. A mental block is needed in order to play at a higher level.
Tai chi has a similar intensity of focus, but there is a difference. A tai chi player would include all of that distraction and incorporate it into the “game.” We develop a much larger mental arena and change our relationship to such distractions. In this case the distraction becomes a source of added energy, much like what runners in a marathon experience when the crowd cheers them on. Another way to look at this is to say that distractions are also players in the game.
So I like to think of tai chi as three sports in one. (There’s a little bit of ping-pong, soccer, golf and .. well, you get the picture.)
Let’s hit that ball, catch it, dribble it and let it go….
Wednesday, April 20, 2011
"Tai Chi Keeps You Stable" - Peak Health Advocate article
An Exercise Routine That May Keep You Out of the Hospital
Tai chi decreases seniors' risk of suffering a devastating fall
April 18, 2011 | By Kimberly Day, Contributing Editor, Peak Health Advocate
Studies have shown that instability and falling are among the leading causes of injury and death among the elderly.1,2 In fact, seniors are hospitalized for fall-related injuries five times more often than from all other causes of injury.1,2
As staggering as this is, there is a silver lining. The ancient Chinese practice of tai chi has been shown to enhance balance and coordination,3 while also helping to improve bone density and reduce a senior’s risk of falling.4,5
Given this, two researchers from Ithaca College and Indiana University postulated that perhaps the reason tai chi was effective was that it helped individuals develop better posture control, while also improving the spinal reflex pathway that is key to posture control.6
Let’s take a closer look.
Testing Postural Sway and Reflex Reaction
Sixteen healthy participants took part in the study, and eight of the 16 had been practicing tai chi regularly for at least three years. Regularly was defined as practicing three times a week for one to two hours per session. The other eight participants had never done tai chi.
Each person was tested for approximately two hours, completing a postural sway test and a reflex test. The postural sway test basically looked at the person’s ability to stand for 15 seconds under four different situations:
Standing still with eyes open
Standing still with eyes closed
Standing still and turning head to the left and right with eyes open
Standing still and turning head to left and right with eyes closed
The reflex test used an electrode on the back of each person’s calf to elicit an H-reflex. Also called the Hoffmann reflex, the H-reflex is useful in determining “modulation of monosynaptic reflex activity in the spinal cord.”7
Of course, this makes no sense to the majority of us laymen, so I had to decode this scientific jargon.
Basically, reflexes react in a neural pathway that control actions related to that reflex. (Think of the knee tap that makes your leg jerk up.) These reflexes involve two different groups of neurons: sensory neurons and motor neurons. When just one of each neuron is involved, it’s called a monosynaptic reflex. Those involving more than one neuron from each group are considered polysynaptic.
In more evolved animals such as humans, the majority of sensory neurons don’t go through the brain. Rather, they join up in the spinal cord.
So, by testing the H-reflex, researchers wanted to determine the reflex action of a sensory and motor neuron found in the back of the calf when stimulated by a low-level electrode. The reason? Less response can be equated with better motor control.
To best assess the H-reflex, researchers tested participants laying down as well as standing up.
Tai Chi Keeps You Stable
The results were pretty amazing. When it came to postural sway, those participants who practiced tai chi had significantly less sway. In fact, with their eyes open, they had 14 percent less sway. With eyes closed, it was 30 percent. Turning the head with eyes open demonstrated 33 percent less sway, and turning with eyes closed showed 23 percent less sway.
When it came to that crazy H-reflex, the tai chi group had much better inhibition of the reflex while standing, 55 percent, as compared to the control group, which only exhibited 24 percent inhibition. Interestingly, when lying down, the two groups were pretty equal, with the tai chi group showing 71 percent inhibition, compared to 74 percent in the control group.
Researchers concluded that tai chi clearly helped to improve postural control, as well as reflex response. The net benefit of this is better stability and balance, which translates to less risk of suffering a devastating fall.
Get on the Tai Chi Bandwagon
Literally translated as “moving life force,” tai chi involves controlled breathing and choreographed movements that combine to resemble a deliberate, flowing dance. The graceful motions, called forms, are performed by slowly shifting your body’s weight from one foot to another while making synchronized arm, body and leg movements.
Because the movements are so slow and deliberate, they can be practiced by anyone, anywhere, at any time. Ideally, you should practice tai chi for 30 minutes three to five times a week.
However, due to the low intensity and relaxing quality of the exercise, it can be done every day.
If you have never tried tai chi before, you may want to start with a trained instructor who can supervise your posture and movements. Once you have learned how to do the forms correctly, you can practice on your own or with a small group.
1 Alexander, B.H. et al. The cost and frequency of hospitalization for fall-related injuries in older adults. Am J Public Health. 1992;82(7):1020-3.
2 Dellinger, A.M. and Stevens, J.A. The injury problem among older adults: mortality, morbidity and costs. J Safety Res. 2006;37(5):519-22.
3 Maciaszek, J. and Osinski, W. The effects of Tai chi on body balance in elderly people — a review of studies from the early 21st century. Am J Chin Med. 2010;38:219-29.
4 Henderson, N.K. et al. The roles of exercise and fall risk reduction in the prevention of osteoporosis. Endocrinol Metab Clin North Am. 1998;27(2):369-87.
5 Murphy, L. and Singh, B.B. Effects of 5-Form, Yang Style Tai chi on older females who have or are at risk for developing osteoporosis. Physiother Theory Pract. 2008;24(5):311-20.
6 Guan, H. and Kocega, D.M. Effects of long-term tai chi practice on balance and h-reflex characteristics. Am J Chin Med. 2011;39(2):251-60.
7 Palmieri, R.M. et al. The Hoffmann reflex: Methodologic considerations and applications for use in sports medicine and athletic training research. J Athl Train. 2004 July-Sept.;39(3):266-77.
Tai chi decreases seniors' risk of suffering a devastating fall
April 18, 2011 | By Kimberly Day, Contributing Editor, Peak Health Advocate
Studies have shown that instability and falling are among the leading causes of injury and death among the elderly.1,2 In fact, seniors are hospitalized for fall-related injuries five times more often than from all other causes of injury.1,2
As staggering as this is, there is a silver lining. The ancient Chinese practice of tai chi has been shown to enhance balance and coordination,3 while also helping to improve bone density and reduce a senior’s risk of falling.4,5
Given this, two researchers from Ithaca College and Indiana University postulated that perhaps the reason tai chi was effective was that it helped individuals develop better posture control, while also improving the spinal reflex pathway that is key to posture control.6
Let’s take a closer look.
Testing Postural Sway and Reflex Reaction
Sixteen healthy participants took part in the study, and eight of the 16 had been practicing tai chi regularly for at least three years. Regularly was defined as practicing three times a week for one to two hours per session. The other eight participants had never done tai chi.
Each person was tested for approximately two hours, completing a postural sway test and a reflex test. The postural sway test basically looked at the person’s ability to stand for 15 seconds under four different situations:
Standing still with eyes open
Standing still with eyes closed
Standing still and turning head to the left and right with eyes open
Standing still and turning head to left and right with eyes closed
The reflex test used an electrode on the back of each person’s calf to elicit an H-reflex. Also called the Hoffmann reflex, the H-reflex is useful in determining “modulation of monosynaptic reflex activity in the spinal cord.”7
Of course, this makes no sense to the majority of us laymen, so I had to decode this scientific jargon.
Basically, reflexes react in a neural pathway that control actions related to that reflex. (Think of the knee tap that makes your leg jerk up.) These reflexes involve two different groups of neurons: sensory neurons and motor neurons. When just one of each neuron is involved, it’s called a monosynaptic reflex. Those involving more than one neuron from each group are considered polysynaptic.
In more evolved animals such as humans, the majority of sensory neurons don’t go through the brain. Rather, they join up in the spinal cord.
So, by testing the H-reflex, researchers wanted to determine the reflex action of a sensory and motor neuron found in the back of the calf when stimulated by a low-level electrode. The reason? Less response can be equated with better motor control.
To best assess the H-reflex, researchers tested participants laying down as well as standing up.
Tai Chi Keeps You Stable
The results were pretty amazing. When it came to postural sway, those participants who practiced tai chi had significantly less sway. In fact, with their eyes open, they had 14 percent less sway. With eyes closed, it was 30 percent. Turning the head with eyes open demonstrated 33 percent less sway, and turning with eyes closed showed 23 percent less sway.
When it came to that crazy H-reflex, the tai chi group had much better inhibition of the reflex while standing, 55 percent, as compared to the control group, which only exhibited 24 percent inhibition. Interestingly, when lying down, the two groups were pretty equal, with the tai chi group showing 71 percent inhibition, compared to 74 percent in the control group.
Researchers concluded that tai chi clearly helped to improve postural control, as well as reflex response. The net benefit of this is better stability and balance, which translates to less risk of suffering a devastating fall.
Get on the Tai Chi Bandwagon
Literally translated as “moving life force,” tai chi involves controlled breathing and choreographed movements that combine to resemble a deliberate, flowing dance. The graceful motions, called forms, are performed by slowly shifting your body’s weight from one foot to another while making synchronized arm, body and leg movements.
Because the movements are so slow and deliberate, they can be practiced by anyone, anywhere, at any time. Ideally, you should practice tai chi for 30 minutes three to five times a week.
However, due to the low intensity and relaxing quality of the exercise, it can be done every day.
If you have never tried tai chi before, you may want to start with a trained instructor who can supervise your posture and movements. Once you have learned how to do the forms correctly, you can practice on your own or with a small group.
1 Alexander, B.H. et al. The cost and frequency of hospitalization for fall-related injuries in older adults. Am J Public Health. 1992;82(7):1020-3.
2 Dellinger, A.M. and Stevens, J.A. The injury problem among older adults: mortality, morbidity and costs. J Safety Res. 2006;37(5):519-22.
3 Maciaszek, J. and Osinski, W. The effects of Tai chi on body balance in elderly people — a review of studies from the early 21st century. Am J Chin Med. 2010;38:219-29.
4 Henderson, N.K. et al. The roles of exercise and fall risk reduction in the prevention of osteoporosis. Endocrinol Metab Clin North Am. 1998;27(2):369-87.
5 Murphy, L. and Singh, B.B. Effects of 5-Form, Yang Style Tai chi on older females who have or are at risk for developing osteoporosis. Physiother Theory Pract. 2008;24(5):311-20.
6 Guan, H. and Kocega, D.M. Effects of long-term tai chi practice on balance and h-reflex characteristics. Am J Chin Med. 2011;39(2):251-60.
7 Palmieri, R.M. et al. The Hoffmann reflex: Methodologic considerations and applications for use in sports medicine and athletic training research. J Athl Train. 2004 July-Sept.;39(3):266-77.
Sunday, April 17, 2011
WET Design CEO Mark Fuller - New York Times article
Please forgive me for this one, but the tai chi links here are abundant! Listening, spontaneity, not knowing the next move, conflict resolution, change, curiosity, openness, honest self reflection, generosity, team work, being flexible, sense of humor. Take a look if an original way of living in the corporate world is of interest. Tom
April 16, 2011
WET Design and the Improv Approach to Listening
By ADAM BRYANT
This interview with Mark Fuller, C.E.O. (which stands for chief excellence officer) of WET Design, was conducted and condensed by Adam Bryant.
Q. What’s unusual about your company’s culture?
A. We have three classrooms and a full-time curriculum director who teaches all the time and also brings in outside instructors. One of the really fun classes we do is improv.
Q. Why improv?
A. Improv, if properly taught, is really about listening to the other person, because there’s no script. It’s about responding. I was noticing that we didn’t have a lot of good communication among our people.
If you think about it, if you have an argument with your wife or husband, most of the time people are just waiting for the other person to finish so they can say what they’re waiting to say. So usually they’re these serial machine-gun monologues, and very little listening.
That doesn’t work in improv. If we’re on the stage, I don’t know what goofball thing you’re going to say, so I can’t be planning anything. I have to really be listening to you so I can make an intelligent — humorous or not — response.
So I got this crazy idea of bringing in someone to teach an improv class. At first, everybody had an excuse, because it’s kind of scary to stand up in front of people and do this. But now we’ve got a waiting list because word has spread that it’s really cool.
You’re in an emotionally naked environment. It’s like we’re all the same. We all can look stupid. And it’s an amazing bonding thing, plus it’s building all these communication skills. You’re sort of in this gray space of uncertainty. Most of us don’t like to be uncertain — you know, most of us like to be thinking what we’re going to say next. You get your mind into a space where you say, “I’m really enjoying that I don’t know what he’s going to ask me next, and I’m going to be open and listening and come back.”
We’ve got graphic designers, illustrators, optical engineers, Ph.D. chemists, special effects people, landscape designers, textile designers. You get all these different disciplines that typically you would never find under one roof — even making a movie — and so you have to constantly be finding these ways to have people connect.
So we do things like improv, and I think they really have developed our culture.
Q. What else?
A. We also encourage people to put their ideas on our walls. Or if you’ve got a drawing, you can stick a couple of magnets on it. The point is to get people to put their stuff out where other people can see it. We don’t want a culture of, “That’s my idea. I don’t want anybody to see it. Maybe they’ll find a flaw in it.”
I had a teacher once who said, “Whenever you guys are sitting here, and you realize that you’ve made a mistake on something you’re working with, I want you to applaud yourself.” He said: “That will accomplish a couple of things. First of all, instead of saying, ‘Oh, I made a mistake, I’m never going to learn this stuff anyway,’ you’re going to reward yourself because you caught the mistake before I did.” We all rolled our eyes in the class, but I’ve never forgotten that.
So one of the things I will do is to start some meetings by saying, “Let me tell you where I just screwed up.” That sets the tone of, we’ve got to put our mistakes out there. They don’t call it “learn by trial and success.” You learn by trial and error.
Q. What else have you done through the years to set the tone for your culture?
A. Early on, I decided that whenever somebody comes into my office and starts blaming something on another department, I will say: “Really? Let’s get them in here. Hold that thought.” It’s just like with your children at home — you don’t want serial tattletaling. You get everybody together, and then suddenly people are saying that maybe they exaggerated a bit, and things weren’t quite as bad as they said.
I’ve been in environments where a C.E.O. will sit back and try to watch a gladiator match for entertainment. That’s totally not cool. It’s so common, I think, in corporate life. You want to have the conversation and say: “O.K., what really went wrong here? There’s three of us in this room. We’re going to fix this thing. How do we do it?”
Q. You’ve clearly thought a lot about cultures and how to get people to work together.
A. I really love coming to work to develop the workplace and the team. I think it’s either a virtuous or a vicious spiral, and it’s exposed when you go to hire somebody.
To get really good talent, you need to be doing interesting stuff. Take a great kid out of college or somebody from another company — they’re not going to come if there’s not something really interesting to work on. I suppose you could throw gobs of money at them or something, but that’s not the idea. So you need to build the company so you have great talent, and great projects, and a great environment. You get those three, and then they just feed off of each other.
Q. I’ll keep asking: What else is unusual about your company?
A. One thing we do is we move people around a lot into different positions. And quite honestly, it’s pretty unsettling because everybody loves to be comfortable. I think we’re built that way. Find your cave, and draw some nice picture of a mammoth on the wall so it feels like home.
Most of my key people have held really different positions. That helps prevent these silos and fiefdoms that tend to get sclerotically reinforced over time in companies when people say: “Oh, the fifth floor is engineering. You don’t go up there without a hall pass.”
The world is driven by change, so part of my job, I think, is to stir things up.
Q. But at what level are you moving people around? You’re not taking the Ph.D. chemist and saying, “Learn sheet metal,” are you?
A. Not full time. We do take all of our key employees and put them through an immersion program that typically lasts six weeks. I can show you some great receptionists who are pretty darn good welders because they spent a week or two in the machine shop. They get it, and they understand what’s going on. Again, they’re not permanent assignments for everybody, but it’s really about walking in the other person’s shoes to understand their job.
Q. Let’s shift to hiring. What are you looking for? What questions do you ask?
A. There are two questions I would definitely ask after we’d been talking for a while. One is, “Do you like to read?” and, “What do you like to read?” I’m an unbelievable reader. Jeff Bezos is in the black only because of Mark Fuller’s daily Amazon orders.
And then I will ask: “What do you build? Do you do anything with your hands? Do you have a hobby? Pottery? Do you fix old cars? Do you have any kind of a shop in your garage? Do you play an instrument?” I’m listening for something tangible — something that tells me you’re not just all about work. I really value intellect, but I like people who are connected with real stuff, too.
Q. Are you asking that of everybody, even, say, a finance chief?
A. I do. If a finance person chops motorcycles or likes to repair his own computer when it breaks, they’ll have a connection to our technical people or our hands-on people as opposed to somebody who’s just Mr. Spreadsheet.
Q. Can you talk more about the qualities you’re looking for?
A. There’s sort of four things when you’re interviewing somebody. There’s passion and commitment. If you’ve got that, you can go a long way.
The next one is I.Q. I mean, you’re kind of born with that. So we look for signs of a high I.Q.
The third one is the one that most people focus on, which is explicit knowledge and experience. That’s actually the one thing that’s easiest to fix. I mean, you can pour knowledge into somebody’s head, and you can build experience over time. We try to get a blend there. We don’t want all just fresh kids out of school because then you’re inventing everything over and over again. So we also like some seniority and experience.
And then the fourth one is the negative category: we look for X factors. We may even try to prod them a little bit. Do they have a hair-trigger temper? Have they got an ego that’s going to get in the way? Those are our interview criteria.
Q. What else do you look for in an interview?
A. I like to find out what makes people laugh, because if people don’t have a sense of humor, if they can’t laugh, they’re really just not going to make it.
I also like to take people we’re considering for a key position on a tour of WET. I’ll take maybe an hour and a half, and I’ll listen for their level of curiosity. It tells me a lot. So most of my interview is actually walking around in the tour.
Q. And how long does it take you to get a sense of whether the person’s right or not?
A. I can tell pretty fast, and those are sometimes shorter tours.
April 16, 2011
WET Design and the Improv Approach to Listening
By ADAM BRYANT
This interview with Mark Fuller, C.E.O. (which stands for chief excellence officer) of WET Design, was conducted and condensed by Adam Bryant.
Q. What’s unusual about your company’s culture?
A. We have three classrooms and a full-time curriculum director who teaches all the time and also brings in outside instructors. One of the really fun classes we do is improv.
Q. Why improv?
A. Improv, if properly taught, is really about listening to the other person, because there’s no script. It’s about responding. I was noticing that we didn’t have a lot of good communication among our people.
If you think about it, if you have an argument with your wife or husband, most of the time people are just waiting for the other person to finish so they can say what they’re waiting to say. So usually they’re these serial machine-gun monologues, and very little listening.
That doesn’t work in improv. If we’re on the stage, I don’t know what goofball thing you’re going to say, so I can’t be planning anything. I have to really be listening to you so I can make an intelligent — humorous or not — response.
So I got this crazy idea of bringing in someone to teach an improv class. At first, everybody had an excuse, because it’s kind of scary to stand up in front of people and do this. But now we’ve got a waiting list because word has spread that it’s really cool.
You’re in an emotionally naked environment. It’s like we’re all the same. We all can look stupid. And it’s an amazing bonding thing, plus it’s building all these communication skills. You’re sort of in this gray space of uncertainty. Most of us don’t like to be uncertain — you know, most of us like to be thinking what we’re going to say next. You get your mind into a space where you say, “I’m really enjoying that I don’t know what he’s going to ask me next, and I’m going to be open and listening and come back.”
We’ve got graphic designers, illustrators, optical engineers, Ph.D. chemists, special effects people, landscape designers, textile designers. You get all these different disciplines that typically you would never find under one roof — even making a movie — and so you have to constantly be finding these ways to have people connect.
So we do things like improv, and I think they really have developed our culture.
Q. What else?
A. We also encourage people to put their ideas on our walls. Or if you’ve got a drawing, you can stick a couple of magnets on it. The point is to get people to put their stuff out where other people can see it. We don’t want a culture of, “That’s my idea. I don’t want anybody to see it. Maybe they’ll find a flaw in it.”
I had a teacher once who said, “Whenever you guys are sitting here, and you realize that you’ve made a mistake on something you’re working with, I want you to applaud yourself.” He said: “That will accomplish a couple of things. First of all, instead of saying, ‘Oh, I made a mistake, I’m never going to learn this stuff anyway,’ you’re going to reward yourself because you caught the mistake before I did.” We all rolled our eyes in the class, but I’ve never forgotten that.
So one of the things I will do is to start some meetings by saying, “Let me tell you where I just screwed up.” That sets the tone of, we’ve got to put our mistakes out there. They don’t call it “learn by trial and success.” You learn by trial and error.
Q. What else have you done through the years to set the tone for your culture?
A. Early on, I decided that whenever somebody comes into my office and starts blaming something on another department, I will say: “Really? Let’s get them in here. Hold that thought.” It’s just like with your children at home — you don’t want serial tattletaling. You get everybody together, and then suddenly people are saying that maybe they exaggerated a bit, and things weren’t quite as bad as they said.
I’ve been in environments where a C.E.O. will sit back and try to watch a gladiator match for entertainment. That’s totally not cool. It’s so common, I think, in corporate life. You want to have the conversation and say: “O.K., what really went wrong here? There’s three of us in this room. We’re going to fix this thing. How do we do it?”
Q. You’ve clearly thought a lot about cultures and how to get people to work together.
A. I really love coming to work to develop the workplace and the team. I think it’s either a virtuous or a vicious spiral, and it’s exposed when you go to hire somebody.
To get really good talent, you need to be doing interesting stuff. Take a great kid out of college or somebody from another company — they’re not going to come if there’s not something really interesting to work on. I suppose you could throw gobs of money at them or something, but that’s not the idea. So you need to build the company so you have great talent, and great projects, and a great environment. You get those three, and then they just feed off of each other.
Q. I’ll keep asking: What else is unusual about your company?
A. One thing we do is we move people around a lot into different positions. And quite honestly, it’s pretty unsettling because everybody loves to be comfortable. I think we’re built that way. Find your cave, and draw some nice picture of a mammoth on the wall so it feels like home.
Most of my key people have held really different positions. That helps prevent these silos and fiefdoms that tend to get sclerotically reinforced over time in companies when people say: “Oh, the fifth floor is engineering. You don’t go up there without a hall pass.”
The world is driven by change, so part of my job, I think, is to stir things up.
Q. But at what level are you moving people around? You’re not taking the Ph.D. chemist and saying, “Learn sheet metal,” are you?
A. Not full time. We do take all of our key employees and put them through an immersion program that typically lasts six weeks. I can show you some great receptionists who are pretty darn good welders because they spent a week or two in the machine shop. They get it, and they understand what’s going on. Again, they’re not permanent assignments for everybody, but it’s really about walking in the other person’s shoes to understand their job.
Q. Let’s shift to hiring. What are you looking for? What questions do you ask?
A. There are two questions I would definitely ask after we’d been talking for a while. One is, “Do you like to read?” and, “What do you like to read?” I’m an unbelievable reader. Jeff Bezos is in the black only because of Mark Fuller’s daily Amazon orders.
And then I will ask: “What do you build? Do you do anything with your hands? Do you have a hobby? Pottery? Do you fix old cars? Do you have any kind of a shop in your garage? Do you play an instrument?” I’m listening for something tangible — something that tells me you’re not just all about work. I really value intellect, but I like people who are connected with real stuff, too.
Q. Are you asking that of everybody, even, say, a finance chief?
A. I do. If a finance person chops motorcycles or likes to repair his own computer when it breaks, they’ll have a connection to our technical people or our hands-on people as opposed to somebody who’s just Mr. Spreadsheet.
Q. Can you talk more about the qualities you’re looking for?
A. There’s sort of four things when you’re interviewing somebody. There’s passion and commitment. If you’ve got that, you can go a long way.
The next one is I.Q. I mean, you’re kind of born with that. So we look for signs of a high I.Q.
The third one is the one that most people focus on, which is explicit knowledge and experience. That’s actually the one thing that’s easiest to fix. I mean, you can pour knowledge into somebody’s head, and you can build experience over time. We try to get a blend there. We don’t want all just fresh kids out of school because then you’re inventing everything over and over again. So we also like some seniority and experience.
And then the fourth one is the negative category: we look for X factors. We may even try to prod them a little bit. Do they have a hair-trigger temper? Have they got an ego that’s going to get in the way? Those are our interview criteria.
Q. What else do you look for in an interview?
A. I like to find out what makes people laugh, because if people don’t have a sense of humor, if they can’t laugh, they’re really just not going to make it.
I also like to take people we’re considering for a key position on a tour of WET. I’ll take maybe an hour and a half, and I’ll listen for their level of curiosity. It tells me a lot. So most of my interview is actually walking around in the tour.
Q. And how long does it take you to get a sense of whether the person’s right or not?
A. I can tell pretty fast, and those are sometimes shorter tours.
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