Tai Chi Chuan - Learning by Failing

Tai Chi Chuan – Learning by Failing

Learning tai chi is unlike learning other subjects.

Tai chi is a physical experience and, therefore, trial and error are required. Some students want to figure it out, or see it in a video or get the book! While that won’t hurt, it never really helps.

Tai chi is more like learning to swim by being put into a pool, shown a few strokes, and then encouraged to go towards the deep end.

In a tai chi class, you can’t learn it first and then do it. You can’t stop in the middle of a class, pull out a book and figure out the next move. You jump in, struggle, imitate, catch what you can and get into the groove as much as possible. You don’t first “understand” it. You will only understand it when your body understands it. And that means you have to try it again and again and again.

You do it to understand it. I encourage beginners to jump in, not understand, do it all wrong and flounder at first. Sometimes I introduce a movement without introduction. We just do. The students are confused. But my goal is to get them to be comfortable with confusion. It’s a normal state to be in. Being comfortable with confusion is what you need – exactly what you need –to learn tai chi. How can it be otherwise?

Simply put, this is a healthy dose of “let me try this….”

An approach that includes confusion and failing is the opposite of how much of our education is delivered or the attitude of expectation in the work place. We tend to like information first, practice later. Frankly, that is the best way for many studies. Can you imagine a math class where you are asked to add, but you don’t know the numbers or what add means? Or fly a plane without a deep understanding of flight before you sit in the cockpit? Law? Medicine?

Tai chi is more like learning how to walk. No one tells l you how to do it. You just watch how others do it and you keep falling down and getting up until you can walk.

Tai chi is more like that first time you rode a bicycle. Once those trainer wheels were gone, you fell until you discovered how to sail. How did that happen anyway? You notice others can do it and you keep trying until you can do it. And THEN you understand what it takes.

Our desire to know - before we do - cripples us in experiential exploration: failure WILL happen frequently—and that’s the norm in tai chi.

Yes, it’s not safe, and there’s risk. Acceptance of this failure, but trying again and again and again, is truly healthy.

How so? Your body is learning a new skill. Your mind, unfamiliar with this new skill, may have a conceptual idea about that new skill, but this idea will never replace actually putting yourself on the line and just trying it out. “Trying it out” amounts to following others in fits and starts to grab clues or little pieces of what you think you see, until you merge with the others and can feel what you see. It keeps you observing and alert. It keeps you connected to others, too.

In the safe space of tai chi class, failure is encouraged. You have to jump in. I have never liked that level of vulnerability in life, but in tai chi, that’s fine. When you do “get it,” you will REALLY get it because you have earned it through trial and error. You know what it isn’t. When you feel what it is, it’s yours.

But rarely does this happen without a fare amount of failure. Here, we fail until we learn… In this way, tai chi IS life.

Fail fail fail fail – success – Ah ha! I see! This can be frustrating and even embarrassing.

It happened again for me in class recently. Maggie gave me a correction in the sword form. I did what I thought she was showing me. “No,” she told me, and repeated the move. Again I tried it. “No, not that,” she corrected. This went on for some time. It was very very frustrating because I truly thought I was doing what she was doing. Ah! I finally got closer! I began to understand after many attempted failings.

If you don’t have fortitude and patience, or lack the intention of developing those qualities in your life, tai chi is not the art form for you.

Push hands practice takes years of confusion and failing. My own idea about push hands has changed radically in the last few years. How I practice now is worlds apart from how I began. How else can you make such changes without a large amount of experimentation? I might be inclined to say that all that earlier work was a waste of time. True, it took me a long time to see a different way (and frankly I’m still working on it!) But all that earlier work clarified my latter discoveries. My understanding is much deeper than it would be without that earlier trial-and-error practice.

Perfection is a wonderful goal. Toss it and give yourself permission to stumble along the way. I have NEVER seen any student fail who keeps trying to succeed. Not one.

Note this wonderful aspect of tai chi class: Failure is expected and simply the way to learn.

I find that incredibly refreshing.