Tai Chi Chuan and the F Word

Tai Chi Chuan and the F Word

It struck me recently what my teacher Maggie Newman was really teaching all these years.  She captured it in a simple statement:  You should be able to take any tai chi class and do what they are doing.

Sounds easy, right?

Let me suggest what she was NOT saying.  She was not saying that you will necessarily have the agility or the athleticism or the deep bend of a hip joint when joining another class. After all, some schools put emphasis on certain things while others do not.  So joining in didn’t mean you would have the skill that they have worked so hard to achieve.

No, what she meant is that you would have the mental agility to drop what you normally do and do something different.  To follow what they are doing, without judgment or comparisons. 

In other words, FREEDOM .  The other F word.

I have often seen a new beginner enter my class and be less than enthusiastic with the movements that I like to use as a warm up.  There is a purpose to all of these movements, a correct approach to any one of them.  But they are deceptively simple.  They might just pass you by.  They may not seem applicable to the task of learning tai chi.  But just as you need the form to learn the form, you may need other movements to learn the art of tai chi.

Often a student will think that they need a better tai chi technique, a few tips, a correction here or there, some pointers.  They work harder and harder to get it, but miss the ability to play within the postures.  It is as if the straight jacket that tai chi presents is the goal of the practice.  But the external form is not the solution.  At best, it is part of the pathway. 

It seems some students have read the wrong memo.

Many “advanced” students feel proud of their accomplishment and feel no need to take a beginner class.  As Maggie’s assistant, I was forced to take the beginner class again and again and again.  It was the most fortunate experience of my life.

Tai chi is the ability to put on that straight jacket and have no limitations.  There is no perfection in tai chi. There is no best. Tai chi is not doing a perfect movement; it is letting that perfect movement find you. Can you be that free?

True, in any given year there will be a competition and someone will win the championship.  I am in awe of that success. It’s a real accomplishment.

But that fact doesn’t have anything to do with who you are or what you yourself may learn or experience by letting in something new, something vital, or something that means something to YOU. There is only more to learn and more to experience.  This won’t happen if you have decided how to find the unexpected. It doesn’t work that way. It is not linear.

When faced with exercises that seem irrelevant, a goal oriented student will often leave the room. The ship of real opportunity and growth leaves shore without them.  The memo should read: In order to get, you may have to give, give up, or let go.

You can work your form over and over and over again, but never really get it.

If you can do a simple gesture with total freedom, then you have it.

Apparently real freedom, like many things, is a lot of hard work.

I have memories of doing seemly irrelevant movements again and again and again in Maggie’s class.  Oh how we judged! Oh how we grit our teeth and did what we were told!  Reluctant, but obedient.  But it wasn’t the movement that was the point. It was everything else surrounding that movement. The organic experience of pure movement. It was moving itself that mattered.

Maggie’s students have great trust in her ability to lead them down that path. The path to freedom is slow, meandering, open ended, has no expectations.  It lacks a goal. It is not efficient when you start. There are no champions here.

Just a path to place your foot one step at a time…