Tai Chi Chuan: 2 goals, 3 choices.

Tai Chi Chuan: 2 goals, 3 choices.

I am often inspired by two goals in tai chi: letting go of resistance + change (= growth) .  

Letting go of resistance: Once you get involved in push hands – the issue of resistance is as clear as a bell because stopping your partner in any way creates resistance. The one resisting loses the game and gets pushed.

Change: Change is a bit harder to perceive because it can happen so slowly. Over time, we hope the body gets more integrated, relaxed, interconnected, healthier. More functional. Changes here can be dramatic, but mostly they are very very slow. The longer you practice, the slower the incremental changes occur. “We measure our progress in decades.”

In tai chi, as in life, letting go of resistance and being open to change are critical. It is what you are studying when you study tai chi.

Where do we learn these? Both are challenging. Both create better lives.

Many peeps never learn either. War is a big industry.

So my big concern is finding ways to create a condition for change and to learn how to let go of resistances. This leads me to how can we engage in tai chi, as in “best practices”.

My own experience and observation lead me to a simple conclusion. Simple, that is, in concept, but difficult to embody.

There are three basic choices in working on a new exercise.

The first choice is resistance: “I don’t want to do this, this is too hard, this never helps, I’ve done this a million times before, I can’t do this, I’m not good at this.”

Here one creates a wall. It’s one big NO = TENSION.

The second one is resignation: “OK, if you insist, I’ll do this exercise. I’ll go along to get along, but I know this one won’t help, sure, I’ll do it to please you but it won’t really please me.”

This one bears a grudge and partly you might feel compromised.  Stoic, at best, but not enthusiastic. This is a YES, BUT NOT REALLY = COLLAPSE.

We say in tai chi “relax, don’t collapse”. But we also emphasize structure without getting stiff. We look for the middle way, exactly between stiff and collapse, and that is essentially relax. Because of this, it’s actually difficult to say what relax really is because in one sense, it is not this and it is not that. You can’t do a “not”. “Relax not collapse” is the absence of tension and it is “letting go” but maintaining a structure.

The final way - which works 100% of the time, money back guaranteed - is to FULLY PARTICIPATE. Here you are on mission to discover something new. Even when the exercise is old and you feel that you have already discovered all there is to discover, the “new” here is the deepening of the experience through repetition. That, of and in itself, can open doors. FULLY PARTICIPATE = EMBRACE.

This brings to mind The 18 Therapies. Maggie Newman, my teacher, introduced them to us after many years of tai chi. In one regard they were disappointing. Too easy, too simple, boring, no challenge, nothing dazzling to show your friends. Whoa! Resistance and resignation reared their ugly heads! We were soooo  superior to these exercises.

For me, the challenge with The 18 Therapies was in the EMBRACE. It was one HUGE exercise in embracing! Here the resistance was that they seemed too easy, too simple and worse, they would not further the “I want to be the best in tai chi” agenda. But if you can, these exercises too are pleasurable, rewarding, beneficial.

So the next time you have the urge to resist or just grudgingly go along, CHANGE your attitude, let go of RESISTANCE and begin to EMBRACE the experience.

What does it have to offer you today? What can you learn from it? How can you incorporate this into your form, your life? What will happen next if I get in the experience? How can I master this? What do I need to do?

Tai chi/Life is more challenging that way, more rewarding, and much much more fun!

To go one step further, how can you embrace ALL experience, not just the ones you like? What does it mean to embrace a negative situation, and have no resistance or resignation? There are no simple answers here…

Tai Chi Chuan - Not My Job!

Tai Chi Chuan – Not My Job!

Tai chi was recommended to me by an acting teacher who said that tai chi was the best exercise for actors because it teaches you how to give up resistance.

I began in 1982.

In looking at push hands, I can honestly say that I have NEVER said to myself or to any of my teachers, that I can’t do this, or this is too hard, or this doesn’t help me. NEVER.

My job – when given an exercise to work on - is to participate as fully as I possibly can, not judge it, or determine the value, or disregard it (as in – I already know this!)

Of the many things I have done poorly, THIS is not one of them. My worst offence was disregard in that I felt I knew what this exercise had to offer and then not give it my all. But I changed that resistance and got back to work. And learned more.

You can always learn more, even if this is the umpteenth time you have worked on an exercise. This is because every push hand interaction has many layers. Perhaps infinite.

You can learn EVEN MORE if this exercise is difficult or confusing or “not my skill set”.

Resistance is a many headed monster.

Step one: recognize it.

Step two: If you have it, let it go….

Tai Chi Chuan – Let’s Do It Wrong!

Tai Chi Chuan – Let’s Do It Wrong!

I like to experiment. And in my laboratory, often I’ll take a small aspect of tai chi, and make it the ONLY thing you do in tai chi. That way, I get a fuller experience of that small aspect.

It is often very hard to get students to join me. They want what is familiar, what feels “normal” or “correct”. They want the end of the road, not the journey, not the beginning. But aren’t journeys and beginnings exciting? Doesn’t this tap your creativity?

So resistance is what I often meet when encouraging a new look at something small and then making it BIG. Students do all they can to normalize my exaggeration. It stops the process.

Myself, I don’t get it. You have to knead the dough, pull it, pound it, and stretch it, let it rise, before you can begin to bake it. It’s OK to distort, because you can always return to normal. Some experiments work, others fail. This kind of fundamental work is particularly difficult with more advanced students, the ones who “know”.

Perfection is not the goal. I think perfection is a fortunate accident that stumbles upon a few in a precarious way. To keep your goal as perfection cuts off all exploration.

So when I want students to “do it wrong to get it right”, we are not in the land of the perfect. We are in the land of the explorer trying to find some gold.  In a way, I think that is more like tai chi than some fantasy of being a star or master. If you become a master, great! But there are no guarantees. Some students have great talent, some have little talent. Regardless, we can all be explorers in tai chi.

I have to say, the long time students who do not like to explore, who just like to do the form over and over and over again, as if THAT will create some perfection, they are often the WORST tai chi practitioners.

Your tai chi form is your best habit to date. Nothing wrong with that, but perfecting an imperfect habit will go nowhere.

In the meantime, try being open to NEW as the new goal.

You might even enjoy it!