Tai Chi Chuan - Love That Sword!

Tai Chi Chuan – Love That Sword!

I’ve been thinking about the sword form and our relationship to that sword.  Maggie Newman, my teacher, reminds us to “accommodate the sword”.  Let me give you my take on this wonderful phrase.

The sword has a specific path that it must move through.  We are there to help it go where it needs to go.  It is central, we are peripheral.  Like a magic prop, it has a specific place in space.  It is as if we see a video of someone doing the sword form, and if we could digitally remove the person in the video, we would then just see a sword going through its path.  We are there to make sure that it fulfills its requirement, its need, its desire, its wish to be here, its wish to go there.

Oddly, this reminds me of the well-made play, a plot devise from the 19^th century that dominates just about all realistic drama we see today.

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From Wikipedia:

The well-made play is a dramatic genre from the nineteenth-century theatre that Eugène Scribe first codified and that Victorien Sardou developed. By the mid-19th century, it had already entered into common use as a derogatory term. This did not prevent Henrik Ibsen and the other realistic dramatists of the later 19th century (August Strindberg, Gerhart Hauptmann, Émile Zola, Anton Chekhov) from employing its technique of careful construction and preparation of effects. "Through their example", Marvin Carlson explains, "the well-made play became and still remains the traditional model of play construction."

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One element of the well-made play is the use of a pivotal prop.  The story in one way or other revolves around this prop and the prop is critical to the plot.  It has equal importance to all the other characters.  In fact, without this pivotal prop, the narrative would die in its tracks.  The world of the play requires this prop in order to exist.  Oscar Wilde even spoofs this in one play where this pivotal prop is carried across the stage on a silver platter by a butler – heralding its centrality while laughing at its use as a narrative device.

Our sword is a prop of sorts as well.  And it may prove pivotal to our lives. 

Forget the traditional sword form for a moment.  If you take your sword and use both hands to cradle it as a means of support and then carry it into the pathway that we are familiar with, it becomes a glowing magical wand floating in space.  This is done without utilizing the familiar hilt grip used in the form, nor the basic tai chi form stances.  Keep your hands under the blade and hilt, moving your hands and feet as needed in order to “float” the sword.  You are the invisible partner in this dance with your sword.  Your weight always supports its weight.  The sword evolves in space in its perfect pathway.  The sword fulfills its destiny.  This “form” is purely about the path of the sword and not about the martial use of the sword.  You are the water and the wind that moves the boat along it journey.

Accommodation.  You are there for the sword.  Once you set it in motion, you follow that motion.  You are not making decisions for that sword.  The chi of the movement has been released and you both fall into that vortex.  Let the sword decide.  Let the sword lead you.  By supporting the sword and not manipulating the sword as a weapon, you might see other relational approaches:

What if you are the loving servant of the sword?  What if you are the willing devotee of the sword and the sword is your teacher, your guru?  What if you are there to respect the wishes of the sword?  What if your love of the sword gives it the power it needs to be fully present?  What if you feel tenderness towards this sword and you want to be sure that its journey is lovingly completed?  What if your caring actions create that sword’s existence?  What if you are gently helping that sword along like you would your dear infirm grandmother?  What if you are gently guiding that sword as you would an inquisitive child?  How would you treat this sword if it was an invaluable one-of-kind ancient porcelain object (worth $1M?)  What if you are birthing the sword into its existence? 

What if YOU are the prop, and the sword moves you?

What happens if this all deeply matters?

I can guarantee you that the sword form will take on a whole new meaning, a whole new feeling.  Like Oscar Wilde’s prop that determines the outcome of the play, your sword might change you and your life.

And what if we approached all people, places and things with this same concern and caring?  The entire world is your sword and you must accommodate that world such that it goes where it needs to go to fulfill its exquisite perfection.  You are then integral to the perfection of that world.  You are a slice of perfect.

Sure, you can return to slice, cut, jab and stab.  That’s the obvious choice.  Lots of fun, that!

But I think we also need to love that sword with every cell of our body, serve it, nurture its journey, feel its chi and let it affect us.  It might teach you more than just a martial art.

Tai Chi Chuan - Getting to the Root

Tai Chi Chuan – Getting to the Root

I have asked my classmate Denise to join me in a point-counterpoint discussion of “root.” I asked Denise to do this for two reasons. One, I know she really looks closely at tai chi issues and principles and strives to learn more. Two, we don’t think the same way, so we may not agree!

We’ve agreed that I will start this and she will finish it.

Here goes:

Tom: We are developing root from the start but to really understand it is a later stage of practice. Root is clearly about your connection to the ground and in a way what is underneath the ground. The less of you, the more of it. One can feel it in others. As you become more empty (of tension), the ground becomes more solid. Root comes indirectly from a few basic sources. Relaxation and alignment are crucial so that your weight seamlessly drops through the body into the ground. I think it helps to have a mental sense of extending into the ground.

Some use root to stop an opponent from pushing them, and while I think this is a good test of root – you see it in the videos with Prof. Cheng – I believe root should not be used to block anyone. Like a bamboo reed, it lets you bend with the wind, but remain solidly connected to the ground.

Ben Lo creates root by pushing students lower and longer in their stances. I fondly recall my form post Ben Lo camp. Clearly a greater sense of stability had been created as if by magic (and a week of utter leg pain.) Maggie takes a longer time with root, focusing on the whole body connected to the ground and using the ground to move the body. It tip toes in through the back door.

As you progress in tai chi, the body takes up less and less attention. The mind can focus on other areas. Does root require attention? Or does it just develop naturally? Many students have a moment when they feel that they have found their root. Suddenly it has appeared more concretely in their body/minds. Why or how this happens I’m not entirely sure.

Denise: Normally one would start a discussion about Root with a definition, but since it is an enigmatic fundamental principal of tai chi Tom has requested that we skip to observables. Seeing it in others is visually difficult as it takes experience to tell the difference between a nice Qi flow and a grounded or rooted Qi flow. In push hands, however, the difference is apparent after about five seconds.

A player with root has a hidden strength that comes not from muscle. A big strong man seems herculean. A smaller man or woman with strong root suddenly upends presumptions you have made about them based on their body type or sex. They feel solid, but you can’t find their center to push on. They may neutralize by absorbing Qi and then turning it around and giving it back to you, as if you had pushed yourself. They can patiently wait for you to make a mistake, staying in their center and tapping into something extra. On occasions when I’ve connected with that root, I have felt sensations such as a magnetic currents and complete dissolution of boundaries between my partner and me.

What we are connecting to is what Tom terms, ground. Relaxation and alignment facilitate that connection and have what I think is a symbiotic relationship with it. In connecting to the ground, we surrender to the force of gravity and so learn to trust it. With that trust we can feel safe in letting go of stiff muscles that are holding us up. With a little more relaxation, comes a little more root, and so on.

My observation is that players who have really strong root, have generally done a fair amount of standing practice or other forms of meditation. The physical discipline builds the legs so they know where the body is in alignment and can keep the skeleton in alignment even when engaged in push hands.

Tom: I like that Denise has emphasized the symbiotic relationship of relaxation and alignment.

What is trusting gravity? What is feeling safe in letting go of stiff muscles? Do we not feel safe in letting go of stiff muscles? I like the sense of these statements. Root is encouraged by metaphoric or psychological words which help in terms of thinking about it and deepening it. Root may have a mechanical aspect, but the mind aspect goes hand in hand. Both “safe” and “trust” are comfort words that help move us in the direction of greater relaxation and therefore root. One can relate to various entities in an emotional way. For example, “play” with the air, the ground and gravity as “your friends.” Trust them. Let them help you to feel safe. And so on. Yes, a bit “new agey,” but the mind is a powerful relationship builder and interpreter. We do what our mind suggests – let’s take advantage of making good ones.

Alignment is a crucial aspect because it creates a central column that allows the relaxation to be central to the body. Alignment is required when Denise talks about when someone feels as “if you had pushed yourself.” That is, you bounce yourself off of their ground. This is why the upright body in the full part of the posture is emphasized in the form.

It seems to me that when you get pushed by someone with a deep root, it feels like MORE of them have pushed you than their actual size suggests. ALL of them – every cell – have helped in the push. It is hard to identify the arms as the “pushers”. If the alignment creates a good connection into the ground, there is a solid path for energy to transfer up and down the body.

Denise: To term words such as “safe” and “trust,” as a “new agey,” is a disservice. Their opposites, “dangerous,” and “afraid,” are primal motivators. While most of the time, I may not be in the kind of physical danger that requires mammalian survival instinct (except for that walk to the office past New Haven’s least gentile inhabitants that does sometimes raise the hair on the back of my neck) there are still stressors in my life that find a nice home in the muscles in my neck and shoulders. To release that is not easy. There have been times in class that my teacher has taken the weight of my arm, and still I could not let go of that tension.

While I absolutely agree that the mind is a powerful relationship builder and interpreter, I don’t use the words “safe” and “trust” as metaphors. In studying this martial art, we choose to embrace a system of combat. While nowadays, few of us have a mortal enemy lurking outside our temple, we nevertheless, do battle at the office, at home, and most difficultly, with ourselves. The modern study of tai chi is as much about facing our fear in the face of battle as ever. It is just that the battlefield is a lot harder to define.

Root, then, makes it easier to know ourselves and face fear. As it develops, we are more at ease in all situations – especially in the laboratory we call push hands. On the rare opportunity when I’ve felt the “perfect” rooted push, it has been as if a gentle breeze redirected either my opponent or me. Matter (my body) and force (making movement) dissolve along with any sense of self or doing. To be released from that, even momentarily is what keeps me at this practice.

Tom: I actually did not term the words “trust” or “safe” as “new agey” nor as metaphors. My statement is far more complex. We can quibble over word usage but my point is that the body takes on the messages we send it, real or perceived. How we think about our root can be helpful in deepening the experience. I would also suggest that the radical departure of tai chi is that it is less a system of combat, but more a system of peace interacting with a combatant.

But here is my main interest: deepening the root and using it to our best advantage. One mechanical way is to feel the tailbone drop straight and hang. Add to this the image of the central core sinking into the ground below, and the feeling that follows. Root of course congers up the image of the root of a tree, adding support or nutritional advantage to the tree. Metaphor? Real? Perceived? All that matters to me is if this helps. If not, disregard! We all have different relationships to words.

My second interest is in what is gained – functionally how do we use it? Those that have great root and great pushes – at least in my experience – never block me. Instead, they are never there, never in reach, never in my way. They disappear. The root functions as the pathway that the body can use in order to NOT let pressure build up. This is more than relaxation – it is the ability to read an intention and utilize the root to direct a partner’s intention into a neutral space. We neutralize force, not block or “absorb” it. You can only be neutral if your body is relaxed and has a base it can rely on. That base is the root in the ground.

Denise: Another way of experiencing root is when you can move past directing a partner’s intention into a neutral space and dissolve any difference between individuals. By entering a deeper state of consciousness, wuwei, you enter being the same space with your partner and as one you change directions. It is not until you disassociate, or disconnect, that you feel that you have neutralized an incoming force.

While these are difficult skills to develop in push hands, there are any number of exercises that two people can do to experience the sensation of becoming one and then disconnecting, even as beginners. But to develop one’s own reliable connection to ground, standing meditation is a key practice. Then one can learn to stay rooted despite being in movement through form practice and then again with the challenge of another person in push hands.

It is in form practice that I find metaphor particularly useful. Whether I’ve chosen to think about my legs serving like tree roots connecting the matter of my body to the energy of the earth, or envisioned my legs drilling to the center of the earth I can deepen the feeling of gravity that pulses through my body. At a certain point though intention to root can be undermined. One explanation is that root is an insubstantial entity that through concentration turns substantial and in that transformation, disappears. As odd as that sounds, I’ve felt this in a demonstration. This is where that symbiotic relationship between root and alignment and relaxation are particularly valuable. You can refocus your attention on those mechanics and reestablish your connection.

Functionally, I believe root simply becomes a part of you – part of your personal packaging. You can’t use it, per se, but is part of the fabric of your movement and existence in space.

The Joy of Quiet - New York Times Opinion Article

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.”

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.

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!

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

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.

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!

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…

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.

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.

Tai Chi Chuan – “Invest in Loss,” really?

Tai Chi Chuan – “Invest in Loss,” really?

The question arose recently: Does the adage to “invest in loss” in tai chi push hands have any relationship to a personal loss in real life?

At first I didn’t think so.

From the dictionary:

Invest: To spend or devote for future advantage or benefit; To devote morally or psychologically, as to a purpose; commit; To endow with authority or power.

Loss: The condition of being deprived or bereaved of something or someone; The harm or suffering caused by losing or being lost.

In push hands, you volunteer to learn a skill where trying to win – at least initially – will inhibit your progress. In a very real way, if you are attacked by your partner, you need to accept the attack and NOT fight her off. You let it happen. During this process, you may have mind left over to see what is going on, even if you don’t have a good solution. You will feel more and relax more. Eventually, perhaps through your own growth, or through the suggestion of your partner, you begin to see the solutions. One way to get there is simply getting pushed and pushed and pushed. This can be very frustrating!

Like any loss, it is very confusing. But it is also very rewarding because by “investing in loss” you will see the situation from a very different perspective. Otherwise, you are investing in struggle, resistance and strategy. By removing the desire to win, you open up your ability to see exactly what is really happening in this moment. It is virtually impossible to see what is happening in this moment if you are always strategizing or resisting what is actually happening NOW.

In real life, you don’t seek out loss in order to learn. Loss comes hard and sometimes there is no real obvious gain. The process of loss is just loss. Redemption is not always on the playing field. Unlike push hands, loss=gain is not true. Mostly loss=loss.

But not always. It is true that if you spend lots of energy on fighting the loss (as in push hands,) you have two problems: The loss + the pointless struggle of fighting it off. You’ve added baggage to a difficult situation. Letting go of that baggage is an important step to learning whatever lesson the loss may give you.

[Please note to those who have not participated in push hands: when you struggle against someone who understands push hands, generally, you lose the game! Struggle works against you.]

Clearly there are losses in life that create life altering changes in individuals and, to sound corny, they turn lemons into lemonade. This does happen. One is forced to do something else because something has been taken away. To persist in fighting the loss itself may close the door to what could be an alternative, possibly better, way to exist.

For some losses, to look closely at the loss often reveals steps that you did not take but in retrospect could have taken. You missed the opportunity to act when you needed to or to take necessary steps at the right time. You may learn something here and grow as a result.

But again, this is not always the case. I ponder those individuals in the World Trade Towers on September 11th, 2001, an unforeseeable disaster. Some were hopelessly trapped. Some had the option to run out of the building as fast as they could. Others decided there was no real danger and stayed where they were, perhaps avoiding panicked crowds going down stairwells in the dark. They couldn’t have predicted the tragic outcome.

“Invest in loss” has a sense of non-resistance to it. Giving up struggle, gain, winning. One side benefit of this is “being.” And allowing whatever is happening to happen. There is much to gain by doing this.

But what is “being” in the face of personal loss, grief, injustice perhaps?

Acceptance is one element. Awareness is another. Opening new possibilities is yet another. Allowing yourself the feelings that you need to feel as you experience the loss is one more. Giving yourself space to “not do” something in order to fully comprehend the situation, to fully be with it. Giving yourself time to simply exist with the totality of the loss. To embrace who you are – totally – in this moment. The knowledge that you are MORE than your loss.

While all of that is rarely pleasant, to NOT have that creates more tension and pointless struggle. To NOT have this binds you in.

It is interesting that in the push hands situation, a situation that you have volunteered to work with, many of the same problems and frustrations come up as if life had handed you some REAL loss. Experientially, it’s not so different. Inevitably you hit a wall of sorts and can’t seem to handle the partner in front of you. The desire to win often creates the very problem that creates frustration and a sense of loss. I have been so angry and frustrated at times with push hands partners that I have left the game. Others have felt the same about me.

Some real life losses create severe stress. While it may be easier to accept loss in push hands, the process of push hands takes time, attention, persistence, acceptance of who you are and your level of skill, and a great deal of letting go, of not reacting with your emotions. By this I don’t mean that you don’t have or recognize emotions. I mean that you don’t act on them as if they are some sort of trustworthy actionable directive. “I feel therefore I do” is not the adage. I hit you because I feel angry? Sorry no no! I feel my anger. I feel like hitting you. But I don’t. “I feel therefore I am.” (For some, if they don’t recognize their own emotional impulses, the action bursts forth as if by its own unrecognized volition. See Law and Order!)

Does personal loss require any less?

But more to the point, what if the loss had nothing to do with your actions or inactions? What if you were born with a loss? Or someone has decided you are inferior because of ignorance, fear, whatever the reason. Or cholera is in the water and it is the middle ages and no one has heard of cholera? Life happens despite our best efforts. It is loaded with losses, small and large. It is normal.

A book comes to mind, Man’s Search for Meaning by Viktor E. Frankl. He presents the concentration camps and the suffering and loss experienced by the Jews. He was there. The bottom line for him is that loss tests our humanity. To weather a severe and real loss with dignity or even generosity is a personal victory worth struggling for. That is a profound and existential challenge.

No one wishes such harm on anyone, but when faced with ultimate loss, how do you rise to the occasion?

As you lose again and again and again in push-hands, how do you rise to the occasion?

The stakes in push hands are not the same, but the human struggle is similar to real life loss. You have to face yourself.

“Invest in loss” has answers to dealing with personal loss. Sometimes the best way to live is to allow the loss to happen (if you have no control over it) and see what comes next. Equanimity. Walk through the mud, don’t wallow in it. Or wallow in it for a while, and then get on with task of living.

By accepting loss, what can you make of loss? What does life have to offer, despite the loss, or even because of the loss? To me, this is “invest in loss.”

Tools for Thinking - New York Times article

Perhaps the connection here to tai chi is slim, but I see ideas and words that resonate with a tai chi process. Words/ideas like context, emergence, “bottom up and top down simultaneously,” letting go of past associations (and solutions) to see what is happening now, and so forth.

This is a profound article of CHANGE!

Tom

March 28, 2011

Tools for Thinking

By DAVID BROOKS

A few months ago, Steven Pinker of Harvard asked a smart question: What scientific concept would improve everybody’s cognitive toolkit?

The good folks at Edge.org organized a symposium and 164 thinkers contributed suggestions. John McWhorter, a linguist at Columbia University, wrote that people should be more aware of path dependence. This refers to the notion that often “something that seems normal or inevitable today began with a choice that made sense at a particular time in the past, but survived despite the eclipse of the justification for that choice.”

For instance, typewriters used to jam if people typed too fast, so the manufacturers designed a keyboard that would slow typists. We no longer have typewriters, but we are stuck with the letter arrangements of the qwerty keyboard.

Path dependence explains many linguistic patterns and mental categories, McWhorter continues. Many people worry about the way e-mail seems to degrade writing skills. But there is nothing about e-mail that forbids people from using the literary style of 19th-century letter writers. In the 1960s, language became less formal, and now anybody who uses the old manner is regarded as an eccentric.

Evgeny Morozov, the author of “The Net Delusion,” nominated the Einstellung Effect, the idea that we often try to solve problems by using solutions that worked in the past instead of looking at each situation on its own terms. This effect is especially powerful in foreign affairs, where each new conflict is viewed through the prism of Vietnam or Munich or the cold war or Iraq.

Daniel Kahneman of Princeton University writes about the Focusing Illusion, which holds that “nothing in life is as important as you think it is while you are thinking about it.” He continues: “Education is an important determinant of income — one of the most important — but it is less important than most people think. If everyone had the same education, the inequality of income would be reduced by less than 10 percent. When you focus on education you neglect the myriad of other factors that determine income. The differences of income among people who have the same education are huge.”

Joshua Greene, a philosopher and neuroscientist at Harvard University, has a brilliant entry on Supervenience. Imagine a picture on a computer screen of a dog sitting in a rowboat. It can be described as a picture of a dog, but at a different level it can be described as an arrangement of pixels and colors. The relationship between the two levels is asymmetric. The same image can be displayed at different sizes with different pixels. The high-level properties (dogness) supervene the low-level properties (pixels).

Supervenience, Greene continues, helps explain things like the relationship between science and the humanities. Humanists fear that scientists are taking over their territory and trying to explain everything. But new discoveries about the brain don’t explain Macbeth. The products of the mind supervene the mechanisms of the brain. The humanities can be informed by the cognitive sciences even as they supervene them.

If I were presumptuous enough to nominate a few entries, I’d suggest the Fundamental Attribution Error: Don’t try to explain by character traits behavior that is better explained by context.

I’d also nominate the distinction between emotion and arousal. There’s a general assumption that emotional people are always flying off the handle. That’s not true. We would also say that Emily Dickinson was emotionally astute. As far as I know, she did not go around screaming all the time. It would be useful if we could distinguish between the emotionality of Dickinson and the arousal of the talk-show jock.

Public life would be vastly improved if people relied more on the concept of emergence. Many contributors to the Edge symposium hit on this point.

We often try to understand problems by taking apart and studying their constituent parts. But emergent problems can’t be understood this way. Emergent systems are ones in which many different elements interact. The pattern of interaction then produces a new element that is greater than the sum of the parts, which then exercises a top-down influence on the constituent elements.

Culture is an emergent system. A group of people establishes a pattern of interaction. And once that culture exists, it influences how the individuals in it behave. An economy is an emergent system. So is political polarization, rising health care costs and a bad marriage.

Emergent systems are bottom-up and top-down simultaneously. They have to be studied differently, as wholes and as nested networks of relationships. We still try to address problems like poverty and Islamic extremism by trying to tease out individual causes. We might make more headway if we thought emergently.

We’d certainly be better off if everyone sampled the fabulous Edge symposium, which, like the best in science, is modest and daring all at once.