Tai Chi Chuan - Process, Not Product!

Tai Chi Chuan – Process, Not Product!

I sadly saw a good beginning student quit tai chi class. Something wasn’t working out for her despite her expressions of appreciation for the class. One particular note was that she didn’t want to spend two years to learn it.

Actually, we can take even three years to learn it. This is not because the moves are so difficult but because true relaxation and the functionality that emerges is so hard to understand. Even after three years most students do not have that. Only the inkling of that. It takes that long to begin to see what might be there if you keep at it. Generally Americans do not want that type of discipline. We are in a rush.

I began in 1982 and I want to quit tai chi every three months. My fantasy is that by finally getting it, I will feel a victory and have something in my hand that I can show for my effort. But that is the wrong road to take because tai chi is about the process of going through movements in a relaxed manner and then applying them to a situation of combat. OK, we hardly make it combat at all in the beginning, but that is generally the end game. The form itself is a template for relaxed movement and the discovery of how relaxation itself facilitates movement. This is a process.

This notion of practicing a process, not fixing a product, is extremely hard to involve yourself in, understand, and want to continue. My own desire for product inhibits my growth. To be so involved in process often feels like something I need to get past, so that the result of all this process is a product fully formed and NOW I can practice this product that gives me X, Y and Z.

But in fact, it is the process that gives me X, Y and Z. Oops!

Just to illustrate how much this gets in my way, I often begin my own practice sessions with some little isolated tai chi moves that focus on some small aspect that I’ve identified as worth accomplishing. Then I go ahead and do the form. But during this transition to actually doing, and accepting, the form, I begin to internally fidget. I hesitate. I get frightened. I don’t want my own product to disappoint me. I might go get something to eat or start to read something to give me a few more moments of avoidance. I’ve had this feeling for years.

Once I actually begin to do the form, the resistance goes and the fascination with all those tiny and often satisfying moments begins to unfold. Of course there are also disappointing moments in the form for me. Some parts have not evolved to where I want them to be, and I may simply miss other moments and do them in a less than satisfactory way on any given day. But in the middle of it, there is enjoyment. Whatever I have mastered in my process takes over and I’m practicing process.

In that sense, you never really learn the form. You learn process.

A while back, I was having a terrible time at work. The department was not unified, the management hostile, old alliances were reinforced and unity amongst the group was an unobtainable goal. There was change in the air, and abrupt expectations were made for which you were held responsible. The past was not to be brought up. We were on a new track and if that track was linked to the past, the past was not a subject for re-examination. Only “what is”, as if it came from some sort of existential vacuum, was cut up and dissected. The why’s and the wherefore’s were expendable, giving all us an odd sensation of being out on some limb of a tree that had no tree trunk. We were accountable for the current situation without any relational cause with the past. There was no ground beneath our feet, no one to work through all the myriad issues so that working order could be achieved. I sort of think that was the point on the part of those in charge. The ONLY thing one could lean into was “process”. To just being present and attentive as the waves and wind moved you about. Process was the ONLY key in this situation. It doesn’t guarantee success, but it is one tool you always have access to.

So I treasure this place where the whole point of the exercise is process and not some final product. That should be freeing. Can I call this a luxury of sorts?

Incidentally, I’ve seen some students “finish” the form and, at least in their eyes, think they have something and then quit class. They are no longer involved in process. I can’t imagine why anyone would want to practice tai chi after that.

One thing that keeps me going is curiosity. When I plateau in progress and each day starts to feel like the day before and my sense of improving my product is being thwarted, I really want to quit. But I am too curious to see what will happen next. And it always changes after that. Revealing more process.

Although I can’t say for sure, I would guess that even Professor Cheng had more he wanted to learn in the form -- and most regarded him as an unqualified master.

If you keep at it with openness and a desire to see more, it will change. And the endlessly fascinating process of learning process kicks in.

For me, that’s a key experience in tai chi.