Tai Chi Chuan - You Have to be Carefully Taught

Tai Chi Chuan –You Have to be Carefully Taught

One of the interesting things that goes on when you learn tai chi is that you are learning more than just a form. You also learn How To Learn the form.

Who we are is what we bring to tai chi. So who we are is what comes out in tai chi, at least initially. We tend to think tai chi is a collection of some type of artful movements. So we stiffly imitate what we see.

Oh, yes, then we hear the word relax.

Oh, but then we hear a bit more about a Center.

Next comes connection to ground and air, heaven and earth.

Then comes rooting. Then internal balance.

After comes listening and sticking and following and….

Behind all of this is an essential ingredient which is HOW to learn. Tai chi is not what we think it is, and we need a new way to approach it. I see in my own teaching how often I have to go back to the same essential suggestion with each student. They are approaching their understanding of what I am saying with tools that they already have. Tai chi requires new tools. Or changing the tools you have.

This was true for me as well. I would get the same correction again and again and again in a variety of ways. It never really occurred to me that in order to grasp the new information, I needed a new way to absorb it. So I didn’t absorb it, I just went back to the old me and the old ways while imitating the movements as I saw them. I wasted a lot of time this way.

If I were to start over, I would give a much larger part of my attention on how to absorb the information and look for a new way to learn. This may slow down the learning at first. It might feel like more time spent on something that feels peripheral to the main event. But it is actually taking time to find the key to discover what tai chi is all about.

I didn’t know that “how I approach anything is how I approach everything”. This can be a huge stumbling block when it comes to tai chi. It is also something that frustrates many students – consciously or unconsciously – and why so many quit tai chi before they ever get it to bloom. Whatever it is they wanted to get doesn’t come. Tai chi then feels like everything else, so why bother?

One reason we need a new way – and this will vary for each individual – is that tai chi itself is a new way of existence. The old you has limited access to a new way of existence. It’s that simple and that complex. It helps to take a moment and look at how you normally learn what you learn.

How fast do you feel you need to master this before you lose interest? Are you comfortable with not knowing? Do you feel your way into situations or think your way into situations? Do you take notes? Does military-like repetition feel best to you? Do you like to throw out all the rules and see what comes? Does sort of making yourself dead to discovery feel comforting? Are you afraid of actually learning something new? What holds you back from new experience or knowledge? Is your way the best way? Does discipline feel good to you or restraining to you? Can you take one step back to go two steps forward? Do you always need to be going straight forward?

All of these have value. All of these can be impediments.

What might you change? What would feel appropriate to an experiential exercise that offers a new way to inhabit your own skin? What needs to happen so that you do hear what your teacher is telling you?

I practice push hands with one individual from time to time and I have to note that he rarely makes any improvement. The conversation often comes down to how bad his push is and how bad my push is and how bad everyone’s push is and no one can really push well and once you have felt the push of some master you have to face the fact that we just can’t do it and to this day it is still a mystery and what the master has we simply don’t understand or don’t do....

Well now!

I don’t see how anyone can progress with this difficult process with such an elephant on their backs. The judgment and comparison is literally crippling. It robs him (and me) of any way of working on this challenging puzzle. His learning has to include learning to stop with the comparisons and judgment. This is how he approaches all of life: How you do anything is how you do everything. A result of all this is that he hasn’t made much progress. It’s the all or nothing approach to push hands. You either have it, or you don’t.

I spoke with a student of perhaps two years. A dancer, she had felt for some time that she hadn’t been getting much out of tai chi. Then she changed. A dancer likes technique and precision, preparing for performance with the ultimate purpose of being viewed by others. She decided to approach tai chi class without any goals and without any expectation. The result? She has found class to be totally exciting and she loves it. Tai chi is mostly about process, not result. It helps to align your learning mind in the direction of discovery.

To see ourselves from a distance with real honesty is a big task. It’s not a natural thing for us to do. We have to separate from ourselves and look with a microscope or a telescope to gain a different perspective on the issue. When is the last time you did this? Mostly we look out at the world through our rose colored glasses. It’s an “in-out” view with our conditioning getting in the way. Oddly, we have the capability to do the opposite which is what I’m suggesting. I don’t think we can live our lives from the “out-in” view, but we can stop for a moment here and there and see what we might see.

A new view could be a jolt of lightening. In fact, in addition to taking on a sort of universal distant (possibly objective) view of yourself, it may be helpful to take on a view of yourself from the perspective of someone else. That is, how does X, Y, or Z view me from their perspective? Take on their viewpoint, their conditioning, their assumptions and look at you as if you are them. See how they see. See what they see.

You might learn something new.