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.