Tai Chi Chuan - One Way to Solve Your Habit

Tai Chi Chuan – One Way to Solve Your Habit

It seems we all contain SOME ACTION where we do the same habit again and again and again.  It never seems to really go away.  Odd isn’t it?  Often, we can even point blank state what that habit is.  Our practice partners point out our habit to us often.  So awareness of the habit isn’t solving the problem.  What could remove this habit?

I have a thought about approaching habits.  It goes like this:  Within the logic of our minds, the habit is there doing something that we think will solve the problem or improve our performance.  So if that is true, take a look at your habit and assume it has some intrinsic benefit.  Assume the habit is there helping you.  What exactly is it doing to help you?  How does it help you?  Look at the habit as something that achieves something positive (even if you know it doesn’t).

My long standing push hands habit is predicting where the partner is going and getting ahead of the movement.  I think by not being there, I am protecting myself.  Certainly they cannot run into me and I am perceived as “soft”.  So my habit has everything to with being invisible.  There is a logic here that appeals to my own sense of what we are trying to do.  If you are not there, you can’t be pushed.  But in reality, I am there and when I predict the movement and leave that space open, it gives my partner something obvious to follow; it gives him/her a push.  It also gives them a gap to fill.  My habit doesn’t work, and the assumption that if I am not there, I am safe, is false.  But I really had to think about this to come to that conclusion.  I needed to look at this habit as if it were solving a problem.

So what is true?  I want to be there in the sense that the space the partner wants to take is being filled by me.  In this way there is no gap.  Further, as they take the space, I give up the space.  But I don’t create a gap.  I am IN the space they want to take.  If they take it, fine; if not, also fine.  This is a new thought for me.  Don’t NOT BE THERE, but in fact BE FULLY THERE.  I am not saying that I am blocking or resisting.  I am saying that I fully inhabit the space that they want to take from me.  In that way, I own the space and it is mine to give away.  My habit runs from the space prematurely and gives them a gap.  By being fully in the space that they want to take, I am fully connected to them at all times.  This feels light years away from the habit.

So try this one out.  Label your habit, look at the benefits, and then look at alternative ways that may be more beneficial.  It can be enlightening.

This is true for life as well.  I have a dear friend who doesn’t think this way.  Her habit is to react to situations with anger.  I suspect she feels she is being true to her feelings and by being in touch with that feeling and letting it go, she is doing herself a service.  But then anger hits her “partner” and the whole thing blows up in her face.  Result?  More anger!  True, sometimes she can’t let that anger out if the relationship is unequal, as in a supervisor.  But in many other situations, her sense of being true to her emotion does not really serve her.  It is very important to be in touch with your emotions.  It is not true that expressing them right here and now will get you what you want.  It often doesn’t.   Her habit is so strong that to look at it in this way is not even an option. 

But it is YOUR option if want it.