Tai Chi Chuan - Look! See! Do! Forgive! Laugh!

Tai Chi Chuan – Look! See! Do! Forgive! Laugh!

It strikes me that tai chi class is wonderful at teaching us to attend, to be attentive, to watch, to see and ultimately to take on the challenge of owning it.

There are many things going on simultaneously, but one underlying skill is that of paying attention.  In our culture, attention spans get worse and worse (in our texting-while-watching-a-play-in-a-theater world.)  Studies indicate that along with such distractions with the Smart Phone that empathy gets weaker and weaker.  (http://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/27/opinion/sunday/stop-googling-lets-talk.html)

In Tai Chi, you have to be right here and right now.  Even with the best of intentions, you will miss a great deal for quite some time and the teacher will have to draw your attention to what you’ve missed.  It can feel humiliating at worst, and annoying at best. It’s a shell game; I’m looking here but missing there. We feel that we SHOULD have gotten that detail.  But we didn’t. 

Tai chi is not necessarily unique in this endeavor.  Just about any movement, dance or martial arts class will train you to do this as well.  But given the slow gestation and complexities in tai chi, the amount of attending to detail that is required, it serves this purpose well and in some ways even better than other movement choices.  Why? There are MANY things that need attention in tai chi – many of them are not obvious – so the level of attention has to go up and up and up.  Like ballet.  Like playing the piano. As that happens, your attention needs to be more and more attuned.  And it has to shift.

Maggie Newman would often remind us that tai chi is like threading a needle.  Yes, that precise, that delicate, that just so!  That much attention…

It should also teach us forgiveness and humor.  You need both to learn tai chi.  You can’t indulge in being mad at yourself – or others – for not being perfect. I recall a poster in a dance studio that went like this: “Strive for Perfection, not Correction.”  While that is a heady thought, I think the opposite is true.  Let perfection take care of itself, you attend to correction.  You can correct, you can’t do “perfection”.

Humor is imbedded in the human condition.  Tai chi is so challenging and we are generally so flawed, that you either laugh or cry.  You either come back for more, or run for the hills! Better to Laugh!  Yes, laugh at yourself!  And by this I don’t mean scoff or demean yourself. This laughter is seeing that you are trapped in a silly farce or a Marx Brothers film – despite your best effort!  We are square pegs trying to fill a round hole. The Three Stooges, Laurel and Hardy.  We bump into things and we bump into each other and we bump into ourselves. If only it weren’t so. It’s just the way it is. 

How many times has a teacher imitated me to show me my error?  Lots! And often, I have to say, they elicit my laughter. We are funny creatures if only we can let go of wanting to seem perfect or untouchable!

Zen adage: Fall down seven times; get up eight!

I want to let go of all harshness (well, some day!)

Keep it light, soft, flexible, pliable…

Keep laughing and keep learning. 

And paying attention.

One last thought: Twenty Three Skidoo and a Barrel of Monkeys!