Tai Chi Chuan and Spirituality

Tai Chi Chuan and Spirituality

The word “spiritual” has always frightened me.  Because we all relate (or don’t relate) to it from our personal perspective, it starts to lose meaning.  Worse, a “spiritual person” taps into ephemeral, non-materialistic, moral, the transcendent mystical and ethereal worlds that have no clear boundaries, deeply subject to personal interpretation.  Religious wars have been fought (and continue to this day) over the spiritual side of mankind.  Some note that religion kills.  Others note that we would be far worse without it.

Let me digress.  We have an animal self.  This is the self that needs  survival.  This is the self that caters to our body’s needs and desires.  This self self-perpetuates and creates safety so that it can persist in the world.  This self even procreates in order to see that its genes continue on after the body dies.  Tai chi begins with this self.

Do you have to believe in God to be spiritual?

What makes a spiritual person spiritual?

Who is the most spiritual: Gandhi, Mother Theresa, Buddha, The Pope or Bishop Desmond Tutu?

Can you measure it?

Do you need religion to be spiritual?

Is a religious person more spiritual than a non-religious person?

Are there non-spiritual people?

Lately, I’ve been associating that word with the desire or goal to go beyond our animal existence.  Even that may not be true.  What does our animal nature include?  Is love on the list? 

Perhaps a spiritual person is trying to find the best “good” possible.   But again that depends on perspective.  I suspect the average American’s sense of the spiritual would be at odds with Osama bin Laden’s sense of the spiritual.  Some would claim he doesn’t have one but I suspect if he were alive to state his case he would claim that Americans are not spiritual and are hedonistic.

Of course, in the mix here is “religion”.  Some link spirituality with religion, others separate the two.  Many use both religion and spirituality as some sort of Boy Scout badge of honor, proof of their “goodness”.

It is a challenge that not everyone takes up or is capable of taking up should harsh life circumstances create obstacles.  Even that statement falls apart because of the many examples of individuals who start with nothing, yet create something of value.  The mystery of life can take very unusual twists that confound logic or expectations.

The most intriguing statement I’ve run into comes from a Zen monk:  “Spiritual” is what we do to come to terms with the fact that we know we are going to die.  How do you live, knowing you die?  Does that energize you? Create anxiety? Create a feeling of “why bother”?  Hopelessness?  Appreciate every moment?

Some conceive tai chi as a spiritual practice despite the fact that it is not linked to religion.  While it is a mind-body exercise, it is grounded in the body and lacks cerebral or moral teachings.  How can this be spiritual?

When I think of “spiritual” these days, I ponder those individuals who seem to go beyond their own personal safety and pleasure and lift themselves into the service of others, dig into themselves to find a new internal space of generosity, or create a new space in the world for something that is life affirming, something that creates, if not happiness, then peace.   To me, this is the “work” of spirituality:  to find that intangible good that I believe most of us possess.  It is not linked to God or a religion, though to some, God and religion help them frame their spirituality. 

It may not even be comfortable or satisfying.  Mother Theresa was very depressed and doubted the existence of God while doing what most would describe as noble work and a spiritual mission.

I read recently that we are the only animal that will put ourselves in harm’s way, or even die, to save the life of others.  Clearly that action has little to do with our own animal existence, safety or comfort.

Tai chi has some unusual goals.  The first would be an internal integration of the body itself.  Each part is connected and moves in concert impeccably, organically with each other part.  But that is not enough.  We need to use the ground and the air to make it alive and interactive.  But that is not enough.  We practice in a group and we have to move with each other in unison.  When we work in push-hands with another body, we need to be connecting to that body.  In sword form we connect with a physical object, a sword.  In sword dueling, we connect to each other through the sword of the partner.

Connection is deeply embedded in tai chi and takes the focus off of our self while not ignoring our self.  We don’t become selfless.  It is more like the whole world becomes your self.  And if this is so, we have a great reason to be with the world generously.  By the requirement that you must rely on others to grow, you invariable appreciate the other.  Their growth is your growth.  When tai chi becomes all about you, you stop progressing.   I’ve seen this many many times.  It is a trap we have to learn to avoid.

Given these demands, we need to press into our self and go beyond what we have naturally acquired in life.  Tai chi training is a process of letting go of that which gets in the way of connection, either to our internal mass, or to others.  To practice tai chi you would have to care about your body – this magnificent tool – and care about your partners or practice group.  They all contribute to creating this cellular response to life that includes everyone and everything.

The spirituality of tai chi is not front and center.  It is not the first thing we are concerned with.  Studying tai chi will not necessarily make you more spiritual.

Personally I’m grateful to tai chi for this potential.  My childhood did not stress connection.  In fact, survival depended on NOT connecting and being independent.  Religion is not a good teacher for me because of its divisive and often aggressive nature.  But in tai chi, if you really progress, at some point you will have to contend with connection to the world.  I’ve needed something this tangible to understand connection.  I’ve changed my tune.

One last word on “spiritual”: It has always seemed to me that one basic aspect of our humanity is being with others with a unified purpose.  Hence, movies, theater, sports events, a yoga class, religious practices and political rallies all have this in common: bodies together with a unified intension.  This always creates a “me” that is more than I am when I am by myself.  The content of the gathering is less important than the bodies gathered and unified purpose of the group.  It is one way that the “I” can become a “We”.  

Doing tai chi in a group also has this fundamental experience.  (The danger here is “group think” or hysteria.  It can go both ways.  Hitler comes to mind in that he needed to create a group think response in his followers.  That need is built into our psyches, but Hitler’s aim was not unification.  His aim was separation and dominance and his tools were intimidation and violence.)  In tai chi, a rather benign exercise to begin with, hysteria is far less likely to occur.  We are relaxing, after all.  We are calming and collecting the chi.  We are dissolving the self to become a SELF.

Maybe it is a good thing that everyone has their own definition of “spiritual”.  That way we keep looking for new avenues of practice and connection.  It becomes a live investigation and not an ideology or theology, not a dead weight, not a competition.

Spirituality, like tai chi, has to be lively to have any value.   Both can enliven our existence.

Have I missed anything here?  I hope so.

Tai Chi Chuan – Think Locally, Act Globally

Tai Chi Chuan – Think Locally, Act Globally

I have been looking at non-doing in push hands.  That is, how can four ounces of strength push someone?  We look at many ways to accomplish this and study methods of engagement to create that result.  I hear a divide out there, and both seem sort of logical when you isolate them. 

Group One: “When you yield, you yield – when you push, you push.”

GroupTwo:  “Yield into push as a seamless event and yield even as you push.”

I also hear of these miraculous pushes where the person pushed claims they didn’t feel a thing and suddenly they were in the air.  My current thinking – this can change – is that you do feel it, but that once it has registered, it is too late.  The push is a marvelous trick on our ability to register action in the body.  A good push is inevitable.  Even if you do see that push coming, you feel as if there is nothing left to be done but to be pushed.  In a street fight, you can always block a punch.  In tai chi, you never block a punch; you adjust yourself so that you are out of harm’s way.  You incorporate THEM.

Thus far, the best approach given to me by some very talented tai chi players is that of not doing anything at the point of connection.  This requires a bit of explanation:  yes, something happens. You may feel their intention or notice they are after you, intending to trap you.  Perhaps you feel them looking for your center, or preparing to set up a good push.  All of these are “doing” activities.  Noticing their intention gives you a heads up.  But if we are not going “to do” something in response, what is a proper way to respond?  How can we “non-do” to respond?

A few answers come to mind.  Always have their hands connected to your root.  Let them go through you to your ground.  Don’t flee.  Open up internally.  Yield to the extent that you need to (not more, not less.)  Don’t let your mind focus on the point of contact as if the solution lies in that small area of physical connection, but don’t ignore it either.  (None of these ideas are my own – they come from my buddies in Detroit and other teachers.)

This conundrum reminds me of a popular adage these days:

“Think Globally, Act Locally.”

This is because we feel we have some control over our local unit and can do something positive.  As Americans, we love to feel we are doing something positive to create solutions.  I think our “can do” spirit is a double edged sword and we do a lot of “can doing”.   In one sense, we throw our hands up in the air and do the best we can by creating local activity.  What else CAN we do but act locally, right?

Uh, er, oops?  If we act locally to problems, this does not insure that the other localities will work in sync.  We can stop our carbon emissions (in the US we refuse to do this for economic reasons) but what if our neighbors do not?  If NY State outlaws gun sales, but New Jersey continues to allow gun sales, are we safer for our local action?  The US has inflated prescription prices, but across the border in Canada, they are much less expensive.  Economic solution?

In tai chi, the opposite is true:

“Think Locally, Act Globally.”

That is, you are aware of that point of contact, that local concern.  But your response has to be with the whole body and mind.  That small point is just one little dot on the global map.  By responding locally, mostly what you get is force.  By responding globally, you no longer rely on solving the problem with that tiny local area.  Perhaps it is better to say: Think Globally, Act Globally.

Alas, as in tai chi, a global response is much much harder to achieve.

Oddly, it seems that when you do move the globe, it feels as if nothing in particular is going on.  If everything moves, then no part in particular feels active.  The action of the globe is integrated.  (By sitting in a car going 60 miles an hour, after a while, we feel like we are simply sitting at home watching a movie.  Since our whole body is going 60 miles per hour, it has no meaning within that protected environment in terms of experience.  Only the visual queue confirms this.)

But back to push hands.  One question that I’m working with is finding out how to get that globe to expand and integrate so that my action is not a local response.  Yes, I do have to acknowledge and be aware of the local threat.  I just don’t have to attack or run from the local threat.  I have the option of letting the entire globe connect to the threat and in a unified way engage the local activity.  This is our body as U.N.

If we look at the section in the form where press goes to push, that pushing action is moving something.  But it is not using the arms.  The edges of the hands are merely the edge of a larger circle the surrounds the body.  Our chi is expanding, our body is expanding, our globe is expanding and the hands follow.  Those new to tai chi tend to put the hands out front and let the body follow.  Why do we let the bulk of our mass follow those tiny arms?  Why not let that mass move the arms?   

I do believe there is an emotional parallel as well.  I’ll let you give that some thought…

Let yourself be a globe, move like a globe, and be global!

Tai Chi Chuan – Following INTO a Seamless Push

Tai Chi Chuan – Following INTO a Seamless Push

My teacher, Maggie Newman, has relentlessly and repeatedly asked that we make ourselves comfortable.  The question arises, how do we make our partner comfortable when we begin to push them?

I have a talented partner who, if he glimmers but a speck of you are about to push him, he gets reactive.  Like many of us.  He runs, attacks, hunkers down and roots, wriggles, collapses to create space and so on.  But what if, as the push begins, he didn’t have a clue as to what you were up to?  What if he had nothing to react to and when he finally got the message, it’s too late.  He’s pushed.

That’s a big goal – not only are you comfortable, but you make THEM comfortable.

But how?

I suspect the key is that as you perceive the potential for a push that you hold the breaks and continue to follow them, really follow them, such that they take themselves into your push.

Here’s a thought.  My back is draping downward, relaxing into my feet.  This is like half of a “U”.  The other half is coming up through their feet and my hands.   This is from my perspective.  This is what I want.  They have the same perspective, but coming from their back, down into the feet, etc.  But if they are stuck, in a sense, their back just got jammed.  It is now going up, not down.  Their back is going up and my back is going down.  Do you see the complete circle here?  If I meticulously join with THEM to complete THEIR circle and then rotate the entire circle forward, my feet have an opportunity to “take out” their feet.  This strikes me as seamless push. 

If you can’t really feel someone who is going with you, how can you detect a push coming?  (You can’t!)

Here pushing is NOT pushing.  It is joining with the partner and letting the circles take their logical course.

Tai Chi Chuan - The Rational Body

Tai Chi Chuan – The Rational Body

The follow excerpt comes from On Being Certain, Believing You Are Right Even When You’re Not (Robert A. Burton, M.D.):

§

“In Philosophy in the Flesh: The Embodied Mind and Its Challenge to Western Thought, cognitive scientists George Lakoff and Mark Johnson offer a succinct summary:

Reason is not disembodied, as the tradition has largely held, but arises from the nature of our brains, bodies, and bodily experiences… The same neural and cognitive mechanisms that allow us to perceive and move around also create our conceptual systems and modes of reason. To understand reason, we must understand the details of our visual system, our motor system, and the general mechanisms of neural binding. Reason is not a transcendent feature of the universe of disembodied mind. Instead, it is shaped crucially by the peculiarities of our human bodies, by the remarkable details of the neural structure of our brains, and by the specifics of our everyday functioning in the world.

Disembodied thought is not a physiological option. Neither is a purely rational mind free from bodily and mental sensations and perceptions.”

§

To think that the body forms the basis for “reason” is a radical, if somewhat logical idea. Like, come on! How could it NOT? Yet we tend to experience thought, and therefore “reason,” as separate from our bodies.

While I would not equate tai chi practice with having reason, or being rational, it makes sense to me that a practice about the body can potentially increase our powers of reason, our rationality.

So why do I not make an over-inflated claim to sell this art form with hyperbolic statements like “Tai Chi Chuan will increase your powers of reason!” or “Tai Chi players are more rational!”?

One only has to practice tai chi to see how challenging tai chi is, how slow it unfolds, the level of persistence required to embody even a small slice of it. The health benefit is far easier to obtain because even poor tai chi helps your health.

Practice just a bit more and you’ll sense how it works with and calms your emotions, or at least gives some of the distance/insight that any meditation provides.

But to actually jump from there to “reason” and “rationality” is a cognitive mile. If the statement quoted above is true, it is equally true to note that to be inside the body and understand it experientially is a difficult task, one that can take years. To be your body can be a threatening realization. You are really here, you are really responsible and you count. Often, we live within our thoughts as if the body doesn’t exist—that is until the body encounters pain that needs addressing. We ignore emotional signals embedded in our bodies, signals that become more apparent with tai chi practice. The logic within tai chi is counter-intuitive and therefore not easy to manifest. Most beginners quit for these reasons.

And yet I do believe that anyone involved in any practice that focuses on the body so deeply would have at least a good shot at obtaining more reason and greater rationality. If reason is the result of the body, as the body goes, so goes the world. Find the order within the complexity and know that little in life is what it seems. But despite what may look like chaos, within the chaos (perhaps complexity beyond one’s ability to comprehend it in this moment) an order exists. Otherwise, how else could I buy a cappuccino and enjoy it? (Take my Dada, please!)

Alas, because of its esoteric nature and Chinese origins, and because it works with something that Western culture is uncomfortable with (bodies), we tai chi-ers can be an odd breed— not always with a great measure of reason. Generally, we have lots of curiosity and are often playful (when we are not competitive)! Some have over active imaginations along with hungry egos wanting to attach to something as odd as tai chi to inflate the importance of the self. Yes, once upon a time I, too, thought I was special because I practiced tai chi. Now I think I’m merely an addict.

If you can can: keep it simple, enjoy the ride and laugh when you can. Let it lead you from time to time, get out of the way, share what you think is right, don’t assume you are a master, or that you “arrived,” or that you “know.”

It’s a marvelous thing to study. It feels good, too. Order and answers appear.

And sometimes, just sometimes, that makes us rational.

(On Being Certain is in among my 10 favorite books, one that changed my life. I can feel confident about some thought or idea, but can readily accept its flaws and then reject it. Being right is no longer a given. In fact, given the odds, it is the height of foolishness.)

Body Mind Connection - New York Times article

Of interest. Tai Chi as a body practice has much to teach us. Some have suggested that it essentially resolves paradox, the obvious one being non-doing in order to do. There are many more, however…. Tom

February 25, 2012

New York Times

When Truisms Are True

By SUNTAE KIM, EVAN POLMAN and JEFFREY SANCHEZ-BURKS

WHAT ignites the engine of creativity? A popular metaphor in American business urges you to think “outside the box.” Folk wisdom advises that problem-solving is helped by thinking about something “on the one hand” and then “on the other hand.”

Is there any psychological truth to such metaphors for better thinking? Our research suggests that the answer is yes. When people literally — that is, physically — embody these metaphors, they generate more creative ideas for solving problems.

Recent advances in understanding what psychologists call “embodied cognition” indicate a surprisingly direct link between mind and body. It turns out that people draw on their bodily experiences in constructing their social reality. Studies show, for example, that someone holding a warm cup of coffee tends to perceive a stranger as having a “warmer” personality. Likewise when holding something heavy, people see things as more serious and important — more “weighty.”

However, until recently it was not known whether bodily experiences could help in generating new ideas and solutions to problems. Our research, which will be published soon in the journal Psychological Science, discovered that it can.

For example, we asked 102 undergraduates at New York University to complete a task designed to measure innovative thinking. The task required them to generate a word (“tape,” for example) that related to each of three presented clue words (“measure,” “worm” and “video”). Some students were randomly assigned to do this while sitting inside a 125-cubic-foot box that we made of plastic pipe and cardboard. The rest got to sit and think outside (and next to) the box.

During the task we tracked the number of correct responses suggested by the students. We found that those thinking outside the box were significantly more creative: compared with those thinking inside the box, they came up with over 20 percent more creative solutions.

Even the outline of a box can influence creativity. In another study, our team examined the originality of ideas among 104 students at Singapore Management University. First we showed students pictures of objects made of Lego blocks. Then we asked them to think of original uses for the objects, either while walking along a fixed rectangular path indicated by duct tape on the floor (marking out an area of about 48 square feet) or by walking freely as they wished.

The differences were striking: students who walked freely were better at generating creative uses for the objects — coming up with over 25 percent more original ideas. Such creativity was assessed in terms of fluency (the number of ideas generated), flexibility (the number of unique categories that described the generated ideas) and originality (as judged by independent raters).

Something similar happens when thinking about a problem on one hand and then on the other. In another study, 40 undergraduates from the University of Michigan were asked to lift and hold a hand outstretched (as you might while addressing an audience from a stage). Some were asked to lift just one hand, while others were asked to switch between hands. While they were doing this, we asked them to generate novel uses for a new university complex. Among students who were allowed to switch hands — in other words, to think about a problem on “one hand” and then “on the other hand” — we found a nearly 50 percent increase in the number of uses generated.

By showing that bodily experiences can help create new knowledge, our results further undermine the strict separation between mind and body — another box that has confined our thinking for a long time. In addition, although we’re only starting to grasp how catchphrases shape how people think, it’s possible to begin prescribing some novel suggestions to enhance creativity. For instance, if we’re performing a job that requires some “outside the box” thinking, we may have to avoid working in cubicles.

But we shouldn’t avoid cubicles altogether: to think outside the box, you first need a box.

Suntae Kim is a doctoral candidate and Jeffrey Sanchez-Burks is an associate professor, both in management and organizations, at the University of Michigan. Evan Polman is a visiting assistant professor of management and organizations at New York University.

Tai Chi Chuan - Getting to the Root

Tai Chi Chuan – Getting to the Root

I have asked my classmate Denise to join me in a point-counterpoint discussion of “root.” I asked Denise to do this for two reasons. One, I know she really looks closely at tai chi issues and principles and strives to learn more. Two, we don’t think the same way, so we may not agree!

We’ve agreed that I will start this and she will finish it.

Here goes:

Tom: We are developing root from the start but to really understand it is a later stage of practice. Root is clearly about your connection to the ground and in a way what is underneath the ground. The less of you, the more of it. One can feel it in others. As you become more empty (of tension), the ground becomes more solid. Root comes indirectly from a few basic sources. Relaxation and alignment are crucial so that your weight seamlessly drops through the body into the ground. I think it helps to have a mental sense of extending into the ground.

Some use root to stop an opponent from pushing them, and while I think this is a good test of root – you see it in the videos with Prof. Cheng – I believe root should not be used to block anyone. Like a bamboo reed, it lets you bend with the wind, but remain solidly connected to the ground.

Ben Lo creates root by pushing students lower and longer in their stances. I fondly recall my form post Ben Lo camp. Clearly a greater sense of stability had been created as if by magic (and a week of utter leg pain.) Maggie takes a longer time with root, focusing on the whole body connected to the ground and using the ground to move the body. It tip toes in through the back door.

As you progress in tai chi, the body takes up less and less attention. The mind can focus on other areas. Does root require attention? Or does it just develop naturally? Many students have a moment when they feel that they have found their root. Suddenly it has appeared more concretely in their body/minds. Why or how this happens I’m not entirely sure.

Denise: Normally one would start a discussion about Root with a definition, but since it is an enigmatic fundamental principal of tai chi Tom has requested that we skip to observables. Seeing it in others is visually difficult as it takes experience to tell the difference between a nice Qi flow and a grounded or rooted Qi flow. In push hands, however, the difference is apparent after about five seconds.

A player with root has a hidden strength that comes not from muscle. A big strong man seems herculean. A smaller man or woman with strong root suddenly upends presumptions you have made about them based on their body type or sex. They feel solid, but you can’t find their center to push on. They may neutralize by absorbing Qi and then turning it around and giving it back to you, as if you had pushed yourself. They can patiently wait for you to make a mistake, staying in their center and tapping into something extra. On occasions when I’ve connected with that root, I have felt sensations such as a magnetic currents and complete dissolution of boundaries between my partner and me.

What we are connecting to is what Tom terms, ground. Relaxation and alignment facilitate that connection and have what I think is a symbiotic relationship with it. In connecting to the ground, we surrender to the force of gravity and so learn to trust it. With that trust we can feel safe in letting go of stiff muscles that are holding us up. With a little more relaxation, comes a little more root, and so on.

My observation is that players who have really strong root, have generally done a fair amount of standing practice or other forms of meditation. The physical discipline builds the legs so they know where the body is in alignment and can keep the skeleton in alignment even when engaged in push hands.

Tom: I like that Denise has emphasized the symbiotic relationship of relaxation and alignment.

What is trusting gravity? What is feeling safe in letting go of stiff muscles? Do we not feel safe in letting go of stiff muscles? I like the sense of these statements. Root is encouraged by metaphoric or psychological words which help in terms of thinking about it and deepening it. Root may have a mechanical aspect, but the mind aspect goes hand in hand. Both “safe” and “trust” are comfort words that help move us in the direction of greater relaxation and therefore root. One can relate to various entities in an emotional way. For example, “play” with the air, the ground and gravity as “your friends.” Trust them. Let them help you to feel safe. And so on. Yes, a bit “new agey,” but the mind is a powerful relationship builder and interpreter. We do what our mind suggests – let’s take advantage of making good ones.

Alignment is a crucial aspect because it creates a central column that allows the relaxation to be central to the body. Alignment is required when Denise talks about when someone feels as “if you had pushed yourself.” That is, you bounce yourself off of their ground. This is why the upright body in the full part of the posture is emphasized in the form.

It seems to me that when you get pushed by someone with a deep root, it feels like MORE of them have pushed you than their actual size suggests. ALL of them – every cell – have helped in the push. It is hard to identify the arms as the “pushers”. If the alignment creates a good connection into the ground, there is a solid path for energy to transfer up and down the body.

Denise: To term words such as “safe” and “trust,” as a “new agey,” is a disservice. Their opposites, “dangerous,” and “afraid,” are primal motivators. While most of the time, I may not be in the kind of physical danger that requires mammalian survival instinct (except for that walk to the office past New Haven’s least gentile inhabitants that does sometimes raise the hair on the back of my neck) there are still stressors in my life that find a nice home in the muscles in my neck and shoulders. To release that is not easy. There have been times in class that my teacher has taken the weight of my arm, and still I could not let go of that tension.

While I absolutely agree that the mind is a powerful relationship builder and interpreter, I don’t use the words “safe” and “trust” as metaphors. In studying this martial art, we choose to embrace a system of combat. While nowadays, few of us have a mortal enemy lurking outside our temple, we nevertheless, do battle at the office, at home, and most difficultly, with ourselves. The modern study of tai chi is as much about facing our fear in the face of battle as ever. It is just that the battlefield is a lot harder to define.

Root, then, makes it easier to know ourselves and face fear. As it develops, we are more at ease in all situations – especially in the laboratory we call push hands. On the rare opportunity when I’ve felt the “perfect” rooted push, it has been as if a gentle breeze redirected either my opponent or me. Matter (my body) and force (making movement) dissolve along with any sense of self or doing. To be released from that, even momentarily is what keeps me at this practice.

Tom: I actually did not term the words “trust” or “safe” as “new agey” nor as metaphors. My statement is far more complex. We can quibble over word usage but my point is that the body takes on the messages we send it, real or perceived. How we think about our root can be helpful in deepening the experience. I would also suggest that the radical departure of tai chi is that it is less a system of combat, but more a system of peace interacting with a combatant.

But here is my main interest: deepening the root and using it to our best advantage. One mechanical way is to feel the tailbone drop straight and hang. Add to this the image of the central core sinking into the ground below, and the feeling that follows. Root of course congers up the image of the root of a tree, adding support or nutritional advantage to the tree. Metaphor? Real? Perceived? All that matters to me is if this helps. If not, disregard! We all have different relationships to words.

My second interest is in what is gained – functionally how do we use it? Those that have great root and great pushes – at least in my experience – never block me. Instead, they are never there, never in reach, never in my way. They disappear. The root functions as the pathway that the body can use in order to NOT let pressure build up. This is more than relaxation – it is the ability to read an intention and utilize the root to direct a partner’s intention into a neutral space. We neutralize force, not block or “absorb” it. You can only be neutral if your body is relaxed and has a base it can rely on. That base is the root in the ground.

Denise: Another way of experiencing root is when you can move past directing a partner’s intention into a neutral space and dissolve any difference between individuals. By entering a deeper state of consciousness, wuwei, you enter being the same space with your partner and as one you change directions. It is not until you disassociate, or disconnect, that you feel that you have neutralized an incoming force.

While these are difficult skills to develop in push hands, there are any number of exercises that two people can do to experience the sensation of becoming one and then disconnecting, even as beginners. But to develop one’s own reliable connection to ground, standing meditation is a key practice. Then one can learn to stay rooted despite being in movement through form practice and then again with the challenge of another person in push hands.

It is in form practice that I find metaphor particularly useful. Whether I’ve chosen to think about my legs serving like tree roots connecting the matter of my body to the energy of the earth, or envisioned my legs drilling to the center of the earth I can deepen the feeling of gravity that pulses through my body. At a certain point though intention to root can be undermined. One explanation is that root is an insubstantial entity that through concentration turns substantial and in that transformation, disappears. As odd as that sounds, I’ve felt this in a demonstration. This is where that symbiotic relationship between root and alignment and relaxation are particularly valuable. You can refocus your attention on those mechanics and reestablish your connection.

Functionally, I believe root simply becomes a part of you – part of your personal packaging. You can’t use it, per se, but is part of the fabric of your movement and existence in space.

Tai Chi Chuan and Parkinson's Disease

Tai Chi and Postural Stability in Patients with Parkinson's Disease

Fuzhong Li, Ph.D., Peter Harmer, Ph.D., M.P.H., Kathleen Fitzgerald, M.D., Elizabeth Eckstrom, M.D., M.P.H., Ronald Stock, M.D., Johnny Galver, P.T., Gianni Maddalozzo, Ph.D., and Sara S. Batya, M.D
.
N Engl J Med 2012; 366:511-519

February 9, 2012

Background
Patients with Parkinson's disease have substantially impaired balance, leading to diminished functional ability and an increased risk of falling. Although exercise is routinely encouraged by health care providers, few programs have been proven effective.

Methods
We conducted a randomized, controlled trial to determine whether a tailored tai chi program could improve postural control in patients with idiopathic Parkinson's disease. We randomly assigned 195 patients with stage 1 to 4 disease on the Hoehn and Yahr staging scale (which ranges from 1 to 5, with higher stages indicating more severe disease) to one of three groups: tai chi, resistance training, or stretching. The patients participated in 60-minute exercise sessions twice weekly for 24 weeks. The primary outcomes were changes from baseline in the limits-of-stability test (maximum excursion and directional control; range, 0 to 100%). Secondary outcomes included measures of gait and strength, scores on functional-reach and timed up-and-go tests, motor scores on the Unified Parkinson's Disease Rating Scale, and number of falls.

Results
The tai chi group performed consistently better than the resistance-training and stretching groups in maximum excursion (between-group difference in the change from baseline, 5.55 percentage points; 95% confidence interval [CI], 1.12 to 9.97; and 11.98 percentage points; 95% CI, 7.21 to 16.74, respectively) and in directional control (10.45 percentage points; 95% CI, 3.89 to 17.00; and 11.38 percentage points; 95% CI, 5.50 to 17.27, respectively). The tai chi group also performed better than the stretching group in all secondary outcomes and outperformed the resistance-training group in stride length and functional reach. Tai chi lowered the incidence of falls as compared with stretching but not as compared with resistance training. The effects of tai chi training were maintained at 3 months after the intervention. No serious adverse events were observed.

Conclusions
Tai chi training appears to reduce balance impairments in patients with mild-to-moderate Parkinson's disease, with additional benefits of improved functional capacity and reduced falls.

(Funded by the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke; ClinicalTrials.gov number, NCT00611481.)

Supported by a grant (NS047130) from the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke.

Disclosure forms provided by the authors are available with the full text of this article at NEJM.org.

No potential conflict of interest relevant to this article was reported.

We thank all the study participants (in Eugene, Corvallis, Salem, and Portland) for their support and dedication to this research project; the neurologists for providing medical clearance and Parkinson's disease stage diagnoses for their participating patients; the project instructors (Vicki Anderson, Denise Thomas-Morrow, Don Hildenbrand, Brian McCall, James Lusk, Nancy Nelson, Teena Hall, Machiko Shirai, and Julie Tye); the research assistants (Debbie Blanchard, Kristen Briggs, Ruben Guzman, Daehan Kim, Lisa Marion, Arissa Fitch-Martin, Kimber Mattox, Julia Mazur, Donna McElroy, Jordyn Smith, and Rachel Tsolinas); the physical therapists (Andrea Serdar, Jeff Schlimgen, Jennifer Wilhelm, Ryan Rockwood, and Connie Amos at Oregon Health and Science University); the study data analyst, Shanshan Wang; Kathryn Madden and the members of the institutional review board at the Oregon Research Institute for their careful scrutiny of the study protocol; and Ron Renchler for proofreading earlier drafts of the manuscript.

Source Information
From the Oregon Research Institute (F.L.), the Oregon Medical Group (K.F.), and the PeaceHealth Medical Group–Oregon (R.S.) — all in Eugene; Willamette University (P.H.) and BPM Physical Therapy Center (J.G.) — both in Salem, OR; Oregon Health and Science University, Portland (E.E.); Oregon State University, Corvallis (G.M.); and Oregon Neurology Associates, Springfield (S.S.B.).

Address reprint requests to Dr. Li at the Oregon Research Institute, 1715 Franklin Blvd., Eugene, OR 97403, or at fuzhongl@ori.org.