Tai Chi Chuan – Connections

 Tai Chi Chuan – Connections

It’s really important to connect to something outside of you.  Tai Chi training is very much about connecting to something outside of you. 

We follow each other.  We follow our partners in push hands.  We are connecting to heaven and earth and air during the form.  Hey, if you feel like it, connect your form to the universe!

All of that internal work amounts to little if we can’t let it engage with the outer world.  It is one HUGE listening exercise.  My teacher, Maggie Newman, often has us just listen to the sounds as they pass through.  This is a very profound way of being in the world.  We don’t shut it out.  We let it in.  We get close to it.  We connect.  It is a part of us.  Sound is a good place to start because we are wired to be one with sound.

As a martial art, this is an obvious choice.  How else could you defend yourself without connecting with the outer world?

Tai chi takes this a step further.  “Shadow boxing”.  We are so fused with the attacker that there is no real separation between you and the opponent.   He/She is not a “that.”  He/She along with me becomes an “us.”  Opponent + Me = 1.  Not 2.

It’s a healthy perspective to view the other – regardless of how you feel about them – as an “us.”  The important part is not where you separate; the important part is where you merge.  Focus on the connection.  That way, the places that don’t easily connect can be more readily addressed.  No one loses their center, gets tense or feels defensive.

Yes, this may not be possible at all times with all people.  But it’s a good place to start.  It will help you keep your balance, your ground, your internal space.

Have you connected to someone or something outside of yourself today?

Tai Chi Chuan - Opera and Patience

Tai Chi Chuan – Opera and Patience

I have discussed this before, but here goes!

I just lent a musically savvy friend a copy of Britten’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream.  It’s a great work.  My musical friend gave it a real try, but he missed 95% of it.  Like, it mostly didn’t register.

I was a fan of the Mozart operas because I was so familiar with the Mozart sound, which I loved.  I became interested in opera and La Boheme (due to the popularity of Rent) in particular.  Another friend recommended a great recording of La Boheme to buy and listen to.  I recall first hearing the beloved Puccini masterpiece and scratching my head.  What on earth did ANYONE hear in this work?  I heard one song that grabbed my attention but the rest, unlike Mozart, seemed meandering and even non-melodic.  Can you imagine anyone thinking Puccini as non-melodic?  Puccini critics find him to be too melodic, almost pandering to the lowest popular instincts, much like an Andrew Lloyd Weber musical.  My friend encouraged me to keep listening.  I did, and finally I was struck by what it is you are listening to when you listen to Puccini. I fell in love.

The issue here is not whether I liked or disliked the composer.  My point here is that what I was comfortable with did not easily transfer into a different musical sensibility.  The issue was I couldn’t even hear what others found appealing (regardless of my own feeling.)  Mozart is crisp and punchy, with a sort of zest that moves the opera forward.  Puccini has long leisurely lines of melody and the orchestra gives the work forward movement, often referring to earlier motifs as points of reference.  Some Puccini melodies are clean and identifiable and often rapturous.  But other sections are just as compelling and dramatic as characters talk to each other and move the plot forward.  Two famous arias in La Boheme are sort of lyrical monologues that seem to have no solid melody at all, relying on motif style delivery.

And then there is Wagner.  Etc.

How I found a love of Britten, I don’t recall.  He is oblique with a subtle mix of dissonance and lyricism.  Dialogues emerge into full motifs but it is hard to trace the development unless you are very familiar with the piece.  He can be direct, but more often he is very indirect.  It is a thrilling musical language.  It took me years before I could appreciate his opera The Turn of the Screw, many consider to be a masterpiece.

Curiosity of one sort or other kept me engaged.  What do others hear in this work?  What is the composer doing?  With Britten, questions still linger and those questions keep me coming back for more.  What is Britten up to in these long meandering passages from Oberon, king of the fairies, with his oddly eerie countertenor voice?

And so it is with tai chi.  What you see on day one is but a fraction of where you might go if you take it up as a practice.  Initially, practice is just an act of remembering what you were taught.  The real core of tai chi is far off.  Each student connects to it from a different angle.  Each student finds a path based on who they are.  Curiosity is required, and so is persistence and patience.  And it changes along the way – something that most students don’t really expect.  Yes, students expect to see improvement and “get better”, but change is a completely different issue.  It is ONLY by keeping engaged that the changes appear.

Often students arrive on day one, take a peak, draw a conclusion, and decide this is not for them.  What they don’t know is that they really need about 50 lessons to make that decision.  Something has to give them faith that there is something here that may be useful in life.  In tai chi, it doesn’t happen quickly, certainly not on day one.

There is another kind of student who also quickly leaves tai chi.  These students are extremely enthusiastic, think they see the value, love to practice, and begin to wear T shirts with Yin-Yang emblems or Chinese characters.  That is, there is a huge fantasy going on and when that fantasy is disappointed, they quit.  It takes more than fantasy to keep you going.

I myself was bored but knew I needed to practice.  I would tell myself that I only needed to do the first move and then I could stop if I felt like it.  But that first move got me going and I never failed to continue with the day’s practice.

I get a kick out of telling people I love Britten operas.  He’s sophisticated and my ego enjoys displaying my refined sensibility. I know I’m being snobby.  Mostly Britten operas are unknown, misunderstood and even derided.   I’m so esoteric, right? 

But I dislike telling people that I do tai chi.  I know the reference system for most people has nothing to do with what tai chi is about or what it offers.  There can be no real discussion here because tai chi is complex and most people have a very limited ability to see what it is.  Because it is complex, they usually don’t care to know.

I could talk a long time about tai chi, but I’d rather talk about the operas of Benjamin Britten – my ego gets a charge. 

Britten operas and tai chi take time to experience.

Both are complex.

Both are deep.

Both are thrilling.

Tai Chi Chuan - Why is Push Hands So Difficult and Confusing?

Tai Chi Chuan – Why is Push Hands So Difficult and Confusing?

Many a beginner and even many a more experienced tai chi player is confused by Push Hands practice.  Many think they don’t need it.

There is a fundamental and deep reason Push Hands is confounding.   It goes like this: we are biologically programmed by evolution for Fight or Flight.  We can all see why that worked in a world full of tigers or marauding invaders.  Push Hands is based on Relax and Respond.  We are not programmed for Relax and Respond.  Furthermore, in order for Relax and Respond to have any functional effectiveness, you need to learn the skill of fusing with your partner without being invasive, controlling or manipulative.  Hence, it takes our complete attention to make this shift.  It takes great inhibition of our evolutionary instinct.  It takes ongoing practice, trial and error, and lots of failure.  Little wonder we want to avoid it.

In terms of the tai chi form itself, Push Hands deepens the functionality of the form.  You begin to understand where the functional use is on many levels, why the sinking into the feet is needed, how being relaxed and light in the upper body allows you responsiveness and agility. 

Professor Cheng Man-ch’ing told us that we should do the form as if we are defending ourselves from an attack (or something like that) and practice Push Hands as if we are alone.  The sense of this statement is that you want to let the form have energetic and functional meaning, and you don’t want to get too involved in having an intention in your Push Hands (which leads to strength.)

So even if you haven’t “gotten it” yet, and you think you never will, there are many jewels to be discovered in the process.  It is a study worth studying.

I have come to believe that looking for an end point in Push Hands study is futile and limiting. Once you have one level of mastery, you can always aim higher by letting the game become more energetic and spontaneous, your push softer while generating more power, your listening more acute.  Most likely I will never be able to handle a real fight using tai chi.  It doesn’t matter to me.

“Why do we climb the mountain?”

“Because it’s there!”

But that is not the truth of the matter.  We climb the mountain because of the many lessons to be learned in the process.  We grow as a result of the very effort itself in climbing.

Imagine pushing someone without force!  How magical!  If you have the patience and the dedication to engage this practice, Push Hands study is pure gold!  Not because you can push someone without force, but because of the many many many OTHER lessons it has to teach.

Being Open To Growth - New York Times article

Of interest.  Tai chi-ers MUST be committed to growth.  And that is what you get!  Tom

New York Times

July 6, 2008

If You’re Open to Growth, You Tend to Grow

By JANET RAE-DUPREE

WHY do some people reach their creative potential in business while other equally talented peers don’t?

After three decades of painstaking research, the Stanford psychologist Carol Dweck believes that the answer to the puzzle lies in how people think about intelligence and talent. Those who believe they were born with all the smarts and gifts they’re ever going to have approach life with what she calls a “fixed mind-set.” Those who believe that their own abilities can expand over time, however, live with a “growth mind-set.”

Guess which ones prove to be most innovative over time.

“Society is obsessed with the idea of talent and genius and people who are ‘naturals’ with innate ability,” says Ms. Dweck, who is known for research that crosses the boundaries of personal, social and developmental psychology.

“People who believe in the power of talent tend not to fulfill their potential because they’re so concerned with looking smart and not making mistakes. But people who believe that talent can be developed are the ones who really push, stretch, confront their own mistakes and learn from them.”

In this case, nurture wins out over nature just about every time.

While some managers apply these principles every day, too many others instead believe that hiring the best and the brightest from top-flight schools guarantees corporate success.

The problem is that, having been identified as geniuses, the anointed become fearful of falling from grace. “It’s hard to move forward creatively and especially to foster teamwork if each person is trying to look like the biggest star in the constellation,” Ms. Dweck says.

In her 2006 book, “Mindset: The New Psychology of Success,” she shows how adopting either a fixed or growth attitude toward talent can profoundly affect all aspects of a person’s life, from parenting and romantic relationships to success at school and on the job.

She attributes the success of several high-profile chief executives to their growth mind-set, citing an ability to energize a work force. These include John F. Welch Jr. of General Electric, who valued teamwork over individual genius; Louis V. Gerstner Jr. of I.B.M., who dedicated his book about I.B.M.’s turnaround to “the thousands of I.B.M.’ers who never gave up on their company”; and Anne M. Mulcahy of Xerox, who focused on morale and development of her people even as she implemented painful cuts.

But Ms. Dweck does not suggest that recruiters ignore innate talent. Instead, she suggests looking for both talent and a growth mind-set in prospective hires — people with a passion for learning who thrive on challenge and change.

After reading her book, Scott Forstall, senior vice president of Apple in charge of iPhone software, contacted Ms. Dweck to talk about his experience putting together the iPhone development team. Mr. Forstall told her that he identified a number of superstars within various departments at Apple and asked them in for a chat.

At the beginning of each interview, he warned the recruit that he couldn’t reveal details of the project he was working on. But he promised the opportunity, Ms. Dweck says, “to make mistakes and struggle, but eventually we may do something that we’ll remember the rest of our lives.”

Only people who immediately jumped at the challenge ended up on the team. “It was his intuition that he wanted people who valued stretching themselves over being king of their particular hill,” she says.

People with a growth mind-set tend to demonstrate the kind of perseverance and resilience required to convert life’s setbacks into future successes. That ability to learn from experience was cited as the No. 1 ingredient for creative achievement in a poll of 143 creativity researchers cited in “Handbook of Creativity” in 1999.

Which leads one to ask: Is it possible to shift from a fixed mind-set to a growth mind-set?

Absolutely, according to Ms. Dweck. But, “it’s not easy to just let go of something that has felt like your self for many years,” she writes. Still, she says, “nothing is better than seeing people find their way to things they value.”