One Fundamental aspect of tai chi is change. The one constant in the tai chi form as well as push hands is change. You are always doing it. You are never fixed or solid. The only moment of solidity may be when you discharge during a push, the moment when you have the advantage and can take it. You take advantage of your advantage. You undermine your partner’s momentary lack of change. Actually, I’m not sure if solid is the right way, this is still a question. Certainly, you are more full when you discharge, but maybe not solid.
Some changes are large. Like during push hands you run into the hard spot, the stuck moment of your partner. Then you change direction so that you are going under this hard spot, or going into the weak spot, or like a current of water that hits a rock, goes around the hard spot. All are big changes. Green light to red light to green light.
But there are small micro changes too. As you move through the form, your shape keeps morphing, amoeba like, into a new shape. And this happens in analog fashion, smoothly, effortlessly and within each tiny moment. It is like you can take a three second sequence and chop it up into 1000 tiny bits. Each bit is a complete change. Our minds can’t quite keep up with this, but it shows up when you don’t do it.
Often we don’t change. When you don’t change, the “not-change” hangs on. So the movement gets stuck or off balance or out of kilter. The whole is no longer whole, but in two parts. One part static, another part fluid. It feels wrong somehow. Or worse, it feels OK because you can’t feel the part that isn’t changing. You assume something that isn’t true. This now feels normal somehow. Habit creates a sort of blindness and you don’t see or feel your stuck unchanging places. You can fool yourself for a while, but when you get to partner work in push-hands, you will get pushed. We push each other to help each other find our stuck places.
In tai chi, as in life, we deeply need each other to learn what is stuck and how to free it. When you get pushed, the best attitude is one of gratitude. This is not some sort of false piety or humility. How else will you grow? Of course, in the normal course of our human interactions in push-hands, we often get frustrated or angry. Even more amusing, we blame them for doing it wrong when they push us! How backwards we get it. It takes great skill to create a situation to see what is really needed and to appreciate it.
I can recall an interaction when I literally stopped the game and left the “ring” because I was so angry. I really needed a huge change! But so did my partner. In retrospect, thinking about my anger, it amuses me to think how much I enjoy that memory today. I even really love that partner – he’s a lovable person. Yet in that moment, in that context, what he was doing drove me out of the room in anger. Or so I thought. You have to go through certain experiences to find a new change. I couldn’t change then, I simply reacted. Today, the same situation would be totally different. I have a more mature understanding, more options, and I wouldn’t have to flee. I can thank him now for driving me nuts then!
The tai chi space has to be carefully tended so that we can practice in a spirit of mutual cooperation and trust. This is something very delicate to achieve, though it can be done. We need to find the right balance to get it right. In one sense, you are always creating this safe space, a space where real play, and exchange, and change can happen. Generosity of spirit is needed. A lack of being judgmental is needed. Playing the game at the right level needs to be agreed upon. The changes here are very very fine indeed. It is an act of mutually creating a playing space that works for both of you. It takes two to do this.
The point of practicing change goes beyond your physical ability. Clearly it is advantageous to be able to change. Fast, instantly, in a microsecond. Because sometimes life itself is like that. A still body, at rest, has tremendous change due to breathing and blood flow. A static body simply doesn’t exist until it dies.
In a deep way, you have to listen to your body to hear what is stuck, and then you have to let go. You may not even be able to let go. You may not know how to let go. But this fundamental practice, noticing what is stuck and then letting go, is a basic practice in your form and push hands work.
This is what tai chi is about: living, life, fluidity, change. Change is our issue, our blood, our breath. You are not solid, the ground is solid. Even the ground is not solid, but by comparison it is more solid than your body. To be able to change, to practice change, to see change, to have the options that change provides is a high level. It feels right. It creates health, physical as well as mental health. When you give up changing, you begin the process of dying.
Tai chi = Life. This is one of the most primary and deep aspects of practice. Is it not better to be able to change, anywhere, at any time, for any reason, than to not change?
Change is the option always on the table. It's a good thing to practice.
Sunday, March 8, 2009
Friday, January 9, 2009
Tai Chi and Life: Lessons to be Learned
Tai Chi and Life: Lessons to be Learned.
Initially, you cannot see your own deficiencies – you need an outside source to guide or inform you of the right path. You can learn from a beginner as well as advanced players. Of course, life itself will eventually point out what you need to know -- we just have to be able to hear the messages. You may need to go back one step in order to go forward two steps. The answer is in the whole, not the parts. All aspects need to be considered. Tai chi is always 4 dimensions at minimum.
Cellular, structural and unifying aspects begin to make up a tai chi posture. Ultimately, you are creating a circle that surrounds you. Cellular is each cell’s involvement, structural are the vector forces that balance each other, and the unifying aspect is the movement as a whole piece with all the parts assisting to make the entire body function as one smooth sculpture without gaps or hollows.
Tai chi has a strong psychological aspect. For many, this is the most important lesson of all: be aware of your own sense of self and your feelings within the form and about the form. This is a world view that you carry with you and it can be addressed through the small world of tai chi. (Are you better than others? Have the answers? Always need to be paid attention to? Afraid of being corrected? Want to be admired? Want to be invisible? Resist practicing? Feel tense? Feel tired? Feel energetic? Feel full and relaxed?)
How you relate to space -- the air -- is another way you relate to the world. Is it there? Does it feel good? Is it in the way? Is it friendly, or your friend? Do you like it? Can you mesh with it seamlessly? Do you thrash through it like it doesn't matter?
Your body communicates many things instantly. The neutral tai chi body allows you to see those messages, change or drop them altogether. It also helps you “hear” the world. You are no longer in the way of receiving information. Your internal static has been neutralized. First this is done with the body, and then it extends into the mind.
Consider what you don’t look at in your form. Consider what you don’t look at in your life.
You can’t micro manage balance of the whole. You have to be aware of the whole, and allow it to balance itself. Balance is an allowing condition, not a control issue. You let it happen; tai chi is about letting things happen. It reflects what is happening and responds to what is happening. Tai chi is not about controlling or manipulating yourself or others. It is about being with, and ultimately just being.
Learning tai chi is about learning how to stick and follow. This is a crucial first step in your own self growth as a person. Even a little goes a long way!
The biggest deficiencies are those you don’t see or feel. It comes down to you don't know what you don't know. So searching for it can be a challenge. There is a marvelous quote by Dr. William Thurston, Cornell University, as follows: "You don't see what you see until you see it, but when you do see it, it let's you see many other things." This happens in tai chi alot!
The classics teach that all is lead by the mind. So it is good to start from there. What is mind? It seems, however, one clue to what your mind is up to is contained in the holding or releasing patterns in the body.
While relaxation is a central part of the answer, it is in relationship to balance. That is, if you are relaxed, you are balanced; If you are balanced, you are relaxed. To be relaxed, but not balanced, would be useless. To be balanced, but not relaxed, would waste precious energy.
Tai chi, in general, is about relationships, and balancing those relationships. Removing the sense of separation within the world is the goal. You are part of the world and the world is part of you. Be connected. Be with. Tai chi allows you to fit in and go with the flow. This allows greater awareness of opportunity and the ability to take it.
I am not suggesting that what I have noted above happens automatically. We can sabotage anything it seems, and to let the best of tai chi happen, it helps to consider what it teaches and then try to apply this in your life.
Initially, you cannot see your own deficiencies – you need an outside source to guide or inform you of the right path. You can learn from a beginner as well as advanced players. Of course, life itself will eventually point out what you need to know -- we just have to be able to hear the messages. You may need to go back one step in order to go forward two steps. The answer is in the whole, not the parts. All aspects need to be considered. Tai chi is always 4 dimensions at minimum.
Cellular, structural and unifying aspects begin to make up a tai chi posture. Ultimately, you are creating a circle that surrounds you. Cellular is each cell’s involvement, structural are the vector forces that balance each other, and the unifying aspect is the movement as a whole piece with all the parts assisting to make the entire body function as one smooth sculpture without gaps or hollows.
Tai chi has a strong psychological aspect. For many, this is the most important lesson of all: be aware of your own sense of self and your feelings within the form and about the form. This is a world view that you carry with you and it can be addressed through the small world of tai chi. (Are you better than others? Have the answers? Always need to be paid attention to? Afraid of being corrected? Want to be admired? Want to be invisible? Resist practicing? Feel tense? Feel tired? Feel energetic? Feel full and relaxed?)
How you relate to space -- the air -- is another way you relate to the world. Is it there? Does it feel good? Is it in the way? Is it friendly, or your friend? Do you like it? Can you mesh with it seamlessly? Do you thrash through it like it doesn't matter?
Your body communicates many things instantly. The neutral tai chi body allows you to see those messages, change or drop them altogether. It also helps you “hear” the world. You are no longer in the way of receiving information. Your internal static has been neutralized. First this is done with the body, and then it extends into the mind.
Consider what you don’t look at in your form. Consider what you don’t look at in your life.
You can’t micro manage balance of the whole. You have to be aware of the whole, and allow it to balance itself. Balance is an allowing condition, not a control issue. You let it happen; tai chi is about letting things happen. It reflects what is happening and responds to what is happening. Tai chi is not about controlling or manipulating yourself or others. It is about being with, and ultimately just being.
Learning tai chi is about learning how to stick and follow. This is a crucial first step in your own self growth as a person. Even a little goes a long way!
The biggest deficiencies are those you don’t see or feel. It comes down to you don't know what you don't know. So searching for it can be a challenge. There is a marvelous quote by Dr. William Thurston, Cornell University, as follows: "You don't see what you see until you see it, but when you do see it, it let's you see many other things." This happens in tai chi alot!
The classics teach that all is lead by the mind. So it is good to start from there. What is mind? It seems, however, one clue to what your mind is up to is contained in the holding or releasing patterns in the body.
While relaxation is a central part of the answer, it is in relationship to balance. That is, if you are relaxed, you are balanced; If you are balanced, you are relaxed. To be relaxed, but not balanced, would be useless. To be balanced, but not relaxed, would waste precious energy.
Tai chi, in general, is about relationships, and balancing those relationships. Removing the sense of separation within the world is the goal. You are part of the world and the world is part of you. Be connected. Be with. Tai chi allows you to fit in and go with the flow. This allows greater awareness of opportunity and the ability to take it.
I am not suggesting that what I have noted above happens automatically. We can sabotage anything it seems, and to let the best of tai chi happen, it helps to consider what it teaches and then try to apply this in your life.
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