Tai Chi Chuan – Raising the Bar.
OK, I got bored.
There we were in class going over a repeating movement, up high on our legs, again and again and again.
“Get more comfortable,” Maggie kept telling us.
“Yes,” I thought to myself. “I AM feeling comfortable!”
I was smooth, easy. I was enjoying myself by working on that sense of everything culminating at the full part of the posture, like a ballerina on point. So I skipped that “comfortable” part because I thought I had that down cold. I was leading the group in this exercise.
But then she was looking at me, talking at me about becoming more comfortable. How can I become more comfortable? I didn’t know. Her words kept coming my way, as did her eyes.
I was a little embarrassed and very confused.
Finally she pointed out a place where I was on automatic. I hadn’t noticed. It got better, it WAS more comfortable. When we returned to the actual form, this was the most smooth, easy, delicious form I had ever done. It was an amazing experience. The form was more like riding in a smooth luxury car cruising down the highway. I was only there for the ride.
This raises a vital question. How do we raise the bar? Particularly when we think we are already on point?
Being knowledgeable can be a tremendous hindrance. As someone who knows a fair amount about tai chi, I sometimes disregard an instruction because I feel it doesn’t apply to me. I’m already there, or so I believe.
I was working with a good push hands beginner who felt she didn’t have any more yield in her neutralization. I thought she did. Initially, she was convinced of her self-observation. But she was open to working on this more despite her feeling, her knowing that she did not have more. Then she found more yield and more neutralization.
The simple, yet hard answer is that we have to assume, always, that there is more. You never really arrive. You have to love what you have but keep looking for those places that are habitual. And see if you can see more.
I suppose this is not particularly good news. Perhaps it’s OK to rest on your achievements for a while and to let them soak in and feel good about them. That’s important.
But they can’t become stuck places or medals of honors or badges of success or places the ego justifies its own existence. Once that transformation takes place, you are carrying around some dead thing to show others like some carcass from the hunt. I’m not talking about trying to be modest or humble. It’s knowing you have not arrived, you never will arrive and, if nothing else, you now have something to give away. You can’t clutch it greedily as a bragging point. It is now a gift to give others IF (IF!) they want it.
There is a lot of potential tedium in tai chi practice. There is a great deal of repetition and this can lead to disinterest (and therefore tedium.) But you have to be in it to get it. Generally, it doesn’t just come to you; you have to reach out to find it. Tai chi is for those of us who like to search, to explore.
And that IS the solution to the tedium. Exploring for new levels of experience pushes aside that tedium. Repeating it for the purpose of finding something else can lead to new insights. That’s where the excitement is!
The reward is more comfort, more chi, more peace, more awareness, possibly more confidence without the egotistical aspects that often gets attached to confidence. This is confidence that wants others to “get it”, not confidence that wants to impress.
So back to reality: there is more more more. That’s why tai chi keeps me fascinated. That’s why I want to keep learning. This is the hardest lesson of all to embody.
I think this is Life at its core.
Saturday, December 18, 2010
Wednesday, December 15, 2010
Tai Chi Chuan – Exercise Before Breakfast (New York Times)
Tai Chi Chuan – Exercise Before Breakfast
Below it notes that before breakfast exercise has a marked benefit. Of course, we who do tai chi with rigor know that tai chi before your day is the way to go! Of interest. Tom
December 15, 2010, 12:01 am
New York Times
Phys Ed: The Benefits of Exercising Before Breakfast
By GRETCHEN REYNOLDS
The holiday season brings many joys and, unfortunately, many countervailing dietary pitfalls. Even the fittest and most disciplined of us can succumb, indulging in more fat and calories than at any other time of the year. The health consequences, if the behavior is unchecked, can be swift and worrying. A recent study by scientists in Australia found that after only three days, an extremely high-fat, high-calorie diet can lead to increased blood sugar and insulin resistance, potentially increasing the risk for Type 2 diabetes. Waistlines also can expand at this time of year, prompting self-recrimination and unrealistic New Year’s resolutions.
But a new study published in The Journal of Physiology suggests a more reliable and far simpler response. Run or bicycle before breakfast. Exercising in the morning, before eating, the study results show, seems to significantly lessen the ill effects of holiday Bacchanalias.
For the study, researchers in Belgium recruited 28 healthy, active young men and began stuffing them with a truly lousy diet, composed of 50 percent fat and 30 percent more calories, overall, than the men had been consuming. Some of the men agreed not to exercise during the experiment. The rest were assigned to one of two exercise groups. The groups’ regimens were identical and exhausting. The men worked out four times a week in the mornings, running and cycling at a strenuous intensity. Two of the sessions lasted 90 minutes, the others, an hour. All of the workouts were supervised, so the energy expenditure of the two groups was identical.
Their early-morning routines, however, were not. One of the groups ate a hefty, carbohydrate-rich breakfast before exercising and continued to ingest carbohydrates, in the form of something like a sports drink, throughout their workouts. The second group worked out without eating first and drank only water during the training. They made up for their abstinence with breakfast later that morning, comparable in calories to the other group’s trencherman portions.
The experiment lasted for six weeks. At the end, the nonexercising group was, to no one’s surprise, super-sized, having packed on an average of more than six pounds. They had also developed insulin resistance — their muscles were no longer responding well to insulin and weren’t pulling sugar (or, more technically, glucose) out of the bloodstream efficiently — and they had begun storing extra fat within and between their muscle cells. Both insulin resistance and fat-marbled muscles are metabolically unhealthy conditions that can be precursors of diabetes.
The men who ate breakfast before exercising gained weight, too, although only about half as much as the control group. Like those sedentary big eaters, however, they had become more insulin-resistant and were storing a greater amount of fat in their muscles.
Only the group that exercised before breakfast gained almost no weight and showed no signs of insulin resistance. They also burned the fat they were taking in more efficiently. “Our current data,” the study’s authors wrote, “indicate that exercise training in the fasted state is more effective than exercise in the carbohydrate-fed state to stimulate glucose tolerance despite a hypercaloric high-fat diet.”
Just how exercising before breakfast blunts the deleterious effects of overindulging is not completely understood, although this study points toward several intriguing explanations. For one, as has been known for some time, exercising in a fasted state (usually possible only before breakfast), coaxes the body to burn a greater percentage of fat for fuel during vigorous exercise, instead of relying primarily on carbohydrates. When you burn fat, you obviously don’t store it in your muscles. In “our study, only the fasted group demonstrated beneficial metabolic adaptations, which eventually may enhance oxidative fatty acid turnover,” said Peter Hespel, Ph.D., a professor in the Research Center for Exercise and Health at Catholic University Leuven in Belgium and senior author of the study.
At the same time, the fasting group showed increased levels of a muscle protein that “is responsible for insulin-stimulated glucose transport in muscle and thus plays a pivotal role in regulation of insulin sensitivity,” Dr Hespel said.
In other words, working out before breakfast directly combated the two most detrimental effects of eating a high-fat, high-calorie diet. It also helped the men avoid gaining weight.
There are caveats, of course. Exercising on an empty stomach is unlikely to improve your performance during that workout. Carbohydrates are easier for working muscles to access and burn for energy than fat, which is why athletes typically eat a high-carbohydrate diet. The researchers also don’t know whether the same benefits will accrue if you exercise at a more leisurely pace and for less time than in this study, although, according to Leonie Heilbronn, Ph.D., a professor at the University of Adelaide in Australia, who has extensively studied the effects of high-fat diets and wrote a commentary about the Belgian study, “I would predict low intensity is better than nothing.”
So, unpleasant as the prospect may be, set your alarm after the next Christmas party to wake you early enough that you can run before sitting down to breakfast. “I would recommend this,” Dr. Heilbronn concluded, “as a way of combating Christmas” and those insidiously delectable cookies.
Below it notes that before breakfast exercise has a marked benefit. Of course, we who do tai chi with rigor know that tai chi before your day is the way to go! Of interest. Tom
December 15, 2010, 12:01 am
New York Times
Phys Ed: The Benefits of Exercising Before Breakfast
By GRETCHEN REYNOLDS
The holiday season brings many joys and, unfortunately, many countervailing dietary pitfalls. Even the fittest and most disciplined of us can succumb, indulging in more fat and calories than at any other time of the year. The health consequences, if the behavior is unchecked, can be swift and worrying. A recent study by scientists in Australia found that after only three days, an extremely high-fat, high-calorie diet can lead to increased blood sugar and insulin resistance, potentially increasing the risk for Type 2 diabetes. Waistlines also can expand at this time of year, prompting self-recrimination and unrealistic New Year’s resolutions.
But a new study published in The Journal of Physiology suggests a more reliable and far simpler response. Run or bicycle before breakfast. Exercising in the morning, before eating, the study results show, seems to significantly lessen the ill effects of holiday Bacchanalias.
For the study, researchers in Belgium recruited 28 healthy, active young men and began stuffing them with a truly lousy diet, composed of 50 percent fat and 30 percent more calories, overall, than the men had been consuming. Some of the men agreed not to exercise during the experiment. The rest were assigned to one of two exercise groups. The groups’ regimens were identical and exhausting. The men worked out four times a week in the mornings, running and cycling at a strenuous intensity. Two of the sessions lasted 90 minutes, the others, an hour. All of the workouts were supervised, so the energy expenditure of the two groups was identical.
Their early-morning routines, however, were not. One of the groups ate a hefty, carbohydrate-rich breakfast before exercising and continued to ingest carbohydrates, in the form of something like a sports drink, throughout their workouts. The second group worked out without eating first and drank only water during the training. They made up for their abstinence with breakfast later that morning, comparable in calories to the other group’s trencherman portions.
The experiment lasted for six weeks. At the end, the nonexercising group was, to no one’s surprise, super-sized, having packed on an average of more than six pounds. They had also developed insulin resistance — their muscles were no longer responding well to insulin and weren’t pulling sugar (or, more technically, glucose) out of the bloodstream efficiently — and they had begun storing extra fat within and between their muscle cells. Both insulin resistance and fat-marbled muscles are metabolically unhealthy conditions that can be precursors of diabetes.
The men who ate breakfast before exercising gained weight, too, although only about half as much as the control group. Like those sedentary big eaters, however, they had become more insulin-resistant and were storing a greater amount of fat in their muscles.
Only the group that exercised before breakfast gained almost no weight and showed no signs of insulin resistance. They also burned the fat they were taking in more efficiently. “Our current data,” the study’s authors wrote, “indicate that exercise training in the fasted state is more effective than exercise in the carbohydrate-fed state to stimulate glucose tolerance despite a hypercaloric high-fat diet.”
Just how exercising before breakfast blunts the deleterious effects of overindulging is not completely understood, although this study points toward several intriguing explanations. For one, as has been known for some time, exercising in a fasted state (usually possible only before breakfast), coaxes the body to burn a greater percentage of fat for fuel during vigorous exercise, instead of relying primarily on carbohydrates. When you burn fat, you obviously don’t store it in your muscles. In “our study, only the fasted group demonstrated beneficial metabolic adaptations, which eventually may enhance oxidative fatty acid turnover,” said Peter Hespel, Ph.D., a professor in the Research Center for Exercise and Health at Catholic University Leuven in Belgium and senior author of the study.
At the same time, the fasting group showed increased levels of a muscle protein that “is responsible for insulin-stimulated glucose transport in muscle and thus plays a pivotal role in regulation of insulin sensitivity,” Dr Hespel said.
In other words, working out before breakfast directly combated the two most detrimental effects of eating a high-fat, high-calorie diet. It also helped the men avoid gaining weight.
There are caveats, of course. Exercising on an empty stomach is unlikely to improve your performance during that workout. Carbohydrates are easier for working muscles to access and burn for energy than fat, which is why athletes typically eat a high-carbohydrate diet. The researchers also don’t know whether the same benefits will accrue if you exercise at a more leisurely pace and for less time than in this study, although, according to Leonie Heilbronn, Ph.D., a professor at the University of Adelaide in Australia, who has extensively studied the effects of high-fat diets and wrote a commentary about the Belgian study, “I would predict low intensity is better than nothing.”
So, unpleasant as the prospect may be, set your alarm after the next Christmas party to wake you early enough that you can run before sitting down to breakfast. “I would recommend this,” Dr. Heilbronn concluded, “as a way of combating Christmas” and those insidiously delectable cookies.
Friday, November 19, 2010
Wandering Mind - New York Times article
Tai chi as a meditation encourages well being and joy. Here is an odd article that supports that thesis based on the fact that tai chi forces you to pay attention to tai chi when you practice. Read on if this sort of research intrigues! Tom
November 15, 2010
New York Times
When the Mind Wanders, Happiness Also Strays
By JOHN TIERNEY
A quick experiment. Before proceeding to the next paragraph, let your mind wander wherever it wants to go. Close your eyes for a few seconds, starting ... now.
And now, welcome back for the hypothesis of our experiment: Wherever your mind went — the South Seas, your job, your lunch, your unpaid bills — that daydreaming is not likely to make you as happy as focusing intensely on the rest of this column will.
I’m not sure I believe this prediction, but I can assure you it is based on an enormous amount of daydreaming cataloged in the current issue of Science. Using an iPhone app called trackyourhappiness, psychologists at Harvard contacted people around the world at random intervals to ask how they were feeling, what they were doing and what they were thinking.
The least surprising finding, based on a quarter-million responses from more than 2,200 people, was that the happiest people in the world were the ones in the midst of enjoying sex. Or at least they were enjoying it until the iPhone interrupted.
The researchers are not sure how many of them stopped to pick up the phone and how many waited until afterward to respond. Nor, unfortunately, is there any way to gauge what thoughts — happy, unhappy, murderous — went through their partners’ minds when they tried to resume.
When asked to rate their feelings on a scale of 0 to 100, with 100 being “very good,” the people having sex gave an average rating of 90. That was a good 15 points higher than the next-best activity, exercising, which was followed closely by conversation, listening to music, taking a walk, eating, praying and meditating, cooking, shopping, taking care of one’s children and reading. Near the bottom of the list were personal grooming, commuting and working.
When asked their thoughts, the people in flagrante were models of concentration: only 10 percent of the time did their thoughts stray from their endeavors. But when people were doing anything else, their minds wandered at least 30 percent of the time, and as much as 65 percent of the time (recorded during moments of personal grooming, clearly a less than scintillating enterprise).
On average throughout all the quarter-million responses, minds were wandering 47 percent of the time. That figure surprised the researchers, Matthew Killingsworth and Daniel Gilbert.
“I find it kind of weird now to look down a crowded street and realize that half the people aren’t really there,” Dr. Gilbert says.
You might suppose that if people’s minds wander while they’re having fun, then those stray thoughts are liable to be about something pleasant — and that was indeed the case with those happy campers having sex. But for the other 99.5 percent of the people, there was no correlation between the joy of the activity and the pleasantness of their thoughts.
“Even if you’re doing something that’s really enjoyable,” Mr. Killingsworth says, “that doesn’t seem to protect against negative thoughts. The rate of mind-wandering is lower for more enjoyable activities, but when people wander they are just as likely to wander toward negative thoughts.”
Whatever people were doing, whether it was having sex or reading or shopping, they tended to be happier if they focused on the activity instead of thinking about something else. In fact, whether and where their minds wandered was a better predictor of happiness than what they were doing.
“If you ask people to imagine winning the lottery,” Dr. Gilbert says, “they typically talk about the things they would do — ‘I’d go to Italy, I’d buy a boat, I’d lay on the beach’ — and they rarely mention the things they would think. But our data suggest that the location of the body is much less important than the location of the mind, and that the former has surprisingly little influence on the latter. The heart goes where the head takes it, and neither cares much about the whereabouts of the feet.”
Still, even if people are less happy when their minds wander, which causes which? Could the mind-wandering be a consequence rather than a cause of unhappiness?
To investigate cause and effect, the Harvard psychologists compared each person’s moods and thoughts as the day went on. They found that if someone’s mind wandered at, say, 10 in the morning, then at 10:15 that person was likely to be less happy than at 10 , perhaps because of those stray thoughts. But if people were in a bad mood at 10, they weren’t more likely to be worrying or daydreaming at 10:15.
“We see evidence for mind-wandering causing unhappiness, but no evidence for unhappiness causing mind-wandering,” Mr. Killingsworth says.
This result may disappoint daydreamers, but it’s in keeping with the religious and philosophical admonitions to “Be Here Now,” as the yogi Ram Dass titled his 1971 book. The phrase later became the title of a George Harrison song warning that “a mind that likes to wander ’round the corner is an unwise mind.”
What psychologists call “flow” — immersing your mind fully in activity — has long been advocated by nonpsychologists. “Life is not long,” Samuel Johnson said, “and too much of it must not pass in idle deliberation how it shall be spent.” Henry Ford was more blunt: “Idleness warps the mind.” The iPhone results jibe nicely with one of the favorite sayings of William F. Buckley Jr.: “Industry is the enemy of melancholy.”
Alternatively, you could interpret the iPhone data as support for the philosophical dictum of Bobby McFerrin: “Don’t worry, be happy.” The unhappiness produced by mind-wandering was largely a result of the episodes involving “unpleasant” topics. Such stray thoughts made people more miserable than commuting or working or any other activity.
But the people having stray thoughts on “neutral” topics ranked only a little below the overall average in happiness. And the ones daydreaming about “pleasant” topics were actually a bit above the average, although not quite as happy as the people whose minds were not wandering.
There are times, of course, when unpleasant thoughts are the most useful thoughts. “Happiness in the moment is not the only reason to do something,” says Jonathan Schooler, a psychologist at the University of California, Santa Barbara. His research has shown that mind-wandering can lead people to creative solutions of problems, which could make them happier in the long term.
Over the several months of the iPhone study, though, the more frequent mind-wanderers remained less happy than the rest, and the moral — at least for the short-term — seems to be: you stray, you pay. So if you’ve been able to stay focused to the end of this column, perhaps you’re happier than when you daydreamed at the beginning. If not, you can go back to daydreaming starting...now.
Or you could try focusing on something else that is now, at long last, scientifically guaranteed to improve your mood. Just make sure you turn the phone off.
November 15, 2010
New York Times
When the Mind Wanders, Happiness Also Strays
By JOHN TIERNEY
A quick experiment. Before proceeding to the next paragraph, let your mind wander wherever it wants to go. Close your eyes for a few seconds, starting ... now.
And now, welcome back for the hypothesis of our experiment: Wherever your mind went — the South Seas, your job, your lunch, your unpaid bills — that daydreaming is not likely to make you as happy as focusing intensely on the rest of this column will.
I’m not sure I believe this prediction, but I can assure you it is based on an enormous amount of daydreaming cataloged in the current issue of Science. Using an iPhone app called trackyourhappiness, psychologists at Harvard contacted people around the world at random intervals to ask how they were feeling, what they were doing and what they were thinking.
The least surprising finding, based on a quarter-million responses from more than 2,200 people, was that the happiest people in the world were the ones in the midst of enjoying sex. Or at least they were enjoying it until the iPhone interrupted.
The researchers are not sure how many of them stopped to pick up the phone and how many waited until afterward to respond. Nor, unfortunately, is there any way to gauge what thoughts — happy, unhappy, murderous — went through their partners’ minds when they tried to resume.
When asked to rate their feelings on a scale of 0 to 100, with 100 being “very good,” the people having sex gave an average rating of 90. That was a good 15 points higher than the next-best activity, exercising, which was followed closely by conversation, listening to music, taking a walk, eating, praying and meditating, cooking, shopping, taking care of one’s children and reading. Near the bottom of the list were personal grooming, commuting and working.
When asked their thoughts, the people in flagrante were models of concentration: only 10 percent of the time did their thoughts stray from their endeavors. But when people were doing anything else, their minds wandered at least 30 percent of the time, and as much as 65 percent of the time (recorded during moments of personal grooming, clearly a less than scintillating enterprise).
On average throughout all the quarter-million responses, minds were wandering 47 percent of the time. That figure surprised the researchers, Matthew Killingsworth and Daniel Gilbert.
“I find it kind of weird now to look down a crowded street and realize that half the people aren’t really there,” Dr. Gilbert says.
You might suppose that if people’s minds wander while they’re having fun, then those stray thoughts are liable to be about something pleasant — and that was indeed the case with those happy campers having sex. But for the other 99.5 percent of the people, there was no correlation between the joy of the activity and the pleasantness of their thoughts.
“Even if you’re doing something that’s really enjoyable,” Mr. Killingsworth says, “that doesn’t seem to protect against negative thoughts. The rate of mind-wandering is lower for more enjoyable activities, but when people wander they are just as likely to wander toward negative thoughts.”
Whatever people were doing, whether it was having sex or reading or shopping, they tended to be happier if they focused on the activity instead of thinking about something else. In fact, whether and where their minds wandered was a better predictor of happiness than what they were doing.
“If you ask people to imagine winning the lottery,” Dr. Gilbert says, “they typically talk about the things they would do — ‘I’d go to Italy, I’d buy a boat, I’d lay on the beach’ — and they rarely mention the things they would think. But our data suggest that the location of the body is much less important than the location of the mind, and that the former has surprisingly little influence on the latter. The heart goes where the head takes it, and neither cares much about the whereabouts of the feet.”
Still, even if people are less happy when their minds wander, which causes which? Could the mind-wandering be a consequence rather than a cause of unhappiness?
To investigate cause and effect, the Harvard psychologists compared each person’s moods and thoughts as the day went on. They found that if someone’s mind wandered at, say, 10 in the morning, then at 10:15 that person was likely to be less happy than at 10 , perhaps because of those stray thoughts. But if people were in a bad mood at 10, they weren’t more likely to be worrying or daydreaming at 10:15.
“We see evidence for mind-wandering causing unhappiness, but no evidence for unhappiness causing mind-wandering,” Mr. Killingsworth says.
This result may disappoint daydreamers, but it’s in keeping with the religious and philosophical admonitions to “Be Here Now,” as the yogi Ram Dass titled his 1971 book. The phrase later became the title of a George Harrison song warning that “a mind that likes to wander ’round the corner is an unwise mind.”
What psychologists call “flow” — immersing your mind fully in activity — has long been advocated by nonpsychologists. “Life is not long,” Samuel Johnson said, “and too much of it must not pass in idle deliberation how it shall be spent.” Henry Ford was more blunt: “Idleness warps the mind.” The iPhone results jibe nicely with one of the favorite sayings of William F. Buckley Jr.: “Industry is the enemy of melancholy.”
Alternatively, you could interpret the iPhone data as support for the philosophical dictum of Bobby McFerrin: “Don’t worry, be happy.” The unhappiness produced by mind-wandering was largely a result of the episodes involving “unpleasant” topics. Such stray thoughts made people more miserable than commuting or working or any other activity.
But the people having stray thoughts on “neutral” topics ranked only a little below the overall average in happiness. And the ones daydreaming about “pleasant” topics were actually a bit above the average, although not quite as happy as the people whose minds were not wandering.
There are times, of course, when unpleasant thoughts are the most useful thoughts. “Happiness in the moment is not the only reason to do something,” says Jonathan Schooler, a psychologist at the University of California, Santa Barbara. His research has shown that mind-wandering can lead people to creative solutions of problems, which could make them happier in the long term.
Over the several months of the iPhone study, though, the more frequent mind-wanderers remained less happy than the rest, and the moral — at least for the short-term — seems to be: you stray, you pay. So if you’ve been able to stay focused to the end of this column, perhaps you’re happier than when you daydreamed at the beginning. If not, you can go back to daydreaming starting...now.
Or you could try focusing on something else that is now, at long last, scientifically guaranteed to improve your mood. Just make sure you turn the phone off.
Saturday, November 13, 2010
Tai Chi Chuan and the Tough Question
Tai Chi Chuan and the Tough Question
I look at my classmates, all senior students; all have many years and valuable insights into tai chi. All of us all have more to learn too.
In addition to real skills, I see in each one a distinct error. It is different for each of us – we generally don’t share the same deficiency. Usually that error has been there a long time. Our teacher has corrected our errors many times. Yet we each forget that correction, and return to that original habit. Somehow we experience THAT particular habit as normal and sort of invisible, perhaps untouchable. These are the deepest habits to correct and require a persistent amount of attention.
Alas, they feel so natural to us. We codify our error in our experience and this is how normal happens. Since much of what we do in tai chi feels good, it is hard to recognize the habit. They become part of the picture that feels good to us and since they are ingrained in our form, even harder to extricate. When they are pointed out to us, quickly they return.
I think if we were to all gather around and tell each other what we see, we might even note different mistakes in each other’s tai chi forms. Out of respect for the practice (and its deeply personal aspect) and for creating an environment of learning together, we tend to be more accepting than critical. Understandably we leave most of the correcting to our teacher.
It’s good to sometimes ask each other what we think needs to be addressed. In this way I learn from their experience. I don’t have to necessarily agree with what they say but I am free to consider it. And if I do ask, I should consider their comment. I have the alternative of putting it aside for now, or even rejecting it.
But seeing that we all carry old patterns, I decided to ask my teacher, Maggie, what MY biggest error is. Her assessment was that I didn’t utilize relaxation as the core impetus in moving into the next posture. I tend to lead with the arms and pelvis before they have a chance to feel the total relaxation of the body. The arms and pelvis are driving the shape forward. The shape of the postures drives my form to the next posture.
For me, this misunderstanding is a very old way of functioning that makes progress in a certain direction nearly impossible. I have spent a great deal of time getting the external shape down with accuracy. Hence, the shaping of the body, arms, hips, was something I was very careful to study. I am aware of a great deal of relaxation, but I see how activation of arms and hips are leading the relaxation and not the other way around.
I can also see why this correction easily leaves my consciousness and that I revert back to “doing the shape”, to leading the body by activating the shape of the posture. There is a built in pride in this accomplishment. I can do this and I can answer questions on how to do this! I’m ahead of the game!
I see “doing the shape” in others quite readily, yet I am guilty of the same problem. I suspect I hide it better than others because of my long standing study in accurate shapes. It has been integrated in the way I do the form. That level of integration hides the fact that it is still there. Subliminally I am constantly trying to improve those shapes, constantly working to get that cart to lead the horse.
It’s frustrating to keep looking and looking and looking at what’s needed for improvement. There has to be a large amount of appreciation for what we have in order to allow that level of scrutiny to not destroy the good and turn into some crazed habit of self criticism. We can’t live in this realm in order to eat ourselves alive. Nor can we live in this realm in order to serve up criticism of others.
Tai chi has to be an act of generosity towards ourselves (and others) so that this experience has a beneficial value. It has to be a gift we give, not some masochistic punishment, like a dog biting its tail to remove a flea that always jumps away.
An attitude of real appreciation for what we have, and a total acceptance of where we are, coupled with a simple question, makes for a good combination.
That question is, “This feels good now but I know tai chi can be even better. What ingredient do I need to add (or remove)?”
This “ingredient” is a magic variable for each of us and as we progress, the “ingredient” will change over time.
I’m so curious. What’s next?
I look at my classmates, all senior students; all have many years and valuable insights into tai chi. All of us all have more to learn too.
In addition to real skills, I see in each one a distinct error. It is different for each of us – we generally don’t share the same deficiency. Usually that error has been there a long time. Our teacher has corrected our errors many times. Yet we each forget that correction, and return to that original habit. Somehow we experience THAT particular habit as normal and sort of invisible, perhaps untouchable. These are the deepest habits to correct and require a persistent amount of attention.
Alas, they feel so natural to us. We codify our error in our experience and this is how normal happens. Since much of what we do in tai chi feels good, it is hard to recognize the habit. They become part of the picture that feels good to us and since they are ingrained in our form, even harder to extricate. When they are pointed out to us, quickly they return.
I think if we were to all gather around and tell each other what we see, we might even note different mistakes in each other’s tai chi forms. Out of respect for the practice (and its deeply personal aspect) and for creating an environment of learning together, we tend to be more accepting than critical. Understandably we leave most of the correcting to our teacher.
It’s good to sometimes ask each other what we think needs to be addressed. In this way I learn from their experience. I don’t have to necessarily agree with what they say but I am free to consider it. And if I do ask, I should consider their comment. I have the alternative of putting it aside for now, or even rejecting it.
But seeing that we all carry old patterns, I decided to ask my teacher, Maggie, what MY biggest error is. Her assessment was that I didn’t utilize relaxation as the core impetus in moving into the next posture. I tend to lead with the arms and pelvis before they have a chance to feel the total relaxation of the body. The arms and pelvis are driving the shape forward. The shape of the postures drives my form to the next posture.
For me, this misunderstanding is a very old way of functioning that makes progress in a certain direction nearly impossible. I have spent a great deal of time getting the external shape down with accuracy. Hence, the shaping of the body, arms, hips, was something I was very careful to study. I am aware of a great deal of relaxation, but I see how activation of arms and hips are leading the relaxation and not the other way around.
I can also see why this correction easily leaves my consciousness and that I revert back to “doing the shape”, to leading the body by activating the shape of the posture. There is a built in pride in this accomplishment. I can do this and I can answer questions on how to do this! I’m ahead of the game!
I see “doing the shape” in others quite readily, yet I am guilty of the same problem. I suspect I hide it better than others because of my long standing study in accurate shapes. It has been integrated in the way I do the form. That level of integration hides the fact that it is still there. Subliminally I am constantly trying to improve those shapes, constantly working to get that cart to lead the horse.
It’s frustrating to keep looking and looking and looking at what’s needed for improvement. There has to be a large amount of appreciation for what we have in order to allow that level of scrutiny to not destroy the good and turn into some crazed habit of self criticism. We can’t live in this realm in order to eat ourselves alive. Nor can we live in this realm in order to serve up criticism of others.
Tai chi has to be an act of generosity towards ourselves (and others) so that this experience has a beneficial value. It has to be a gift we give, not some masochistic punishment, like a dog biting its tail to remove a flea that always jumps away.
An attitude of real appreciation for what we have, and a total acceptance of where we are, coupled with a simple question, makes for a good combination.
That question is, “This feels good now but I know tai chi can be even better. What ingredient do I need to add (or remove)?”
This “ingredient” is a magic variable for each of us and as we progress, the “ingredient” will change over time.
I’m so curious. What’s next?
Tai Chi Chuan and the Art of Balance
Tai Chi Chuan and the Art of Balance
Of course, are we talking about physical balance or mental balance? In tai chi, both are developed, but neither is guaranteed.
That being said, tai chi is well known for helping with physical balance and studies have backed up this statement. But why is this so?
It intrigues me that the tai chi solution to balance has nothing to do with holding yourself together on top of the ground. Tai chi is about letting go and sinking into the ground. Tai chi has nothing to do with a rigid center line that rises up from the feet into the head. It has more to do with the circumference – the outer circle of your body – and letting that circumference be in harmony with itself and in harmony with its surroundings.
When you study tai chi, initially one element is brought forth – a soft upright quality of the body. “Body upright!” we are told. Another way it is approached is letting the spine hang from the top of the cervical vertebrae.
This “hanging” allows relaxation to take over and to let the pelvic bones anchor the torso around a column like or pillar like sense of the upper body. This top section then rests on the hip joints which in turn rest on the legs on the feet on the ground. So the hanging and resting quality in tai chi lets the weight fall into the ground through the body, unimpeded. The joints open and are encouraged to be relaxed and flexible.
At the same time, it allows other muscles to relax and to let you have enough mind left over to feel the outer edges of the column of your torso. This is actually not a literal sense of the torso, but more of relating the front with the back of a circular column, and the right with the left sides of this imaginary column. Later, we extend this to include the lower half of the body and finally we grow from a column to an oval or circular ball like sense of the body.
By being a ball, we roll along the ground as opposed to sort of clomping along. We become smoother. (Observe that a ball doesn’t really balance on the ground, it just IS with the ground.)
Note the progression above. We go from hanging from above to relaxation to a sense of being a column to the sense of being a ball. This has nothing to do with holding yourself up rigidly to maintain some sort of balance.
The tai chi form offers plenty of moments of challenge in terms of balance when we move one foot off the ground to land somewhere else. By being relaxed and open and connected to the ground, we learn real balance. At these particular moments, the training emphasizes being on the foot where the weight actually is and by not lurching or falling onto the foot that is finding a new place to land. This is the opposite of walking where we really do take advantage of falling onto the next foot as we move forward and catching ourselves as we move forward.
Your body is like a scale. One foot connects more and more into the ground where the weight currently is, the other foot lightly lands – no weight – onto the ground it plans to move towards. So there is a moment where you are ready to shift your weight forward, but you haven’t made any physical commitment in that direction, at least for a brief moment. The scale is all on one side of the fence preparing to move to the other side.
We spend a great deal of time working at this precarious place because we are training ourselves to create a new habit. We no longer perch on top of the ground, but we now sink into the ground and use the ground to help stabilize and relax our bodies, utilizing several new tools to assist in the process. Subtly, you relax the upper body to use the ground to find stability.
Another aspect here, somewhat hidden, is that by working this way, we are encouraged to put our awareness into the body. Our mind is not dwelling on some idea, plan, past annoyance and any other distraction. This new kind of balance is so mentally challenging and oddly satisfying that you absolutely have to be very aware of what is going on within the body itself. A new habit is being formed – that of having your mind in your body.
In tai chi training, we return again and again and again to feeling what is going on inside of our physical selves. To have a special exercise where this is required is a huge benefit.
Yet another aspect is that since tai chi is also a martial art, your awareness has to include your surroundings, even those areas that you don’t see with your eyes. You learn to feel your surroundings. Like an octopus with many tentacles, your awareness expands to include the whole space. We are developing a large inclusive way of perceiving the world.
One could argue that you don’t need tai chi to put your mind in your body. That’s true, but I would argue that by practicing tai chi, you have a tool that gently encourages you to put your mind in your body. Otherwise, most likely you wouldn’t want to be bothered. And since practicing tai chi contains many other benefits, you get more “bang!” for the time spent studying and practicing.
I mentioned mental balance. While this is a tough act to achieve, I’ll briefly state that I believe that putting your mind into your body is a good place to begin if mental balance is an issue. This is not the whole answer of course. It seems to help, though like any human endeavor there are many ways to defeat even the best of training activities.
Balance is a worthy practice, a challenge, rewarding and endlessly fascinating.
Tai chi really helps you get there.
Of course, are we talking about physical balance or mental balance? In tai chi, both are developed, but neither is guaranteed.
That being said, tai chi is well known for helping with physical balance and studies have backed up this statement. But why is this so?
It intrigues me that the tai chi solution to balance has nothing to do with holding yourself together on top of the ground. Tai chi is about letting go and sinking into the ground. Tai chi has nothing to do with a rigid center line that rises up from the feet into the head. It has more to do with the circumference – the outer circle of your body – and letting that circumference be in harmony with itself and in harmony with its surroundings.
When you study tai chi, initially one element is brought forth – a soft upright quality of the body. “Body upright!” we are told. Another way it is approached is letting the spine hang from the top of the cervical vertebrae.
This “hanging” allows relaxation to take over and to let the pelvic bones anchor the torso around a column like or pillar like sense of the upper body. This top section then rests on the hip joints which in turn rest on the legs on the feet on the ground. So the hanging and resting quality in tai chi lets the weight fall into the ground through the body, unimpeded. The joints open and are encouraged to be relaxed and flexible.
At the same time, it allows other muscles to relax and to let you have enough mind left over to feel the outer edges of the column of your torso. This is actually not a literal sense of the torso, but more of relating the front with the back of a circular column, and the right with the left sides of this imaginary column. Later, we extend this to include the lower half of the body and finally we grow from a column to an oval or circular ball like sense of the body.
By being a ball, we roll along the ground as opposed to sort of clomping along. We become smoother. (Observe that a ball doesn’t really balance on the ground, it just IS with the ground.)
Note the progression above. We go from hanging from above to relaxation to a sense of being a column to the sense of being a ball. This has nothing to do with holding yourself up rigidly to maintain some sort of balance.
The tai chi form offers plenty of moments of challenge in terms of balance when we move one foot off the ground to land somewhere else. By being relaxed and open and connected to the ground, we learn real balance. At these particular moments, the training emphasizes being on the foot where the weight actually is and by not lurching or falling onto the foot that is finding a new place to land. This is the opposite of walking where we really do take advantage of falling onto the next foot as we move forward and catching ourselves as we move forward.
Your body is like a scale. One foot connects more and more into the ground where the weight currently is, the other foot lightly lands – no weight – onto the ground it plans to move towards. So there is a moment where you are ready to shift your weight forward, but you haven’t made any physical commitment in that direction, at least for a brief moment. The scale is all on one side of the fence preparing to move to the other side.
We spend a great deal of time working at this precarious place because we are training ourselves to create a new habit. We no longer perch on top of the ground, but we now sink into the ground and use the ground to help stabilize and relax our bodies, utilizing several new tools to assist in the process. Subtly, you relax the upper body to use the ground to find stability.
Another aspect here, somewhat hidden, is that by working this way, we are encouraged to put our awareness into the body. Our mind is not dwelling on some idea, plan, past annoyance and any other distraction. This new kind of balance is so mentally challenging and oddly satisfying that you absolutely have to be very aware of what is going on within the body itself. A new habit is being formed – that of having your mind in your body.
In tai chi training, we return again and again and again to feeling what is going on inside of our physical selves. To have a special exercise where this is required is a huge benefit.
Yet another aspect is that since tai chi is also a martial art, your awareness has to include your surroundings, even those areas that you don’t see with your eyes. You learn to feel your surroundings. Like an octopus with many tentacles, your awareness expands to include the whole space. We are developing a large inclusive way of perceiving the world.
One could argue that you don’t need tai chi to put your mind in your body. That’s true, but I would argue that by practicing tai chi, you have a tool that gently encourages you to put your mind in your body. Otherwise, most likely you wouldn’t want to be bothered. And since practicing tai chi contains many other benefits, you get more “bang!” for the time spent studying and practicing.
I mentioned mental balance. While this is a tough act to achieve, I’ll briefly state that I believe that putting your mind into your body is a good place to begin if mental balance is an issue. This is not the whole answer of course. It seems to help, though like any human endeavor there are many ways to defeat even the best of training activities.
Balance is a worthy practice, a challenge, rewarding and endlessly fascinating.
Tai chi really helps you get there.
Tuesday, October 26, 2010
Lou Reed, musician, does Tai Chi!
Lou Reed
October 26, 2010
New York Times
To the Editor:
Thank you for your columns on tai chi on living to be 100 (Personal Health, Sept. 28 and Oct. 19). Over the years I’ve been asked: “How do you stay in shape? How do you take care of your back, your knees, your joints?”
People ask these questions because they know I probably shouldn’t be here — I’m a study in reckless excess. Yet here I am, at age 68. (And I say this as I watch my cousin Shirley, who is 102.)
I have studied the art of tai chi for more than 25 years…. (You must have an authentic instructor to correct alignment and to preserve and strengthen the knees and back.)
Tai chi is life-changing. It puts you in touch with invisible power of — yes — the universe. You don’t need equipment. My teacher has choreographed a series of moves that can be done in an apartment with very little space.
I know it sounds too good to be true. But as your columnist said, the question isn’t “why you should practice tai chi, but why not.”
Lou Reed
New York
October 26, 2010
New York Times
To the Editor:
Thank you for your columns on tai chi on living to be 100 (Personal Health, Sept. 28 and Oct. 19). Over the years I’ve been asked: “How do you stay in shape? How do you take care of your back, your knees, your joints?”
People ask these questions because they know I probably shouldn’t be here — I’m a study in reckless excess. Yet here I am, at age 68. (And I say this as I watch my cousin Shirley, who is 102.)
I have studied the art of tai chi for more than 25 years…. (You must have an authentic instructor to correct alignment and to preserve and strengthen the knees and back.)
Tai chi is life-changing. It puts you in touch with invisible power of — yes — the universe. You don’t need equipment. My teacher has choreographed a series of moves that can be done in an apartment with very little space.
I know it sounds too good to be true. But as your columnist said, the question isn’t “why you should practice tai chi, but why not.”
Lou Reed
New York
Sunday, October 10, 2010
Tai Chi Chuan - Get Fat!
Tai Chi Chuan – Get Fat!
I’ve been in love with two ideas for some time now. One comes from Maggie Newman (my long time teacher) and the other comes from Lenzie Williams (a teacher whom I have the utmost respect.) Both ideas require a great deal of attention.
Maggie has often stated that as you go into the full part of the posture, the pressure of the foot on the ground stimulates the chi and the chi hits the sides of the wall of the posture. A filling up sensation that requires great relaxation, perfect structure, a sense of the whole, awareness of the central core of the body along with the edges of the perimeter of the shape. You get fatter.
Lenzie has a wonderful exercise in pushing where you take the pressure from your hands against a body that can no longer escape your pursuit, and like an accordion, you redistribute that pressure into your entire body down through the feet. This requires exactly the same great relaxation, perfect structure, a sense of the whole, awareness of the central core of the body, the edges of the perimeter of the shape that Maggie’s suggestion requires, but the pressure begins in the hands. The redistribution of that pressure, if I recall it correctly, is a simultaneous distribution throughout the body, not a sequential distribution. The image of an accordion captures this sense that all layers simultaneously redistribute the pressure. You get fatter.
So one expansion is stimulated from below (feet) while the other expansion is stimulated from above (hands). Of course, in the accordion image, you actually have both ends functioning simultaneously because the body is between two end points. It creates a pressure chamber that contains lots of energy ready to explode. In one sense you are balanced between these two end points which create a unique and perfect shape (in terms of energy).
In the push hands situation, you borrow the energy from the feet and hands and let it burst outward along the perimeter of the shape. The push comes from a natural expansion that happens from total absorption of pressure from the hands and feet. You become bigger than the partner by utilizing the pressure they give you.
It also reminds me of one of those large relax-the-back balls that we use to sit on or exercise with. The whole ball expands when you sit on it and the pressure on the sides of the walls of the ball, every square millimeter, goes out in all directions, including the ground and buttocks of the person sitting on it.
No doing is required here. It just happens.
Does this happen in life? Can two points of pressure create expansion and a resolution of those pressures? Can we solve our pressures, not from fighting them, but from allowing them to work on us in a way that creates a way for energy to go in a proper direction, from non-doing? By just allowing them to work on us and through settling into our body, meticulously adjusting to create a path that ultimately solves the problems? Can we get fat here and even enjoy what happens naturally?
There are a few requirements. Not fighting the pressures, but letting them work themselves out through and within our body (mind, emotions). Being aware of the end points and all the points around the circumference of the situation. Therefore no element is lost to us and all of who we are can be of service to the conflict of two points of pressure. Giving ourselves a structure to work our way through the situations at hand, and giving ourselves some time to be with the situation, the gestalt of what we are “stuck” with, what we feel trapped by. Give up struggling, but don’t give up attending. Being with what is, not fighting or cursing what is. Observe, incorporate, absorb and follow the pathway of the energy.
Using what life presents is a life time of work. This is an exquisite place to be and most likely we can only be there through focused attention and long sustained effort in letting go, relaxation, allowing, being and acceptance. Yes, pain may be part of the redistribution plan (but using that pain to direct energy in a creative direction and not a destructive direction).
The biggest irony is that in order for this to occur, you may have to do the opposite of what your instincts may be telling you. For most of us, that means derailing flight or fight responses. See them, feel them, let them go (this tired old phrase is perhaps the hardest thing to do in life.) It means instilling in our psyches balancing and connecting the pressures to see where this leads. In doing so, pressures give energy to our shape and it is this energy that can lead us to solutions.
Each set of circumstances needs to be embraced as teachers to learn how to apply our effort in a direction that won’t tear us apart. In doing what is needed, we have to find tools that eliminate self destruction. We need to find tools that work towards the creation of something new.
This is my aim in tai chi practice. To be fat. But this fat has nothing to do with eating or even pleasure. This fat comes from being with and allowing pressures to work themselves through us, redistribute within us, and redirect into a new shape that gives solutions to life’s pressures.
I’d like to think this is possible – but I have no argument with those who may think it is not possible. Because I don’t really know. I just see this potential in tai chi and have to wonder if life too has a similar possibility.
Most often, if it happens in tai chi, it happens in life.
I’ve been in love with two ideas for some time now. One comes from Maggie Newman (my long time teacher) and the other comes from Lenzie Williams (a teacher whom I have the utmost respect.) Both ideas require a great deal of attention.
Maggie has often stated that as you go into the full part of the posture, the pressure of the foot on the ground stimulates the chi and the chi hits the sides of the wall of the posture. A filling up sensation that requires great relaxation, perfect structure, a sense of the whole, awareness of the central core of the body along with the edges of the perimeter of the shape. You get fatter.
Lenzie has a wonderful exercise in pushing where you take the pressure from your hands against a body that can no longer escape your pursuit, and like an accordion, you redistribute that pressure into your entire body down through the feet. This requires exactly the same great relaxation, perfect structure, a sense of the whole, awareness of the central core of the body, the edges of the perimeter of the shape that Maggie’s suggestion requires, but the pressure begins in the hands. The redistribution of that pressure, if I recall it correctly, is a simultaneous distribution throughout the body, not a sequential distribution. The image of an accordion captures this sense that all layers simultaneously redistribute the pressure. You get fatter.
So one expansion is stimulated from below (feet) while the other expansion is stimulated from above (hands). Of course, in the accordion image, you actually have both ends functioning simultaneously because the body is between two end points. It creates a pressure chamber that contains lots of energy ready to explode. In one sense you are balanced between these two end points which create a unique and perfect shape (in terms of energy).
In the push hands situation, you borrow the energy from the feet and hands and let it burst outward along the perimeter of the shape. The push comes from a natural expansion that happens from total absorption of pressure from the hands and feet. You become bigger than the partner by utilizing the pressure they give you.
It also reminds me of one of those large relax-the-back balls that we use to sit on or exercise with. The whole ball expands when you sit on it and the pressure on the sides of the walls of the ball, every square millimeter, goes out in all directions, including the ground and buttocks of the person sitting on it.
No doing is required here. It just happens.
Does this happen in life? Can two points of pressure create expansion and a resolution of those pressures? Can we solve our pressures, not from fighting them, but from allowing them to work on us in a way that creates a way for energy to go in a proper direction, from non-doing? By just allowing them to work on us and through settling into our body, meticulously adjusting to create a path that ultimately solves the problems? Can we get fat here and even enjoy what happens naturally?
There are a few requirements. Not fighting the pressures, but letting them work themselves out through and within our body (mind, emotions). Being aware of the end points and all the points around the circumference of the situation. Therefore no element is lost to us and all of who we are can be of service to the conflict of two points of pressure. Giving ourselves a structure to work our way through the situations at hand, and giving ourselves some time to be with the situation, the gestalt of what we are “stuck” with, what we feel trapped by. Give up struggling, but don’t give up attending. Being with what is, not fighting or cursing what is. Observe, incorporate, absorb and follow the pathway of the energy.
Using what life presents is a life time of work. This is an exquisite place to be and most likely we can only be there through focused attention and long sustained effort in letting go, relaxation, allowing, being and acceptance. Yes, pain may be part of the redistribution plan (but using that pain to direct energy in a creative direction and not a destructive direction).
The biggest irony is that in order for this to occur, you may have to do the opposite of what your instincts may be telling you. For most of us, that means derailing flight or fight responses. See them, feel them, let them go (this tired old phrase is perhaps the hardest thing to do in life.) It means instilling in our psyches balancing and connecting the pressures to see where this leads. In doing so, pressures give energy to our shape and it is this energy that can lead us to solutions.
Each set of circumstances needs to be embraced as teachers to learn how to apply our effort in a direction that won’t tear us apart. In doing what is needed, we have to find tools that eliminate self destruction. We need to find tools that work towards the creation of something new.
This is my aim in tai chi practice. To be fat. But this fat has nothing to do with eating or even pleasure. This fat comes from being with and allowing pressures to work themselves through us, redistribute within us, and redirect into a new shape that gives solutions to life’s pressures.
I’d like to think this is possible – but I have no argument with those who may think it is not possible. Because I don’t really know. I just see this potential in tai chi and have to wonder if life too has a similar possibility.
Most often, if it happens in tai chi, it happens in life.
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