If you fail to read about Tao and simply focus on the martial art, you will miss everything.
Tai chi is not limited to the forms, postures or applications.
Your tai chi development is unequivocally tied to your understanding of Tao.
When you can see how and why, you are getting somewhere.
You should be vary wary of Instructors, masters and gurus.
Although you may not be skilled enough to assess the value of their knowledge, you must treat everything they say with caution.
Take the information, then explore what they have said.
This way, you can understand it for yourself.
The role of an Instructor must be to point the way. Do not ask them to hold your hand as well.
Taoism is scientific; it is not a belief-system. Reality exists whether you believe in it or not.
Tangible factual substance lies at the root of Taoism.
If you cannot touch it or observe it, you do not waste time speculating about it.
Be open to what is happening around you and learn to appreciate the underlying principles involved.
This is how Tao pertains to tai chi.
Few people ever consider that their most cherished beliefs and opinions are simply received knowledge.
You did not come by the information yourself. Somebody told you.
People regard the world according to their conditioning.
Your education, parents, friends and society have determined how you regard the world.
What you have learned about the world is largely second-hand.
Barry was telling us a story about the woman who always cut the end of the ham and somebody asked her why she did it. She said, "Well I don't know, my mother always did it that way." And they asked her mother and she said, "I don't know, my mother always did it." And they asked grandma, and she said, "Well, I did it because otherwise it wouldn't fit into my biggest pot."
(Chungliang Al Huang)
In traditional Chinese culture, tai chi was seen as a means for refining character.
It enabled the individual to balance all aspects of their being.
The challenge of learning tai chi removes conflict, macho urges and aggression.
A student learns how to move in a graceful, balanced, harmonious way and maintain composure at all times.
Tai chi will help to ease ailments and ensure a general sense of wellbeing.
By improving posture and movement, reducing stress and strengthening the flow of energy - a person grows stronger and is less likely to become ill.
Tai chi involves a commitment to a healthier way of living that extends beyond the actual class and is the perfect way to start each day.
The fact that we are seeking is all important, and not what is being sought.
What one seeks is the projection of one's own desire.
Seeking is not the state of search;
it is a reaction, a process of denial and assertion with regard to an idea made by the mind.
To seek the proverbial needle in a haystack,
there must already be knowledge of the needle.
Similarly, to see God, happiness, silence or what you will,
is already to have known, formulated or imagined it.
Seeking, as it's called, is always for something known.
Finding is recognizing, and recognition is based on previous knowledge.
The mind that's seeking is waiting, expecting, desiring,
and what it finds is recognizable, therefore already known.
Seeking is the action of the past.
(Krishnamurti)
Letting-go is not easy.
Doing less, wanting less, finding space and freedom in your life will require change.
And people are often reluctant to change.
But, as with all things in tai chi, nothing is forced.
If you want something, and value it, you will find the time and it will not be a chore.
Not all tai chi practice is slow. But many of the exercise are fairly slow.
There is no need for rushing.
Rushing is the outcome of anxiety, of conflict between activities or choices.
We encourage students to settle, to give-up the race, to be relaxed, rested and composed.
This is usually not a familiar condition.
Harmony is the outcome of finding balance between yourself and other people, circumstances and events.
This requires a significant change of consciousness.
Mere physical exercise alone will not accomplish this shift of perception.
It is necessary to see life differently, to take the lessons of the art into your daily life.
A person who is considered to be fit in the West may be able to do over 100 push-ups, run a marathon, possess a beautiful, muscular physique – and yet not be internally healthy.
He or she may have a bad back, damaged joints, liver problems, unbalanced emotions, an inability to handle stress and sexual weakness or dysfunction.
(Bruce Frantzis)
If an instructor really feels that a youngster not yet into puberty is worthy of a black belt ranking in an art, what does that say about the sophistication and profundity of the art? What would you think of a college that awarded degrees to kids learning their multiplication tables?
The only people who were ever impressed by a black belt were the absurdly uninformed general public.
(Dave Lowry)
I strongly believe that students should limit themselves to learning and fully developing in just one style only. By learning many styles and collecting many forms we simply cannot have sufficient time to practice.
Few have the resources or talent to be the master of more than one style. The really good teachers focus on one style.
(Adam Hsu)
Like a lot of people, I thought Tai Chi was just something that old folks did in the park, but the depth of information on the website grabbed my interest, so I gave it a try. So glad I did. This is real Tai Chi taught to an exceptional standard. At the health and fitness level it teaches you to move efficiently, minimise stress on your joints, and restores flexibility, strength and balance. But if you want to take it further it opens up the martial art of tai chi, which teaches you to read your opponents and use their own strength against them. When you see this demonstrated by Sifu Waller you forget any preconceptions. I admire the way that Sifu Waller constantly adapts classes to fill the gaps he sees in our practice.
I enjoy every class and workshop and really appreciate the skill and thought (not to mention patience) that goes into preparing and adapting them to suit the class.
(Malcolm)
Abrupt, jerky, fast movement alerts the nervous system and tenses your muscles. Seek to be smooth, soft, calm and comfortable. Do not rush or dither. Take decisive action, but work at easy, normal-seeming movement.
A hurried person has no control, no composure. Use your sensitivity. Be cunning. 4 ounces of pressure, root, yielding and calm are essential. Avoid aggression at all costs.
If 'caught up', distraction is best. It divides the attention and will create an opening for you to exploit.
This is part of 'see the left, see the right' from the 13 methods.
Ultimately, you can strike/seize/press almost anywhere and cause pain.
Different angles offer different targets but the entire body is alarmingly vulnerable to pain.
Tensing-up the muscles only serves to lock the joints and brings the nerves closer to the surface.
Many things in life require us to have an intent in mind.
This is a natural requirement since we cannot always simply drift.
One of the dangers of having a target or a result is that we may become fixated on the end.
If we fail to pay adequate attention to the means, this can cause problems.
How we do something, the way in which it is accomplished is really what tai chi is concerned with.
In tai chi you must always remain within your natural range of movement.
Any stretching is done subtly and never forced; the body is allowed to open by itself, rather than be forced.
By encouraging the joints to be free, mobility increases radically and the body can move more comfortably.
Tai chi should never strain or hurt the body.
Some movements may feel uncomfortable if you have bad postural habits and this is to be expected - your body is already used to set patterns of movement and poise - and the tai chi is gently changing these.
Tai chi works in a way that is completely opposite from many forms of dance, specifically ballet. It seems that more and more people interested in dance and movement are turning to Eastern forms of movement as they search for a richer and more supple expression.
In tai chi the body is placed in a position where the six outward rotators are eccentricity contracting with the abdominals and gluteals relaxed. This eccentric contraction of the the six outward rotators counteracts the short resting length of the iliopsoas as well as gravity. Being in the tai chi posture utilizes gravity to one's advantage. The main difference then is in the use of the abdominals and the gluteals, and that in tai chi the force of gravity is utilized to stretch the iliopsoas and flexors, while in ballet gravity is not used.
It is possible to use gravity to stretch the flexors and iliopsoas in ballet but this is not understood in the teaching of this art.
(Liz Koch)
Many people don't look after their feet. They have poor sense of balance, dry skin, cracked heels, limited flexibility and exceedingly poor sensitivity.
Invest in your feet. You use them all day long. Slough off the dry skin, massage them, apply cream to keep the skin soft and pliable.We walk, and our religion is shown (even to the dullest and most insensitive person) in how we walk. Or to put it more accurately, living in this world means choosing, choosing to walk, and the way we choose to walk is infallibly and perfectly expressed in the walk itself. Nothing can disguise it. The walk of an ordinary man and of an enlightened man are as different as that of a snake and a giraffe.
(R.H. Blyth)
When you walk quickly, you do not really notice the walk. Our style of tai chi is process-oriented - so the how, the way is most important - we need to be aware of our walking habits.
If you stroll, amble, wander... you cease to put stress upon your body.If your noises advertise your movements, they are way too loud. Noisy footwork and clumsy habits reflect your lack of sensitivity. Slow down. Stop rushing. Let your scattered mind settle.
Feet are exceptionally sensitive. Your body must interpret a vast quantity of data and respond very rapidly.
Inactivity and neglect can reduce the sensitivity of the feet, as can certain types of shoe that are harmful.When your mind is calm and still, you will absorb information without forcing.
You will see rather than look, hear rather than listen.People like to be treated with fairness and respect.
Some want more than this:
They want to feel special, important, above other people.
Their insecurity leads them to abuse: they take more than they need, they demand recognition, prestige.
This behaviour has consequences; it affects everything else, it creates an imbalance that spans the world.
When people only look after their own wellbeing and think nothing of others or the future, they make life difficult for others.
Impatient people push for results.
Yet, who are they really pushing, who is suffering the pressure of their impatience?
They are.
Pushing is a form of exertion.
Once you realise that conscious thought can affect tension, you can begin to let-go of it and relax.
Feel where your body is holding, and soften the muscles by thinking them longer, looser and heavier.
If you are sweating, you are exerting.
Why?
This is tai chi, and tai chi does not involve exertion of any kind.
Tao Te Ching (chapter 55) counsels you to be like a child that can cry all day without getting hoarse.
It also speaks against aggression.
Aggression is a tool of 'pushing', of forcing - and force is not the way of tai chi.
If you find yourself prowling the web looking for some way to assuage your boredom and vent your wrath, you may have some problems.
Rather than pour your heart out via TikTok, why not talk to a real person?One of the problems with the internet is that it encourages all manner of unpleasantness.
Blogs and chatrooms allow malignant people to insult strangers anonymously.Make the time to do nothing at all.
Have a 'do nothing day' in which you ignore:
the phone
chores
responsibilities
commitments
Shedding unnecessary belongings, commitments and habits can free up your life. Instead of doing 15 things, you do 3.
As with all things in life, your success in this endeavour is entirely relative to how earnest you are.Tai chi chuan is a Chinese martial art. It was developed hundreds of years ago and draws upon Taoist observations, Chinese traditional medicine, biomechanics, physics and combat. 13 patterns of movement are used to express power.
To train the art correctly you need a highly-skilled Instructor who can offer a very comprehensive syllabus.Locked knees or overly-straightened legs prevent the knee from acting as suspension for the body.
Relax the knees but do not bend unless squatting down to lift something.Most people have very tight hamstrings.
Unfortunately, the back compensates for tight hamstring muscles (by slouching); giving the illusion of greater flexibility than is actually present.Most men and women sit too much. This can lead to under-developed gluteus maximus muscles; which is bad for the back in particular. Weakness in these large muscles can affect the whole body.
Buttock muscles are supposed to be akin to a vertical oval for each buttock. There should be notable muscular development; the outcome of healthy everyday squatting.A lot of people experience pain in their shoulders and reduced movement.
If you ignore the shoulders entirely and focus instead on their legs you will inevitably discover that their legs are tense.The main problem with sitting is gravity, loss of circulation and the tightening/shortening of your muscles.
Muscular tension stops your joints and vertebra from moving freely. When the hips, groin and sacroiliac freeze-up, the overall skeletal mobility is reduced.Monkeys, horses and other mammals have arms and legs of the same length. Humans are different. We are bipeds. Our legs are much longer and stronger than our arms.
A lot of people sit at a desk, operate their mobile phone, drive the car or watch TV in what is essentially a standing/sitting version of the foetal position.
Appeasing the symptoms will produce no lasting benefits. It is akin to taking a pill in order to mask/hide the symptoms whilst the underlying pain remains.
Fixing the problem usually entails some sort of lifestyle change.For optimal body use we need the pelvis to naturally sit beneath the abdomen.
The physical centre of the body contains a lot of water, our intestines etc and needs to be pretty stable.The pelvis is pretty large. If you turn it to the right or to the left, the entire upper body is affected. Turn it too far and the knees bear the brunt of the turn.
If you tilt it forwards or backwards, the entire balance of the body changes. Pretty soon you are leaning.People talk a lot about core strength but not much about core stability. The two concerns are not the same.
Core strength is about the muscles of the lower body (crotch, groin, hips, buttocks, lower back, legs and abdominals) whereas core stability is about keeping the pelvis favourably aligned.
The body must be exercised carefully, with a clear emphasis upon safety and relaxation. Dr Paul Lam (an expert in using tai chi for arthritis) emphasises the importance of:
1. Higher stancesIn order to increase mobility the emphasis needs to be upon working the body both in class and at home between lessons. Adopt a multi-faceted approach:
• Strengthen your muscles
• Align your skeleton better
• Sit less
• Stand less
• Stretch more
• Improve balance
• Gain coordination
• Increase bodily awareness
• Be mindful of how you use your body
It is absurd to think you are going to get anywhere by giving only an hour a week to your practice or that you can regularly skip classes. Martial arts is not like a bridge club, where you drop in when you have nothing better to do. Martial arts will always make greater demands on your time than would most hobbies or avocations.
(Dave Lowry)
The Chen form derived from battlefield military movements, where people wore medieval body armour that had to be compensated for. The Chen-style stances were specifically designed to achieve these compensations and obtain a workable position from which to realistically throw an armoured opponent.
By the time Yang had reached Beijing, times had changed. With the advent of firearms, battlefield armour became obsolete; hence, the need for techniques to deal with armoured foes had passed.
Yang and his students had to deal with situations encountered by bodyguards, not armies opposing each other.
(Bruce Frantzis)
