Old & young

The Tai Chi Classics tell us that an old man defeats a gang of youths. But he cannot be using strength. So how does he do it? A young, fit person can tense their muscles and force a result.

An old man cannot. He must rely upon:

1. The quality and effect of his touch (jing)
2. Whole-body strength (neigong)
3. Alignment (qigong and form)
4. His capacity to respond appropriately (combat)
5. Timing, positioning, rhythm

As you grow old, your external strength will drain away. Whole-body strength does not fade in quite the same way.

With understanding, and the correct application of the tai chi principles, you can hope to maintain a level of fitness and martial competence well into old age.

A tai chi person must behave as though they had the limited strength of an old person, and rely upon the internal rather than the external.

Understand

You must never resort to force or brute strength. The moment you start to tense your muscles, your whole-body strength is gone.

A lower level student has difficulty coming to terms with the nature of whole-body strength.

The reason why you train it for years is so that you do not have to consciously apply strength when you need it. Whole-body strength is inherent; it is there all the time.

If something never comes or goes, why would you need to deliberately summon strength?

Until you understand this for yourself and have the faith that comes from pressure-testing your whole-body strength, you will remain a beginner.

Falling into the well

Letting go of your old habits and trusting that whole-body strength is present requires a leap of faith. You must simply move and then evaluate the consequences later. How do you do it?

There is no doing. It is like the koan: When you can do nothing, what can you do?

Whole-body strength will be there when you stop all the doing, all the preparation, anticipation, the physical and psychological tension.

The doing was all the work that developed your whole-body strength. Like ingredients used to bake a cake.

To apply whole-body strength, you must simply relax and move as softly as you can - using the whole-body.

Being soft and gentle is the key - the less effort you make, the more whole-body strength will emerge.

 Those who use force soon exhaust themselves.

And what can be accomplished with exhaustion and struggle?

But those who follow Tao become one with the Tao.

Because they move with the world, they become one with the force of its moving.

Because they are one with the world, great things easily happen.

Therefore, those who trust the Way of the world are empowered by the world.

(Lao Tzu)

Ghost walking?

In Asia, ghosts are depicted as having no feet. They float. A tai chi student cannot float but their sense of being 'suspended from above' should feel as if they do.

Asian ghosts don't have heavy footfalls. In fact they make no sound on the ground at all.

Many people have very loud steps. Concussive. Vibrational. Loud. This indicates weak, collapsed muscles. They have succumbed to the pull of gravity...

Instead, we must lengthen upwards and be light and silent. Like the old Kung Fu TV show where Kwai Chang Caine must walk on rice paper without tearing it?

Our next induction course is Monday 7th September.

New starters are welcome! 

Resistance is futile

Students train whole-body strength but deny themselves the benefits of their hard work by clinging to old habits of tension. It is not enough to perform qigong, form and neigong.

If you want to use whole-body strength, then you must employ it. This means letting go of your past.

So long as you dither and doubt, and persist with the use of local tension, there will be no internal skill. Resisting force is simply not the way of tai chi.

 In order to escape from danger, one need only take the line of least resistance, just as liquid spills from a vessel over the lowest point of its rim.

Concentrate only on escaping.

(I Ching) 

Weapons range

As they progress through the syllabus, students study weapons and the associated training teaches agile footwork.

The range of a weapon is greater and you need to avoid being hit. In order to utilise the weapon fully, a student needs to move freely and comfortably. Lumbering footwork is not adequate.

Weapons practice teaches fast, responsive footwork and rapid direction changes.

90 minutes a day

Dr Michael Greger (author of How Not To Die) recommends 90 minutes of moderate-intensity exercise every day.

The three doctors who wrote The Okinawa Program maintain that tai chi - with its ancient origins and incredible health benefits - is the ideal form of exercise for modern people.

If this sounds like a lot of exercise, why not chop it up into smaller increments spaced throughout the day?

Lazy

Most people start class with very lazy feet and poor physical sensitivity.

They are reluctant to step, and will stretch out their arms instead - effectively disconnecting the upper and lower body immediately.

Alternatively, they bend their knees too much and then find stepping difficult. A martial student must become nimble, agile and fluid.

Beginners

Beginners practice a variety of footwork drills from the very onset of training. In order to avoid being hit or caught-up in a struggle, it is necessary to get out of the way.

The yin/yang symbol is the interlocking, melting together of the flow of movement within a circle.

(Chungliang Al Huang)

Tai chi article

Adjustment

The Long Yang form encourages the student to perceive stepping as being an 'adjustment'. You alter position favourably by stepping. But you only step if and when you need to.

Long Yang form

The Long Yang form does not involve any fancy footwork. There is plenty of stepping throughout the form, but it is far from dynamic. How come?

Many beginners think that they do not need to warm-up. Skipping a warm-up will automatically result in pain later on, and that will restrict your fighting abilities. A good pre-workout warm-up protects against future aches and pains. Furthermore, it is also an immediate factor in improving performance.

(Frederic Delavier)

Our next induction course is Monday 7th September.

New starters are welcome! 

Clarity

Your mind perceives reality and then determines how, when or if to act. The clearer your perception, the more appropriate the course of action you take. 

Clarity does not emerge spontaneously.

Few people think clearly. Cultivating clarity takes time, contemplation, study, meditation and patience.

 When luxury and excess begin in high places,

the effects spread everywhere.

When leaders have more wealth than wisdom,

they prefer fancy clothes and exotic foods,

foolish amusements and self-indulgence.

When they place their own wellbeing

above the care of others,

They are worse than common thieves.

(Lao Tzu)

Quality of life

There is a danger in seeking to be gratified or entertained. Comfort is a sword that cuts both ways. A modicum of hardship keeps us alive and alert.

Rather than indulge in that trip to Cambodia, go and work at the soup kitchen. 

Instead of gorging at the trendy new restaurant, grow your own fresh vegetables and make the meal from scratch.

Wash your own dishes. Iron your own clothes. Clean your own house. Make things from scratch. Become self-sufficient and resilient...

Hobbies

The unfamiliar may cause apprehension and uncertainty but that is the entire point. Undertaking new pursuits and interests breaks you from lifelong bad habits and the risk of indolence.

You will also meet new and unexpected people.

Nutrition

You are what you eat. No matter what you do with your body or your mind, nutrition remains paramount. Take the time to find out what qualifies as high quality nutrition and eat to stay alive.

 Most studies agree that there are a number of key personality characteristics that are important for healthy aging: easygoing, cheerful, self-confident, adaptable, active, independent, creative, happy, relaxed, satisfied, calm, open, agreeable, conscientious, sociable and having a high tolerance for frustration being mentioned most often.

The traits that lead to an unhealthy, shorter life? Being repressed, dogmatic, stubborn, hostile, neurotic, angry, guilty, sad, fearful, anxious, depressed and aggressive.

(Dr Bradley Wilcox, Dr Craig Wilcox and Dr Makoto Suzuki)

A spanner in the works?

Most people exercise with extremely bad posture and poor habits of body use. Qigong and tai chi are trying to remedy these.

If you train another system frequently enough, the benefits of tai chi are nullified. It is OK to train a wide range of exercise methods without ruining your tai chi. The key concern is moderation.

Avoid over-doing it: over-stretching, straining or exerting. Be mindful of posture, poise and tension.

Cross-training?

Students often want to do other forms of exercise in addition to their tai chi. This is fine. The question is: does the other method conflict with the goals of tai chi? Balance? Relaxed muscles? Coordination?

If it does, the tai chi will not work and you will not get the desired fitness benefits or any martial skill.

A balanced body?

Tai chi is not aiming to produce a 'tai chi body'. Rather, it seeks to restore the body to a unified condition of wholeness. Balanced. Mobile. Coordinated. Agile. Supple. Youthful.

Balance is a good thing to think about, but can lead to a false idea of fixity. Our aim is not to be rigid and stable like a wardrobe or a house.

We want to be balancing... 'Balancing' is a process of adjustment; altering what we do in response to what is taking place. Now, that is healthy. Mentally and physically.

Hope

Our information-saturated culture has produced a distracted, lazy, bored, restless, stressed, unhealthy population. People expect instant gratification. They want to show off.

They want results without putting in any work. They want to share their opinions. Speculate. Talk politics.

Not a great starting place for a new starter? However, the very fact that the person wants to try something new is a good start. It offers hope. The possibility of change.

At some level the individual wants to change. This is good. However, to make any real progress in tai chi they have shed these modern, unproductive attitudes...

Thinking habits

The thinking patterns and habits of new students are often far worse than their bodies. Most people have never stuck any new endeavour long enough to understand what learning entails.

They tend to be impatient, overconfident and naive concerning their own abilities. e.g. we once had a man with an artificial hip who neglected to mention it on his 'medical liability disclaimer' because he personally didn't consider it to be a medical matter...

If you want to reconsider 'thinking', why not read Grit, Smarter Faster Better, 5 Elements of Effective Thinking and Peak...? Then put the suggested thinking skills into actual practice.

Body habits

New starters tend to have appalling body habits. These have been accumulated across a lifetime; producing a random, haphazard mess. Sometimes, the habits are the outcome of yoga, the gym or a sport.

The tai chi teacher usually wishes they could dismantle the student's body and start again, but it doesn't work like that because bodies are organic. The body needs to loosen up, relax and then re-grow.

This requires patience, focus and perseverance... like a gardener. Results won't come overnight.

Muscles

If your muscles are working optimally, they should move your body around without there being any sense of work taking place. Everything will feel comfortable, easy and smooth.

When you are chronically over-working your muscles, this is not the case at all. You exert constantly. You apply vast amounts of energy to the performance of simplistic tasks that require almost no energy to accomplish.

A big impediment

The largest impediment faced by a student of tai chi is their own perception of strength. Invariably, the student is convinced that their physical experience of strength is strength.

Quite often they are wrong. What they are feeling is not strength at all. It is tension.

Looking is narrow

Looking is focussed and narrow. Seeing is expansive and open. Meditation is the condition of being present, of seeing without impediment.

You are very much in the immediate moment: feeling, seeing, experiencing. There are no thoughts and no worries.

Spacing out

Modern people are seldom fully present. They try to 'multi-task'. Even when there are no obvious, visible distractions, they somehow manage to be elsewhere.

These same people worry about Alzheimer's disease...

The sage speaks. You hear what you want. I hear what I want.

(Chakravarty)