John’s Tai-BlogTai Chi and anything I can relate to Tai Chi … like life

… Bored?

Boredom is one of those strange things we fear so much we’ll do some of the craziest things to avoid it, especially as children.  I’ve met a lot of people who would really benefit from practicing tai chi but won’t give it a try.  Often times they think it’ll be too boring.  Yet I don’t know anyone who has stuck with it who finds it boring.

There are so many details in tai chi’s slow movements that you just can’t focus on all of them at the same time.  We can only focus well on one thing at a time.  After you’ve focused on one detail long enough that it becomes almost automatic, then you can focus on the next detail.

Master Cui Zhongsan, my master, is still working on the details after almost 60 years of practice.  To me this is what makes tai chi so interesting, not to mention how good it makes me feel.  So if you’re one of those rare people who love to be bored stay away from tai chi, because you’ll never quite get to the place of boredom.

When I work with a student I never give them more than a few details.  Once they have those, there are plenty more to come.  Every time I work with my teacher or my master I’m given new details to work on.  Sometimes they’re new details only because I’ve forgotten them, but that’s a different story all together.

“The secret in boring people lies in telling them everything.” - Voltaire

Bye for now,

John

P.S. I found this picture on Flickr: http://flickr.com/photos/jamelah/583341746/

“As Sure As… Yet For You It Doesn’t Exist”

“As sure as water runs down hill” Anonymous

I had a new student in class last night.  I’m not really sure how old she is and the best I can do is to place her somewhere between 50 and 60.  She’s in incredibly good shape and thinks she has very limited coordination.  She even tried to prove it to me by confusing herself a couple of times.

I’ve never met anyone who could do tai chi well right out of the gate.  I was pretty bad myself when I started, and I think of myself as being pretty coordinated.  I taught her a couple of moves and broke them down to their individual parts; she actually did them quite well.  I think she is more coordinated than most people but for some reason she honestly believes she isn’t.

Does this describe you? I think it describes each of us to some degree.  When we really believe something all we look for are things that confirm our beliefs.  Like this woman who thinks she’s uncoordinated, so she completely ignored the things she did very well. We ignore whatever doesn’t fit our beliefs.  It’s absolutely amazing when you actually see someone do this so obviously.

It was a bit like watching a hypnotist’s show.  You know the kind of show where people are given suggestions to do the most outlandish things and also to think it’s perfectly normal.  Like to forget the number 4:  “For you the number 4 does not exist and when counting it simply does not factor into your consciousness.” Then the hypnotist counts 5 chairs on the stage and the person agrees, but when they count they get 6.  Yet they can’t figure out why.

What are you good at?  What are you missing?

Bye for now,

John

P.S. I found this beautiful waterfall picture on Flickr: http://flickr.com/photos/emmedibi/244716376/

Why People Who Aren’t Competitive Should Compete

Whenever there’s an opportunity to attend a nearby competition, my teacher and the owner of Mei Zhong always works hard to get students to join.  When I first started taking tai chi I wasn’t a very serious and I think I’d only been studying for about 6 months and I really wasn’t interested.  Miriam still managed to talk me into it.

I practiced the one short form I could comfortably finish and headed off to North Carolina with the School.  When my time came to get out on the floor I was pretty nervous.  So nervous in fact that I used the wrong opening move and then, I felt, barely managed to get through the rest of the form. I didn’t do very well but I still had a good time.  One of the judges told me I was too good to be using such a simple form, so that helped me feel a lot better about my performance.

I’m not extremely competitive although it is fun to win.  What I really got out of that experience, and what other students get out of competing, is a considerable improvement in our abilities.  Knowing you’re going to be competing gets you looking at things very differently.  You start noticing things you want to change.  Things your teacher has been telling you for a while, for some reason suddenly make sense and you find you’re doing better than you were just a short time ago. It heightens your senses and now before I compete I focus almost exclusively on one or two form sets and work them over and over.

The weekend before last our school attended the US Open International Martial Arts Championship in Atlanta, GA. The 48 form saber set takes up more than 30′ of space so I modified it somewhat to fit within 15 to 20 feet.  The changes were simply stepping back at times rather than stepping forward and the look of the form didn’t change much at all. This year it paid off and I won a gold metal with that form.

I didn’t do quite as well with my open hand form. There I took second place to another Yang Style Player, John Lutz from New Orleans.  He did a great job, I enjoyed meeting him, and I’m looking forward to visiting his school in the future.  The rest of my school made a very good showing.

Mei Zhong had 7 competitors there that day and we left with 13 metals.  Everyone managed to leave with a metal in their respective categories.  We had people in beginner, intermediate and advanced levels as well as executive (senior) and adult categories and we all had fun.

The thing I noticed most about the Mei Zhong Students was they each had a marked jump in skill from only a month or two ago.  It really is amazing how much competitions make us better and better tai chi players. So my advice is to look for a competition somewhere nearby and enter an event.  Win or loose, it will change the way you approach your practice and that’s makes winners.

Bye for now,

John

P.S. Thanks to Martha’s husband Doug for taking these photos. The group shot from left to right Carl Hierholzer, Jan Peterson, Alan Mason, Michael Holland (our support), John Crewdson, Martha Morrison, and Lyman Hurd.

Are You The Destroyer?

In this quote is the essence of tai chi.  If you have to think too much about it you don’t yet understand tai chi.

Those who hate you don’t win unless you hate them - and then you destroy yourself.

Richard Nixon

Bye for now,

John

“And The Problem Is”… Push Hands

Push hands, or pushing hands, is an exercise where tai chi players learn to “listen” to their partner’s energy.  The exercise starts out very simply with two people facing each other in the same bow stance: either left or right. Each person then extends the same arm as the forward foot and touches the back of their wrist to the back of their partner’s wrist.

The next step is to begin “stirring the soup”. Each partner keeps their arm extended, soft but with structure, in a large curved shape, and moves forward and backward while turning their waist and keeping their hand in front of their chest. The goal here is to “feel” your partner’s movement and then feel the energy in their body so you can maintain contact at all times.

As you gain skill in this simple exercise you can begin to vary the force you use and respond to your partner’s change in force.  The new goal is to take your partner off balance.   This is not a competition of muscle against muscle though.  If you are to really learn to use your own, and your partner’s, internal energy you need to flow with the energy rather than to just grab your partner and throw them off. Sometimes it’s better to add force and other times it is better to lessen your force.

From this beginning exercise, there are many variations and more advanced training exercises.  Learning this skill is not easy and takes a lot of practice.  Form work, jiben gong (moving repetitions), standing exercises, pole work, etc. all contribute to your skill level and can be done on your own.  However, I don’t know of a way to practice push hands without a partner.  Maybe one of you could develop a robot that could help here; I’m just not sure what it would be like to feel a robot’s energy.

I remember reading somewhere where a tai chi teacher was railing against push hands saying that it promoted being artificially soft and was not really useful.  Considering that push hands was developed by people who used tai chi to defend themselves and their families in real life threatening situations, as well as being used by every generation since, it seems odd that it would suddenly loose it’s effectiveness as a training tool.

Now I don’t remember who said that push hands was not a valuable exercise, and they may have developed a very good form of exercise that they do in place of pushing hands.  If so they may have also developed a new style of martial art, or at least a new branch of tai chi.  I don’t believe anything is written in stone; anything can be improved upon. The problem is most “improvements” turn out to be less than satisfactory.

It remains to be seen if push hands really is dead as an exercise.  In the mean time I think I keep practicing, just in case.

Bye for now,

John

P.S. This picture was taken by my senior training brother Michael Holland in Zhongsan Park, Bejing, China. Far left is my teacher Miram Holland; Center My Master, Master Cui Zhongsan; Next to right my senior training borther Rinjun; Far right my senior training sister Joann

If War is Not The Answer. “The Answer Is…”

War is a terrible thing.  The one who is called “looser” not only looses their life or their freedom, but also the opportunity to tell their side of the story in the history books.  The so called “winner” gains that privilege.  The innocent who were in the way, suffer worst from the inevitable destruction of the war machines.  If they’re lucky the “winner” helps them get back on their feet again.

Too often we see people warring against wars.  Sometimes they rightfully march in a peaceful manner while voicing their opinions loudly so everyone can hear. When people protest against war while remaining peaceful in their intent they have the ability to affect at least some change.

Other times people will resort to violence, thereby using some of the very tactics they are rallying against. They don’t seem to realize that fighting accomplishes exactly the opposite result.  Whenever someone is attacked they will defend themselves, whether right or wrong. This is human nature.

If we are to defeat war we have to stop fighting it.  What is wanted is peace and that’s where the focus needs to be, no matter how bleak the outlook.  If you feel the need to defend yourself you are at war. Although possible, peace within war is a paradox.

The mindset of tai chi is one of always maintaining peace within.  If you must defend yourself from an attack you need options to be effective.  Sifu Waller on his blog Dynamic Balancing Tai Chi put this very well in his post simply called Peace?.  “In terms of the martial arts, peace resides in your desire to avoid conflict, to yield, to incapacitate with restraint and consideration, rather than be sadistic or brutal.”

Bye for now,

John

P.S. Visit Sifu Waller’s blog at http://dynamicbalancingtaichi.blogspot.com/2008/11/peace.html