Waking Dragon Journal by Tim Richard
Educational, entertaining and informational essays, articles, news on novel events, trainings, and tai chi travel.
10/27/2008
Why do people take tai chi lessons?
They subconsciously trick themselves
into learning from someone else what they themselves can’t learn
on their own. Speed up the learning process, like crossing over a river
on a convenient bridge compared to swimming across. It’s faster
and easier. But when you’re learning to use a fine instrument, such
as your own body, there are no shortcuts and nothing is any easier than
anything else, only different. A different route, that’s all.
Most people don’t practice regularly. They might take a weekly 90-minute class and not even that usually. The teacher goes to every class and practices. That is the only difference between a teacher and student these days.
Learning
to Walk All Over Again
One thing you learn in taijiquan is the “form,” or postures
linked together by transitions and producing dance-like movements. You
can transfer many skills practiced in doing form to walking. Tai chi techniques
and principles bridge the gap between our habitual way of walking and
more natural movement that utilizes the body more deliberately and consciously.
The results can be a calmer attitude overall, greater self-confidence,
a healthier body, as well as the most common claim: improved posture and
balance.
Walking is one of
those activities that we all do, and tai chi walking helps to align the
mind and body more harmoniously than most of us are aware is possible.
I believe that consciousness is actually created as the result of integrating
and aligning mind and body in a new relationship. Bring Qi into the equation
and you’re not only creating consciousness, but also energy. You’re
creating energy out of a positive merging of compatible forces. In tai
chi, it doesn’t take energy to create energy in the same old ways.
You must make what seems an exceptional effort at first, but after time
it takes less and less energy to achieve some surprising outcomes. "Four
ounces equals a thousand pounds,” as the old Chinese saying goes.
Westerners don’t typically experience and enjoy our ability to discover
new sources of consciousness and energy within us merely by learning to
move in new ways. Most probably don’t even know the possibility
even exists. If any find out, it’s often late in life. Luckily,
though, it’s never too late. You can start tai chi at any
age as long as your mind is active. I still urge anyone to begin as soon
as possible in order to reap the benefits that come with taijiquan and
qigong.
September 20,
2008
I began teaching two years ago when a young man contacted me out of the
blue and asked if I would be interested in teaching him taijiquan. He
had heard from asking around that I might teach if I was asked. I had
thought about it before he came along, but didn’t think I was ready.
I thought I probably knew enough to share the basics, but was unsure if
I would be a good teacher. I agreed to teach him and since then I have
taught a few people. We had a small group going for a while.
Lately, I have had to reconsider my desire to teach since efforts to increase the number of people doing taijiquan have failed. Now, I’m wondering why I would even want to teach. Two reasons come to mind in addition to being asked directly. One: I need to do taijiquan more than the average person. Two: I enjoy sharing the knowledge and working with people to learn the so-called “secrets” of Chinese internal martial arts training.
I can do without teaching, but it is more difficult not to share knowledge, because it's so much fun. Either way, I’ve decided not to teach unless asked and leave the option open to at least do tai chi if anyone asks. I will continue my own practice and train with my teachers, which is what anyone interested in better health and in unraveling the mysteries of internal arts training should do. It takes years to grasp not only the more subtle concepts, but even the most obvious key principles. It shouldn't, though. The more you practice the faster you get it. Explaining tai chi key concepts is a challenge, but understanding them is too. What you’re doing when you practice taiji is asking yourself to change old habits and replace them with new, better, habits. Few do so willingly. Just do the movement and maybe it will teach you.
So I’ve decided just to do tai chi rather than teach it. If you are interested in learning internal martial arts for longevity and well-being, I recommend studying with Susan A. Matthews, MS. She has been my teacher for 10 years. She has a natural gift for transferring understanding. Her own teacher Master George Xu (www.georgexu.com) has publicly described Susan as a master in her own right. I have heard him say more than once that we can call Susan a master. In fact, Master Xu has even said that Susan has mastered certain principles of internal arts better than most women martial artists in China!
In my own experience I can say that she has mastered not only the essentials of structure, but has taken the energetic elements to levels that I have seldom seen in anyone; from the US, to Europe, to even China. She also sees very clearly the needs of a class, as well as the student. The universal and individual, the yin and the yang. You can find her in Cortez, Colorado. <www.susanamatthews.com> Tell her I sent you.
In the meantime, I will be practicing at my wild farm near Marvel, Colorado, a place I call Long Hollow Refuge, 80-acres of juniper, sage, piñon and oak. It’s a great place for hiking and mountain biking. I love it for practicing taijiquan. If you make the drive out on a Saturday or Sunday, I'll welcome you. You don’t have to give me money but it would be wise to share something in return. Food is good.
September 20,
2008
It is often said that it’s a good idea to find a quiet place
to practice. Like finding the right place to meditate. Since taiji and
qigong are moving meditations, it makes since to find a spot that helps
to quiet the mind, especially the "emotional mind." I’ve
been almost ritualistic in choosing places to do my moving meditations.
Once you’re in your spot it’s easier to get in the mood. This
facilitates concentration.
I found a place that
works for me. It’s Long Hollow Refuge. It not always easy for everyone,
though. My teacher George Xu once told me that you can find peace anywhere,
even in a noisy city. We were alongside Lincoln Way in San Francisco,
a noisy thoroughfare bordering Golden Gate Park. Like a candle that is
unaffected by its surroundings, he said. His message was to create the
serenity rather than have to rely on some external factors that you may
not be able to control. This may be true in SF or in China where privacy
and quiet places are scarce. But out here in Southwest Colorado, there
are countless places of solitude in a beautiful landscape. Whether or
not you practice with a group or alone, you can easily find solitude that
complements meditative practice. I found that place at Long Hollow Refuge.
Here is a thought if your looking for a place within or outside of you:
Recall your favorite place of all time. Remember it as if it were in front
of you, even though you’re faraway. Let the sensation of being there
flow through you. Feel the contentment and joy of being there. Smile inside.
Do the form while maintaining this sensation. You can do this anywhere,
in a noisy city, a cramped room, in the darkness.
A Rinpoche told a group of us that Buddhism doesn’t separate the mind and the heart. They strive to integrate them in practice. Taiji and qigong are similar because they are methods for dissolving artificial distinctions between head and heart. In both taiji and qigong, effort is made to silence the mind of thought. You’ve heard of “quiet mind.” One way to clear the head of thoughts is to place your attention on other parts of the body while performing the moves that the teacher is showing. By giving yourself the task of conscious, deliberate movement, you deemphasize thinking (thus stress) and enhance your body’s ability to heal and strengthen your immune system, improve blood circulation, and so on. This also relates to the description of taiji and qigong as “moving meditation.”
It doesn’t take a lot of commitment to learn and practice taiji and qigong. Both are self-healing arts. With sustained effort you benefit from better health and well-being. You don’t need a chiropractor or other specialists to fix those occasional cricks in the neck and those sore muscles you get from irregular exercise or repetitive computer motion. The only requirement is that you do them enough. Do them regularly for prevention. These are simple truths about taiji and qigong.
In my class, you can learn very simple qigong sets and taiji basic single moves that you can practice at home and start making a difference in your life almost immediately. If you attend just one 90-minute class a week for three months you’ll know even more that you can employ in your own self-healthcare practice. Even a single qigong set will work. Do taiji single-move exercises, or the whole form regularly for preventing those recurring pains and strains.
You might be perfectly
healthy now, but the aging process affects all of us. Taiji and qigong
can help you age healthier … more gracefully, if I may say.
"Number
One Ancient Chinese Secret"
I like to say that there are 1001 secrets in taijiquan and every one of
them is number one secret. Here's one about the Dantian, the
area of the abdomen. The dantian ... should move like water,
like water in a balloon. The balloon’s walls are stable, yet move
with the water, bending like a sapling in the wind, the dantian bends
but doesn’t break. It opens and closes, expands and contracts, alive;
but the inside is empty except for the waving and crashing of the water
in the balloon and the energy in the dantien. Sometimes it's like a balloon
that has expanded with air or water; and when the air or water is let
out the balloon retains its shape as though it were still full ... yet
it is empty. ...TR ... June 23 2008
No
Muscle? No Effort!
Old sayings are commonly evoked in the practice of taijiquan. One--"four
ounces equals a thousand pounds" can be thought of in a variety of
ways. Here is one: endurance results from using the body more efficiently
so that the least amount of energy is expended in any effort. So figuring
out how to use your body in the most efficient manner is a really worthy
goal. The goal is not only is to reach the plateau of no muscle, but
the plateau of no effort.
"No muscle” is not a completely correct instruction, rather "let the muscles go" is more accurate. Since the muscles are part of the body, you cannot move without them being engaged in some way. They are as important as any other part although with its own unique function. But you don't need to give them more attention than they deserve, which many people do. You want the muscles to support the movement, not lead. More properly, the deeper structure should lead and the muscles let go, turn, spiral in the spirit of the movement. The perfect whole results as each part perfects it role.
Quiet Mind--Tim Richard ... June 23 2008
Balance is in part an issue of placing your feet on the ground in the best alignment with the rest of the body. I often see people walking around with ankles turned in, pigeon-toed, or splay footed, causing ankles to collapse and crush inward. This will be painful as you age. But it’s avoidable by learning to align the body in just the right way so that everything is used efficiently. Undue stress is not placed on a single muscle, bone, joint, ligament or tendon, because it simply is at the wrong angle to the rest of the body. If you’re interested in getting the most efficient motion out of the body, you ultimately want that kind of efficiency from every part of the body. ... TR
Tai chi exercise ... Stand in one place with your feet a shoulder width apart, facing straight ahead, arms relaxed at the side. Take a moment to orient yourself and then sink down the right leg. When you get to a certain point, maybe where you think you’re about to lose your structure, shift your weight through the hips and waist to the other leg, and sink into it. Don’t over extend, sink just enough to feel the motion of sinking, but also keep some weight in the leg you’re shifting from. Shift up and over like tipping an hour glass over from one side to the other and letting the sand drain through. Now, get a rhythm doing just that, going back and forth, up and down. If you want to incorporate the whole body, including arms, hands, fingers, then you can do any move at all: the tai chi symbol, punch, spiraling circles perhaps. Do whatever style you want, such as lan shou (side punch), or other kinds of punching. Perform all moves by shifting your weight and looking for your central core our of which everything seems to spins out from and around and return to. At the beginning all you can do is try to get a sense of the core whether it’s the center of the dantien or the linear core of the spine. You won’t have a great sense of the core at first. It’ll be vague, foggy; but keep doing the moves with an intention of narrowing the scope of what the central core is and try to get a better view of that by using your powers of visualization and imagination while you execute a continual, rhythmic movement side-to-side. This explanation is a biomechanical-movement approach, something that Susan Matthews talks about a lot and has developed a theory on.
One exercise you can do to become more conscious of the connection your feet have to the ground is to visualize doing qi circles in the bottom of your feet (Qi circles are among the things you learn in beginning tai chi class). Circle around the “bubbling well” while keeping equal weight on the part of the foot where your attention is placed. You’re actually pressing down into the ground. Keep even pressure as much as you can while trying to perfect the circle moving around the soles of the foot, drawing a line or circular image. Try to see how that can make the rest of the body follow through from that initial starting point, that original intention. At some point, your attention has to wave up with the qi in order to get a sense of it. A wave starts from the bottom of the feet (it can start anywhere, perhaps, but for this lesson, begin it at the feet, or perhaps the ground below the feet). It’s a fluid motion that travels through the bones in the foot and ankle, then up the leg and into the hip and waist. How do you keep equal weight of all parts of your foot while you circle around? You just make a circle and your body follows through. Practice doing it a few minutes at a time several times a day.
Most people start tai chi as a last resort. Figuring out how to reduce chronic pain is very common. They look for tai chi teachers because little else has helped. I had been interested in martial arts for a long time and finally was able to give it a try. I found out that what I really needed was overall better health. It took a while but I found out that tai chi could give me what I didn't even know I needed. I began taijiquan in 1999 after a physical therapist told me she couldn't heal a pulled groin muscle after six weeks of treatment. It had practically stopped me from doing any physical activity. I had been training in karate for more than 2 years. I was 45 years old.
I also did yoga for about eight years, which I started because a chiropractor told me to try it to help heal a severe strain of the sciatic muscle in the lower back. I did that kayaking during a roll. I couldn't sit down without pain for a year!
That's not all, either. I got a hernia while moving a bathtub and had a hernia repair, something I do not recommend. My advice is don't get a hernia. I believe that I got it because I was using my body improperly. I would not have if I had known what I know now about proper postural alignment and use of weight, gravity and leverage. People say use your legs to lift heavy object, but who knows how to really do that properly?
There's more! When I began tai chi I had been suffering from symptoms of Meniere's disease. At unannounced times, I suddenly experienced severe ringing in the ears and extreme vertigo that lasted two or three hours at a time. I often left work early, or just never made it in. I had no idea what to do. A couple of times I got optical migraines where my vision was completely lost. All I could do was lie down for a few hours hoping it would pass. I was miserable. My MD and an eye, ear, nose specialist were of little help. My doctor actually told me, "It'll eventually pass. It's really nothing."
After doing a lot of my own research I somewhat concluded that I was suffering from really bad stress combined with allergies. I got sinus infections two or three times a year. It all just got worse. When I began tai chi I was in bad shape. My posture was poor to say the least. I was so tense that old injuries flared up with the slightest wrong step. I was depressed, too. I couldn't sleep at night for months. I even tried sleeping pills, which I hated doing. Doctors prescribe pills for everything, but I'm overly sensitive to such things and I wonder if they're worth it half the time. Sleeping pills are not all what the commercials promise.
Wow, you might be saying, but there are people worse off than I was. You might be one of them. But that's not me anymore. The first night I went to a tai chi class with my teacher Susan Matthews, I felt better. It took some months of regular practice to get the concepts and principles -- to internalize them as my teachers said -- but I gradually started gaining control over my ailments. I haven't had a sinus infection for years. The Meniere's symptoms are gone, althoug I have to wtch out during allergy season. My groin injury is manageable, so are all of the ankle and knee strains gained from telemark skiing. My posture is transformed, actually. My fellow tai chi classmates remark on the changes. It's pretty amazing, but it's not uncommon. There are many similar stories. Everyone who does tai chi has a similar story of shfting from illness to well being.
If you're interested you should sign up for a weekly class (schedule) and give it a try. I'll try to accommodate your schedule if we can find a location to practice and enough people to form a small group. I'll do a private consultation, too, if you like. In about an hour to an hour and a half, you'll get a fairly good idea of what tai chi and qigong can do for you. Either write an emessage or call 970.749.0891 and let's talk.
China Camp Notes
November 30 –
December 14, 2004
Shanghai and Suzhou, Jiangsu
1/17/2005
“Okay? . . . O-kay!” Master Xu Guo Chang repeated all day long.
“Okay,” I agreed almost as often.
“Okay!” my taijiquan teacher yelled enthusiastically again and again, peering closely with happy eyes. Mauro, the instructor from Italy said Xu Guo Chang was employing a Taoist method of instruction. Training was like child’s play, highly animated and full of clowning.
“Okay? . . . Ming bai?” he would say in his native Shanghaiese, gazing through those questioning, encouraging eyes. “Ming bai?” Understand?
“Ming bai,” I reply, really not sure I understood anything.
“Okay?”
“Okay.”
I guess okay, maybe. Get back to me on that; maybe in three to five years.
The truth is that so much was happening inside and outside of me I couldn’t
tell the forest from the trees. One piece of understanding blended with
others into a cluttered mass. Nevertheless, my teacher was happy, so I
went along with his contagious encouragement. It’s all part of the
continuing quest to know the self, to see what my teacher sees in me,
and what I can see in the art of internal martial arts forms and systems.
My taijiquan training experience with Xu Guo Chang, a traditional Wu Style master, was memorable for me, because he triggered in me an urge to consider the abstractness of taijiquan. Oddly, he instructed us to ignore “abstractions” and open the body to learning after its own fashion. But I believe that by not focusing on the abstract, we received a dose of new insights into it; like seeing a star only by looking slightly away from it. To me the body’s ability and approach to learning is as abstract as the notion that it is the mind that actually moves.
I returned home from China Camp with some vacation time left, so I have spent several days recalling my camp experience and what I have learned; more precisely, what I know I learned and what I am still not conscious of learning. I am still searching the memory of the experience for whatever useful information I can glean. Stored somewhere in the body and mind are small memories that are like little doors into the secrets of internal martial arts. Those moves we did over and over every day for two weeks feel different, now that I am at my usual practice place, the main room of my small cabin in a valley in Southwest Colorado. I sense fresh insights waiting to be discovered, internalized physically and energetically, and perpetuated in memory. With the teacher present I often do the moves because I have to, by rote, often lacking nei jing (internal force) and an jing (invisible whipping force). Here, without the teacher’s urging, I must initiate the moves. I must come up with a motivation on my own. The motivation must come from within.
Learning Tai Chi seems like a slow process. My body doesn’t seem to do what I tell it. However, China Camp and Xu Guo Chang reinforced the idea that it is the mind that we have to change in order for the body to go where it is capable of going. Often, the body is more willing than the mind. The trick is to quieten the yi and allow the chi energy to loosen and flow, even be directed. Sounds simple.
Although I don’t learn with the ease of a child, which would be ideal, I am finding it easier, as my practice progresses, to train my body to shift into postures that are new to it. The key is the yi. It must redirect its attention while also letting go of its spell over the body rather than blocking chi; letting the body go where it is capable of going, where it wants to go intensely.
Now that I have been able to think about my China Camp experience, I have a better sense of what to ask Xu Guo Chang if, or when, I train with him again. In fact, I will be more able to ask relevant questions of anyone I train with. I would ask more about details of form and posture. Where is the “yin”? Where is the “yang”? I will work with them on the terms they are willing to discuss. I got a little information on chi movement and structure from Master Xu, but I was so much in structure that structure corrections were all he could really give me.
Not speaking the same language kept us from having in-depth discussions about internal aspects. Teaching and learning the internal information really requires dialogue–lecture and discussion. But we were without a translator for most of our training time. When we did, our conversations were stimulating. This was one fault of the camp, if you want to look at it that way. Master Xu and we students took it as a challenge and I think we would all agree that it worked out well. Still, there are some things I bet we would all like to ask now that we are home.
We spoke through body language as much as possible, which we universally understood for the most part. Our knowledge of taijiquan was like a matrix through which we could communicate, which helped. We each spoke a dialect of a body language, you could say. Each of us had honed our “ting jing” to some level of refinement. And despite the communication obstacles, we managed to learn the first 26 moves of the traditional Wu Style form and many accompanying applications, as well as several chi na moves that can be incorporated into push hands. Xu Guo Chang prefers chi na to punching, using gravity to unbalance the opponent and throw him. Once he’s down you can finish him off, I suppose. We didn’t push hands much, but did some two-person exercises, including applications of form moves.
The internal aspects were another matter for me. It was difficult to key in on the internal while trying to get the sequence. It occurred to me that learning the sequence of moves requires a different part of the brain than the part it takes to apply the internal principles; even simply tapping into the energetic level has its twists and turns. Two weeks of learning the sequence of moves in the traditional Wu Style form was only a beginning to really knowing the internal foundation of the moves. I realize, or perhaps remember, that daily drilling does eventually get you where you want to be, which is to have a clear understanding of essential internal principles. The “art” is in knowing these martial “secrets.”
Xu Guo Chang and all of the masters graciously offered a wealth of information that we could take home with us. On the very first day, November 2, we divided into about seven groups in that many rooms partitioned off with movable walls set up in a large conference room. Each master and his assistants passed through one room to the other giving one-hour introductions to their particular style. Traditional Wu Style has special characteristics, which Xu Guo Chang elucidated during his hour:
- You have options at all times
- The body has substantial and insubstantial parts
- In structure, each joint junction has equal pressure = song li (sip)
- Everything moves like a chain by your natural weight/force/power (gravity); this relates to his nickname, “The Gravity Man.”
- . . . song (attainment). I’m not sure what this means. Later, I thought it means relaxed, everything in place and working together. He referred to this concept a number of times during training.
- Total relaxation (suè=relax).
- The secret is to “come back to a natural state.” Zhong ding and “natural weight.”
- Running away versus “falling, which is to run away with control to somewhere. (Pu tu pu ti: don’t go against, don’t runaway.)
On the next day, the first full day of training, Xu Guo Chang added other key concepts that he wanted our small class of about seven to incorporate in training. The first is to concentrate on the horizontal axis (or line) that passes through the hips (qua), knees and ankles. He showed us a few basic exercises and had us imitate him as we performed them. Apparently, he wanted us to concentrate on finding our center, or core, as we incorporate intricate attention to our sense of gravity. The simple movements he showed us seemed to be designed to wake the attention to the horizontal axis passing through the hips and the vertical axis along the spinal column and exiting through the perineum.
The “central core” (I didn’t catch the Mandarin word he used) which seemed distinct from dantien, is a “window” to raise your attention to. It is a location, he said. My understanding was the central core was where the vertical axis of the central equilibrium (zhong ding) and the horizontal intersected, but I am not certain that this is what he meant. It seemed that where the horizontal and vertical lines meet is the central core of the body. An astute clarity of that place, or “space,” is key to performing moves gracefully and with power.
We did the traditional Wu Style form slowly in order to cultivate our awareness of, and the ability to utilize, this core and its relationship with the horizontal and vertical axes. Whether in the form, in applications, or in chi na, which we practiced for hours, it was crucial to maintain that sense of core and its limits. I doubt that I achieved this goal, but now that I have had time to think about it and work on it in the privacy of my living room, I feel much closer to understanding.
It didn’t take long to grasp the basic teaching routine Xu Guo Chang ended up using to teach us. It took more effort to figure out other, rather subtle, intricacies that he tried to impart. This was due partly to the language barrier, but it was also due to the unique philosophical approach he took towards taijiquan and life in general. He even looked at the lack of a translator from such a perspective. He suggested that we accept it as a challenge. After practicing taijiquan long enough you attain a sense that is similar to religion, he said. You can achieve an ability that is beyond the regular senses, which is a universal level of communication. It works even though you don’t speak the same language. I assume that Xu Guo Chang believed that he had reached such ability and that he incorporated it in his assessment of our abilities in Tai Chi, and also in communicating to us the knowledge he thought we were ready to learn; ready to grasp . . . even without a translator. Still, we welcomed the challenge to communicate through body language, knowing very well that quality dialogue with Xu Guo Chang would be a much-desired bonus.
His approach usually worked for me, but sometimes the message didn’t come across clearly. Once, he let us feel his rock-hard thigh muscles. I’m sure he intended to do more than just show off his muscles. Without translation I can only imagine what he might have intended; but, I was struck by the control he had over the large mass of muscle on the backside of his upper leg. It went through to the bone. It was virtually impossible to penetrate it with a finger or a fist. I could get only a portion of my leg to harden to any degree at all.
Xu Guo Chang said that body language can be superior to talking. This makes sense, because you can get entangled in meanings. Plus, why rely so much on language to understand what can be understood more deeply by utilizing a sense that exists beyond language–that part of our being that simply and directly knows? I think Guo Chang saw a neediness in us that it was more important in his mind to point this out. His message seemed to be to cultivate this little used, but vital, ability. His attempts to make us aware of this human capacity imbued him with a mysterious quality that tugged at my curiosity. He made other cryptic statements about special abilities that Tai Chi has given him. This captured my imagination. We all have our own little Tai Chi miracles. Once he said: “I have not had much education but I know a lot anyway. If you do taijiquan long enough, knowledge comes to you.” He said his college-aged son and his friends come to him for answers to things even though he has not had much schooling.
I imagine it’s true that once you cross a certain threshold in spiritual development through the practice of Tai Chi, you can communicate at a higher level of understanding without the hindrance of language. Xu Guo Chang shared his thoughts and opinions readily, even to the point of redirecting some questions on technique and proposing philosophical ideas instead. When we did have a translator, his answers became increasingly philosophical rather than technical. He was very quotable. I jotted down some of his comments. They all show his ideas about Tai Chi and life in general as a practice of Tai Chi.
- “Only through observing yourself can you achieve the most natural way of moving,” he said. “Technology has made life too easy and we are losing awareness of the body.” There is a difference between riding a bicycle and riding in a car. On a bike you still have to balance yourself.
- “Take care of yourself so you can help people. . . . Many people do martial arts to fight, but what is the use in it? . . . If you fall off your bicycle after being reckless and you can’t walk, then everyone has to support you. So take care of yourself. A person is not just a person. Whatever happens to you happens to everyone, even people you don’t even know.”
- When he was asked if he utilized any herbs in his personal health care, he said, “Don’t strive for longevity. If you are a good person you will live a long life. If you think only of yourself, what’s the use of a long life?”
When asked about what the “dantien” is doing in a particular move, he said his whole body is dantien; then suggested not to place too much attention on such an abstract concept. I thought this must be the idea until you have acquired enough practice and understanding of other more basic, but necessary, bits of knowledge. He cautioned us to shake off preconceived notions of such terms as “mind,” “chi,” and “zhong ding,” and just do what he told us.
Someone asked about “root” and he replied not to root through the feet, because “you’ll lose structure.” Once you brace yourself, you’ll lose your fulcrum, your balance, or line of the zhong ding. You want only to be weighted.
It occurred to me that the teacher was trying to convey only very basic information. It seemed like a very systematic and organized approach if you were planning to study with him for a few years, but with only 11 to 14 days at our disposal, most of us were looking for as much information as we could absorb, consciously or not, to take away with us.
Even though Xu Guo Chang told us to throw out preconceptions about dantien while we trained with him, he taught us an exercise that seemed to be just for developing sensitivity to the dantien. It consists of standing in place, bouncing up and down lightly just barely raising the heels and simply bending the knees enough to accommodate the up and down (or rolling) motion of the belly. Guo Chang sang a melodic and rhythmic chant while he bounced, almost in a trance-like state. I interpret this to mean that the goal is total relaxation which, once achieved, creates the options that he described on the first day and which you want to have at all times . . . among other things.
In addition to bouncing (for lack of a better term), he taught us other meditative, relaxing exercises. They were warm-ups designed to refine the connection to balance and gravity in our bodies. Tai Chi is the “ultimate” he said. “Every move you do, you want to reach the ultimate.” We didn’t quite understand the term and our translator revised her interpretation to say “limit.” And he said that was correct. You want to reach the limit of your center of gravity. For the exercise, we were to stand, arms in front holding the ball, then rock gently until we begin to fall either forward or backward. This is intended to teach us our “limit” and so that we will know it when pushing with an opponent. He said that in fighting, the winner always finds the other’s limit and knocks him off balance. So it’s important to know your own limits. Sang shi (spelling?): “Embrace your enemy, know thine enemy, become one with him.”
He also told us to go very slowly in the movements. “If you go too fast, even if you achieve it, you don’t really experience it,” he said. “So, do it slowly to experience it.” The ultimate has to be correct, together, and consistent in order to experience it, he said. Going slow is also good for healing, he added.
Lining up the head is the hardest part, he said, suggesting thinking of the process as a string of pearls. One suspended, then the next, and the next, and so on.
The applications that Xu Guo Chang showed us were very useful and authentic. In the end, I left China with enough information to work on for some time to come. It was great to have a chance to go. I liken the experience to a ship from which I have just debarked after a long voyage in search of a new land and now that I have found it a new start lies ahead. Everything is new, brimming with expectation and hopeful optimism.
In our conversation about abstractions, I remarked that mind is another abstract term that was not explained well enough. I have felt for a long time that it seems left up to me to figure out what mind is; this thing that can be directed on and through the body and into space itself. (Chi has seemed more accessible maybe because I expect to feel it physically; but it is abstract, also. Can the mind be “felt”?)
“I mean what is ‘mind’”? I asked Xu Guo Chang. He replied with a scrupulous glare that he knew what mind is.
“Mind is everywhere, so everywhere you look, yi is there,” Poh Kheng, the translator said. When you hit someone, yi is already there.”
Then he described “intention” as analogous to typing words and projecting them on a computer screen or printing them on paper. What is shown on the screen or paper is “fulfilled” and yi is there. The result of the action is the proof that the yi is there, I concluded.
He added that yi is like “a platform.” If you’re on a different plane, you won’t get a connection to something there. This was not clear to me, but seemed valid since the fact that an accomplished martial artist was sharing it with such conviction. What he said had credibility despite my ignorance.
Unfortunately, Xu Guo Chang didn’t elaborate on this notion of mind. I think someone yelled out “Lunch time!” and we broke up for the morning. Maybe someone else can elucidate his meaning more clearly or at least their understanding of it. I do feel an odd familiarity with his descriptions. Employing it into my practice will be challenging and fun. Next chance I get, I will have to remember to ask him how these things apply. Perhaps the abstract notions of dantien and mind escape my pure understanding, but I am gaining new insights and building upon what I have discovered so far. Training really has no end, like a string of pearls that you keep adding to throughout life.
Abstract or not, I still ponder the internal question. Certainly in Tai Chi, your level of achievement is measured by your ability to learn the internal principles while simultaneously learning the surface movements. Early in your training you tend to learn the more superficial sequence of moves and the structure, then when you have them down you begin exploring the internal aspects. Yet the internal principles are really the foundation. The moves you see when someone does the form are merely visible outward expressions of what is happening inside. Most practitioners know this, but many don’t yet have the experience of it, which is ultimate knowledge. The way I see it right now, given my level of experience, is once you get the internal, you will progress exponentially and the more deeply you will go into unraveling the wonderful secrets of taijiquan and internal martial arts.
My goal is just to reach simultaneity and synchronicity–where the parts work as a whole in total harmony, one part communicating with all others. This goal, so often evoked by my teachers, Susan Matthews and George Xu, still reaches mythical proportions in my mind; promises I can’t yet totally rely upon with absolute abandonment, but can still imagine. One such promise, which Xu Guo Chang made is that you could use the mind, “yi,” in such a way that yi surpasses the limits of the body’s capacity to learn. The body is too slow; however, it’s slowness doesn’t have to be a barrier. I have little concept of what shape it would take for the mind to learn and remember what the body also needs to learn and remember; but ultimately, until the body can go the speed of the mind (which I assume is something like the speed of light), the mind will have to go the speed of the body.
The trick is to slow the mind down so that the body has time to learn. Later, you begin to figure out where the mind can best put its energies in order to assist the body in learning. That way, you can eventually solve that speed equation we are so accustomed to accepting as convention–the general rule–that the body goes the body’s speed and the mind has to suffer through it all.
The mind is like a restless energy that happens to be self-aware, yet doesn’t know how to direct itself. The body seems like too small of a thing to contain the mind and its fidgety spirit. After it is all said and done, we’re still left with the most basic question: What are you doing internally in order to move the outside? What is the yi doing?
I would ask Xu Guo Chang and other masters this and other questions such as: What metaphors can you share to describe these actions that words fail to express adequately? Is Chi like water, or is it like air? Both? Is it a ball? Should I feel a ball-like presence? Maybe it is the five elements–water, wind, wood, fire, and metal–taking the essence of one at any given time. Maybe operating all five simultaneously is a mark of another level of mastery.
The restless mind is such a big issue. Martial arts practitioners are familiar with this situation. I suppose someone even invented social order to help control the mind’s wild ruminations. But unless you keep the masses totally ignorant (which of course some leaders futilely try to do) you’ll never control free will, because a free mind is the essence of freedom itself, of creativity, of art itself–the birthright of every human being.
These days, social order looks more like social chaos. Fortunately, these days we know better what we are capable of. All over the globe people are coming up with new ideas that help to improve the well being of humans and nonhumans everywhere. More of us are seeking the consciousness needed to ensure our survival in a universe in which we are increasingly making our destructive presence felt–to the point of sinking the Good Ship Earth while we squabble amongst ourselves over who gets the biggest piece of the ship before it sinks into infinity, into oblivion, back into a state of being in which no state exists, where humans are not even a thought, not even a whisper of a breeze along the cosmic winds of the universe.
I like to imagine that people across the world who are taking up internal martial arts intuit this and realize the value of learning much-needed discipline that can be achieved through martial training. And so here we are, the first participants in the first China Camp, enjoying a unique exchange of knowledge among cultures. After China Camp, I’m more certain than ever that a healthy exchange of knowledge and goodwill is possible among people of different cultures and languages; and that they can come together as friends, teachers and students. And, of all things, for the art of martial encounter. At face value, our teachers and the people of China who we encountered (and who encountered us) are wonderful, sincere people who understand something about human nature and who see a little of that same understanding in us strangers with big noses and beautiful skin tone (yes, the massage therapists around the corner in Suzhou know a good thing when they see it). To be interested in learning martial arts as a common ground for interaction sweetens the pie even more.
China Dec. 17, 2004: Hard mattresses and noisy nights out of doors. In the streets below, horns honk, brakes squeal, motors rumble, machines buzz and hammers pound. All of it rolls into a single hum that ebbs and flows, one minute loud, the next quelled like a surf as it recedes and fizzes, before it begins to swell again and coil and crash down again onto the sand. The city momentarily holds its breath before letting it out with abandon. All under the smoggy mist by the sea, as though there were no sky beyond, nor a solar system beyond that. No world news and events, or cataclysmic events, only the immediate pulse of Shanghai City.