Stressful Tai Chi

Tai chi is commonly used to combat stress, yet stress is not necessarily the enemy.  This reminds me of when I started studying wilderness survival.  When I was cold and standing in the wind I would tighten my entire body and then begin to shiver.  I was told, “The wind is your brother.  He can’t hurt you if you don’t fight him.”  So I relaxed and I felt better.  Tightening does little to actually warm us other than leading to shivering, which does warm us a bit but uses more energy than it’s worth.  Our bodies will work to keep themselves warm without our conscious help.  If we use too much energy by stiffening and shivering we drain our body’s energy reserves, and our bodies, with depleted reserves, loose heat even faster.

I can hear some of you saying, “Yea that sounds great, but what about wind chill?”  For most of us that’s definitely a concern.  Did you know though that an Eskimo can withstand much colder temperatures, and often without buttoning their coat all the way up or even donning their gloves?  Why is that?  Could it be they’ve learned to respond to temperature differently?  I think that’s the case.

As a kid when I moved from the Deep South to the Midwest, and then to New England, I had a difficult time adjusting to the cold.  I still prefer warm weather but now I can deal with it.  It just doesn’t bother me all that much once I’m used to it.  I found I could spend long periods outside in single digit temps, and colder, with little problem.  Before I learned to relax I would become very uncomfortable and my fingers and toes would begin to hurt from the cold.

We need a certain amount of stress to function properly.  Doctors tell us our bodies need physical stress to maintain bone density and muscle mass, and our minds need to be challenged if we’re to stay sharp.  Tai chi teachers often tell us to relax; yet this is not always the best advice.  Relaxing conjures the image of laying back in a hammock, letting the hammock support us completely.  When practicing tai chi we still have to support ourselves.  I think a better description is to be loose with energy, meaning to use only as much muscle as needed to hold proper body structure.  If we loosen up, even a little, we’ll loose our alignment.

Just like using too much muscle, we focus too much on stress.  The act of focusing on what we don’t want, such as stress, creates more of what we don’t want.  Focusing on lifting our arms when our attention should actually be on our hands causes us to use more muscle than necessary too.  This is very much like when we focus on every little detail of exactly how we want something done; our focus creates more stress.  Most of the time we would be better off focusing on the outcome we want and letting the details fall into place as things progress.  Often there will be improvements we could never imagine before we began.

Humor is another key ingredient.  Students who stick with tai chi always seem to have the ability to laugh at themselves.  Those who stick with it don’t take themselves too seriously.  Laughter’s a great stress reliever.  If we could carry this same attitude into our daily lives we could dramatically reduce the amount of stress we experience.  How many opportunities do you think we’d find to laugh at ourselves, at how foolish we’re being?  We are very funny people.

So if you haven’t already, take your lessons in tai chi and start applying them to your daily life.  Use only as much focus as you need to perform the task at hand.  Let yourself make mistakes.  Who knows, you might occasionally discover even better ways to do things.  I make some of the best mistakes now, ones that make my life easier.

Your thoughts?

John

P.S.  I found this pic here:  http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/mike.mccluskey/1/1263329877/tpod.html

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