John’s Tai-Blog @ Camp Tai ChiTai Chi and anything I can relate to Tai Chi … like life

Mastering Tai Chi

Master Cui Zhongsan, my master, tells us to understand tai chi we must understand Chinese culture.  As I’ve learned bits and pieces about the culture I realize these lessons are everywhere around us, regardless of our culture.  At times we can even find them within ourselves.

Many of us flit from one thing to another as we struggle to feel fulfilled, or just to keep from being bored.  This isn’t necessarily and bad thing.  It’s bad only if we keep it up indefinitely.  Sooner or later we need to work at mastering ourselves, our minds.  Without this discipline we’re doomed to live the lives of TV Sitcom characters, humorously trying one thing then another with little lasting effect and no meaningful results.  If we can see ourselves in this light and have a good laugh, we can begin to look for what really matters to us without worrying about what others think.  In the end it’s our opinion that counts anyway.

How long has it been since you’ve looked for something that really matters to you, or have you already discovered it?  Maybe it’s tai chi, or maybe it’s something else.  It’s not important what it is, as long as it’s important to you.  There is value in everything, and it’s up to you to find it.

For me tai chi (taiji) is an important part of my life, one that gives my life a deeper meaning.  It’s a part of working on myself and my mind, a part of my own self-mastery.  I’ll continue to learn more about the Chinese as the get the chances to travel to China.   In the meantime I’ll continue to look for tai chi lessons in the world around me.

“No Man is Free Who is Not Master of Himself.”  ~  Epictetus

Your thoughts?

John

P.S.  I found this quote here:  http://www.taichi4all.com/quotes.php

I found this pic here:  http://blogs.myspace.com/beautifulwonderwithin

Can You Chew Gum and Do Tai Chi at The Same Time?

I was just looking around for a topic to write about today and came across one of those little known fact’s I like so much.  It has to do with gum, but more about that later.

In tai chi and chi kung we’re taught to keep the tips of our tongues on the ridge behind our upper teeth - against our gums if you will.  I’ve heard a number of reasons for this and suspect they’re probably all correct to some degree.  The first one I ever heard, years ago, was that holding your tongue in this spot completes an energy circuit in your body and helps promote the flow of chi.  Since then I’ve been taught other tidbits such as it keeps you from biting your tongue in a fight, it makes it easier to keep your jaw slightly open and loose, and it helps in the production of saliva.

To me it’s become on of the many, many little details that make up tai chi.  Now if I’m not doing it, it feels off and strangely enough, my tai chi suffers a little. Like so many things it helps me to stay loose and I feel it also helps me breathe better, more easily.

So what’s this little know fact I referred to at the beginning of this post?  It’s about chewing gum and oddly enough, while looking for the photo of this cute little girl, I also discovered chewing gum relieves stress.  Wow imagine that; just like tai chi.  So does that mean I can forget about all those hours of practice and staying loose with structure, and can just go out and buy a pack of gum?  OK so maybe I’m taking this too far, but you gotta admit that’s one hell of coincidence.  Well it is a little bit of coincidence. 

Here’s your chewing gum factoid:

“Chewing gum while peeling onions will keep you from crying!”

Now that’s one useful piece of info (assuming it’s true of course, and no I didn’t check it on Snopes.com).  Your thoughts?

John

P.S.  I got this photo and the stress relief tip here:  http://www.impactlab.com/2008/08/31/chewing-gum-reduces-stress/

I found this factoid here:  http://www.strangefacts.com/facts2.html

Positively Tai Chi

As I continue to chip away and make progress on the technical issues around creating on-line tai chi classes, that have been taking much of my attention, life continues on and other things both good and not so good continue to happen around me.  I was just talking with someone I care about who was in a bad mood because of dealing with someone else in a bad mood.  She was trying her best to keep from passing it on, and she succeeded.

As my own life moves along, I find it helps to adopt a responsive and deliberate state of mind.  If something I like happens, I dwell on it.  If something I don’t particularly like happens, I look for what’s good about it.  If I can’t find anything good, I deal with what I think I have to and move on to something better ASAP.

Tai chi being a defensive martial art means you don’t look for trouble, you look for how to avoid it so you can keep on doing what you want to do.  In a life or death situation it’s to keep on living, and for most of us on a daily basis, it’s simply to avoid conflict.  This attitude leaves us happier and healthier… in more ways than one.  It’s not always easy to do, but it sure pays off.

Whether you believe you get more of what you focus on or not, focusing on the good stuff just feels better.  When we feel better emotionally, our bodies feel better too.  It’s a vicious upward cycle that leaves us feeling better and better.

What do I mean by this?  Remember, tai chi is not just a martial art; it’s also a healthy exercise.  ;-)>  When you exercise you feel better physically and when you feel better physically you tend to feel better emotionally.  So don’t just adopt the tai chi mindset, practice tai chi regularly too.

When you feel better overall, it’s easier to maintain a positive outlook.  I leave you with this quote from a former General in the US Army, Creighton W. Abrams, Jr. This quote definitely sums up what it means to live with a positive attitude.  

“They’ve got us surrounded again, the poor bastards. “

Your thoughts?

John

The Reality of Tai Chi

I hear people say things like, “I’m just not very athletic”, “I’ve never been very coordinated”, etc.  Mostly though, I see people’s attitudes in their movements.  This doesn’t just apply to tai chi either.  We experience what we expect in our lives.

It’s not usually as easy as just saying to yourself, “OK, now I want to believe I can be coordinated”, and there you have it.  Our attitudes and beliefs were usually formed some distance in the past and we’ve invested heavily in many of them.  Once someone adopts the belief that they are uncoordinated, they tend to repeat that mantra over and over to anyone who will listen.  Someone else may be able to consciously convince them they can be more coordinated, but until they believe it it’s not going to happen.

I’ve seen students, and myself, take big leaps forward once a stronger belief about their ability to do tai chi takes hold.  Up to this point they were just stumbling along.  Then, one day they did something they couldn’t do before.  It may have been something small, but it caused them to question a core belief.  Once they began to question, it broke down and a new and more empowering belief took over.

There are many methods to achieve this kind of breakthrough.  Therapy is one way; however therapy can sometimes cause the belief to become even more entrench by rehashing it over and over again.  When a breakthrough happens in tai chi it usually happens when the student is so focused on what they’re doing, they forget they can’t do it.  This too can take a long time to happen but when it does, it’s great fun to watch.  NLP, or neuro-linguistic programming, is another interesting way to break through old patterns and it’s a lot quicker than most other ways.  It’s the process of using your brain’s own method of functioning to change the belief, or to model the behavior you want.  It’s used heavily in sports psychology and if you’d like to learn more, go to the source:  http://www.neurolinguisticprogramming.com/

Today I’ll leave you with one of my favorite and most often quoted faux-losophers, the great Bob Tzu:

“What’s behind Door Number 1, Monty?”

Free Will or Determinism? Your choice.

John

What Do Birthdays and Tai Chi Have in Common?

Today I thought I’d do something I haven’t for a while.  Since it’s my birthday, and I’m getting lots of birthday wishes on Facebook, I thought I’d see what similarities I can find between tai chi and birthdays.  Here’s my list of parallels between tai chi and birthdays.

1. Tai chi, like birthdays, is good for your overall health.  The more you practice it - or the more of them you have - the longer you live. 
2. The Birthday Paradox indicates that of each randomly chosen group of 23 people, 2 are more than 50% likely to have the same birthday.  I’d say that that of that same group of randomly chosen people, at least 2 of them know a skilled tai chi player.  (AKA, The Tai Chi Paradox) 
3. The song “Happy Birthday to You” was originally written as the children’s song “Good Morning to You” and is the most widely recognized song in the English language, although few know its origin.  Tai chi originally stems from the practice of chi kung, and is more widely recognized that chi kung.  Also few people realize that tai chi is actually a martial art and practice it as simply a healthy form of exercise.
4. The most famous rendition of “Happy Birthday” is when Marilyn Monroe sang to “Happy Birthday, Mr President” to President John F. Kennedy at Madison Square Garden on 19 May 1962.  The most well known and practiced tai chi form is the 24 form standardized set developed for the Chinese government in 1956, in which the movements were made less martial as a simplified exercise for the masses.
5. Best known birthday in history is that of Jesus Christ. For nearly 2000 years since the birth of Jesus in Bethlehem, Christians have been honoring the day as Christmas.  Historians consider it very likely the birthday of Christ does not actually fall on Christmas.  The birthplace of tai chi is widely thought to be the Chen village in China, but this too is contested by many, as is the actual year.

Finally I leave you with a quote from Tom Stoppard:

“Age is a high price to pay for maturity.”
(so, “Refuse to grow up and practice tai chi every day!” ~ John Crewdson)

Your Thoughts?

John

The Patience of A Tai Chi Player… No Saints Allowed

I was looking around for some fresh material for today’s post.  What I found is, as usual, a bit unusual.  I came across an obscure site while Googling “humor”.  I ended up on a page authored by Denis Robinson of the University of Auckland.  Mr. Robinson has embarked on the monumental project of translating the key ideas of philosophy into words of one-syllable.

The exact reason, or value of such an undertaking is a wonder in itself.  Be that as it may, I found this one statement curiously made me think in a tai chi way.  (No I wasn’t even trying to use only one-syllable words.)  A sample of one-syllable philosophy in a minute.

Of the many uses and benefits of tai chi, is that it helps us feel better, one might even say it makes us glad we do it.  “Gladness”, as an end in itself, is a worthy goal.  Like tai chi it relaxes our muscles, reduces our stress levels, and boosts our immune systems, to name just a few.

Even when I’m feeling extremely tired, I find tai chi has a way of digging into my core and pulling up energy I didn’t realize I had.  I may still be tired afterward, but I seem to forget all about my exhaustion while lost in practice.  I’m always glad I practiced and I find I sleep better too.

Another thing I find it interesting is that people sometimes describe uneducated or dim-witted folk as “capable of speaking in only one syllable words”.  If you actually try to phrase even the simplest of concepts using only one syllable words, you would realize just how difficult it is to pull off.

On a tai chi note, uninformed folks will watch a skilled tai chi player and think, “That looks pretty easy; I don’t think I’d have the patience to do that.  It would just bore me to tears.”  I’ve never heard anyone who’s actually tried tai chi say it was easy, or that it bored them.  Those who don’t stick it out don’t seem to have the patience or interest to develop the focus it takes to get any better, but they never say they’re bored.  The practice of tai chi requires incredible focus and can be all-consuming at times.  It’s one of the reason’s it’s such an effective stress reliever.

So in the spirit of simple things that are not at all easy to accomplish, I give you a bit of one-syllable philosophy.

“Is the right thing to do what makes most folks glad? Or should we say not quite that,
but that the right thing to do is the thing which most makes folks glad,
where when you count folks you weight each one by how glad it makes them?”

Does this bit of philosophy leave you glad or confused, and can you see another way to apply it to tai chi?  I’ll bet someone reading this has a different take on it… your thoughts?

John

P.S.  If you’d like to visit Denis Robinson’s page:  http://fragments.consc.net/djc/2005/02/phil_in_words_o.html