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

A Tai Chi Labor Day

Labor Day is the day we Americans are supposed to rest from our labors. Being Americans we are known both for our work ethic, that has contributed to one of the highest rates of heart disease in the World, and for our play.  When we play, which isn’t all that often for a lot of us, we play every bit as hard as we work.  The play contributes to healing the “dis-ease” we’ve caused through the other excess of work.

Tai chi players, it is said, should practice every day.  The thing to remember is that everyone needs a rest now and then, even tai chi players.  It doesn’t have to be today, but don’t feel you have to push yourself every single day.  The other side to this coin is that we often tend to beat ourselves up for not practicing enough.  This worrying also causes “dis-ease” that we then work to heal through our practice.  Just let your practice be what it is and enjoy it.  Through this practice you’ll find you will want to play tai chi even more often.

It’s Labor Day, and although I will get some work done today, it’s also time for me to play.  I’ll leave you with this.

“Man is so made that he can only find relaxation from one kind of labor by taking up another.”
Anatole France, from The Crime of Sylvestre Bonnard

Your thoughts?

John

P.S.  I found this picture on my Master’s site, Master Cui Zhongsan.  It’s from when he lead 34,000 Chinese in the standardized 24 form set on August 8 of this year in celebration of National Fitness Day in China.  http://www.yongniantaiji.com/index_cn.htm

Wanna Fight? Let’s Go!

For years there’s been a divide in the Tai Chi Community: those who study tai chi as a martial art and those who study it only for the health benefits.  I just read an interesting article that appeared on LiveScience.com.  This article is about the human appendix and it’s usefulness.  That got me thinking, about tai chi no less.  I know, I know, how unusual.

This terribly engaging article is titled The Appendix: Useful and in Fact Promising, and it examines some new information regarding the appendix and it’s role in helping us fight off disease - I like words that give you their real meanings without needing to look them up, “dis-ease”.  Whether you practice tai chi “just for the health of it” or as “the ultimate martial art”, tai chi is also very helpful in helping us fight off dis-ease.  That however, is not quite what I got out of this article.

My teacher, Miriam Holland, has long touted the benefits of learning a few of the martial applications behind the forms even if your interest in tai chi is strictly health based.  Since I put it like that you’re probably asking, “Why does she thing that, and do you agree with her?” I’m really glad you spoke up here because otherwise this would have been the end of a very short post, and you my friend, would have been left nothing but annoying questions, feeling wholly unsatisfied.  See it really does pay to speak up.

I remember seeing a student in class, years ago when I was still a tai chi pup, who wanted to learn the “peaceful moves of tai chi”.  She was rather put off with the idea that we played with swords and sabers, and other nasty things.  She abhorred violence and anything associated with it; she never seemed all that well physically, and she didn’t stick around.  On the other hand most of the students I study with, and those I teach, have at least passing interest in the martial applications.  Over the years I’ve witnessed a number of people progress into better and better health because they continued to practice, and because they focused on the right things.

You can find plenty of people who just learn the moves and run through the graceful forms who receive health benefits too, but most of these folks also tend to loose interest over time.  Doing the forms for the sake of doing the forms can be mind numbing.  Learning applications however, does much more than simply keep you engaged.

Now I can hear you asking, “Alright John, I’ll bite.  How does learning a few applications get you more health benefits from tai chi?”  Well, I’ll tell you how.  When you focus on how a form is actually intended to be used, you change your focus.  You’re no longer looking at how your arms and legs are moving around, and you focus on where the point of contact should be with an opponent.  As you focus on the point of contact while being “loose with structure”, you change the way the energy moves in your body and you begin to open up the energy pathways within your body.  As you open up your energy meridians, energy flows more easily through your body, even when you’re not doing tai chi.

Now you could say, “Well then, I’ll just focus on my hands as I move.”  That’s better than nothing, but it doesn’t accomplish the same thing.  You see when you focus on the full application you also make sure your entire body is properly aligned, that your elbow is moving in the proper manner so you are not able to be countered as easily, that your hand moves up into position while your arm maintains the correct structure so you can release the force into an opponent.  All of these things cause the energy in your body to flow differently, and over time you’ll begin to feel the energy moving.  That’s when you begin to learn tai chi, and when you get the most and longest lasting benefit from your practice.

Please don’t misunderstand me.  You don’t have to take tai chi to the level of martial art to get the benefits; neither will just knowing the applications make you a powerful martial artist.  However, once you can incorporate the essence of the applications into your practice, you will be a healthier person… and, I don’t know anyone who doesn’t want that.

Your thoughts?

John

P.S.  I found this photo here:  http://quakeragitator.wordpress.com/2009/04/07/i-got-your-accountability-right-here/

How To Develope Focus, Without… Well You Know.

Alrighty then, I’m ready to continue our last conversation about over focusing.  If you remember I was so focused on getting that blog post out, I didn’t notice I’d parked in front a fire hydrant… OK I guess I’m not completely cured then.  For now I’ll just refer to myself as “recovering from over focus”.

For those of you who are interested I’ll give you a quick update on getting my car towed.  If you’re not interested then skip ahead to the paragraph that starts with “OK, back to tai chi.”  The impound lot/service station was a couple of miles from the police station, which was about a mile from the restaurant I was in.  Good thing I like to walk.

To borrow a phrase from an English friend of mine, the guy at the station seemed to be a decent sort of fellow.  As we went over the paper work, inspected my car, and paid the bill, he gave me a pretty interesting education on the history of tow trucks.  He’s really into tow trucks.  You might even say he’s a bit “focused” on them, and I learned more than I ever thought I would about tow trucks.

I even got an insight into focusing while playing tai chi; big surprise there hey?  He told me a story about his grandfather and how he was one of those people who could do a lot of things at one time, way before multi-tasking was in vogue.  One night his grandfather went out to tow a car that had gone through the guardrail of a bridge on a busy road over the Chattahoochee River.  You know the story, “It was a cold and raining night…”

The car was teetering precariously on the edge of the bridge and the driver was too scared to try to get out.  The cause of this accident was a pickup truck who’s tailgate had let go and deposited a full load of ripe tomatoes directly in front of the car now hanging over the edge of the bridge.  When Billy got there with his tow truck - that was the grandfather’s name - he had to park the truck right smack dab in the middle of all this slippery mess.  He knew if he attached his truck to the car and the car went over, the truck would probably slide right over too.  He didn’t want to leave the poor guy sitting in his car any longer than he had to either.

Traffic was pretty busy and it seems they didn’t have any flares handy.  Billy had to figure out a way of hooking up this car to his truck while keeping the guy and his truck safe, as cars with 1950’s headlights sped by within about a foot of where he had to work.  It was described as a “truly life or death situation”.

To make a long story short, while watching out for the cars speeding by, Billy used the winch on the front of his truck to attach his truck to a big old oak tree beside the bridge and then hooked up the car and pulled the man and the car to safety.  When you think about it Billy was forced to focus on multiple things at once, and one simple mistake could have cost that man his life, cost Billy his truck, and possibly even cost him his life.  I’m sure Billy III - that was the name of the guy at the station where I had to get my car - was embellishing a bit, but it was a great story.

OK, back to tai chi. This morning I tried focusing on multiple things as if my life depended on it.  I was more focused on what I was doing, and what was going on around me than I’ve ever been.  So give this a try next time you practice.  You have to really get into it, but I’ll bet your focus will be heightened.

Your thoughts?

John

P.S.  Just in case you haven’t realized it yet.  I used quite a bit of artistic license in the last two posts.  So much so that the truth ended when I sat down in the restaurant to eat breakfast and write the first post.  I thought the story would make reading this a bit more interesting and help drive home a couple of tai chi related points.  Besides, to quote Rosie O’Donnell, “It could happen!”

That’s right I didn’t take the picture of the antique tow truck either, I found it here:  http://classiccars.about.com/od/classiccarphotogallery/ig/Watson-Lake-2009/Antique-Tow-Truck.htm

Focus, Determination or Determinant?

Ever sit by restaurant window, or on a bench along a busy street and watch the people walk by?  When you have no idea what has someone’s attention, you have no real idea if they’re focused on something or just seem to be.  I feel that way in class sometimes too.  Although I can be pretty sure a student is focused on tai chi at any given moment, I can’t always tell what aspect they’re focused on.  Besides that, I’m sometimes too busy watching their movements to notice a shift in their concentration.

Right about now you’re probably asking yourself, “What is John going on about this time?”  Well we all choose to focus on different things, yet too often these choices are a result of our default thought patterns.  If we want different results we really need to use our determination to focus on something else.  Focusing on what we’re doing wrong means we’ll soon be making that mistake again, while focusing on a beer and a burger means you’ll soon be sitting somewhere eating a burger and drinking a beer.  Neither one is necessarily good or bad; it’s just the way it works.

Have you ever noticed that when you really want something and you think about enjoying it, like that burger and beer, you usually end up right where you imagined you would?  On the subject of tai chi, when we think about practicing and all the mistakes we make, we usually end up making those mistakes over and over.  Once this gets to be too much for us we focus on something else and tai chi just fades away, no matter how much we wanted do it as we walked into that first class.

In the words of the infamous Bob Tzu:

“What you focus on outside of you becomes what is inside of you.   Cheesecake. Cheesecake. Cheesecake.”

Bob Tzu

Your thoughts?

John

P.S.  I found this pic here:  http://www.colinandyenyen.com/wordpress/2007/02/10/sunday-times-comfort-me-with-burgers/

The Eighth Principle of Tai Chi Chuan “Internal and External Are Unified”

The Eighth Principle of Tai Chi Chuan is one of the more esoteric Principles and is sometimes subject to widely varying definitions.  I believe this Principle is what really brings everything together to make tai chi work.   In my e-book The 10 Principles of Tai Chi Chuan for Beginners, that I give away with my video Beginning Tai Chi Exercises, I give a brief description of the Seventh Principle that’s geared toward beginners.

Internal and external are unified: Mind and body function together.  The movement of your body is controlled by the mind.  This may be difficult to grasp at first.  Try picturing energy as water in a hose that causes your arms and legs to move as it flows through your body.  This can help you remain loose while your body maintains the proper structure and stance.  You can also play with other images as they occur to you.  “The mind is expressed through the body.”

In tai chi it’s really all about awareness of your body.  You could say what gives you that awareness is your mind. There really are many levels to this principle, and depending on where you are at any moment in time, your understanding will change.

Most of us start out just trying to get our arms, doing two different movements, to even look coordinated.  I had a conversation with a student last night who said she has always been in her mind rather than in her body, and she thought it was taking her a long time to “get it”.  I assured her she was not alone and that she was beginning to get it, even if she couldn’t see it yet.  Although both her body and her mind both work well, they’re just not used to working together.

Our bodies have a natural energy flow whether we can feel it or not.  When we can hold the proper body structure, coordinate our movements, and our mind is at ease as it focuses on timing, we are then able to “relax with structure” into the forms.  When this happens most people begin to feel the energy flowing through their bodies.  That’s when the mind and body are working together and the student can then begin to direct the energy consciously.

This particular Principle is probably best left off to the side until the student is ready.  Trying to focus on even one more thing can be pretty overwhelming at times.  The Eighth Principle also a concept that we will come to understand in time, simply through regular practice.  If you’re just getting started in tai chi chuan, tuck this one away for a bit; you’ll know when you’re ready for it.

Your thoughts, experiences?

John

How Much Should You Really Relax?