Receiving  - it’s a tai chi energy

It’s been a full few days – a whodunit dinner party, tai chi workshop, karate rank test, regular tai chi class (which is anything but regular) and now I am packed and ready to fly to Vancouver for another intensive training session – 3 days with Sifu Jan and the RoughRiders. (Not a typical name for a group of tai chi players…..but it somehow captures our dedication, style and humor and it suits us for now).

I don’t really have time to be writing this post – but I want to say to the few of you who I know regularly read these notes of mine: Thanks for being in my life!  You tickle me, challenge me, delight me, inspire me, encourage and cajole me – you surprise me and you comfort me. I love you all and in my heart I hope I give back to you a tenth and tenfold what you give to me.

Enjoy your practice

Dorian

It’s Only Words

A student once questioningly declared to my teacher’s teacher, “You literally mean what you say.”  And the story has been passed on to me.  What is so remarkable about this comment is that it so simply reveals the challenges in communication that are both real and imagined. Challenges that are fundamental to the teaching and learning of martial arts, and internal martial arts in particular.

I am thinking of the real challenges that exist when people communicate but do not share the same spoken language, as when an English-speaking westerner leans forward throughout the class being led by a Chinese-speaking teacher, and finally asks whether the instructions are written in English somewhere, because she cannot understand the teacher’s directions.  And I am thinking of the imagined challenges that exist when we are prevented by our own preconceived ideas from recognizing what we are indeed being told, as when a student is so enamored of the mystical and elusive ‘energy’ field, that she fails to recognize and value the animating force of her own living body.

We all know how challenging communication can be in general – how carefully do we listen to others, how open are we to new ideas or someone else’s point of view, how precisely do we express exactly what we know or feel and not muddy it up with implied judgment or unexamined knee-jerk reaction…the list is endless.  Now add to this the desire to share information about ways of moving that allow one to express different internally felt and experienced energies and intentions.  I think you know what I mean when I say green, but you may well see a very different color from the one I am thinking of, so I say spring-green, like in the crayola box, and now I think we are closer to seeing the same color, but your experience of that color, what it feels like in you when your mind sees or conjures it may be still quite different from my sense of it. How about relax, stick, adhere, yield, receive?  How close are we in our understanding? So we refine – we say ‘dynamically relax’, and then we refine some more: relax is not to collapse but has some lively awareness that is not tense; and gradually we start to share the same experience of relax.  

Fortunately, it is not just language that we rely upon to learn the arts – martial arts require us to move and to touch   - to physically and kinesthetically feel.  Words are important, but anywhere from 70 to 90% of communication is non-verbal. At a certain point, the words become irrelevant – either you feel it, you can do it – or you don’t, and when you do, you know it. But before they become irrelevant, words guide and engage the mind. If the practice of the martial arts is ultimately to unify mind and body, the mind must be befriended. We overcome duality by making friends with both –not through denial of one or the other.  I believe we need words – clear, caring, compassionate words – words that come from the heart and are as true as we can make them.

So, literally mean what you say – take time, linger in the feel and choose carefully your words  - describe as best you can your experience and let the words guide you ever closer to the one feel. That state of non-duality that comes when we practice well and deep.

Enjoy your practice

Dorian

Insights and delights

I have been in a bit of a funk this week or two……..dragging my feet, drooping the corners of my mouth, short-tempered, impatient, cynical and despairing.

Gee, that’s a pity Dorian, but what about your practice?  How is that going? What insights and delights might you share? Surely, you will not just whine, I mean write, about funk and despair.

Surely…..I can only share what I’ve experienced and what I have noticed is that human beings make mistakes. (admittedly, others have pointed this out before me).  In some ways,  it is what makes us human – no mistakes and we might be mistaken for divinity. And despite the divine in me that honors that divine in you - I am most definitely human.

I am sometimes greedy, sometimes selfish, egotistical, and stupid. I make mistakes. And maybe what makes me feel so bad is that I can let go of a lot, but somehow letting go of my mistakes is not easy for me to do. I become obsessed with fixing them. Somewhere along the way I became convinced that I could fix all my mistakes – even if it was after the fact with a sincere and genuine apology.  Sometimes I need to realize -  we just have to live with the mistake and let go and move on.

When I am practicing my form and I am exploring the postures and the energies I express through them, I make mistakes. I mix up the order, or lose my focus and the energy scatters before it is fully expressed, or I over extend – forgetting that in front there is back. I make mistakes – but I do not hold on. I let go of that posture and move on.  In tai chi I practice this letting go over and over – it becomes easier and easier.

Maybe my tai chi practice could teach me something about letting go of mistakes. Next time I act from selfishness or greed, maybe I can let go of that posture and even let go of the fact of having made that posture  - definitely apologize if appropriate, make amends if possible and needful - and just move on through.

Maybe this explains the homework assignment my tai chi teacher gave me recently – she said “life!! that is homework! Live life.... Enjoy your life!”

Enjoy your practice

Dorian

Monkey See, Monkey Do

I am a monkey. It’s a part of  my personality. It was pointed out to me by my friends on my way to my very first karate class – they were laughing at my antics in the back of small white pick-up truck. Little did they appreciate both how true and how beneficial to my martial arts training it would be to me to be a monkey. For of all the monkey traits – playfulness, fierceness, trickery, agility -  it is the ability to mimic that I have found so useful in my studies.  But, like the monkey with her hand in the jar, stuck because she cannot let go of the treat inside and her fist is too big to pass back through the jar mouth, imitation has its perils. I call it the Imitation Jar.

Imitation. It is a stage of learning. Ideally, it is a stage one moves through – at whatever pace, there is no hurry, one can even become quite good at imitation (think of high quality art forgeries).  But if one is to fully enjoy a practice, reap the maximum benefit for oneself, one must ultimately move beyond imitation – to practice on one’s own, to refine the work, to coordinate inner perception and outer experience, to feel the movement art as second nature – beautiful, graceful, powerful, without needing to think about it. To do without effort.

It is easy to get stuck in imitation. Monkey see, monkey do. This is how we begin and it is essential, valuable and no easy task. Take time and imitate well. Where we get flummoxed is when our art moves beyond imitation – we practice on our own, we refine, etc – but what we don’t realize is that we have also internalized our teachers and guides, we carry a vision of them within us which we continue to imitate. Sometimes we are even conscious of it and hear ourselves say: “gee, I hope I can move like her one day” 

But what we have not yet done is identify all the principles of the movement art and cannot see how our teacher represents those principles, and then translate that into how we, in our own unique way, can embody those principles. (Of course, this is natural we choose our teachers because they so fully embody the principles that to distinguish principle from personality is not so easy).  What we want to mean to say is “gee, I hope I can embody the principles of this art as well my teacher some day”

I was trapped in the Imitation Jar unknowingly for a time. My teacher told me to move in my own way, be myself, but I realized that what I did was move like her in my own way, and be myself as approved by my teacher. This is certainly not what she meant, but being a good monkey, this was all I knew –even as I progressed through each stage, I continued to do so through imitation. Embodying my teacher’s personality, quirks, physicality and thankfully, by osmosis, whatever principles she embodied as well. I have begun to shift, finally.

My tai chi studies started with principles -  know your hip track, read the classic writings, stand inside yourself.  My teacher emphasizes principles, not personality. We all have our quirks and personalities – be who you are, for sure. Start by imitating your teacher,  as you learn, and then in time let yourself practice the art, see how you can embody the fundamental principles of your art. Indeed be a monkey,  if you are a monkey, but be a monkey with principle!

Enjoy your art

Dorian