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“Life is finite, While knowledge is infinite.”
-- Zhuang Zi

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Taichi Thoughts is a thoughtful and thought provoking exploration of Taichichuan. In its pages you will find questions, answers, observations and insights from Wolfe Lowenthal, and many other subscribers, all exploring the solo form, push hands, sword, and the many ways in which Taichichuan relates to our daily lives. Please see the sample below.

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Taichi Thoughts Vol 7, No 10, June 2007

(Mariano Dukuen from Mar del Plata City, Argentina, asks)

What is your training routine every day? What do you recommend for me? Any additional qi gong sets, or just the form?

(Wolfe's answer)

I practice a minimum of two hours a day, but I'm constantly reminded of Professor Cheng telling us that he just does two forms a day; one in the morning and one in the evening. Because, he would say, "I'm practicing Taichi all the rest of the time. I put my foot down in water like air; I sit upright with my feet connected to the ground - the back of the chair is to hang your coat. And when I walk or sit, I'm concentrating my chi in the tantien."

The goal is to become a being of chi moving in the sea of the chi. Only in the last few years have I begun to understand this idea, and I have to say that it's marvelous.

Practice the form in the morning and evening, every day without fail! Then extend your practice into your life: seek to concentrate your chi in the tantien, as often as you can; seek to relax, and root your movements so that the air takes on the substance and weight of water (or even more, like iron).

I'm now 68 years old, and though I'm no longer young, though I am experiencing aging with all its attendant deteriorations, I feel essentially healthier and more vital than ever. And I feel more than ever that Taichi is a wonderful art, a precious gift to us all.

-Wolfe

(And with more than a trace of serendipity, the same day I wrote the answer to Mariano, I received the following from Richard Shaw)

Dear Wolfe,

I wanted to share with you a recent breakthrough in my daily practice of our study. I am going to send it to you straight out of my tai chi journal:

With faithfulness from the Great Ocean, Richard

Air Like Water Becoming Air Like Iron

The other morning while going through the form I was focusing, as I often do, on the air having the substance and weight of water. On my third time through the form I slowed everything down and experienced even more prominently the substance of water against all the surfaces of my body; both the leading and the trailing; both the front and the back.

I was noticing the ripples created from moving in the water-like air and was aware of them traveling out from me all the way to the walls, while at the same time being aware of the eddies created behind me in my wake. In turn, I noticed how this awareness made the flow of chi circulating within even more pronounced.

Sinking into this experience, and going slowly, I arrived at the first of the brush knees prior to the first punch. I was feeling the resistance and weight of the water-like air to such a heightened degree that I arrived at a moment where, although the chi continued to circulate, it felt as though my movement had come to a complete stop, as though I had hit a wall. The weight was too much for me to move even another millimeter. In order to continue through this seeming impasse I had to find a further sinking down through my root. As I did so, I found the ability to push through this tremendously heavy and solid block of atmosphere.

I've previously had difficulty relating to Professor Cheng's idea of the air becoming like iron. It seemed in concept to be so antithetical to our art in general and the flow of chi in particular. I was reminded of how the path of the Tao is referred to as the "watercourse way". Air like water, yes, but the air like a solid and compacted metal? It seemed contrary to anything having to do with the human body and its corporality or movement. Such was my surprise in encountering this iron-like weight and density first hand. The difference, I discovered, was encountering it as a quality of the chi instead of an idea or mental concept.

Continuing through the form; it was exceptional, the weight and solidity that the previously water-like air had taken on. I was ground to halt by the sheer weight of the atmosphere a couple of more times and had to steadily keep relaxing and rooting, relaxing and rooting, while allowing the chi to well upwards from the feet and release through the hands. It was an exploration in which I had no recourse but to let 4 oz.'s move 1,000 lbs., or I'd probably still be stuck in that room, captured in 'brush knee' like a bronzed baby shoe.

-Richard Shaw

(And on the theme of practice)

About 20 years ago, a great teacher in New York told me a little story: "Imagine if there was a button down at Times Square, and everyone knew that all you had to do in order to be happy was go down and push that button... most people would find an excuse not to do it."

At first I thought he was wrong, but over the years I've changed my mind. We are so colossally invested in our stucknesses, our fear and tension.

For instance, I was speaking with a certain mother the other day, who was pained by the anxiety she felt about her child's development. When I suggested that she just relax, she became angry, as if I had told her to abandon her child. Deep inside she felt - without being conscious of the feeling - that her anxiety was protecting her child. To let go of that anxiety - to go down to Times Square and push the button - was tantamount in her mind to betraying her child.

Of course, that would not really be the case. Her anxiety was in no way protective, but in so many ways we harbor the false belief that we need our fear, and the unhappiness associated with it.

The greatest virtue of our gung-fu is the way that the chi dissipates fear/unhappiness, allowing us to understand that fear is a blockage. Most importantly the "understanding" is not intellectual, but experiential.

Our practice must be continuous to deepen this understanding. Most often the "I just don't feel like practicing today" feeling, is our excuse for not "going down to Times Square and pushing the button." Our stuckness pushing back as it feels itself threatened.

-Wolfe

(Our man in Toulouse, Dorian Shaw, writes)

I have often been disturbed and frustrated on my Tai Chi path by the poor results of my struggles to maintain balance by using a linear or two-dimensional approach; adding a bit of yin somewhere to compensate for the excess yang on the opposite side.

Synonyms of balance are; poise, stability, steadiness, and equilibrium, words that give us a range of options to interpret the word balance. I had only based my understanding on the first three of these words, with more emphasis on the firmness of poise, and the ridged foundations of steadiness and the unmoving dynamic shape of stability.

Through push hands partner practice, the concept of "balance" started to expand and develop more subtle meanings. The physical and mental territory in which balance and imbalance could fluctuate became broader and less reduced to one component or linear aspect of balance. An idea grew that balance could be represented more like an "ensemble", like a mobile sculpture, with parts of my body that could maintain balance, whilst other parts lost it.

This was refreshing as it gave me more space and areas in which to explore balance, I started to relate more to the word "equilibrium" (equal freedom) instead of balance. I also entertained the idea that overall balance could be a composition of other configurations, or places of balance. This gave me the impression that the situation was more a "geography of balance" rather than a simple two-dimensional event that functioned with one plane.

The hub issue in the previous Tai Chi Thoughts has helped me a lot to appreciate a different kind of relationship between yin and yang and to include a new ingredient in my representation of these two energies. By exploring the role of the hub, I now believe that the geography of balance--the way that it can exist and express itself--is more likely to be a three-dimensional phenomenon. The hub of balance being an important and still ingredient, which often gets neglected, as we are too involved with the "action," the expression of the rim of the wheel. In a similar way as it is often easier to neglect the subtle and deep practice of standing meditation in preference to the desire to improve our external transitions and movements in the Tai Chi form.

Usually we deal with the more functional and louder, expressive moving parts of our existence, tending to ignore the discrete and quieter cogs of our relationships and being. However, within our study and practice of Tai Chi Chuan it seems of great importance not to ignore any cog or any player on the field, or the space between the players, the field, even the sky above the field…

It seems as though the beauty of the fundamental principles of Tai Chi is that when put correctly into practice they will always allow us more space, more dimensional freedom, and more time to explore the geography of balance.

-Dorian

(Wolfe writes)

In a beginners' class I was asked to demonstrate a particular posture. It happened in a class that had developed a tendency to ask for frequent demonstrations. As I prepared to demonstrate, a thought flashed into my mind, which I shared with the class:

"It used to be common for those who knew him to refer to Professor as being a stranger in a strange land. He was a man quintessentially Chinese, exiled by fate first from his beloved homeland to Taiwan, and from there to the even more alien shores of the U.S.A. Many years later, Barbara Davis suggested that perhaps even more than being a man out of place, Professor Cheng was a man out of time. That he was of the ancients, in a sense as alien to modern China as he was to the west."

Then I demonstrated the posture. As I did, I wondered where that little talk had come from?

Well, those of us who were his advanced students wouldn't have dreamed of asking Professor to demonstrate the form. Being aware of his sense of propriety, it would have been disrespectful. It just wasn't done.

In the moment, as I demonstrated, I indulged myself in self-congratulation. I am, I thought, more progressive than Professor, more flexible.

Later in the same class I was asked yet again to demonstrate the posture. This time I drew the line, telling the class that we'd do it together. As we did I noticed that the student who had asked me to demonstrate was not watching me as I led them in the movement. In that moment I realized once again that Professor was a smart old guy and that his ancient tradition still had great merit in our progressive era.

When we finished, I told them that our frequent "demonstrations" were out of balance. "You can watch me demonstrate a hundred times and it won't have the value of our doing the form together. But when we do it together, watch me or the advanced student in the front. It is by far better to observe with your whole being, observing as you do the posture, trying to make it one with the teacher. We need to learn to observe -- not with our eyes -- but with our energy."

-Wolfe

(Wolfe writes: Suzanne sent me this poem. Like her it speaks to me beautifully of Taichi. It also puts me in mind of our fine fellow students in the Czech Republic, some of whom I hope to see before too long)

Wolfe,

Here's a poem I was working on with students that seems to speak to tai chi. Enjoy.

--Suzanne Strauss

It Is I Who Must Begin

It is I who must begin.
Once I begin, once I try --
here and now,
right where I am,
not excusing myself
by saying things
would be easier elsewhere,
without grand speeches and
ostentatious gestures,
but all the more persistently
-- to live in harmony
with the "voice of Being," as I
understand it within myself
-- as soon as I begin that,
I suddenly discover,
to my surprise, that
I am neither the only one,
nor the first,
nor the most important one
to have set out
upon that road.

Whether all is really lost
or not depends entirely on
whether or not I am lost.

~ Vaclav Havel ~

(Translation Paul Winston)

(Jon Doyle writes)

Hi Wolfe,

I have two things that I have been batting around in my head. They may seem unrelated, but as I have begun to understand, all things are related. First on my mind, my grandma passed away this Wednesday morning. She had senile dementia and was a completely different person than the one I knew growing up. I wonder if you have had any thoughts about how working in the chi might affect our mental state as we age. There are many stories of masters who are able to choose their time to depart this plane. Most of them were of advanced age and seemed to have their mental faculties intact. I will finish this question with, what do you think?

Second question. I was fencing last week. My partner, at one point said, "I like to keep our swords below head level, because sometimes people get hit in the head." I wonder that if we are sticking well and that leads us to a stroke to the neck instead of the wrist, how should I respond.

--Jon

You have my deepest sympathy. My mother suffered from Alzheimer's, my father from a different form of senility; there has been nothing in my life more difficult or painful.

The most basic health benefit of our practice is the way it produces internal health, vitality and balance of the internal organs, which moderates the deterioration of aging -- as Professor said, it slows the decline. It's good news for our body and mind.

Then there is the virtue of the flow of the chi. So much of the ill health of aging is stiffness and calcification, blocking the flow of life energy. ("Hardness is the discipline of death; softness is the discipline of life.") Taichi's effect is to keep us loose and soft -- in body and brain -- rather than stiff and hard.

However, it's not the fountain of youth. I think often of Professor's, "The river of death has no lid. There are 10,000 ways to enter." I've written about how at the end of his life, Professor seemed to be informing us of his impending demise. There was no overt signs of ill-health, but he seemed aware of a vast change, and that "You'd better ask your questions now, because I'm not going to be around for too long." He lived to be 75, having built an amazing life upon an early foundation of very poor health, and was a lion until the very end. And perhaps he didn't wish to travel the path of a steeper decline.

It does seem to me that the "sage's choice" that you refer to might be somewhat over-rated. There's a sense in which most folks make that same choice -- what's unique about the sage may simply be that they're aware that they're making it. In so many ways our life is a script that we are writing. If we are victims, it's of the negativity we bring to our own screenplay. Again, the difference with the sage is that they are tapped in to the part of us that's writing the script; the sage knows who's really in charge. Happily -- whether or not we reach the level of the sage - the study of the chi tends to keep one optimistically flowing in the sweet sea of life.

As for the second question, if we're really sticking we will be able to both protect ourselves and our opponents -- our cuts will be most gentle, not expressing their potential for injury. However, with only the tiniest of exceptions, we should not raise the hand holding the sword above our head. Professor's "when you raise the sword above your head, the 10,000 sword fairies laugh at you." (Professor used "10,000" a lot, it's the classical Chinese number for infinity.) In general, if the sword's over your head, you are undefended and your hands have to precede the sword to attack, which makes them vulnerable.

-Wolfe

Finally, I mentioned to Jon that I had been searching for the relationship between his two questions, but gave up and just concentrated on answering each. Though it's a bit of a stretch, I do sense something, having to do with softness and flow.

Two mutually exclusive ideas: Do we seek victory over others, or an immersion in the river of the Tao? At the end of my mother's life, when she was deep in the grip of Alzheimer's, I would visit her occasionally and have the most amazing discussions. There was no logic to them, nothing that a person centered in modern mores and sanity could connect with, but there was a wild wisdom to her in the midst of her condition. It was as if it was necessary for her to give up her place in the game, the rigid structures and standards of the bourgeoisie that she'd spent her life aspiring to, before she was able to reach the land of openness and love, where truth resides.

-Wolfe

(End of Taichi Thoughts, Volume 7, Number 10. COPYRIGHT © 2007 WOLFE LOWENTHAL)

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