Emotional Content

I have always loved seeing anyone perform. As a kid I would watch the local weekly talent show, the Lawrence Welk Show or the Ted Mack Geritol Hour to see real people playing music or whatever. As a musician I do love American Idol and will even watch the inferior spin-offs for the occasional moment of brilliance. The big surprise is That So You Think You Can Dance is the show that makes me cry. I can't watch more than one minute of Dancing With the Stars but SYTYCD has given me new vistas to explore conscious movement and focus my Tai Chi work.

People claim that Tai Chi should be empty and ego-less, that it is limited to prescribed traditional methods and that it is not related to dance. I believe that Tai Chi is a multi-faceted Performance Art rooted in Martial Art but also ancillary to it. I am an adult who has spent a large amount of my time practicing and studying Tai Chi for years and America is (at least for the time being) a free country so if I want to improvise, move freely, choreograph modern dance in a Tai Chi style with a narrative story and an emotional rise and fall then I am entitled to do so. Likewise if I believe that partner work can encompass contact improv, energy work and sensitivity training to the exclusion of fighting then again I have earned the right to that approach. It is certainly anyone’s right to declare that this is not Tai Chi as it is also for them to decide what Art is. For me that is a discussion that I no longer am interested in actively pursuing.

The feelings, consciousness, quality of movement, emotional release, creative nuance, artistic expression and audience connection are so deep with the angle of dance and generally not available in the straight ahead Tai Chi environment. The fact that Tai Chi players are unaware or dismissive about this angle is in no way a deterrent for me. I realize that people often only have consideration for what they do. They are not Masters over life, consciousness, ego or the evolution of Tai Chi. Certainly if one does not have interest, after studying intently for 20 years, in finding new methodologies, finding their own paths and evolving the art past where they found it then there is something still missing in my opinion.

It is within improvisational movement, choreographing original routines and improvising within the context of existing routines that we can find levels of emotional release and emotional content.

Why I don’t post on the Taiji Groups

My Teacher can beat up your teacher

If you are not doing X,Y and Z you are not even doing Tai Chi

Tai Chi has a curriculum of skills to be acquired including Fa Jing, Fighting, Internal Power, Spiritual advancement etc. without which the art is empty

This “Traditional” Form is better than that

This system is not traditional, that one is

Spiritual advancement is an emergent property of Taiji

You should bend the back

You should be erect

You should go Low, Slow, Fast, Smoothly and Kick, and Jump,

You should stand on your Left foot for one hour then on your right for 53 minutes, then meditate for 2 hours, then stand like a post for 3 then go too low and then go on Facebook to brag how diligently you are practicing

Length and frequency of practice determines outcome

You need to do the form 10,000 times to get good

No mention of how well you did the form

No mention about the intelligence and understanding of the practice

My No Ego system is better than your No Ego System

Shut up and Go Home

Shut up and I’m going home

No mention of the interesting research methodologies that yield the real results for the serious practitioner.

Yeah, that’s Why I don’t Post on the Tai Chi Groups

First Principles and a Common Language

My point is that looking at the Traditional Chinese concepts necessary to gain Mastery in Taiji from other angles can be illuminating. Even those who are very skilled in reading the classic texts in their native language have differing ideas of what the meaning is. If that was the only path for the Westerner we would be doomed!

There are numerous texts that the serious Taiji student should study and understand; many are written in ancient Chinese or more technically Classical Chinese (gǔ wén).

Some are written in a kind of Literary Chinese (wényán wén) and filled with poetic and prosaic constructions as well. For those who don’t know, this is not like the distinction between Traditional and Simplified Chinese, it’s much more than that. There are many modern Chinese speakers who do not understand the deep meaning of these styles of writing. Some of the best scholars of these dialects like Paul Brennan are not Chinese.

I have said that these concepts of Prima Sapientia may be spoken of in the language of Neuro-Science and Neuro-Physiology without reinventing or watering down the concepts. That is to say that these same ideas may be stated in other terms as it relates to Body Movement and Body Mechanics and the Feeling and Awareness that is associated with movement. That is actually the definition of Neuro-Physiology! It is an obvious modality to talk about internal processes such as Sung and Ting.

Most serious students of Taiji have a deep respect for Chinese culture and the gift of Taiji that it has given the world. Without the study of the Authentic Traditional Taiji and the culture that created Taiji it would be unlikely to progress to the higher levels. The idea that the only way to describe the central and universal concepts of Taiji requires a specific language and that to understand those concepts you need to be a native speaker is silly at best. Nobody can own an idea. Once an idea is at large we may try to describe it in numerous ways.

Taiji requires the Physicality of doing it and feeling it inside but it also includes an intellectual component. We should certainly be able to describe clearly in modern language what the methods and the results of Taiji should be. One must get the balance of those two components right or the work will not bear fruit.

What we are moving towards is a more Universal Understanding of the First Principles and a Common Language.