A Search for Self

I see people on the Internet chat groups abandoning all principles of Taiji Push Hands. Instead of a conversation they want an argument and they usually find one. I see them abandon all principles of Scientific Inquiry which should be an important component of our personal work. For instance I’ll say that something is a component of high level practice. They will respond that since this thing is a component of something else as well then I am wrong (There are cows in NH – No, there are cows in VT so there are no cows in NH). Of course furthermore it’s people like me that pollute this art, their teacher can beat up my teacher, I did not get the secret indoor teaching that they did, I study the wrong system or lineage, am not Chinese, that their no-ego system is better than my no-ego system. I swear to God I’m not making this up. Yeah, you can’t make that up because it’s too unbelievable. Of course it can be useful seeing your own words staring at you from the computer screen reminding you that you have not become the kind of person that you want to be, that you still have some personal history that no longer serves you to let go of and that this Art may not confer those gifts of insight and growth simply by showing up...

It gets worse. There are no Masters any more, nobody gets it. You have to be a Master to transmit the Art, therefore nobody has the right to teach. All the people going through the early stages with other teachers or styles at a lower level are wrong. Well my friends, I worked that area of the Mountain and was thankful to have some firm ground from which to progress until those temporary truths no longer served me. Eventually I moved on to truer systems and areas of the Mountain. Why would I deprive others of that experience; of their own experience? Many claim that Spiritual Progress is an emergent property of Authentic Taijiquan, they claim to be some of the very few to be doing Authentic Taiji and yet they are angry, judgmental, intolerant, close-minded, unkind and prejudiced. It’s an interesting juxtaposition and while I believe there is a time for righteous indignation and putting the disrespectful children in their place I don’t think you have to live there!

When I go to a party I don’t stand there wondering if this person I am speaking with is smarter than me or not. I see if we are having an interesting conversation or not. I’ve been bored to tears by those with greater intellectual prowess than me and been moved to tears by those who I could have easily dismissed as less intelligent. It should be the same in Push Hands, it’s not always a contest to see who can push whom. Actually that is the beginning level and you don’t learn as much there. I prefer the volley; catching and returning energy. I allow the flow to happen and find ourselves in cooperative and supportive roles regardless of how vigorous the level of play.

I would rather light a single candle to illuminate an idea than come to burn down the castle armed with torches and scripture. I try to conduct myself in class and out of class, as a teacher or a student in a way that would not prevent our studying together in the future. It takes a lot to cross that line. I write to see my thoughts from the other side so I can see what I think and what I need to work on next. The thing that helps keep everything in balance and not cross those lines is to keep it what it’s about - A Search for Self

The List

Just imagine the number of things that need to be in place to simply receive an attack and issue a return.

Listen, Connect, Stick, Follow, Understanding, Neutralize, Seal, Unbalance and Push. That means you have to be conscious of the Internal Landscape and be able to stay there under duress. You have to be able to expand into your environment and into your opponent and sync up to him. You need to feel the whole 3D nature of the swirling gyroscopic energy coming in and catch it softly, support for a moment, release it and assist its acceleration away from you. All the while from beginning to end you need to attach to the opponents reflexes following their timing, turning them on and off at will.

I used to categorize these skills according to their traditional Chinese names but it seems that one should be able to define Tai Chi to someone who does not know the private vocabulary. If I talk about the Ting, Wen, Na, Fa cycle it isn’t clear to an outsider that this relates to the application of energy and its timing. Of course the acquisition of Jins and cultivation of Jing, Chi and Shen and all the rest are essential components that comprise the fundamentals, qualities and skills I mention here.

The Tai Chi Curriculum Includes the 1) Proficiency in the Fundamentals 2) The Qualities and 3) The Skills:

1) Fundamentals – Stances, Posture, The Moves, The Forms, Balance, Rooting, Stepping, Head up, Tailbone down, Joints sunk, Functional Use of the Waist and Back, Breath low, Open crown, Opening the hands, The Gaze, Peripheral Awareness, Independence of body parts, Weight forward towards ball of foot, Integration

2) Qualities - Calm Mind, Softness, Strength, Simplicity, Naturalness, Comfortable, Subtle, Clear, Relaxed on the inside, Peaceful, Artistic, Precise, Meaningful, Hidden, Open, Unified, Musical, Continuous, with Straightness and Roundness, Insubstantial and substantial, Quality of Motion

3) Skills - Footwork, Handwork, Use of the mind, Awareness of group energy, Gathering and Issuing, Understanding, Intention, Opening and Closing, Solo practice, Chi gung, Applications, Two Person Practice, Improvisation, Hydraulic Motion/Wave Energy, Transfer of Momentum, Appear, Disappear, Expand and Condense, Consciousness of the Body Field, Continuity, Timing, Yielding, Sinking, Dynamic Relaxation, The Ability to Receive Energy (Push, Punch, Grab, etc.) and Transmute it without undue strength and Return it, Internal Awareness, Fajin

And still… without the Secret Handshake this is just The List.

The Tai Chi Curriculum

You could say that the Tai Chi curriculum is Proficiency in Forms Practice and in Two Person Practice. Everything meaningful for me in Tai Chi would be covered by that.

Unfortunately this curriculum would not help to define Tai Chi to the non-player or distinguish it as an Internal Art. Well, it turns out that there is no consensus reality amongst Tai Chi players with regard to that type of definition either except that we know it when we see it. This is a factor allowing the unscrupulous or delusional to ply their trade.

It is no surprise that in the absence of a clear definition that a clear methodology is so rare. It has been said that the truth about the training methods necessary to develop good internal skills are so counter-intuitive that you are simply not going to discover them on your own. Historically this has been true but as advancing research into Sports Medicine, Anatomy Trains and the Enteric Body has unearthed the Dynamics of Energy involved in reflexes and motor function I think we can find a way to focus our practice to produce verifiable results in less than 3 lifetimes.

Once you are studying Forms Practice and Basic Applications you are Doing Tai Chi. Once you can see yourself inside and get a Radar lock on your partner and you can sense them internally becoming aware that you just acquired knowledge of their center then you are Doing Internal Martial Arts. Your level of skill in these things denotes your level in Tai Chi.

Tai Chi is a Martial Art. It is okay to excel in the Performance Art of Tai Chi as a central focus. A common complaint I have heard is that a focus on the Aesthetic and Artistic will cause people to try and make their forms pretty. Well, anyone who is familiar with high level internal skills displayed in Music or Dance will know that one hint of artifice or self-consciousness will cause the moment to fail.

I think that although Tai Chi is a Martial Art that Fighting Ability is not one of the more important determinants of Tai Chi level. Someone may cultivate partner work rather than combat skills and reach very high levels and conversely those who pursue fighting skills often seem to significantly delay their advancement in Tai Chi as an Internal Art. Furthermore some well-conditioned MMA guy could easily out fight some excellent Tai Chi players so I think a focus on Fighting Skills per se can misdirect our inquiry. If Push Hands was Ping Pong then I personally play a game more concentrated on extended volleying and being the Minister of Silly Spins rather than a game relying upon serves that cannot be returned or slams. When you play that way sometimes you forget who’s serve it was and even what the score is and you give up keeping score altogether.

So the Art keeps me showing up every day and what I learn in that context I test in partner work and free play to keep myself honest.

BTW - I am still zeroing in on my actual Tai Chi Curriculum List and thank you for being patient and giving me the room to get there!

Useful Exaggeration

In an attempt to define Tai Chi in a way that meaningfully distinguishes it from other Martial Arts I am creating a curriculum list of basic skills. This turns out to be quite a list and I find myself asking why it is currently that only a few of these provide the reason that I practice. I am not motivated to practice so that I will have longevity, be able to kick ass and take names, be able to do the super luminal types of techniques or reach some particular level like Mastery; all things I had written on my syllabus and believe intellectually are components of Tai Chi.

What keeps me showing up every morning is the Interest, The Quest, The Exploration of Inner Space and the Mechanics of Moving. The Feeling inside my body as I Sink this hip or Relax this Side or Expand the Body comes from Becoming Conscious of the Movement and Conscious of all the little unseen Sub-routines in the Body’s Operating System that assist in or govern the movement. The Examination and Re-programming of those Sub-routines allows me to increase my bandwidth of Inner Space by simply monitoring things instead of having to run them all.

The Forms provide the Context and I provide the Subject. Picking up the foot, stretching into space, turning, moving, coiling, opening and closing provide the Experiments and while the results are Martially Useful that is rarely my focus, it’s more about the Feeling or the Experience. The Ego, Anger, Frustration, Desire to Succeed and other Psychological manifestations that come to my attention during this work are one and the same as the ones I involuntarily Act Out under duress when I am pressed in Push Hands beyond my Ability to respond to in a Taiji way. (Yeah, sorry about that one friends…)

At any rate that is my Useful Exaggeration for now and I will pursue it until it is less useful and move on to the next Useful Exaggeration.

Thank You One And All

Hi - back from China after months where Facebook is really banned, really silenced.

In the past I have had many encounters in Teaching, Being a Student, Pushing Hands and Engaging in Online Groups with various Martial Artists. Here in the USA I am free to report my experiences and observations. People who moderate groups online are free to set ANY STANDARD THEY LIKE! I’ve been in both Zero Tolerance Groups and Flame War Shoving Match Groups. In reporting what I’ve seen and personally experienced I try to take a real and honest tone but try to say nothing that would actually prevent me attending a class, workshop or camp with the individuals I comment upon or criticize. There are a few individuals I know that any commentary is not allowed according to their culture or personality so I refrain. That’s my line.

I studied Mantaak Chia’s system and it was a nice flowy, spacey, Kitaro-like introduction to the art which I outgrew fairly quickly.

I studied with Li Deyin and his family and was impressed by their authentic skills and felt that the Government Forms are too Sterile for my taste, like Etudes not Sonatas.

I studied with a Teacher that helped me with some real fundamentals like dropping my shoulders and elbows without which nothing of value that followed would have been possible.

I went on to study on a regular basis with Authentic Masters in authentic systems. I will tell you that I studied and practiced with a dedication and perseverance greater in measure than the results that I received for whatever reasons those are. Of course the student is always quick to blame the Teacher or System but I think that it is not wrong to question the system or try to build upon it.

I wanted so much to reach the Holy Grail of Fajin and studied on the side for years and took workshops with students of Masters Chu Gin Soon and Vincent Chu. I came to feel that the methodology as being re-transmitted by these students was very unhealthy and although I did see some authentic results I returned to Forms Practice in an Authentic Yang Cheng Fu Lineage Family.

Seeking to broaden my knowledge in that system I attended workshops with Master Yang Jun and felt that while he already has and will continue to surpass his Uncle’s skill and teaching his style of Taiji was not the doorway I was looking for. I changed teachers and Masters and broadened my knowledge of Push Hands, Internals and felt that being Knowledgeable about what the standards that define Taiji and separate it from all other arts even when those arts are done softly at a very high level had never adequately been done.

I began studying with Don Miller on the side at this point. My first impression that first night was that this was too much strength. I came to a much different understanding as my eyes were opened to the realities Don presented. Don was capable of using a mere gesture, a mere suggestion of a move to create inexorable control over me. I was practicing 20 hours a week and had more than 10 years of experience by this point but still needed to be willing to make a quantum shift to come to a place where I could profit by the inquiry, scientific verification, improvisation, core work, shoving matches and hard ass bravado that Don offered.

I’ve seen some wonderful demos online from Adam Mizner and think he’s one of the more special guys out there and will make it a goal to seek him out. I also notice that even at his level he’s not immune from an occasional shoving match online or in person.

Michael Phillips frequently throws his weight around proclaiming a better and more real lineage and furthermore an Inner Door access to it. I have never met a Martial Artist of stature who didn’t have some issues; that’s what drives us!! MP clearly has some serious skills and methodologies though but as we know from all Martial Arts Movies there is always someone that one skill or another will not work on and it is not an indictment of someone, their skill or their lineage to say so out loud.

Mark Rasmus has some great instructional videos and displays this higher level stuff I am looking for after 20 years of practice.

Richard Clear likewise is an excellent instructor and I love what he does.

I am looking for the Internals - Softer Energetic Moves that will work on incompliant partners and I am looking for an Evolving Methodolgy like we see in Olympic sports.

For people to take umbrage over false claims of skill and people who charge money and don’t deliver the goods seems natural. Seeking a clear definition for a certain kind of Complete, Authentic Taiji is exclusionary by definition. This is Taiji; that is not Taiji. Sorry guys - that’s just the way it is.

If someone says my teacher isn’t real or Chen style isn’t Taiji or Forms aren’t real transmissions I will take it for what it’s worth. I gain impetus for continuing this work from these discussions, shouting matches and unilateral declarations.

In the end I am approaching a working definition of Taiji for the first time in my career and the beginning of wisdom is a definition of terms so Thank You My Friends.

Thank You One And All

The King is Dead, Long Live the King

Once upon a time Buddhism was a Philosophy insulated from Religion and Superstition. For sure it was one of the great gifts to the world; an actual Spiritual Technology based on Scientific Observation of the Self and the Psychological Overlays that divide us from our True Nature. Beyond that as part of its system it contained an actual Methodology for Implementing the Truths discovered through Self Awareness.

I do know that some still seek the Path sifting away the Detritus that has collected around the system but many delve superficially into the popular writers and speakers on the subject and involve themselves in the jargon and vocabulary of the day while using it to rationalize the questionable behaviors that led them to seek self improvement in the first place. Meditation provides an escape from real life relationships and non attachment provides an excuse for the lack of accountability for their actions. The superstitious adornments of beads, bracelets, Buddha dolls, Kuan Yin dolls and Nag Champa incense provide the semblance of a Spiritual lifestyle.

I know a guy who owns a poorly run little trading company in China. He has a brand of Buddhism I have frequently run into there. He has broken every business deal he ever made when it became inconvenient to keep it. He routinely deals unfairly with workers and shows them the door, cheating them out of their salary on the way out. He has never taken the time to learn his business or develop craft or integrity. He has a little statue that he puts fruit in front of and plays an annoying recording of a Buddhist song endlessly. He burns incense and wears a silly looking oversize beaded bracelet and goes to pay monks money on certain days. He has DVD’s of Buddhist masters lecturing on scripture and verse. It is funny that none of this ever leads him to question his behavior or lifestyle. Those monks who run those temples have played an important role in the demise of Buddhism and its devolution into a folk religion and superstition. They are fortune tellers, actors, amusement park workers, beggars, charlatans or salesmen. It is a multi-million dollar business devoted to the superstitions that if someone pays people to pray for them or if one burns expensive sticks of incense they will have good health and most importantly prosperity. The belief in various realms filled with boogiemen and other kinds of retribution are used to frighten and guilt trip people into parting with their money.

In the US the systematic commercialization and trivialization of the real Practice of Buddhism has taken a different form but its results are dramatically similar. It has been incorporated into the New Age movement which has a fair stock and trade in trinkets, trappings and fortune telling. All in all it has brought about a leveling of the playing field. We must make our own path cut from the whole cloth of our lives. The systems that rise up in the New Age quickly become inadequate to the real task of Enlightenment or even the prospect of Self Improvement. Perhaps Systems are too systematic and Churchianity of all sorts is less useful in this regard whether Scientology, NLP, Integrated Awareness, Dolphin Breathing, Angel Reiki or Buddhism. The King is Dead, Long Live the King.

It can happen. It did happen.

I am sailing now into a new country; this marks the beginning. You don’t always notice these moments, you usually see them upon looking back, but I am skipping ahead. The reason that I am sailing into the Northern waters with my monstrous creation is because the villagers did come with their pitchforks and torches in the end. Led by my former professor from the medical university citing scripture and verse I was driven off never to return to that world again.

With a moment to take stock of things I’m left to reflect upon recent events. What do human beings owe each other? Is it the grand vision of The Path, Universal Principles, the Martial Arts Honor Code and Soul Connections that lead inexorably to problems? What is my motivation in telling the tale? I’ll let you judge.

If you’ll remember, Monk says that his is story is a myth, a legend. In the mythic sense, people come together with soul contracts, trying to rise to the Universal Principles they purport to. This usually ends badly. On another level, people have a social contract – end of story.

It is amazing how many people purporting to the higher octave of expression do not even meet the most basic level of behavior that you would expect. I have seen time and time again that when people resort to claiming that they are acting according to Spirit Guides, Doctrine, Unconditional Love, Past Life connection or Universal Law that they usually have not performed as well at a basic 3D level. In Tai Chi it is usually necessary to have Postures and Stances that are strong and centered from a mechanically sound, Newtonian standpoint in order to be energetically sound on a metaphysical or Quantum level.

As people come to their truths through social interaction there are psychic ties formed and broken; it happens. Whether it is the adolescent discovery of energy and emotion or the other types of behaviors that occur later in life we allow bonds to be created and when things go astray we feel them create tension and release. Even when people behave badly or manipulatively these psychic aspects are only a natural consequence of human interaction. Other individuals willfully throw their energy around and attach to others on a Psychic level without permission. This is a whole different thing. Actually Dion Fortune writes a brilliant compendium on this subject called Psychic Self Defense.

But you see those who made mistakes with me were just that, social interactions that went horribly wrong that we learned and grew from. Probably elsewhere in their journey they too had lost their lives, had saved lives and had found their code of honor to continue the Path. For sure that was not where I intersected with them and I only relate my part as a point of view from which to tell my story.

So now I am able to allow others to bond to me at the closest levels of Love and Friendship and consciously attach to me but it is that word allow that is so germane. Sometimes getting to this place requires feeling like the injured party. That was a gift indeed!

You can see some people draw a line in the sand and declare to God that they will go no further. They will never take another chance again because it may open them up or reveal that they are frozen at some level. The Wounded Warrior is an archetype that has a limited utility for healers and teachers in this time and it’s our job to move on and in the end I did. That is the tale I tell. The point is that we are all broken and we can find our way back, to get through it and past it. There comes a moment where you get rocked back on your heels and if you are up to it you can grow. Then you can have real closeness, real friendships, real growth and come to a place of skill and even mastery. If you are not up to it you can wear your injury like a thorny crown and tread water until you decide to heal or not. I chose to go into it, I am thankful for the agents of change who helped me break open and hope that as many of us as possible get to the other side. It can happen. It did happen.