Posted on

The Art of Connection

We all want to connect – to be loved, to belong – it is a human need.  But how do we do it?    How do we learn the skills of connection?  It can be especially hard, if we were raised in a culture or family that lacked these skills, didn’t value them, or otherwise failed to share and teach them.  Many of us were raised in a culture of shaming and blaming, and have struggled with the many self-destructive behaviors that follow – addiction, pleasing for approval, perfectionism, low self-worth, etc.   And nowadays, there are multiple ways to overcome these problems   – just look at the success of the self-help and psychology industries.

Well, to the list of practices that help to alleviate this epidemic, I add the practice of Taiji – the Art of Connection.

We have all heard that Taiji (Tai Chi) is for health and balance and is good for older people to practice.  When most people think of Taiji they think of the old folks in the park moving slowly in the solitary form.

So what does this have to do with connection?

One could look at it this way:  The solo form is preparation. It is preparing the self for connection with another.  In the solo form, one practices self-composure – breathing, calming, centering, rooting, feeling, following and directing the flow of energy within one’s own body, while moving in space. Pretty complicated stuff, really – but all things one needs in order to connect with another. In other words, I need to know myself to know another. 

So, in addition to the Taiji solo form that most of us are familiar with,  there are many partner exercises in the traditional Taiji curriculum –

  • the 8 flat-disc method drills (1-8),
  • the four hands study of the square energies of peng, lu, ji, and an, and their various changes,
  • the moving step explorations,
  • the da lu study of the diagonal energies of cai, lie, zhou, and kao, and
  • the culmination of these exercises in the 88-move attack and defend form.

From here, the sky’s the limit, the variations of partner play are infinite. At both the foundation and at the pinnacle of these exercises are the sticking, listening, understanding, and receiving energies. In other words, to do these exercises well you need the energies, and most importantly by practicing these exercises, you develop these energies. It’s a virtuous circle!

It’s a practice of connection. For what is connection with another if not sticking with them, listening to one another, seeking understanding, and being willing to receive the love and friendship we each have to share? Is this not belonging?

Til the next move,

Enjoy your practice.

Posted on

Harmonize Inner and Outer

Inner Outer Mutually Harmonize (nei wai xiang he)
Taijiquan trains the shen [spirit]. Therefore it is said, ” the shen is the commander and the body serves as the messenger.” If the shen cane be raised, one’s actions will naturally be light and agile. The outer frame is nothing more than: ’empty, full; open, close.’ What is called ‘opening’ refers not only to the opening of hands and feet; the xin yi (heart; mind, will; intent) simultaneously opens. What is called ‘closing’ means, not only the hands and feet close: the xin yi simultaneously closes. To be able to harmonize inner and outer, thus unifying the qi, this must happen perfectly without gaps.  [this is one of Yang Chengfu’s Ten Important Points for the Practice of Taijiquan with original commentary, translated and interpreted by Sam Masich].

Often in the more advanced class, I will invite students to name a focus for the evening’s practice. Tonight we heard breath, breath and movement, moving from post to post, and the one I chose for myself for tonight – Harmonize Inner and Outer.  After the practice, we reflected on what the form taught us; what we observed or learned from the focus we had chosen. When I ask my practice a question I usually get either a very straight-forward answer that illuminates a whole world, or I get more questions. Tonight, I got more questions.  Harmonize? What exactly is meant by this? Clearly it is different from one must follow the other –  inner doesn’t follow outer, or vice versa – as in a previous point about upper and lower. No, harmonize implies an equality of aspects. Inner and outer must get along, somehow – and perfectly without gaps, no less!

Perhaps to harmonize is to unify. Doug Wile’s translation in Tai Chi Touchstones: Yang Family Secret Transmissions is ” The Unity of Internal and External.” He translates the previous point not as Upper and Lower Mutually Follow, but as Unity of the Upper and Lower Body. His consistent use of ‘unity’ seems to slide over some important nuance in the different meanings. But, it is nonetheless helpful to me to consider the notion of unifying as part of understanding harmonizing. Like the yin/yang symbol – the ultimate symbol really of harmony of opposites -contained within a unifying circle. The harmony creates unity.

And that is what I am looking for……ultimately. Unity or harmony of head and heart, spirit and body. I’d like to feel that my insides match my outsides; that if I seem cool and collected, kind and thoughtful on the outside, that I truly feel those things on the inside. Similarly, that if I feel disturbed, or upset on the inside, that I can appropriately express those feelings on the outside.  Like everything in tai chi, it is more likely a matter of doing less, than doing anything new and special. Just tune in and stop hindering my expression, and also notice that when all is well ‘out there’ go ahead and just let myself enjoy a little easy all is well in here, too.

Til the next move,

Posted on

Full Circle

Well, I’ve come full circle.

The middle of next month, I resume my career as a certified public accountant with a regional auditing and accounting firm.  I am pretty excited about this.

The thing about coming full circle is that sometimes it can feel like you are right back where you started.

And, well, you are.

And you aren’t.

Life’s journey is through time….so every circle we make is really a spiral.  Every circle around the sun makes me one year older, and if I am paying attention it may make me that much wiser, right? That’s why the true pilgrimage, begins when you arrive.

Same holds true for the Taiji curriculum  – every time you come back to something you have studied before, you’re actually bringing all your accumulated progress to the new study  – so you feel like you’ve come full circle, but you’ve really come full spiral!

And that’s me, today. I’ve come full spiral. Wondering what it will look like, feel like, be like, this time around.

Similar, but different, I bet!

Til, the next move

 

Posted on

Comfort Zones

Life begins at the end of your comfort zone.  – Neale Donald Walsch

I have this quote sitting in my office and it reminds me to enjoy life by doing things that are sometimes not so comfortable. Like zip-lining through the tree canopy in the Berkshire Hills, and floating on inner-tubes down the river just barely in front of an ominous thunderstorm.

In taiji push-hands free-play, when we are in a playful game of taking the other’s balance, knowing the boundaries of my comfort zone is very important. And even more important is knowing when what is comfortable, is actually not safe, even though it is comfortable.  For this is where trouble happens.

We tend to conflate the two feelings in our minds – comfort and safety. And while for a lot of life’s circumstances safety does feel comfortable – it doesn’t always.  (I am thinking of the harnesses we had to wear to safely fly through the trees last week.) And there are times when I may think I am safe, when really I am only comfortable. (As when I am comfortably at home relaxing, and the nuclear power plant 17 miles away begins it’s core meltdown, contaminating three states before anyone is notified).

Because we conflate the two feelings – we think when we are comfortable we are safe – we also lose something of the thrill of living. Don’t get me wrong, despite the past week’s daredevil activities, I am an accountant at heart – careful and cautious – not one to take unnecessary chances. But I am also a martial artist at heart – someone who likes to be in my body and enjoy the power of doing and moving.  For living is thrilling, isn’t it?

It is one grand adventure to inhabit these bodies for whatever time we do.  Paying attention to safety and comfort is part of the journey – distinguishing the two is part of the art of living.  How do you tell them apart?

Til the next move,

Dorian

Posted on

Training Partners

“I want you to teach this stuff, not cause you know anything, but because I want you to learn it.” My teacher lives 5000 miles away and I was blessed to be able to travel and study with her every other month for a few years. But she knew nothing lasts forever – so better make training partners in your hometown, and teach this stuff so you can learn it.

Well, I am happy to say, as I sit and reflect on where we are today, I realize I have indeed made some training partners. Where once there was not, today there is a group of keen taiji players, interested in the principled study of the full traditional Yang style curriculum willing and interested in playing with me. Together we are continuing to grow this art. ( and grateful, too,  for our teachers, Jan Parker and Sam Masich)

As Jan also has said, many times: “training partners are gold. ” And I am rich!

There is still much to learn, so I will continue to teach. But today I want to acknowledge: I have training partners in Western Massachusetts.

(Of course, I am always looking for and welcoming more!)

Posted on

SLOW Fitness

“Slow Fitness” means taking a more reflective approach to exercise and fitness; an approach that is mindful of impacts on the body, joints, and muscles, and that incorporates resilience – our ability to ‘bounce back’ from the consequences of old injuries, poor posture, habits of rushing about, multi-tasking and other stresses. It’s about slowing down and becoming more mindful of our basic connection with gravity, with mind, body and spirit, and with each other. [Adapted from SlowLivingSummit.org ]

Sounds like a Tai Chi practice to me!

Til the next move, enjoy your practice
Dorian

Posted on

I KNOW THAT

Jan Parker first told me that these are three of the most debilitating words to any practice. And she was right!

In seven years, I have learned the 108-move solo form three different times from my two taiji teachers.  This most recent time was an 8-day intensive with a focus on principles and applications.

Of course, the first time I learned the form, I knew I knew nothing, so I was a sponge. It took me nine months and much practice every day. Everything my teacher said was the first time I’d heard it, considered it, looked at it, or thought about it. Maybe it reminded me of other things I’d learned in other arts, but still it was new. That was great. I loved it. I couldn’t stop practicing, because there was so much new to experience and embody.

The second time I learned the form, three years later, I was, of course, not the same sponge. I was looking for new information, something to add to what I already now knew. (uh oh….there’s that idea that ‘ I know that’ feeling).  And what I found is that my teacher was right about “I know that’; there really is nothing like already knowing something to shut down the mind to the possibility of going deeper in one’s understanding of something, or even of really receiving correction.   I lost something real important in my practice, some enthusiasm or something. I kept it up, but I had a little too much of the “I know that” mind. This is why the zen masters talk so much about beginner’s mind.

Sam makes corrections on Single Whip

This third time learning the 108…..for whatever reason, I felt much more like a sponge again. And lucky me! I feel like I have a brand new form…from the inside out.  There are some moves I will do the same with a different understanding of what I am doing. And there are a few moves that I will practice quite differently from how I ever did before. And in one or two cases, I am correcting a misunderstanding that has actually kept me from moving forward in the practice of my art. So glad, I didn’t know that!

If you are one of my students reading this, I hope you are excited about the new aspects of the 108 practice that I will share with you. And I invite you to notice the power of believing “I know that” to close your mind to the possibility of what is still to discover in another person, in a field of study, or in an art, or even in a form you have learned.

And for me,…. I am inspired again and again to cultivate beginner’s mind every day. (Thanks for the lessons, Sam). Not only in seminar with my teachers, but in my practice, and in my teaching. And everyone else, beware of those three little words: I know that!

‘Til the next move

Enjoy your practice

Dorian

 

Posted on

Practice Wrong

What? Really?

“I don’t want to practice, cause I am afraid I don’t know what I am doing, and I don’t want to practice wrong. “

How many times have I heard a new student tell me this?

And I understand the sentiment. I do.

Learning something new, we all want to do it well, we want to get it right.

But in reality, when we are just learning something – how can we practice in anyway other than wrong?  And then, by practicing we discover how to learn. We see where our questions are, and where we enjoy the movement, and what part is hard for us. Practice becomes our exploration. And the exploration is the journey. The journey of taij.

It’s like saying I want to live, but I don’t want to make any mistakes, so I won’t start living until I am perfect. Well, none of us would have learned to walk or talk, much less become functioning competent adults in the world.

Same thing with Taiji   – you can’t wait until you are good at it to practice it. You have to start where you are.

The only caveat……don’t hurt yourself. Practice, practice wrong, and if it hurts, stop and talk to your teacher to find out what is wrong so you can correct it. And then go back and practice your new learning some more.

 

Til the next move

Enjoy your practice

Dorian

Posted on

Dandelions

I hold onto some things too tight.

Not setting suns, or the taste

of chocolate melting in my mouth;

but resentments. And then, not even

 

resentment for what was done and

forgiven at the time;

but resentment,

that it happened at all and that

I even had to forgive it.

 

And they feel like something solid

and real, like rocks in my hand

or sticks I can grip and swing

at enemies or ghosts; substantial

Until one day

 

someone suggests that it might just

be a story I like and not really

even true any longer or even useful;

and as I nod my assent, they melt away

 

dissolved. Like chocolate, they don’t

even leave a bad taste, they just

slip below the horizon, carried

away in the evening breeze

 

like a dandelion, dead and grey

blown in a thousand directions;

no more resembling the yellow flower

it was, then that resentment

 

resembled the hope from which it had sprung.

 

Sometimes I write poetry, and for better or worse,  I will share some of it on this blog of mine. Til the next move, 

Enjoy your practice
Dorian

Posted on

The Taiji Circle

The Taiji Circle is such a great graphic!

In one elegant and simple design it conveys so much meaning.  A circle with an S curving through the middle, one half white, the other half black, and each side with a dot of the other side’s color in it.

Seems no matter how long this symbol has been a part of my life, the meaning to which it points goes ever deeper.   The symbol refers to the yin-yang philosophy that the dualistic nature of all that we see in the world can be understood not as mutually exclusive contrary opposites, but as complementary to, arising from and dissolving back and forth into each other.  Night becomes day, summer becomes winter, etc.

Qualities, not Things

Yin and yang are qualities, or aspects of things, they don’t exist on their own.  No thing that exists, exists in isolation or absolutely.  And therefore, no one thing is yin, and no one thing is yang – but everything may be yin or yang relative to something else.   And the same thing maybe yin in one regard and yang in another regard, relative to a single other thing. It’s just not as simple as black and white.

No Conflict

Seems to me the human challenge is to recognize the harmony among the opposites. Black and white relate to one another, and black and white have the seed of their opposite within.  I find this incredibly valuable to remember – especially when I am in what feels like conflict with someone else.  Whatever I feel is in opposition, I first notice the seed of that in me, in my position, and then I remember that my position exists in relation to theirs – this gives me the ability to accept their position, without abandoning my own and points the way toward some resolution reflected in the greater whole.

The Whole

Right! The greater whole – the circle in which all this dualistic interplay is happening. For ultimately, there is something which cannot be talked about or described, because it is not subject to the yin and yang of life, but encompasses them both.  For me, this is where blogging stops and the practice of taiji begins. Moving through 108 moves of my taiji form, I feel the harmonious interplay of all the seemingly opposing forces – up and down, advance and retreat, form and emptiness, mind and body, and on and on and on…..

Til the next move, enjoy your practice

Dorian