Repetition

Any physical movement will improve over time with repetition. Remember learning to tie your shoes laces? All it took was repetition, but very few people (if any) use shoe lace tying as a practice for understanding themselves at a deeper level, because it's done unconsciously and probably learnt when you were very young. Even so, you are now likely to be an expert at shoe lace tying!

To learn a Taiji Form of any kind (empty hand, duo, or weapon), requires a commitment to regularly practise the same movements repeatedly. This needs a certain amount of intention and discipline. As a beginner, having another new posture to add to the sequence each week keeps the learning process fresh: it's not the same as it was last week; the new posture may shed some light on what has gone before revealing a principle you hadn't quite understood up to that point. As each week goes by your practice will take a little longer giving more time to drop into the receptive space of the Form. As well as repeating what's gone before, this pattern of adding something new each week is a repetition in itself.

But what happens once the sequence is completed... Any physical movement will improve over time with repetition. Remember learning to tie your shoes laces? All it took was repetition, but very few people (if any) use shoe lace tying as a practice for understanding themselves at a deeper level, because it's done unconsciously and probably learnt when you were very young. Even so, you are now likely to be an expert at shoe lace tying!

To learn a Taiji Form of any kind (empty hand, duo, or weapon), requires a commitment to regularly practise the same movements repeatedly. This needs a certain amount of intention and discipline. As a beginner, having another new posture to add to the sequence each week keeps the learning process fresh: it's not the same as it was last week; the new posture may shed some light on what has gone before revealing a principle you hadn't quite understood up to that point. As each week goes by your practice will take a little longer giving more time to drop into the receptive space of the Form. As well as repeating what's gone before, this pattern of adding something new each week is a repetition in itself.

But what happens once the sequence is completed... there's no new posture to keep it fresh. While it's 'new', the enjoyment of playing a Taiji Form, or Qigong Set, for its own sake may last a few months, or even a few years, but going through the same sequence of movements every day would soon become boring and tedious unless a deeper meaning or purpose can be found, beyond just physical movement.

A common experience amongst many Taiji players is that we had to be willing to repeat the Form over and over again, day in, day out, simply to get beyond the place where we wanted to 'get it'; to be in control of it on our terms; to grasp the art and make it ours, without having to make any fundamental changes in ourselves. In other words, as beginners, most people want to shape Taiji to fit them, but through repetition and a willingness to consciously soften what is in the way, we are gradually, subtly, reshaped to fit ourselves into 'it', then Taiji begins to reveal itself. Feeling is the only sure way forward. Yes, you have to begin with copying your teacher and other students, and think about what you're doing, but until you can feel what your body is doing progress will be limited.

Discovering a deeper meaning refines repetition into developing higher levels of skill.
Feeling for the underlying principles, the inner aspects, through the same outer sequence, refines the connections within the body, and between the body and mind, enhancing the quality of the practice and the resulting effects that show in the understanding of yourself. 

 

What about repeating mistakes?
Again, Feeling is key. As you take a step, you can think about stepping Shoulder Width as much as you like, but it won't it happen with any clarity or consistency until you can feel that you're actually taking a Shoulder Width Step. Applying this sensory perception to each part of the body and each aspect of a movement allows self-correcting to become a natural part of the practice. Then, more repetition leads to more refinement which leads to more skill. 

 

Once you reach this place in your practice you'll become more calm, more 'still' in the face of conflict, thereby more able to act quickly when needed. Less often caught by the 'fight or flight' response in any given situation, you have the ability to appropriately either use action or stillness as both qualities are present within your Taiji Form, and therefore available in daily life. 

 

In life there appears to be certain lessons that each of us is meant to learn in order to grow into the full potential of our personality, to take us closer to living our wholeness. There may be very different lessons for each person, but I have noticed they tend to start small and very quietly. If we deal with them there and then, we have learnt the lesson, redressed that particular weakness, realigned that imbalance. If we ignore or side step them, they come around again in a different guise but slightly larger and a little louder. They keep coming around and growing until we can no longer ignore them but have to stand up and deal with them. This is another form of repetition and it can be very uncomfortable, but only because we've let it get out of proportion.

Through the conscious practice of repetition the mind recognises patterns of sensation and becomes more sensitive to the subtle changes and differences we experience each time we play a Form. Through training the mind, awareness and intention in this way, it is inevitable that we become more conscious of repetitive patterns of unhelpful behaviour in ourselves, and from here are more able to act upon them for our betterment as we move slowly but surely along the path of Taiji.

No Time for Practice

More and more I hear that students struggle to find time to practise, especially in the early stages when it's all new. Maybe you came to learn Taiji or Qigong because you are feeling pressured and are looking for some a way to create a small pool of calmness within your day, but it's those pressures preventing you from practising.

I know sometimes when I look at my 'To Do' list my mind can say, “Well, if it all needs to be done, it all needs to be done now, before I can relax, or before I can give time to myself and my practice.” Of course, this is just a self-imposed deadline that has 'failure' and 'impossibe' written all over it creating even more pressure. But when I take a breath, relax into the present moment, and really look, I see that some of it can actually wait until next week, or even longer. Then I can see the most urgent thing and begin with that.

So it is with the practice itself, it doesn't all have to be done now. Of course, if you're learning a new sequence there is a need to do some practise for it to become embodied, and to be able to use it to develop and deepen the particular qualities it offers.

The majority of sequences we teach in this school take less than ten minutes to play through, and there are occassions when there really is no time, but it's rare that you cannot give a few minutes to yourself.

When time is pressured, just stand in the Attention posture for 30 seconds, but I mean really stand in the Attention posture, not just stand there holding your tension waiting for the time to be over! Pay attention to your alignment and feel and release, just for 30 seconds (Soft Limit). Once you're standing there and begin to relax, you may realise you can, and want to, stay a little longer or even move into the next posture, but don't impose any "Have to", the very thing you're trying to be free of.

I feel it's much more important to focus on quality rather than quantity. The sequence, whatever that may be (Short Form, Sword Form, Qigong, Dao Yin, etc.), is less important than the qualities and principles which are the things that make a real difference to how you are in the world from day to day. The sequences are a means to give yourself space and time to fully immerse yourself in the principles and qualities through physical movement. With a little experience you can observe a difference between somebody just going through the motions and somebody really practicing their art.

Here are a few qualities to which I'm sure you can add others...

Relaxation    Feeling    Flow    Listening    Presence    Awareness

Intention    Continuity    Versatility    Flexibility    Aliveness

Precision    Grace    Passion    Power    Self-Control    Enjoyment

Feel into this for yourself... how can you practise the principles and qualities of Taiji or Qigong in your daily activities when there's no time to play the sequence itself? When you can answer this you are well on the way to living your art.

Taiji for Everything!

What do you want from your practice?

Whatever it is, make that your focus and that's what you'll get.

But if you make your focus the fact that it's not yet how you'd like it to be, you'll always feel a failure because you're focusing on how it isn't.

So you want your movements to be flowing... then practise flowing movements. Today they will be more flowing than yesterday or last week, but only if you practise. Practise putting on your socks in a flowing manner, going upstairs, sitting down, rising from a chair... everything! Then flow will develop.

Your practise session will generally be only a small portion of your day. Use this time more intensively to really focus on those qualities or abilities that you want to develop. Then feel for opportunities to apply those things to other activities and situations during the rest of the day. Integration into the everyday, the regular patterns of your life, will not only improve your Taiji, but it will touch how you are and who you are.

Use Taiji as your touch stone and your life will become your Taiji.

Soft Limit

In daily life we are often taught that we should be doing and striving and making things happen, otherwise we're just being lazy. But we often mistakenly take that to mean force and excessive effort rather than just the appropriate amount of effort; enough to get the job done without wasting energy.

If, in your Taiji and/or Qigong practice, you use excessive effort you create unnecessary tension, it becomes a battle, you are at war with yourself. 

(see Stretch Reflex)

Many of us feel a certain level of tiredness almost continuously as there is so much mental pressure and stimulus in modern life. However, the amount of energy within the average human is quite phenomenal. For example, ever had a 'Stupid Computer' day? I've yet to meet a computer that responds well to being shouted at, or a keyboard that responds well to being prodded repeatedly harder, or a 'mouse' that responds well to being slammed onto a desk! But I imagine anyone who owns a computer has tried at least one of these methods to encourage their machine to pay attention when it seems to be ignoring you.

These situations mostly happen when we're tired and not thinking clearly, when we apparently have little energy, but a 'misbehaving' computer can very quickly generate tremendous amounts of energy in what we thought was a tired person!

This is mental tiredness where the mind and body are disconnected, we're trapped in thinking processes that drain energy away. The above example shows that the body has huge reserves of energy, but we are unable to access it because we are relying too much on thinking (Mind) and have forgotten the feeling (Body) aspect of ourselves. From this place of disconnect the only option, again mistakenly, seems to be the use of force.

Soft Limit is the key to greater awareness

The following qualities are important in giving you the opportunity to become more present and aware as you play Taiji, and as you live your life:

Feeling

Are you fighting against yourself? Where is the resistance? Can you feel the cause of any resistance or tension? How important is it? Can it be dealt with now, and if not can you let it go until it can be dealt with?

Response to those feelings

If a friend of yours was struggling with doubt and stress, what could you do to help? Can you respond with the same kindness towards yourself? Can you soften those tensions by doing less?

Repetition

Releasing stress, tension, and struggle, won't happen instantly, but if you practise softly with presence and intention, change is inevitable. Through Taiji and/or Qigong you are exploring and getting to know yourself in new ways that can benefit all areas of your life if that's how you choose to use your practice.

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Which of these is more appealing - Limpness, Tension, or Relaxation?

In Taiji terms these would be defined as:

• Limpness: dull, static, exhausted - Too Yin
  When you are limp, you don't feel the aliveness of your body, you only feel the heaviness of a structure that's collapsed in on itself.
• Tension: hard, immobile, exhausting - Too Yang
  When you are tense, you can't feel the aliveness of your body, you only feel tension.
• Relaxed: soft, flowing, moving, alive - Taiji
  Taiji is the harmonious balance of relaxation and effort – yin and yang.

When playing Taiji, the term 'Soft Limit', encourages us to listen and feel the appropriate amount of effort required to move through each posture, some of which require more effort, some less. Because the movements are slow and purposeful your sensitivity is being consciously refined and deepened, and inevitably this will spill over into everyday tasks, giving you access to greater energy reserves because you are moving more efficiently and effectively, wasting less energy. Your mind and body are working together rather than against each other.

“The soft Taiji method is the true Taiji.”

Dr. Chi Chang Tao

Whatever your level of experience, the use of Soft Limit allows you to be more present and to appreciate where you are right now in learning this new way of feeling/being with yourself. Remember: balance and kindness are also essential.

Also see the 5 Rules for Beginners

Balance

Several students have recenlty said, "I can't balance", almost ignoring the fact that it takes balance to walk, which they manage perfectly well. What they really mean is they can't easily stand on one leg without wobbling or feeling unsteady. Blanket statements like, “I can't balance”, only reinforce a negative belief whether it's actually true or not. As humans we do like to think our beliefs are true and that often means a resistance to letting them go so there's no room for change. In this case it's the thought process that's in the way of finding the possibility of balance.

Taijiquan is a method of training oneself in all aspects of balance. Physically we become more stable as we feel a deeper connection through our feet and carry less tension in the upper body. Emotionally we become more centred by feeling where we over extend or are pulled by a reactive mind. Mentally we become more present by resting in the physical sensations of the body (the body is always in the present).

So our practice includes the whole person, inside and out. How we think and how we respond to our thoughts are equally important in terms of balance. One of the best pieces of advise I've ever been given is, “Don't believe everything you think!”

Mental/Emotional Balance

There are many things that cause imbalance: fear, stress, excitement, etc. All of these states are mental or emotional, you can't actually see or touch them. Of course you can see the results of them, you can see how they affect people, but they are all internal, they only exist inside a person, they are all created by thoughts. For example, when someone says they are afraid of dogs, it's not necessarily an actual dog as they can still feel some level of fear even when there are no dogs near them. The fear is caused by the thought of what a dog might do, jump up at you or bite you, even though it's not actually happening. Stress is a form of fear or anxiety. I'm not talking about big traumatic life threatening situations that trigger fight or flight survival responses, rather the day to day thought patterns that take you into either thinking what might happen in a future situation, or remembering what happened in a past situation. Neither of these are real (because they are not happening right now) but they can still set off a stress response throwing you off balance mentally and/or emotionally.

Next time you feel stressed, ask yourself if it is real or are you just thinking yourself into stress. If it is real, is there something you can do about it? If it's just your thinking, and you can recognise that, then you can choose to think differently. Simple, but not necessarily easy. It takes the practise of awareness, observation, and honesty. The results are very worthwhile.

Physical Balance

If you can walk unaided but feel unstable when trying to stand on one leg, there are many possible causes... fear of falling for example, or maybe a deeper belief that was planted in childhood that you're clumsy/unsteady on your feet. It can also be a disconnection from spacial awareness – so the more you can feel where your body is in space and its structural alignment, the more stable you will feel.
Have you ever noticed how a table or chair with four legs needs a very flat even surface to be stable, but a stool with only three legs can be stable on practically any surface? We only have two feet, but within each foot there is the stability of a tripod. Try this exercise...

While standing, bring attention down into the feet and feel how they contact the ground. This means feeling the sensations of pressure on the soles as gravity draws your body weight down into earth. Let the feet soften, gently move the body to feel the 'spot' where the weight is evenly spread between the centre of the heel, the ball of the big toe, and the ball of the little toe. William Chen, one of Cheng Man Ching's senior students, called these three points 'The Three Nails'. These three points are like a tripod and you have two of them! When this becomes familiar try it with your weight mainly on just one leg by feelng the 'tripod' in one foot, making sure the body is vertically aligned through that foot with your centre of gravity lowered, then allow the other foot to begin to float slightly off the ground. As the foot rises, make sure your body alingment (spine/central axis) stays vertical so that gravity continues to pull down through your foot and not off to one side. With practise your awareness and confidence will increase and you can let the 'empty' foot float higher and higher without disturbing your balance.

Melting Tension

When approaching a practice session it is good to have an intention to 'work' on something specific, even if that 'specific' is simply being generally relaxed. It is so easy to have the intention to 'do' relaxing which obviously comes from a tense or controlling place, the exact opposite of what you're hoping to become.

Most of our practises start with some kind of 'Attention' posture. Remember that it's called 'Attention' because it's about paying attention to how you are right now, and feeling what is in the way of being how you'd like to be. The key here is Feeling. So... make it your intention to Feel.

Practising Sinking or Rooting, for example, won't do anything at all unless you feel. We have to come at it from the inside and intend to drop deeper into feeling before Sinking or Rooting can begin to develop. You can think about Sinking or Rooting whilst lowering your weight/centre of gravity, but you won't have Sunk or Rooted, you'll just appear to be a bit shorter than you were a few seconds earlier. Any tensions will still be present and may have even increased!

Feeling the melting of tension internally allows you to Sink. So Sinking becomes the end result rather than the starting point.

Have a clear intention and feel what you're doing, feel for your goal from the inside.

Visualising Martial Applications

There are many approaches to the practice of Taijiquan. Here are a few

• relaxation
• health exercise
• confidence building
• energy development
• meditative movement
• martial art
• spiritual practice
• self-defence

This article is a response to a question I was recently asked, “What or who do you think about when visualising martial applications in a Solo Form practise?”

There are two answers to this: One is physical, the other energetic. They can both be applied to any Form, whether empty hand or using a weapon.

1. Physical

When playing a Form it can be useful to visualise an opponent. This gives a certain degree of definition to the shape of each movement. At this level of practice I visualise an opponent of exactly the same shape and size as myself, in other words a replica of myself, so as not to distort my postures by over or under reaching.

The fact that it is an 'opponent' (something opposed to the move I'm making) can easily create unnecessary mental and/or physical tension, thereby giving an opportunity to deepen my conscious awareness. The more clearly I can visualise 'myself' as the opponent, the easier it is to see 'him' as the embodiment of my negativities/ego. Then each time I strike or cut I can visualise the ego becoming less, the negativities being chipped away. But this cannot be done with any kind of aggression as it would only create more tension and negativity. Intention and clarity need to be underpinned by the fundamental principles of calmness and relaxation. This way of practising in turn leads towards the second answer...

2. Energetic

This is a much deeper level of practice, more subtle, more internal, more meaningful, and more difficult to put into the written word.

At this level it's about ebb and flow, receive and reply, yin and yang (Taiji in action). Here I am creating an oncoming force through feeling rather than thinking. Unlike the Physical method where it's a visualised body or limb coming towards me, this is an energetic movement through the air, like a current moving through water only more subtly through the air. As the current comes close enough it will influence my energetic space (life-force field) and I allow that to stimulate a returning wave of energy that, in turn, moves my body into the next posture.

To feel this process requires a deeper level of relaxation which allows a softer focus of attention (receptive, yin), enabling a sharper focus of intention (active, yang).

Click here for more on the practice of Taijiquan as a martial art