The Journey Within

I’m not sure if this is a common misunderstanding, but I thought I bring it up anyway to find out more from the community.

I have come to realize that some people try to learn techiques rather than try to learn the skill. They relish in the satisfaction of knowing more and more techniques, without actually learning the skill.

Is that possible? Isn’t knowing more techniques a sign of increasing your skill?

I suppose certain techniques require a different level of skill set to perform. But that’s not the point, and should not be used as the reason to perfect the technique. We should instead focus on perfecting the skill rather than the technique.

Take push hands for example. There are many ways to counter attack a person. Most ways I’ve seen are not truly using the softness of Tai Chi. Most people rely on knowing a certain way to move their hands or a certain way to turn their body and when this is perfected, they are able to wait and anticipate when to execute this technique. After this one technique, they start to accumulate other techniques and will eventually pass off this collection of techniques as skill.

While this is useful and may seem to work on the outside, it misses the whole point of learning Tai Chi.

We’ve heard of formlessness, i.e. using non-specific moves. This is when you’ve perfected an art and do not need to actually use any partiular form of that art to show that you truly understand the art. With such good understanding, you are then able to apply the art in more ways than one.

But formlessness do start with the existence of “form” to realize the power of “no form”. This is why we learn Tai Chi form first before learning the art. This is why we learn the notes of music before expressing music. This is why I learn the alphabets and some words first before writing a post like this. I don’t need a large vocabulary to write what I write. I just need to understand the words and then string them together to tell you this story.

I believe this is true for any art, and should form the reason for learning the art. So don’t just be a collector of techniques. Learn the true art.

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I was a bit surprised when my teacher told me that he preferred music playing in the background when doing Tai Ji. But his was a different reason. He said the music will actually boost his performance, and will also help to relax the mind. But there’s a dark side to it. You can become reliant on music, so much so that it becomes an addiction. It may come to a point when you can’t relax until there’s some music playing in the background, which is not what we are trying to train.

I guess the reason i’m training tai chi is to learn how to relax both the mind and the body, and in the mean time, try to understand how I can apply the principles of tai chi in life.

Having music is a bonus. But I’d rather have peace and quiet anytime.

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I sometimes hope Tai Chi philosophy can be used as a leadership tool. And I think losing the mind might be one of them.

The theory goes, the body knows more about what’s best if the mind lets it. I think it’s true for an organisation and its leaders as well. If the leader allows the people to do what they do and know best, the whole organisation will benefit as well.

Unfortunately, what people associate office Tai Chi with is the ability to manoeuvre tasks from one person to the other. It’s even used as a verb in the office e.g.

“she just managed to Tai-Chi away all her job to that poor intern…”.

Never mind the intern, but Tai Ji is not about passing the buck. It’s so much more – if only it’s understood better.

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Have you ever felt that you’re most creative when you don’t try to be creative?

I found this out in a push hands session recently. It was a surprising move even to me. I didn’t know of the “counter attack” as I didn’t react to the oncoming force. I just followed through the force while the hand took care of the opponent. So the counter-attack came from a strange angle which i’ve never considered before. Apparently, the hand knew.

I counter-check with my teacher and he said that the best move is the one that you don’t even know.

We’ve been trying to learn soft hands so that the opponent finds it difficult to “feel” where we’re coming from. The ultimate skill would mean even you yourself do not know where your own force is coming from.

So lose your mind. Forget about thinking, and let the body take care of the rest. I guess this is how the form becomes formless.

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Budgeting is touted to be a good financial discipline. It is recommended in most financial books, to be used religiously in both your personal finance and business finance. It basically is a tool so that you won’t spend more than what you think you can spend. Does budgeting work for you? Do you find that you stick to your budget often? If you or your company’s spending is different from the budget, do you tend to spend over or under budget? Continue reading »

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After observing a new student in my push hands class, I have come to appreciate that the purpose of push hands is not that obvious initially. Well, even after a few years, i’m not sure if i fully understand push hands! My purpose is to understand Tai Chi theory and how can I use the theory in real life. That’s where I test the theories using push hands.

So when this new guy came in, he was quite eager to go on an all out sparring mode, ready twist my arm and throw me down to the floor. I begin to put limits in place, saying don’t grapple, don’t move your feet, only use one hand etc. Then we went on to explain to him that pushing with one hand is more difficult than pushing with both hands. Similarly, fixing your feet to the ground is more difficult than moving about.

I think this is where the power of limits lie (see also article on why limits are liberating). When pushing with one hand, the number of variations to push the opponent is greatly reduced, and hence focusing on using the basics to push the opponent. Similarly, by limiting to fixed-step push hands, your mobility are greatly reduced, again focusing on the ability to use the basics rather than run away.

I do two-handed push hands when I want more fun and less work. Single-handed exercise is where I really need to be on my feet (literally!), and it’s where I learn the most as well. So don’t discount the more boring push hands yet. It’s where you learn that you know less about Tai Chi.

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