The Journey Within

Push hands is a 2 person exercise. In its simplest, it starts off with 2 person standing facing each other, and each of their right hand touching at the wrist. From there, both move about in what seems like a dance between 2 people, to see who gets the upper hand.

I normally focus on the dance. I focus on how I can sense the other person’s force and how I can counter the force and hopefully make the opponent off balance. I fail to realise the importance of the contact point.

As Jay Heinrichs points out in his book Thank You for Arguing, searching for the common place is important in an argument. It is where an argument can be build from. It forms a base where an argument can take its shape and form. It is from a common place that 2 people can identify with each other, and form a common basis of understanding, before getting into the heat of an argument.

Similarly for push hands, it is through the common point of contact that we can hope to topple the opponent.

I have been focusing too much on the movements while ignoring the importance of this common point. The funny thing about this “argument” is that the common point is already found! I don’t need to search for it. It’s already there for all to see. I’m ignoring the common point at my own peril.

I guess with a lot of things that we do, the common point is often obvious. It is the need to look for the common point that is not that obvious. Suppose you want to tackle a really big project e.g. renovate the house. Now, all you know is that you want to renovate the house. But what is the common point between this big project and you? What is the thing that connects you with this big project?

It is normally a very simple action, like call a contractor, or ask Jim about his rates, or look up the directory to find a list of designers. Although the action is very simple, we normally fail to identify this action. In Getting Things Done speak, it’s called the Next Action (surprise surprise).

Common points are everywhere. And it’s the first glue that connects you to the thing that you want to do or achieve. Without the first brick, there is no house. Without the first screw, there is no car. Without the very next action, there is no further action. Without the first step, there is no journey.

Find the common point. Find the next action. You will be on your journey to become the millionaire that you’ve always wanted to be, or have that house by the beach that you’ve always dreamed of. It all starts with identifying the common point.

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I’ve never thought of arguing and fighting can be different. It is only recently that I realise the distinction, and that my interpretation of using Tai Chi is more of arguing than of fighting.

I have been doing Push Hands for 2 years now, once almost every week. I see push hands as an argument between two person. The best person wins by winning both the opponent and himself. I don’t see the point in fighting. I don’t see the need to win the other person by pushing the person down on the floor. I can do that everyday, most of the time, injuring myself in the process, without going through the motions of push hands. I would rather win by argument. There is chance of a win-win in an argument. There is no chance of a win-win in fighting. By fighting,  the best fighter wins with the first strike, thus incapacitating the opponent. The best argument does not break the opponent’s neck. The opponent can create a totally different argument to counter the best argument. The opponent can change the level of the argument thus trying to win by logic, change the intensity of the argument i.e. trying to win by emotion, or change the process of the argument when trying to win by his own character.

An argument can be won by all these three components, logic, emotion and character. In the context of push hands, the logic part will be technique. The emotion part will be anger (or the lack of anger actually, i.e. composure). The character part would be compassion and honesty. Understand these three components in you, and you will be able to see your own strengths and weaknesses in push hands. Capitalise on your strengths. Build around your weakness. You will see a better fighter in you, or a more persuasive fighter.

Now, I have still got a long way to go when it comes to arguing with the wife. Maybe my understanding will eventually extend to that level. For now, I’m just happy she’s on my side. She is really an instinctive arguer…

p/s: inspired from the book by Jay Heinrichs titled Thank You for Arguing – What Aristotle, Eminem and Homer Simpson can teach us about the art of persuasion.

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No matter what you hear or say, you don’t use Tai Ji (or any martial art!) for self defence. Most of the time anyway. You can read this story here if u need some convincing.

When learning Tai Ji (or when learning any other martial art), the place where you learn tries to provide a safe environment where you can learn about new theories, and test your understanding of the theories. It is a lab. And like all labs, it comes with rules to ensure everyone gets something out of it.

I know the safety rules rank high on all labs. But I want to share with you some kindergarten rules, that apply just as well on this environment that most of us take for granted.

1. Share everything.
2. Play fair.
3. Don’t hit people.
4. Say you’re sorry when you hurt somebody.
5. Wonder. Remember the little seed in the Styrofoam cup: The roots go down and the plant goes up and nobody really knows how or why, but we are all like that.

Just don’t expect to go by the rules when in the real world. In the real world, there are no rules, just the ones that occupies your head. I’ll leave you with one last “rule” from the kindergarten rule book.

When you go out into the world, watch out for traffic, hold hands, and stick together.

p/s: The kindergarten rules are quoted from the book by Robert Fulghum – All I really need to know I learned in Kindergarten.

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I dreamt I killed someone, and it’s not the first dream I had on this murder. As vivid as the dream is, I still couldn’t quite see who the victim was, until recently. It’s a realisation rather than being there again to witness the murder. The victim – was me.

Death has been a strong theme for me this week – the death of my 100 year old grandmother, the death of me, even the book I’m reading features death quite prominently (The Lost Symbol by Dan Brown). I spent almost a week going through the proceedings of my grandmother’s death, conducted very much like the business of death I wrote earlier. However, this time, I feel different.

I am not close to my grandmother, but her strength to live past the century mark gives great courage to all the living people around her. I think that’s what the proceedings are all about, it’s for the living to accept her death, but more importantly, it’s for the living to celebrate life! To remind us that death is inevitable, but it takes great will to live a long and full life.

I believe my dream is to strengthen this message – the will to live a strong and full life. Sometimes you must let go the life you had planned in order to make room for the life ahead of you. I believe that was why I killed myself. I killed my past me to release the future me.

My dream on death was a vivid dream, filled with remorse, guilt, the feeling that I can’t let go and clinging grudgingly to the past life. To experience death in my dream might be the kindest death experience to anyone, if you need to realise the importance of living fully through death. I hope you don’t have to wait till the real thing to realise the importance of living fully.

Some books on the wisdom of death and how to make full use of the present, the now.

• Tuesdays with Morrie
• The Last Lecture
• The Final Exam: A Surgeon’s Reflections on Mortality
• The Now Habit
• The Power of Now

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I’ve finally managed to finish a few books which were pending for over 1 month now. I think all of them are good reads, and one of them you can even get it for free!

1. The paradox of choice by Barry Schwartz
2. Free by Chris Anderson
3. Poor Charlie’s Almanack by Charlie Munger

The first book is about the abundance of choices that we have now and how’s that making our lives even more miserable. Maybe I don’t need a book to tell me that, but sometimes, there are things that we just don’t see. I’m a channel surfer. So imagine what an increase in number of channels do to me… Maybe  I’ll just get rid of the television.

The second book is about how “free” services are changing the business model of the future. The most popular free model I guess is Google with free search, free email, free word/spreadsheet software, free photo album etc. I’m also using the popular free Wordpress engine to power this blog. You can get the book for free as an e-book or as an audio download here.

The third book is by Charlie Munger, the partner of Warren Buffett. I like his multi-disciplinary approach to tackle problems e.g. he uses psychology, physics, engineering, economics etc to understand and solve business problems. I also like the quote he used (which was quoted by Benjamin Franklin):

Appeal to interest, not reason.

This is speaking to me louder and louder each day… Hope you’ll enjoy these reads.

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I don’t know why, but I just love this bag. Found out about it when Sharon went to Manchester. Anyone there en-route to Singapore?

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I came across 2 competing ideas. Leo from zenhabits suggested that to change your life, you’ve got to start small. If not, the process will be just too overwhelming. Then I picked up a book by Tammy Kling called The Compass. The first quote said:

Sometimes you must let go the life you had planned in order to make room for the life ahead of you.

That to me, is a big change. So, which strategy works better? A big change or a small change?

I think those 2 strategies should be complementary. Sometimes, it takes a big change to effect those small changes. Sometimes it’s the small changes that suddenly lead to the big change.

What change do you prefer?

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Now, the book Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell of The Tipping Point and Blink fame, suggests that to be very good at anything you do (and I mean VERY good), you need to clock up at least 10,000 hours of doing that thing. This includes anything you can think of – basketball, golf, investing, programming, Tai Chi…

Now, I did a quick calculation on what this means to a mere mortal like me, and here is what I have:

If I train for 1 hour per week, e.g. go to a 1 hour Tai Chi class every week but not practising at home, I’ll need 192 years before becoming very good.

If I train for 20 minutes a day, like what I’ve set out to do this year, I’ll need 82 years before becoming real good.

If I train for 3 hours a day, it’ll take me 9 years to be very good.

If I train for 6 hours a day, like what my current teacher did when he was younger, it’ll take me 4 and a half years to be very good.

Contrast this to my 40 hours work-week, I should be very good at my work after about 5 years.

So… how many hours of effort do you want to put into the things that you love? I guess it’ll depend on how old you are now, and how long you think you can keep doing that thing…

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A mouthful, I know. But this phrase stuck with me when I was reading Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. I  blogged about non-linear thinking, but “non-rational means” are a whole different matter. See, non-linear thinking assumes that thinking is split into linear and non-linear. The “non-rational means” according to this book says that there’s a third dimension. A dimension that goes beyond linear or non-linear thinking. In fact, the mere act of “thinking” is bound by these 2 dimensions. To comprehend something complex like relationship, the environment, the meaning of life, it’s tough just thinking about it. I guess that’s why we’ve invented the arts. Something within the physical world to express what the brain cannot comprehend.

In other words, I think comprehension of the world by rational means can only take you so far. The human mind is much stronger and much richer than that. There should be non-rational means of understanding the world. By that I mean we can understand the world without having to explain it, because our plane of explanation does not encompass the richness that’s out there.

I guess the next question is… are we ready?

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Now, I’m surprised I found the same things said about the mountain in a book about motorcycle maintenance. Ok, it’s not quite just about motorcycle maintenance, but at some point in the book, a father brought his son up a mountain. I won’t try to spoil the wordings used and just quote this below:

Mountains should be climbed with as little effort as possible and without desire. The reality of your own nature should determine the speed. If you become restless, speed up. If you become winded, slow down. You climb the mountain in an equilibrium between restlessness and exhaustion. Then, when you’re no longer thinking ahead, each footstep isn’t just a means to an end, but a unique event in itself. This leaf has jagged edges. This rock looks loose. From this place the snow is less visible, even though closer. These are things you should notice anyway. To live only for some future goal is shallow. It’s the sides of the mountain which sustain life, not the top. Here’s where things grow.

The book I’m reading is Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance.

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