Category: Principles

Let Go Your Singular Focus

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Down, Up, Same Time
In, Out, Same Breath
Left, Right, Same Side
Hand, Foot, Same Body

Our ability to focus is a blessing and curse. Our focus determines our reality as some say. It also limits our ability to perceive more than the focal point upon which we become attached. This is true of many aspects of our lives. Relative to the subject matter of this blog, I want to poke at a concept hinted at by many Tai Chi masters including Mr. Moy. I have contemplated his teaching of “up down same time” in the Dan-yu, Tor-yu and many moves of the forms. Recently, my body has recently provided me with the experience out of which I’m beginning to grasp the teaching over two decades later.

Many students struggled when shown how to pay attention to both the hand and foot at the same time or breathing continuously without stopping. These are all of the same nature. Namely, the philosophy of yin and yang are interwoven into all we do. However, the concept of yin and yang is more of a gradient as opposed to competing constraints or polarized opposites. Our Western mind is cultured to think of opposites as different, distinct and separate. The traditional Eastern mind comes at the opposites as an interplay or dance between friends. This continual exchange of energy between opposites may be experienced in Taoist Arts and other forms of martial arts. Power emerges out of properly aligned relaxed posture. Health emerges our of balancing physical work and relaxation within our particular situation. Philosophically, opposites are fundamental to our experience due to our naming minds. We separate things based on our observations. This is this and that is that. The mere act of naming separates aspects of what is ultimately a single integrated experience. For lack of a better construction, yin and yang are used to conceptualize the differences and ever changing relationship between. The thing is yin and yang are of the same nature or rather originate out of the same experience. Without light there is no shadow. Meditation pokes at this experience of the oneness of things underneath the trappings of all our thoughts, descriptions and understandings.

To facilitate the experience of the relatedness of yin and yang, we have to let our focus and attention be different than our normal apprehension of our experience. There are many paths we can take to accomplish this. The experience of unifying opposing elements may feel completely foreign. For those driven to do, do, do without cessation to the point of sleeping only a few hours at night, letting up on our focus on whatever needs done can feel like bulldozer demolishing the house we live in. For others, who go day to day without direction, purpose or meaning, the experience is elusive. It can feel like warship cutting through the lazy waters of the sea we are floating in. The waves from the ship turn us over into the depths of what we know not. No matter our particular approach to life, there’s a middle ground to stand not upon but within. More often then not, we need a guide or some type of feedback from another further along the path to realize this middle realm between our particular oppositional forces in life.

Occasionally Mr. Moy would touch a hand while doing foundations or a move and talk about the bubbling spring and how the intent is in the feet. This is the beginning of expanding our attention and loosening our focus on one body part. It slowly connects two or more body parts within a movement or posture. I remember a particular correction from Mr. Moy who touched my hands as I pressed down in the dan-yu. He mentioned to push from the bubbling spring in the foot. He did the same as I pushed up out of the squatting exercise. Pushing up from the feet and expressing through the hands while going up was easy to grasp. Going down in that correction left me grasping. However, after a few moments I must have caught on as he said, “You see, up down same time.” The experience of what occurred when I allowed my attention to be split between hand and foot at the same time set me on the path eventually repeating the correction. With regular practice it became a part of my movements. Mr. Moy also set me off on a journey of discovery about unifying the opposites instead of holding them at opposing corners of a boxing ring. Letting go of our need to do right with our singular focus we can pay attention to more than one thing. It’s the same as allowing your vision to relax. When our focus is not centered on one thing our periphery vision pulls more information into our consciousness. We see “more.” In actuality, we see the same amount of information. Our brain simply removes most of what we see from our consciousness due to our focus on an object. We have a perceptual bias tricking our brain into “knowing” what’s going on when we are deluded by our bias and its singular short term focus. “You see what you expect to see, Severus.” (Potter fans will get that reference). 

We can choose to let our focus relax not just with our vision but with other senses and even our intent. This relaxation of our focus is the first step of letting go the need to be at the center of everything. It is expanding our use of attention. It is the experience of not knowing begetting the ability to say “I don’t know” which in turn allows us to learn. Using our attention outside our singular focus is an opening of our spiritual to experience more than our limited ego-bound reality. It’s a door to new experience not of our nature. As we let go our conscious self and reach out with our feeling (a reference for the Star Wars geeks), we open our world to more richer experiences. Over time this creates the ability to perceive the simultaneity of movement in the instruction “up down same time” or the circular breathing of “in out same breath.” We start to see the world from a different perspective. It’s like we start working the third aim and objective of what used to be the Taoist Tai Chi Society, “cultural exchange.” The words themselves take on meaning beyond the simple and albeit confusing sentences as above so below (one for the Alchemists). Our dedicated practice through the years creates experiences moving beyond the emptiness of the words taken at face value. The words become reflections of our experience, directions on how to achieve those experiences as well as pointers to principles not easily captured in written form. And, therein lies the heart of openness, learning and spirit. 

Hand, Foot, Same Intent
Left, Right, Same Side
Out, In, Same Breath
Up, Down, Same Time

Returning to the Source

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Returning to the source is something we need to do everyday. We read in Taoist texts of the idea of returning to source. There are all kinds of methods and symbolic instructions for transforming the body. While I don’t want to distract from whatever Taoist lineage or martial arts philosophy you practice, I want to bring the idea of returning to the source to something more pragmatic. I want to elucidate that it’s not some mystical thing that by practicing the methods we can achieve immortality. Returning to the source is an approach to living we can embrace everyday and within our practices no matter how advanced or often we partake in our art forms.  

I haven’t posted in a while as my martial arts practice has waned due to what I talked about in the 8mm of Learning post from almost a year ago. The path of recovering from a major surgery like an intervertebral fusion is a winding one filled with pot holes, setbacks and frustration. It also has a plethora of opportunities to rediscover lost art forms and practices. Pain and suffering has a way of focusing our attention on what’s important. For me, it was about treating every moment as a decision to bring movement to every part of my body. A year after the surgery, I can tell you without regular movement my body begins to remind me of its importance. Muscles tighten. Small nerve sensations speak to me of the edge I live on every day. I certainly do not have the pain and nerve issues that brought me to my knees, sent me to urgent care, restricted my walking range to 50 feet, or started me down the path of opioid and muscle relaxer addiction. I understand from others who have had parts of their spine fused, my surgery is a 100% success. I can do everything I was able to do before I first felt that twinge in my back after shoveling some wet Colorado snow. Furthermore, I can do it without medications. 

Going through the process of conservative techniques, pain management, surgery, and rehabilitation has given me a new awareness of the edge we all live on with respect to our ability to move, our general health and the myriad threats to our daily living. It has also revealed to me the importance of enjoying what we have and the need to balance risk and reward in our daily decisions. I haven’t swung my pendulum to the never ending pursuit of an unobtainable ideal of perfect health. Nor have I let myself not care about what I do with my body, health and life. I’m finding my particular balance day by day. Some days are better than others. Just the other evening I was practicing the foundation exercised called the dan-yu. I was fairly relaxed and found the connection Master Moy helped me find years ago. Focusing on the bubbling spring on the bottom of the foot, the movement felt like it did not stop. There was no bottom or top of the movement but rather transitions from squatting down to standing up and back again. My pelvis opened and closed with the movement and timed with my inhalation and exhalation. After a few cycles, the movement began to integrate into a single ever-changing experience. The breath guided not only the up and down but the expansion and contraction in the pelvis or perhaps those movements created my breath. Both are true and depend only on our perspective.  The weight stayed anchored in the bubbling springs throughout.

The bubbling springs is an acupuncture point on the sole of the foot. It is an entry point for the kidney meridian. The image of the bubbling spring is apt as it brings about the idea of energy bubbling up and supporting the life around it. All movement within the body happens with fluids and lubricity. The bubbling spring in Chinese acupuncture theory is an entry or source of this energy. Without the renewing vitality inherent in the Bubbling spring, we degrade over time becoming dry, rigid and inflexible. Further stagnation exacerbates this situation. I witnessed a lot of stagnation through the trials and tribulations along my path through the forest of immobility over the last couple of years. It wasn’t until the other night, I felt like I had returned to the source of vitality I cultivated for most of my life. I’m not saying that the bubbling spring is my source. It was simply a focal point or schwerpunkt to rediscover after a significant change. In mythological terms, it was a threshold I passed returning from another realm where I had to slay one of my many dragons of pain and suffering. My schwerpunkt or center of gravity in my life is movement without which death begins to speak to me over my left shoulder or through the nerves in my leg. Movement and change bring about learning and growth keeping mortality at bay.  Moving and changing removes oppressive nature of mortality from our concern and connects us with our internal and external environments. Paradoxically, being more aware of my mortality and eminent but unknown time of death allows me to live more fully. And herein lies the true source of vitality of life. Respect for life and movement come from accepting death, stillness and the unknown moments ahead. Being certain about anything is a form of stagnation preventing learning, moving and change. When I say death, I’m not just referring to our physical passing from this universe. I’m also referring to the death of ideas, relationships and interactions internally and externally. Everything lives and dies. Movement and stillness are intimately related.   Bringing these facts into our daily lives is a source of vitality, humility and respect. It is returning to the source.

Why Practice?

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Why practice your form of particular martial arts, meditation, silent retreat or whatever relaxation techniques? We practice to apply the principles we are taught.  While practice does bring benefit in reinforcing our learning, the true benefit lies outside of the practices and in the practical application of what we learn as applied to everyday situations.  Applying the essence of the art forms we learn to our interactions and experience has the capacity to lessen the suffering of both ourselves and others.

We develop situational awareness and understanding of our influence on what’s happening when we take the time to observe ourselves, our behaviors and more importantly the thoughts driving us in any given situation. We develop the capability of observing without judgement and more specifically without fear of loss and how we think others are judging us through the the art forms of martial arts or meditation.  This allows us over time to recognize the transient nature of our thoughts and emotions.  Thoughts come and go.  It’s our focus on the thoughts making them recur over and over until we generate the dis ease that filters into our body, awareness, and attention.  Emotions are the energy we experience in response to the unfolding moment including both external and internal realities.  When we hold onto our emotions and the thoughts they generate, we create the altered reality we generally experience in our daily lives.  This leaves us to ride the waves of our experience or get crushed by the force of them.

Practicing meditative or a martial art chips away at the mental and emotional structures we build up over our lifetimes. Practice begins to lessens the waves or at least the destruction caused by the major waves impacting the shores of our soul.  Reflecting on the essence of our practices allows us to simplify the practice into things we can apply moment-to-moment and not just to the situations of our art forms.  Our interactions slowly change to more manageable situations.  We find the emotional trauma and suffering doesn’t last as long.  Anger, sadness or happiness come and go just as the thoughts we witnessed in our practices.  Herein lies the true benefit of practice.

We bring about more life satisfaction if we can reduce how long we hold on to the anger, sadness or other things that make us suffer.  Reducing the suffering in our lives in turn provides an example for others to follow.  This is the pebble we drop into the stream of life having the potential to lessen the suffering not only of ourselves but those we interact with.  We help others by maintaining our calm and center during the storms we encounter day to day.  Instead of stressing out, we can simply adapt to the ever changing moment benefiting both ourselves and others.

When we apply what we learn in our practices in this manner, we move from practicing when we set time aside to do so towards practicing all of the time we are awake.  This impacts others even when we are not awake and thus we connect with something beyond ourselves when we turn our lives from practice into an art form itself.  May we all enjoy the practice of making our life into an art form.

8mm of Learning

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Eight millimeters is a significant misalignment between the sacrum and lumbar vertebrae. How do I know this?   It’s the underlying cause of not being able to practice tai chi for over seven months or unable to walk more than fifty feet on the most painful days even with the narcotic pain medication, nerve desensitizers and muscle relaxers. Life in the past year has been a struggle to say the least.  When you can’t even walk a few hundred feet to go see your daughter sing in a choir in front of hundreds of people at a winter festival, it’s pretty obvious something needs to be done.  The inability to enjoy and partake in family activities was the last straw.  It was not long after that moment of laying down in the car waiting for my family to return from the winter festival that I went under the knife.  I had my fifth lumbar and first sacral vertebrae fused. I was literally screwed and glued.  It was an excellent decision.  There has been practically no sciatic pain since the surgery.  There’s occasional tingling in my foot or hip the doctor says could be the nerve recovering or my body figuring out how to move as my vertebrae fuses.

I used my practice of tai chi, understanding of physics and physiology to respect my limitations for months leading up to the surgery.  The form gave me an opportunity to explore and understand the rhythm of nerve conduction from my back into the butt, down the leg, and across the foot to the big toe. Slight misalignments sparked the pain while the simplest adjustment relieved it.  When I was unable to move within the form, I used my practice of mindfulness and intent from the Taoist arts to help me relax and maintain as much functionality as possible.  The practice of mindfulness emerging from decades of tai chi enabled me to perform my regular activities at work and home as I got into the drug cycle.  As my situation deteriorated, my understanding of the spiritual aspects of tai chi helped me take support when needed.  I allowed family and friends to help me here and there.  I didn’t feel bad, or at least too bad, when I had to take time to rest, sit down or nap in the midst of getting Thanksgiving dinner to a bunch of guests.  I used the practical nature of the art form to build supporting devices like a stool with rollers to keep me cooking for the family.  I used damn near every opportunity to learn just as we do when practicing the Taoist arts.

Tai chi is more than fifteen minutes of movement.  It is a way of moving and relaxing with all movement and thoughts throughout the day. When the sciatic flared up, the tai chi form became something I was unable to perform.  My tai chi practice became what it needed to.  I learned from my condition and worked within my constraints to retain as much heath as possible.  However, towards the end of the year, my movements became so restricted there were few options.  Life is movement and thus my life was disappearing out from under me.  I used the meditative aspects of tai chi to maintain my center and not get lost in the misery and suffering of pain or the side effects of the significant medications.  Pain, disability and addiction are amazing teachers.  And herein lies the art of tai chi.  Opening ourselves what Master Moy told us, “to learn tai chi from anyone, even those who do not do tai chi.”  Furthermore like the originator of tai chi did, Chang Seng-Feng, it is up to us to observe the nature of things, learn what we can, and most importantly apply it to our practice.  Learning from our environment both internal and external and applying what we learn daily is the essence of tai chi.

Side note: I almost called this post “Suffering 8mm” but looking back any suffering along the way were stepping stones of discovery.  Focusing on suffering is not the way or at least that’s not my experience of the Tao.  

Learning

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After doing something for more than twenty years, things are “easy.”  And if, after two decades, you are not learning from yourself and your observations of your environment, you haven’t progressed past being a beginner.  This is true of martial arts, a marriage or a career.  It’s up to us to apply what we learn every day, moment to moment.

“New” Understanding

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I came across an article that explains how movement decreases stress, how our core strength relates to our posture and effects our ability to relax.  This is something I heard years ago and echoes with the idea of “Movement is Life.”  In different ways, every workshop in the Taoist Arts had some slant on this idea.

In the terms of the article at The Atlantic, A New Understanding of How Movement Decreases Stress, the thought is as follows.

“How we move, think, and feel have an impact on the stress response through real neural connections.”

 

Learning Internals

Jacob3 Comments

We start from the outside and move within when we begin practicing any of the internal martial arts.  We learn angles, stepping, and weight shifting.  After we have these basics, we learn what tiger’s mouth is in our hand and arm structure as well as the bubbling spring and alignment of our weight.  Over time these things become more natural leaving us to experience what’s happening when we have proper alignment and skeletal structure.  These externals allow us how the movement feels inside.  With guidance the internal feelings are expanded and verified via feedback from the groups we practice with or an instructor.  This tuning into the internals is where the internal martial art begins.

With this said, I must share a cautionary note.  There are many people who have an innate ability to feel things more than others.  Often these are the folks drawn to the internal martial arts in the first place.  Within the beginning class, they share how they can feel the movement inside.  The caution is this, that feeling is ephemeral and changes as the fundamentals of the form have not taken root.  It is extremely important to ground ourselves in the fundamentals of our arts before we start exploring the internal “feels.”

The angles, stepping and weight shifting come first.  The mechanics of the form is critical.  With the foundation in place, we can then place the girders of bubbling springs and tiger’s mouth.  we can then start erecting the walls and ceilings of turning, extension, contraction and lateral movement of the spine after we have the skeletal structure in place on top of our foundation. This external home is where we can then start exploring the internal nature of our forms.  This process can take anywhere between 7 and 20 years depending on the individual and some don’t ever get there.  Being in a class for a couple of months and feeling internals is like walking through a model home.  It’s not until you put forth the resources including time and energy in building the home can one start to live there.

It’s of utmost importance to revisit the foundations If we lessen our practice for whatever reason life brings us.  When new instruction comes our way it is up to us to understand how it fits into our home and if it’s appropriate to integrate where ever we may be in our development.  Hopefully our guidance and new instructions come from individuals who have a deep understanding of our form and its many different applications.

I once had the chance to work with Master Moy and Dr. Elliot Kravitz who watched an individual perform some Dan-yus for roughly ten minutes in front of a group of instructors.  Elliot asked the group what instructions we would give.  There were various answers.  After feedback was collected, Elliot said, “I wouldn’t change a thing.”  He went on to say the person was moving appropriately and not damaging anything.  Sometimes we simply need to practice a while before we move on to other levels in our forms.

Which Form Should We Trust?

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Master Moy often said, “Trust the Form.”  Which form?  There’s Tai Chi, Lok Hup, and Hsing-I in the Taoist Arts as well as weapon forms, sitting, standing and sleeping meditation.  There are other forms in the Taoist Arts more subtle in nature.  As I watch my kids learn Tae Kwon-Do, I question what is the form to trust there.  There’s other martial arts and health benefiting activities.  What about those forms?

When I was practicing and teaching within the crucible of the Taoist Tai Chi Society, I didn’t question much.  I took the teachings at face value for the most part and was very diligent in practicing all that I was shown.  Over time, I was able to perform a particular set one way and then an entirely different way.  Now that I’ve been on a sabbatical of sorts focusing on family life, I’m left questioning what form to trust.  When I’ve gone back to class here and there over the last few years, I’ve noticed my form can fit in with the current practice.  There’s some nuances I don’t have with the current instructions touted as “advanced,” but I find I’m able to move just as easily and fall into the rhythm of the current teachings.  This leads me to believe there’s a form underneath of the nuances and different manners by which we can practice and cultivate our art forms.

Maintaining strength, flexibility, openness and health is about learning the form within the different appearances that come and go over a lifetime of practice and cultivating health.  I’m finding the form Mr. Moy was telling us to trust is deeper than the movements and corrections given by this or that instructor.  It’s deeper than the “advanced” instructions and more akin to that first movement as a beginner when we are thrilled to learn, open to all instructions and observations.  That spirit of wanting to learn and trying different things to see what works for our body is a form we can follow throughout our lives.  The form we need to trust is where all parts are moving, connected and open.  It is movement without judgement while grounded to what’s needed in ourselves and within the environment around us.  This form is adaptable to whatever external movement we take part in and bodily changes occurring throughout our lives.  This form connects us with the essence of ourselves and the practice we engage in no matter what it’s appearance or name is.  This form is the expression of who we are in what we do.

Observe the form within the movements and direct yourself from there.
Observe the form within the movements and direct yourself from there.

Self Control

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Self-control is fundamental in martial arts.  Any martial arts class will work on this even if it’s not directly addressed.  Sometimes in classes for 4-8 year olds it is necessary to not only focus on the topic but dedicate exercises that develop it.  One of the exercises used in my son’s class is to stand for a specified time at attention without moving, talking or fidgeting.  It’s amazing how difficult it is for kids to do this and I argue many adults I know as well.

This simple activity or rather lack of activity is a form of meditation.  It uses a standing posture and guidance to help students develop the ability to focus and let go of distractions.  For kids the distractions are over-abundance of energy, itchy noses, noises, and talking to name a few.  It sets the stage for the kids to focus on the instructions that follow.  It gathers their energy which is critical to later stages of learning.

How can we use this simple exercise in our daily activities as adults?  Before entering a room where we have to present to an audience we can stand quietly for a moment or two.  We can stand quietly while waiting in line at the store or the airport.   We can suspend judgement and sit without moving during conversations which helps us listen with intent.   It’s up to us to find opportunities to use what we learn in our martial arts classes.  It’s up to us to exercise our self-control like the muscle it is.

Exercise the opportunities to calm yourself.
Exercise the opportunities to calm yourself.