Tai Chi Chi Kung

Doing the flow

2011-12-29T14:17:00.000-06:00

When you get the flow right, your Tai Chi is smooth and continuous; just like when you do anything with your whole self, whatever it is that you are doing merges with the flow of life. There is no secret, no hidden trick. Only the ability to truly focus on what you are doing.

The Missouri River flowing past Jefferson City at normal spring flood stage. (buy link)

A lot of water, a lot of power, the flowing river carries everything along with it, discarding bits and pieces here and there. Is that your life? Flowing to a known destination, totally overwhelmed by the power of the flow, scattering bits and pieces of your life along the shore, but living only in the flow? Or do you, once in a while, take control of your flow and go where you want to go?

"When doing philosophy, nothing else is more important, nothing should interrupt exploring the great ideas. Unless, of course, you have to catch a plane."

So said my favorite philosophy professor, William B. Macomber, sometime during the period I studied under him from 1968 to 1973. This is a paraphrase, of course, I don't recall the exact words he used, but the meaning was clear -- if we are engaging our minds totally in the great conversation that is the history of our culture, it takes all of our attention and love if we want to consider what we are doing as love of wisdom. That is how together we create a flow, a cross current, in the great conversation.

"Even a dead fish can go with the flow." Jim Hightower. What kind of flow are we talking about?

What are you doing when you are going with the flow? If the flow is a serious discussion of philosophical questions, you are doing philosophy. Your mind is doing nothing else, and if your mind has a reasonably wide and embracing knowledge of the great works of literature, then the flow will work. The body has only one role in this kind of flow -- to keep you awake and comfortable. Spirit wanders through from time to time like a grace note adorning a great great riff.

Scrubbing the floor
(buy link)

Suppose, however, the flow you are about to get into is washing the dishes. Or scrubbing the floor. Does this mundane task warrant full attention of mind, body and spirit? No, you say, of course not. I can think grand thoughts while scrubbing the floor and lift myself out of the drudgery. Or, I can turn my whole attention to the task and transform drudgery into the glowing pleasure of stepping into and mastering the flow of scrubbing the floor.

"You can't have clothes on when you scrub the floor or you will get stuff all over your clothes. Then your clothes are dirty, and your clothes touch the floor and it's dirty..." This is what the model in this photo told me. (PS She and I would love it if you would buy a print, :-) )

Sometimes being in the flow is in fact the most important thing you can be doing; only what's on the calendar is more important, and even then, sometimes you can poke a piece of yourself out of the flow long enough to cancel that engagement or plane flight. But sometimes, instead of diving in, you let your self be sucked into a flow that is purely physical that you are not part of, but which is nonetheless pulling you along: so, keep your eyes open and your spirit nimble; this particular flow might be headed for some rocks.

Know the flow. Is it your flow or not? If not a flow you are creating, is it a flow that glows for you? Are there rapids and rocks or is it a deep pure flow that will enhance your life?

When doing Tai Chi, there is a flow you are creating that is indeed more important than anything else at that time. However, like many other kinds of flows you can create, this flow works best when the mind, the body and the spirit flow together. That's the goal of Chang San-Feng's 3rd principle of Tai Chi Chuan:

" The form should be smooth with no unevenness, and continuous, allowing no interruptions."

Unlike many other kinds of glowing flows, Tai Chi demands not only full participation of mind, body and spirit, but also demands that alert and nimble attention is paid to the situation you are in. It is a martial art, and if there is an opponent, the flow must include your opponent.

Please note that the key words are smooth and continuous. Nothing is said about speed. We practice and learn slowly, gaining control. Doing this flow fast while retaining the smooth and continuous motion brings a glow that cannot be described in words.

Links:

Another view of Bill Macomber.

Unpublished work: Love and Culture

page 546 in the excerpt here is a review of his book on Heidegger

Published work on Heidegger

Complete text of Chang San-Feng's treatise on Tai Chi Chuan. This one has multiple translations of each principle.

The eyes show it

2011-12-29T00:02:00.000-06:00

When doing Tai Chi Chuan or Chi Kung, the eyes are very important. There is a direct pipeline from the eyes to the monkey who is chattering non-stop in most people's brains most of the time.

Meditation is generally aimed at getting the monkey to shut up. Be honest with yourself: how many times during the day are you doing something with all your attention on what you are doing? Whether it's taking a shower, washing the dishes, creating a new song, writing your blog, whatever it is; I'll bet a dollar to a donut that at least some random thoughts flit by, grabbing your attention for a second.

Closing your eyes will in fact remove a major source of your mind's response to your environment for most people. The monkey hiding in your brain has nothing to see and react to. This works when the body is stationary, as in standing Chi Kung or any of the many other kinds of meditation where the attention is turned inward.

Tai Chi Chuan is an internal martial art, but the attention is not turned inward; the attention is to the entire situation -- both the internal body systems and the environment in which the body is moving. This is a martial art, there is an opponent, there are obstacles to be moved around. You need to not only be totally alert to all you can see, but you also need to be shining bright spirit out of your eyes so that your opponent knows you are not only there, but all there.

(If you are blind, the discussion simply morphs to those senses used by a blind person to navigate in the world. Hearing and touch can set off the monkey brain just as easily as sight.)

In Tai Chi and Chi Kung, we need to learn how to get the monkey to not only shut up, but to actually lend us a hand in doing whatever move it is that we are currently doing.

Initially, while working out a move, it is sometimes very useful to close the eyes, or at least to let the eyes go unfocused and half closed. Once you have the move, though, the eyes should be open, alert, and shinning forth with bright energy.

Composite made from two photos
taken within minutes of each other

At the moment a move ends or begins, when one is positioned securely and in balance, the eyes remain open and seeing, innocently, making no assumptions about what is being seen, only observing and tucking away the information.

The eyes are not focused on any particular thing, but are taking in everything in the field of view. Peripheral vision is the key, relaxing away from the brain's zoom function and staying in a wide angle mode.

Sometimes there is something going on that will pull the eyes, and the sense of wonder at what's being seen relaxes the body and allows that calm and alert gaze. But in Tai Chi we cannot forget or disregard what our body is doing while we gaze at something awe-inspiring.

In life, though, it is very healthy to sometimes leave the body to fare for itself while putting all attention on something that is interesting enough to warrant giving it all attention.

Sitting on the grass watching a thunderstorm come in is a wonderful way to practice shutting up the monkey brain. I think you can see how both mother and daughter are totally entranced by the cloud movement the afternoon I took this photo. Knowing what it feels like when the monkey brain is not chattering away is the first step to achieving that state while doing Tai Chi or Chi Kung.

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Attention = love or hate.
All of your attention directed at someone, something or even some idea means you love or hate it. This will not always be obvious to an outside observer, but if you remain honest with yourself, you must recognize it and embrace it or let it go.

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When you give your full attention to someone, something or some idea, you should feel pleasure and joy. If you do not, there is most likely a failure to unify mind, body, and spirit.

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Failure to unify mind, body, and spirit can occur through illness or injury; but it is still possible to adapt the attention so that you are bringing about some degree of unity, and this will help heal the illness or injury or at least make it possible to feel joy. Appropriate drugs will help also.

Tai Chi Sword: Poem for opening move

2011-12-15T22:10:00.000-06:00

In 1990 or so, I learned my first sword form. Using the sword or other weapon to do Tai Chi is both easier and harder than bare hand Tai Chi Chuan. It is easier because there is something external to focus on; and it's harder because there is something external to focus on.

Your focus has to be everywhere and nowhere at the same time: when in a duel, as in fencing (or boxing, a sport I am simply to small for), you don't look at your opponent's eyes, or his weapon or any one single thing. You need to focus on a total picture of the situation.

Modified sword form, 2010

Of course, in solo practice, in dance, there is not even an opponent to distract from the focus so the total picture of the situation is just you. Unless you are using a sword (or a flute, or whatever). Then it becomes more like a duel and your opponent is that external object you are handling. But now the total picture is of a situation in which you and your beloved are dancing.

This is a poem I wrote in 1996 after coming close to getting the sword from I'd initially learned pretty close to nailed.

The Opening Move

by Brandon C. Smith

  Tip pointed and sharp, like the peak
  Of a mountain, a triangle
  Razor sharp resting at the top;
  Straight and plumb, from the mound like earth,
  A path for energy, receiving
  From below, creating above.

  Foot flat in the ground like the root
  Of a tree gaining strength from earth,
  Pushing life force up to the waist,
  Power centered round and round
  Ready to flow and fly, lightly,
  As on a cloud, sure and direct.

  Peak gently vibrating, dipping
  Down, up and sweeping down across
  Enemy ankles, perhaps, stop
  Only seen if knowing, and then
  Up, pierce a cloud, open a path,
  Guard the head, ready, poised on high.

  Forward, no, circle back, around,
  Down, up, resting like a moth flat
  Focus in the middle, ready,
  But need another sweep, from the
  Wrist, quickly, add energy there;
  So; tip cuts at wrist, edge protects.

  Stepping forward, backward, always
  This foot or that foot, never both;
  Sometimes a jump, usually a place,
  Always precise, control from waist
  By mind awake, alert, exact,
  Continuous, water and wind.

  Eyes follow dainty deadly tip
  Up, behind, down, swishing, stop,
  so quick, so accurate, darting
  In, placed here or there exactly;
  And moving again, united
  Flowing, connected, moving on.

copyright 1996, Brandon C. Smith

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the background image is a five minute exposure of myself doing a complete sword from using a sword with colored lights attached to it.

Sword form with lights

Expressing emotion

2011-12-14T21:21:00.000-06:00

Most of you have probably gotten the impression that expressing emotion while doing Tai Chi is bad. I certainly thought that way for the first 10 or so years I was learning it. My first teacher told us to half close our eyes and kinda zone out, trying not to feel or think anything. Years later, a true tai chi master, Peter Moi, one time berated us for looking like zombies. "I want to see the spirit flashing out of your eyes, alive and full of energy." is paraphrasing what he said.

Playful woods Nymph

And recently Arthur Du (see note at bottom) told us "You should be enjoying every move as if you were sipping the finest tea." And while he said this his face was lit with joy. When he does the form, the joy is still there, though not exaggerated the way he did when explaining it.

There's a reason why people who do Tai Chi Chuan a lot often call it "play." Yes, learning it is work, sometimes very hard work. But ultimately, when you begin to get it, it becomes play.

It does remain true that you need to still the monkey brain, to not be thinking about anything other than doing the form. But eventually, perhaps, you can play Tai Chi with the same inner joy Kaycee shows in this photograph where she is enjoying being in the woods and playing around the tree. This is an internal joy, happiness inside caused by her body doing what she wants it to do. This is an emotion expressed because of the movement, not a movement expressing an emotion

There are many kinds of emotions, and many ways to express emotion. The one we hope to find when doing Tai Chi is very similar to the emotion one feels when one performs their art and knows they have nailed it perfectly. It would certainly be possible to go through the motions of Tai Chi Chuan feeling some other emotion, anger or sadness, for example. And I suspect that there would still be some benefit to your overall health regardless of the emotion as long as the movement, timing and breathing were more or less correct.

One does hear athletes in the martial arts sometimes talk about sublimating anger into totally controlled action. Peter Westbrook competed in 5 Olympics and wrote a book called "Harnessing Anger". He was raised on some pretty mean streets in New York and New Jersey and he understood anger. But on the strip, in competition, he uses the energy from that anger and turns it into skill, speed, and agility. The wikipedia article quotes from his book:

My touches appear to me to be so skillful, so beautiful, that I say to myself, ‘I think I’m in the Zone, but I’m not sure. Let me not think about it….’. Soon enough, as soon as the thought crosses my mind, the Frenchman gets two points on me.

You know when you are doing the moves just exactly right, whether it is fencing, tai chi, singing or any other kind of performance art. But if you let your mind think about it, poof, you drop out of the zone.

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Note: The link on Arthur Du is to a Chinese website. If you open it in the google browser, Chrome, it will tell you that it is in Chinese and will offer a translation, such as it is. This particular link is to a letter from him back to the Jiangsu Provincial Anti-ageing Association Martial Arts Research Committee he is associated with. There is also a video there of him leading an opening ceremony. This is a video of him doing the first part of the 42 form in Peace Park in Columbia, Missouri. Columbia Tai Chi lists the classes he is teaching while he is here.

Inch pebbles

2011-12-10T09:42:00.000-06:00

Progress in any art form can be measured in milestones, a phrase that refers to our progress along the road to learning our art. One of the first milestones in any journey to perfection is mastery of the basic skills. Tuning your ax is one of the early milestones for any musician as well as any martial artist. Whether you ax is your body, your voice, or some physical object you work with, you have to become proficient in handling it.

Every move in Tai chi, like every note in a song, has its own set of milestones, but they are more like inch pebbles, our progress slowed to the point where it sometimes seems like we'll never get it.

Working through the pebbles of our art, one inch at a time:
move the hand to just this position over the foot; or
push the breath from the belly and hold the mouth just so.

Whether you want to complete a Tai Chi transition perfectly or hit that sweet note right on, it takes many many repetitions before it feels good, feels right, and maybe even is right.

Whether it is a Tai Chi form or a song, when you do get it right, when it works, your body will tell you, there will be an endorphin rush, it will feel incredibly good. And if it's really right on, your soul will resonate, too. Your mind might not agree, but that might also be monkey chatter. On the other hand, if you've managed to put in place the right mental filters, you will know whether it is monkey chatter or not.

What you are wearing and what's going on around you is essentially irrelevant to your doing your thing to perfection. However, if you are doing your thing as a performance, then there is a performance aspect to it that the mind must pay attention to; the mind must work with the body and soul when the external situation demands it. An uneven floor causing a stumble -- convert it to another move and stay on track, following the inch pebbles in their new path.

All parts move together

2011-11-08T19:12:00.000-06:00


Light Dancer Lauralee at black lit dance event:

While the world stands still, the Tai Chi player tastes the joy of movement in the moment, free, yet totally in control.

Once you begin a move, all parts of the body are in motion, and all parts reach their final position at the same moment, even though the parts travel different paths at different speeds.

In Tai Chi Chuan, all parts includes conscious awareness of both the internal as well as the external body systems.

It is enough to simply move the arms and legs in the pattern required; for if this is done reasonably correctly along with the correct weight shifts and waist turns, the movement will bring joy to the body, and perhaps also to the soul and the spirit.

If the player further begins to sense and control the internal systems, that much more joy will arise from the bubbling well points and spread throughout the body.

We are performing the move not so much for it's intended martial art application as for our being able to savor and enjoy the totality and completeness of our interaction with our own body.

How fast is slow

2011-09-11T22:31:00.000-05:00

At first you will want to move slowly, working at getting your legs, arms, and weight distribution coordinated. Later, in some families of Tai Chi, you will move much quicker, once you have the coordination mastered. In Chi Kung, on the other hand, the speed at which you get into and out of a posture varies more by what kind of thing you expect to get from that particular energy work. Some things require rapid movement, some barely perceptible movement.

Much later, you can go even slower, making sure all aspects of your energy are working together as you move through the form. Now we begin to bring in additional things to coordinate: things like your eyes, refinements in your posture, analysis of the muscle activity, and refinements in your movements are just some examples.

So that, when you move your mind and body into a posture, it is full of energy, vibrant and alert, yet also totally relaxed. With Tai Chi Staff, for example, a thrust or strike is amplified by the amount of energy vibrating within yourself and transmitted through the staff.

When both ends of the staff are on fire, as in this photograph, the energy in the staff is quite likely taking over the movement. And in fact, this long exposure includes the staff dancer dropping the staff, making the feet in the fiery figure that dominates the image. The dancer quickly recovers and our image includes the additional moves of the fire. Most fire dancers surrender a part of their energy to the fire, but the best ones remain in control and move at the appropriate speed for their intended dance.

When you move too quickly, as when you drop your flaming staff, the results may look very good to the eye of the beholder. Moving slowly is not a requirement in either Tai Chi or Chi Kung, but if you move too fast, it is much more likely that you will miss something, that you will not be full of energy, vibrant and alert and totally relaxed.

when doing Tai Chi, one does only Tai chi

2011-09-11T11:59:00.000-05:00

"When doing Tai Chi, one does only Tai chi." is not a quote from any of the classical works I've looked at in translation, but that message is there throughout the corpus. What else are you doing when you try to do Tai Chi? For most people, most of the time, you are thinking about something else, you are letting your body take over some of the movements and you have only a vague notion of why you are doing it.

Doing Tai Chi occurs at thee levels: mental, physical, and spiritual.

The mental is both the easiest to understand and the hardest to do. It is simply shutting off the chatter running around the brain. The chatter for most of us is in the form of words -- usually short phrases like "don't forget to get some milk". But sometimes it is memories or fantasies of sensations of visual, audio, tactile or some other sense. Some of the chatter is internally generated, while some is in response to an external event, such as a fire truck roaring by outside with sirens blaring.


Mind focused on pose, body focused on pose

This chatter interferes with the mind attempting to focus on the doing of the form. The mind needs to be actively aware of position and movement of all parts of the body. When a snippet of chatter blunders into one of the strands of the mental web that is doing Tai Chi, what can happen is that that strand breaks, the mental control over that piece of the web is lost. But we are very resilient and resourceful beings. So we substitute automated physical movement for that strand while we examine the chatter that has stolen our attention.

Automated physical movement is not doing Tai Chi. What makes movement automated? Basically it's when the brain gives a high level order to the body, such as "get up and walk to door." The mind is 99.9% occupied with thoughts about something else entirely while the body gets up and and goes to the door.

The physical level of Tai Chi is keeping movement from becoming automatic. It is moving the body in precisely the way intended, being consciously aware of the web of mental physical connections.

In the photograph, Kari intends to become stationary while the edges of the crowd at the free rock concert on 9th street swirls around her. Her intention here is to create art in partnership with me and my camera, nothing more, nothing less. When the intention of a person is pure and without overtones of emotion and sensation, the movement or pose becomes that much better. What she intended to do very closely matched her intention in doing it, and by the same token, what I intended to do with the camera closely matched my intention in making the photograph.

There is the intended movement and there is the intention of the movement. The intended move is a mental/physical action. The intention of the move is a spiritual matter. A move done without any intention is only a move; a move with intention brings that move into the entire series of moves as a complete and harmonious performance of the work.

What intention is Tai Chi done with? "Tai Chi" by itself is purely an adjective or adverbial phrase -- the intention is given by the noun associated with Tai Chi, as in Tai Chi Chuan, Tai Chi Sword, Staff, push hands, and so forth. These examples are all based on the idea that we are talking about a martial art, where there is a contest between two people.

Is your intention a fair fight? Or is it win at all costs? Or is it, as in this photo, purely to create a moment of movement in stillness, with balanced mind, body and spiritual dimensions?

The stillness of movemet

2011-09-02T22:56:00.000-05:00

In meditation, the goal is usually to still the body as much as possible so that it is easier to still the mind. But in stillness, at least for a warrior, there must be motion: Working the lung muscles by breathing, for example. In Tai Chi Chuan, there needs to be just the right touch of control over automatic body systems. After all, we are in movement, and there are a few thousand other muscles that need more guidance than the lung muscles.

Even in stillness, the warrior is ready to move. The muscle system is relaxed, but not flaccid. You can tell when someone is in this state of stillness full of energy. There's an extra bit of tone to the muscles, the arrangement of the body shows an alertness. We don't always know what we are seeing, but when someone has this, it always adds to their presence even in a photograph.

My friend, Moon, who had been posing with various kinds of swords, including both the Tai Chi Scholar Sword and the Broadsword or Sabre. After a break, I thought maybe try something else. I found this transparent black cloth and held it up. She took it, turned it over, ran it through her fingers and across her back. Her eyes lit up suddenly and she said, "I know what to do with this!" Whereupon she threw it over her head and got into the pose you see here. She took a couple of minutes of physical adjustments until she was happy with her body position, told me she was ready and then she "froze" for the photograph.
But she did not freeze in the sense of going stiff and unmoving. Her other systems, blood, muscle, bone, and so forth are in healthy movement. You can see she is not stiff or straining, but you can also see she is ready to move at a moment's notice.

In the stillness of Tai Chi Chuan, we have the same thing: physical body still, but the chi system in motion. But wait, you say, isn't Tai Chi Chuan all about one continuous movement, with no breaks, in other words, never still at all. Yes, that is true, but also true is that we know a form by knowing the sequence of poses the make up that particular form. Each pose begins and ends in a moment of stillness.

When the pose is done right, when the body is perfectly balanced and still, the body's systems, including the chi system, are free to circulate at their maximum power or efficiency.

"How long is that moment?" I asked my teacher. "Long enough." is what Peter Moi said.

In practical terms, I now think, this means that as your continuous movement reaches that point, at that moment you are in physical balance, rooted, and your chi is vibrating.

Tai Chu Chuan: the 24 form form

2008-03-06T21:08:00.000-06:00

A couple of different ways of naming the moves in the form known as the 24, or the Beijing form:

Opening
1. Part wild horses mane, 3 times
2. Stork spreads wings
3. Brush Knee, 3 times
4. Play guitar
5. Repulse monkey, 4 times (upper arm rolling)
6. Grasp Sparrow's tail, left (pulling peacock tail)
Ward off
glancing upwards
press
push
7. Grasp Sparrow's tail, right
8. Single Whip
9. Wave hands like clouds, 3 times
10. Single Whip
11. High pat on the horse (reining the horse)
12. Kick to the right
13. Twin peaks (Temple strike)
14. Turn and kick with sole
15. Snake creeps down left
16. Golden cock stands on left leg
17. Snake creeps down right
18. Golden cock stands on right leg
19. Fair maiden weaves shuttle right
20. Fair maiden weaves shuttle left
21. Get needle at sea bottom
22. Fan through the back
23. Pull out fist and strike down
24. Parry, punch, and push
Close

Slightly different way of talking about the same form.

Section 1
Form 1 Commencing Form
Form 2 Part Wild Horse's Mane on Both Sides
Form 3 White Crane Flashes Its Wings

Section 2
Form 4 Brush Knee on Both Sides
Form 5 Strum the Lute
Form 6 Curve Back Arms on Both Sides

Section 3
Form 7 Grasp the Bird's Tail--Left Style
Form 8 Grasp the Bird's Tail--Right Style

Section 4
Form 9 Single Whip
Form 10 Wave Hands Like Clouds-Left Style
Form 11 Single Whip

Section 5
Form 12 High Pat on Horse
Form 13 Kick with Right Heel
Form 14 Strike Opponent's Ears with Both Fists
Form 15 Turn and Kick with Left Heel

Section 6
Form 16 Push Down and Stand on One Leg--Left Style
Form 17 Push Down and Stand on One Leg--Right Style

Section 7
Form 18 Work at Shuttles on Both Sides
Form 19 Needle at Sea Bottom
Form 20 Flash Arm

Section 8
Form 21 Turn to Deflect Downward, Parry and Punch
Form 22 Apparent Close-up
Form 23 Cross Hands
Form 24 Closing Form