I've been practicing Tai Chi for nineteen years, having embraced this internal martial art after twelve years of karate, an external martial art.
In a 2021 post, "Internal martial arts have a lot to teach us," I quoted from a book by Ron Sieh:
Typically the martial arts are characterized by how they arrive at power: the external, by muscular effort; the internal, relaxed and effortlessly.
All "karates" are considered external, and most of the Chinese arts, plus Judo, Capoeira, and Kali, are lumped into the external category.
T'ai Chi Ch'uan, Hsing I Ch'uan, and Pa Kua are the Chinese internal arts and of course, Aikido is a Japanese art. There is a flow in the internal arts that is missing from the external ones.
In the external there is a quality of fighting, of pushing against the way things are, to change what is happening to better fit our "plan."
In the internal tradition a more inclusive approach is cultivated, a quality of non-interference, of using your opponents' strengths to your advantage without the struggle to change them.
Glenn, Dustin, Marisa, Eric, and Brian (me) at Pacific Martial Arts Tai Chi seminar
Yesterday Warren Allen, my Tai Chi instructor, offered a three hour seminar for five students who are especially interested in the martial side of Tai Chi, as contrasted with the energetic/exercise side. Warren is well suited to teach both aspects of Tai Chi, having much experience with both internal and external martial arts.
One of the things I like about Tai Chi is its close connection with Taoism. I like the description of Tai Chi as "Taoism in motion." Meaning, Tai Chi embodies the principles of Taoism, including notions like effortless effort and yin/yang transitions as the foundation of movement.
Here's some of the life lessons that were conveyed at the seminar, partly through words and partly through partner exercises.
(1) Doing something with your whole self works best. Obviously we don't always need to use every mental or physical capability at our disposal. Getting a spoon out of a drawer to eat cereal in the morning just requires a simple intention and minor movements of my arm and fingers. But often our core needs to be involved: both our bodily core and our psychological core.
By themselves, my arms are much less strong than my arms connected to my core. Tai Chi encourages whole-body movement, combined with whole-mind movement. That's an ideal, of course, one which I fail to live up to many times each day. However, most people would agree with Tai Chi that when we really need to do something right, putting our whole self into the activity works better than half-hearted action.
(2) Trying too hard makes an action less easy. Throughout life most of us have been told to try harder if we want to succeed. Teachers and coaches praise us for putting in maximum effort. While there can be some value in this, Tai Chi demonstrates that trying too hard interferes with our innate capacity to accomplish what needs doing. Excessive effort leads to tension. Tension makes it more difficult for both our physical muscles and mental abilities to do their job.
This is evident when a relief pitcher enters a must-win baseball game in a tough situation, like the bases loaded with nobody out with the score tied. Frequently I'll hear an announcer critique a relief pitcher with a control problem: "He's trying to aim the ball rather than trust his technique." Yoda said, "Do or do not. There is no try." Good advice.
(3) Rushing is a sign to relax and slow down. We don't spar in a hardstyle martial arts sense in our Tai Chi classes. We do throw punches in a controlled manner, partly to get practice in handling a real world attack and partly to learn how we react to a physical threat.
At the seminar I noticed that when someone punched at my head fairly slowly, I responded more softly and smoothly than when the punch came more rapidly. This is understandable, though undesirable. For actually I had plenty of time to respond, including by stepping back and to the side while guiding the punch past my head.
Often we react to unwelcome events in our life with more speed and tension than is necessary. Slowing down and relaxing will lead to a better outcome. Navy SEALs have a mantra: Slow is smooth, smooth is fast. Easy to say, more difficult to do.
(4) View conflict more as a dance than a battle. It's easy to see battles everywhere we look in life. I do this frequently.
Someone is scrolling away on their smartphone while sitting at a weight machine at our athletic club that's the last exercise I have left to do in my workout. That ticks me off. Someone is driving slowly on the two lane road with few passing lanes that I have to take on my way into town for an appointment that I'm late for. That irks me.
Actually, though, these people aren't out to drive me crazy. I'm doing that to myself. They're simply doing what feels right for them to do. So I'd be better off viewing these sorts of encounters as just a dance between me and someone else, not a battle. Soon we'll be dancing in another fashion with other partners. Maybe we will step on each other's toes, maybe we won't.
Either way, viewing conflict more as a dance than a battle makes a lot of sense. Especially when I'm the only one feeling a conflict, as is the case with the two examples I just offered.
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