HinesSight

Why I enjoy Tai Chi as a martial art

Tai Chi is viewed by most people as merely a gentle form of exercise. Which, it certainly is. But there's another side to Tai Chi -- the martial art aspect. 

I'm familiar with Tai Chi as a martial art because I'm fortunate to have an instructor here in Salem, Oregon who is highly adept at self-defense applications of Tai Chi moves.

Warren Allen came to Tai Chi after a lot of experience in hard style martial arts. So he is able to recognize how Tai Chi can be a soft style martial art like aikido, as contrasted with hard style martial arts like karate.

The Japanese Martial Arts Center has a good definition of hard and soft styles, which basically coincide with external and internal martial arts.

Hard Martial Arts

Hard martial arts are usually synonymous with external martial arts because both focus on physical power. When practicing a hard art, you meet an attack with a forceful opposing attack. Hard arts rely on overpowering the opponent, not just with strength, but also with timing, distance, and angles. That’s true whether you’re engaging in offense, defense, or a combination of both. When you’re sparring in karate and hit your opponent harder than they just hit you, that’s an example of a hard art.

Soft Martial Arts

Soft martial arts are often based on the concept of blending with an opponent’s attack. When you’re attacked, you don’t meet the attack with a block. Instead, you move with it to escape or to improve your position. To win against your attacker, you subdue them before they can attack again. To do this at a high level requires relaxation and a calm perception, qualities that are emphasized in internal martial arts.

I also started my martial arts training in a hard style, Shotokan Karate. After nine years of Shotokan, I started to train in a more eclectic form of karate with Allen at his Pacific Martial Arts studio.

So I have about 12 years of experience with karate, and about 19 years of experience with Tai Chi, which I started learning in 2004 with Allen and have pursued ever since.

Today I took part in a three-hour seminar taught by Allen. Along with four other students, we explored Tai Chi as a soft martial art. All of us had a lot of Tai Chi training.

And all of us found the seminar challenging at times. That's because it is much easier to meet force with force than to respond to force with the above-mentioned blending with an opponent's attack that's the hallmark of soft martial arts.

This is one reason why soft martial arts like Tai Chi are termed "internal." Obviously there is an internal side to karate, just as there's an external side to Tai Chi. It's just a matter of degree. 

If someone attacks us, either physically or verbally, the natural initial reaction of most people, me certainly included, is to respond in kind. Thus karate training is more in line with our usual inclination: if a punch is thrown at our head, we deal with it via an equal or greater physical response.

But with Tai Chi as a martial art, the goal is to blend with the force of an attack to defuse and deflect it as smoothly and effortlessly as possible. 

I find this highly fascinating, intriguing, and, for sure, difficult. I've gotten fairly good at it, though I have to constantly keep in check my usual inclination to match force with force -- again, whether or not the attack is physical or verbal.

And life itself "attacks" all of us regularly, since problems with our health, work, home, relationships, and other areas need to be dealt with. We can't ignore these problems, but sometimes we react to them with more anxious force than is necessary, rather than handling them as gracefully as possible, seeing them not as a malevolent invading army but as troublesome guests deserving of gentle correction.

For me this is why I enjoy Tai Chi so much. It's essentially Taoism in motion, and I've loved Taoist teachings long before I started to learn Tai Chi. 

I have various translations of the Tao Te Ching. The 1972 translation by Gia-Fu Feng and Jane English that I've had since my college days still is my favorite, maybe because it is so familiar to me. Here's a couple of passages that relate to Tai Chi as a martial art.

Yield and overcome;
Bend and be straight;
Empty and be full;
Wear out and be new;
Have little and gain;
Have much and be confused.

The softest thing in the universe
Overcomes the hardest thing in the universe.
That without substance can enter where there is no room.
Hence I know the value of non-action.
Teaching without words and work without doing
Are understood by very few.

Well, I've been trying to understand the Tao Te Ching for most of my life. I'm not sure if I'm any closer to that understanding than I was more than fifty years ago.

But I sure enjoy the searching for Taoist truth. And that's a big reason why I enjoy Tai Chi so much, both in its non-martial and martial forms.

Maskless indoor Tai Chi class today after long Covid layoff

Last week Warren Allen, my Tai Chi instructor, said that today he was going to start having indoor classes again at his Pacific Martial Arts studio on Court Street in downtown Salem.

I was worried, happy, reluctant, and eager. Which is fitting I guess, since Tai Chi is all about blending yin and yang in a harmonious combination of seeming opposites. 

My feelings were natural given how long it had been since I'd been maskless indoors with people other than my wife. About fifteen months, I guess. 

A Voice of America story, "Many Americans Anxious About Returning to 'Normal' After Pandemic" talked about this.

According to a survey by the American Psychological Association, about half of adults are uncomfortable about returning to in-person interactions after the pandemic. Their concerns range from getting COVID-19 to communicating with friends, family and co-workers again.

"Some people will feel paralyzing anxiety about resuming their normal activities after being in a fear mode for more than a year," McBride said. Even when the threat is gone and they've been vaccinated, it is going to take time for them to be comfortable reentering society after the pandemic, she said.

For sure. 

But I figured that going to a Tai Chi class was a great way to begin transitioning into normal post-Covid life. Naturally I trusted that all of my maskless classmates had been vaccinated.

And Warren had said that we wouldn't be doing any "push hands" training for a while requiring person-to-person contact. 

So I felt pretty darn relaxed as I headed up the stairs to the Tai Chi studio above the Court Street Dairy Lunch restaurant, clutching a bag of treats that I'd gotten from Great Harvest to celebrate our return to indoor classes. 

There were just six of us at the kick-off class this afternoon -- which, cosmic coincidence, happened to be the exact number of scones, muffins, and such that I'd bought.

Maybe because we all knew each other so well, it seemed like hardly any time had passed since we'd last done Tai Chi together indoors. (There'd been a few outdoor Riverfront Park classes.)

I'd been doing some Tai Chi every day at home during the pandemic. But that's a lot different from practicing Tai Chi with others. We were a bit rusty, yet not hugely so. I've been Tai Chi'ing since 2004, seventeen years, so the forms are embedded in my mind quite well now.

Talking with my classmates felt wonderfully normal. Covid has isolated us. I'm ready to start being more social again, so long as I'm socializing with other vaccinated people. 

Being retired, and living in a rural area, I'd fallen into a basic habitual pattern of daily activities.

Wake up; eat breakfast; read and meditate; take shower; exercise (Tai Chi, resistance band "weight training"); lunch; chores; dog walk; more stretches and exercising while watching political program on TV; dinner; write blog post; bath; watch entertaining TV; sleep.

Most days weren't exactly this way, of course.

However, during the Covid times I'd become accustomed to a life rhythm that didn't involve many face-to-face interactions with other people. While it wasn't like solitary confinement, it also wasn't unlike it -- if my wife and dog are included in "solitary."

This helps explain why I had some anxiety about our indoor Tai Chi classes starting again. New rhythm, though with familiar people. Pleasingly, I enjoyed the first Tai Chi class so much, Covid anxiety has vanished from my mind.

I'll still be wearing a mask when I go grocery shopping tomorrow. But likely even that will seem like something that is coming to an end. Or at least, the beginning of the end.

(I wanted to include a Tai Chi photo in this post, yet forgot to take one of my classmates today. So here's a screenshot from a video of me doing the Tai Chi sword form on our deck back in 2008 when I was so much younger. And just as gray.)

Here I am, doing the Compact Tai Chi form in a video

Having trouble falling asleep? Too worked up over present-day politics? Tired of cute cat/dog videos on You Tube?

Here's the answer to your problems -- a decidedly low-key and almost silent video of me doing the Compact form that we've been learning in my Tai Chi class.

This is how I introduced the video in a post on my Church of the Churchless blog.

As the title of a book says, Feel the fear and do it anyway. So I'm taking that advice and sharing a video I made today of me doing a Tai Chi form.

Watching the video was fear-inducing, or at least anxiety-inducing, because I do my best to avoid looking at myself in the lengthy mirror that's on one wall of the room where I've been taking Tai Chi classes.

But since we've been learning the Compact form -- which lives up to its name by not requiring much space to do it in -- I figured it would be a good opportunity to stick my iPhone on a tripod and make a "selfie video."

Maybe this will turn out to be a shortcut to ego-loss and consequent enlightenment, because I found it interesting (and somewhat disturbing) that how I've been visualizing myself doing the Compact form from the inside of my head is rather different from how my iPhone video shows me.

Which is typical, of course. Our self-image may not bear a lot of resemblance to how others see us. 

Anyway, I'm glad that I made the video. After watching my first video attempt, I changed some things in the next attempt. Slowed down some. Corrected a few moves that I got wrong the first time around.

Tai Chi, of course, is founded on Taoist principles such as yin and yang. This is one reason I enjoy Tai Chi so much. It's got a built-in philosophical foundation. But that makes it much more subtle than the hard style (karate, basically) martial arts training I did before Tai Chi.

Yin and yang, soft and hard, alternate throughout a Tai Chi form. This is easier to feel than to see. And it helps explain why, even after 15 years of taking classes three times a week, I still consider myself to be a semi-beginner in Tai Chi. Again, the moves in Tai Chi possess way more subtlety than, say, a karate punch or kick.

And they're performed at a slower pace, which magnifies missteps, stumbles, and such.

I should note that my instructor, Warren Allen, emphasizes the martial/self-defense aspect of Tai Chi to a much greater extent than most Tai Chi teachers, given his extensive background in hard style martial arts before he embraced Tai Chi.

if this video looks less flowing and soft than you'd expect Tai Chi to appear, that's one reason. Another reason is that I have a long ways to go before I'll feel that I've begun to master Tai Chi.

Heck, I'm only 71, a youngster in comparison to the 80 and 90 year-olds who are venerated in the Tai Chi world. (And they started learning Tai Chi at a much earlier age than I did.)

Tai Chi actually is good for self-defense (just not against MMA fighters)

Recently TIME magazine had a story about how a Chinese MMA (mixed martial arts) fighter, Xu Xiaodong, beat up Wei Lei, a Kung Fu master in the discipline of Tai Chi, in about 10 seconds. 

It doesn't take long to watch the thoroughly one-sided fight. Reading the story, "Meet the Chinese MMA Fighter Taking on the Grandmasters of Kung Fu," will require a lot more time.

Nonetheless, about eleven years ago I wrote a blog post that I still stand by, "Tai Chi as a kick-ass martial art." I wrote that post after I'd been studying Tai Chi for three years, which followed thirteen years of hard-style (karate, mostly) martial arts experience. 

Now, with around fourteen years of Tai Chi to base my opinion on, I'm even more convinced that this internal martial art has a lot to offer self-defense wise.

My Tai Chi instructor, Warren Allen of Pacific Martial Arts, has much more experience than I do in both hard-style and soft-style martial arts. In class we never do full-on sparring, but I've seen enough real-world examples of Tai Chi self-defense techniques (and practiced them myself) to realize that they are indeed practical techniques.

Just not against a MMA fighter. And maybe not against a skilled martial artist in some other style, given that success in a fight depends on much more than knowledge of classroom techniques.

My first karate instructor liked to say, "If you have to take a bet on who will win a bar fight -- a 2nd degree Shotokan karate black belt, or a Marine who's just drunk a six-pack of beer, put your money on the Marine." Why? Because the Marine will do whatever it takes to win a fight. And he's used to getting hit.

Along that line, I found a video that my Tai Chi instructor told us about -- a tough as nails Shaolin monk who does pretty damn well against kick boxers, who, admittedly, aren't as dangerous as MMA fighters. The monk takes punches like they're marshmallows. 

He uses kickboxing techniques, which don't look like traditional Kung Fu, and even less like Tai Chi. But in an actual fight, on the street or somewhere else, every sort of technique is going to look a lot more messy than it does when being practiced in a classroom.

This is the point of someone who made a right-on video, "Tai Chi - Scam or deadly fighting art?"

The speaker says that he's trained people in both Tai Chi and MMA fighting, so he knows what he's talking about. A basic message is that if you aren't training in real-world applications of Tai Chi moves, which should include freestyle sparring, you're not going to fare very well in an actual fight.

Lastly, this video does a good job of showing how a few simple Tai Chi moves can be effective in the sort of encounter that people should worry about most: someone attacks you who isn't highly skilled, just belligerent and/or drunk. The confident relaxation Tai Chi teaches will come in handy in that sort of situation.

 

Tai Chi philosophy: Dissolve and try something different

I've been learning Tai Chi for fourteen years. One of the things I love about Tai Chi is that it is Taoism in motion. Meaning, Tai Chi embodies Taoist (or Daoist) philosophy. 

I can't think of any other form of movement -- dance, sport, whatever -- that similarly has deep philosophical principles reflected in it.

Yin and yang, of course, are central concepts in Tai Chi.

Softness (yin) and hardness (yang) alternate in the flowing movements. Of course, what passes for "hard" in Tai Chi is much softer than in other martial arts, so the "soft" is really soft.  

Recently my instructor, Warren Allen, came up with a saying that really appealed to me.

Dissolve and try something different. 

He illustrated it by showing how a forceful punch can be gently deflected, or absorbed, until it loses its punchiness. In other words, the force of the punch will dissolve when the impetus behind it is exhausted. 

Ditto with a kick, or any other form of attack.

But dissolving applies both ways. The Tai Chi practitioner also dissolves by not meeting force with force, but force with emptiness. 

In contrast to hard martial art styles such as traditional karate (which I studied for about 12 years before taking up Tai Chi), Tai Chi aims at accepting what is directed at oneself with little attempt to change it. 

This is considerably more difficult that forcefully responding in kind to an attack, such as by delivering a punishing block to a punch or kick.

Dissolving, of course, has both psychological and physical sides to it. It is almost impossible to move physically in a truly relaxed fashion if one's mind is tense. So Dissolve and try something different is wonderfully appropriate for many sorts of situations. 

The "try something different" part follows a relaxed, soft, embracing acceptance of what could be a difficult situation. Instead of fighting the situation right off the bat, the Tai Chi approach is to first accept it without resistance. 

Then, with the energy of the situation reduced, if not dissolved completely, it is easier to see what the best response might be. For example, if someone is angry with you, listening calmly to their ranting and raving is better than yelling back. 

Their anger can't be sustained for long. When it subsides, which is facilitated by your not responding in kind, the potential to try something different arises.

Ask some questions. Suggest ways to move forward amicably. Apologize if this is called for. Whatever comes to mind.

I'm not saying that I can do this well.

But Tai Chi has given me a model, an approach, an attitude toward dealing with conflict that is something I can keep in mind when I'm tempted to meet force with force, or feel overwhelmed by a negative situation that  seems to demand an energetic response, but which really would turn out better if I took a softer approach. 

Tai Chi, me, and senior citizen longboarding

So far I've spent about two hours on my recently acquired longboard skateboard.

Given how few 63 year old guys (and even fewer gals, likely) spend any time on a skateboard, I figure this makes me a skateboard sage -- mostly by virtue of lack of competition for the title.

My skills are limited. But my venerable sagely wisdom is not, in my own mind at least.

So if you're still awake after viewing this video of my most recent longboarding practice session, read on below it for some insights I've gotten into how my Tai Chi will relate to my skateboarding.

 

In today's Tai Chi class, we engaged in a "push me-pull you" sort of exercise.

Paired with another guy, he and I grasped each other's upper arms, then pushed and pulled our way around the floor, trying to maintain our balance/root in the face of unpredictable physical movement. The key, my instructor pointed out to me, was keeping my core, the center of my body, the place from which movement was controlled.

Same with longboarding, I'm starting to understand. I have to be centered on the board in order to make it go where I want it. A few times I've gotten a glimpse of how a simple mental intention is all that's needed to guide my longboard turns.

Beautiful.

I'm beginning to get a vision of how Tai Chi and longboard skateboarding are intimately related, as is any movement art/sport and Tai Chi. Dance, soccer, skiing, golf, tennis -- these activities and so many more all involve relaxed, focused, committed, centered body/mind control which ideally ends up becoming magical flow. 

What's unique about longboarding, and what it has in common with surfing and snowboarding, is that your mind/body center is resting upon a moving platform. So it's sort of like doing Tai Chi on a floor that's continually twisting and turning.

(My longboard is rigid front to back, while others have more flex; but all longboards/skateboards pivot from side to side; that's how turning occurs.)

In my skiing days, where I was a middling intermediate, I recall a moment of clarity. I was perched on top of a slope that struck me as being too steep for me to ski down with any degree of certitude that I wouldn't wipe out before reaching the bottom. 

I'd cautiously snowplowed down similar slopes before, anxiously worrying all the way. This time, something snapped in me. I said "Fuck it." I dove down the slope as if I owned it. I was tired of skiing under control.

What I discovered was... trying to stay under control had been preventing me from being in control. The looser and more relaxed I was, the better I skied. Committing wholeheartedly to turns felt a lot more stable than weenie'ly trying to slow myself down via V-shaped snowplowing.

This is a central tenet of Tai Chi: move with your whole body, with your whole mind. Applies to skateboarding just as much.

However, as noted above I'm definitely aware that on my longboard, the "ground" on which I rest is moving. And the real ground (asphalt, usually) beneath that is damn hard. When practicing Tai Chi I've never had the floor disappear from under me. On my longboard, I have.

(Which is why I wear gloves, knee pads, elbow pads. And when I start riding on the street, a helmet.)

Anyway, I'm looking forward to becoming a Senior Citizen Skateboard Tai Chi Sage. Like I said, the sagely competition is pretty minimal. 

Best self-defense technique: run away!

After more than twenty years of martial arts training, I can confidently say that I've learned some highly effective self-defense techniques. 

My favorite: run away from trouble. Second best: walk away from trouble. Third choice: defuse trouble from where you are.

These approaches, of course, aren't what most people are looking for when they join a martial arts class. Punching, kicking, grappling, throwing, submission holds -- that's what sells in the worlds of karate, aikido, judo, tae kwon do, jui-jitsu, boxing, and such.

What's most effective, though, in the real world?

Not the dojo (training hall), boxing ring, wrestling mat, or wherever, but the parking lot, sidewalk, bar, walking path, or other locations where ordinary people are most likely to get into a confrontation with somebody who could do them harm.

Sam Harris, he of "The End of Faith" fame, has quite a bit of martial arts experience. On his web site, Harris has posted some interesting articles. The Truth About Violence discusses three principles of self-defense that make a lot of sense.

Principle #1: Avoid dangerous people and dangerous places.

The primary goal of self-defense is to avoid becoming the victim of violence. The best way to do this is to not be where violence is likely to occur. Of course, that’s not always possible—but without question, it is your first and best line of defense. If you visit dangerous neighborhoods at night, or hike alone and unarmed on trails near a big city, or frequent places where drunken young men gather, you are running some obvious risks. 

...Principle #2: Do not defend your property.

Whatever your training, you should view any invitation to violence as an opportunity to die—or to be sent to prison for killing another human being. Violence must truly be the last resort. Thus, if someone sticks a gun in your face and demands your wallet, you should hand it over without hesitation—and run. 

If you look out your kitchen window and see a group of youths destroying your car, you should remain inside and call the police. It doesn’t matter if you happen to be a Navy Seal who keeps a loaded shotgun by the front door.

...Principle #3: Respond immediately and escape.

If you have principles 1 and 2 firmly installed in your brain, any violence that finds you is, by definition, unavoidable. There is a tremendous power in knowing this: When you find yourself without other options, you are free to respond with full commitment. 

This is the core principle of self-defense: Do whatever you can to avoid a physical confrontation, but the moment avoidance fails, attack explosively for the purposes of escape—not to mete out justice, or to teach a bully a lesson, or to apprehend a criminal. Your goal is to get away with minimum trauma (to you), while harming your attacker in any way that seems necessary to ensure your escape.⁠

Notice: no mention of dramatic fighting techniques.

Not even Brazilian jui-jitsu is going to do you much good if you're attacked by more than one person and end up doing your submission hold thing on the ground while the guy's buddys hit you over the head with a baseball bat, then steal your wallet.

(See Harris' favorable, yet cautionary, take on jui-jitsu here.)

This is one reason why I've come to enjoy Tai Chi so much. After thirteen years of "hard style" martial arts training, I switched to Tai Chi about seven years ago. No regrets. Tai Chi can be a kick-ass martial art, or a great way to promote health through body-friendly graceful movement.

The flowing and circular moves of Tai Chi resonate wonderfully with Sam Harris' third principle: respond immediately and escape. In a Tai Chi class students learn how to meet aggressive force with receptive emptiness, deflecting and defusing an attack by moving flexibly with an opponent's energy.

Push away, then head in the opposite direction. Throw off balance, then run. Pull past, then head for a safer spot.

These techniques are simple; easy to remember; suitable for almost everybody. If attacked, don't fight. Run like hell. After throwing your wallet or purse behind you. This won't get you a role in a martial arts movie, or gain you cage fighting fame. 

But it could save your life, which is a lot more important.

(Here's a knowledgeable and well-written examination of Tai Chi's martial roots, Supreme Ultimate Boxing: Considering Tai Chi Chuan In Its Original Martial Context.)

Tai Chi shows how to handle aggression

I love how Tai Chi demonstrates a hugely practical philosophy of life through physical movement. Other activities do this also -- ballroom dancing comes to mind -- but Tai Chi is unique in that it explicitly embodies philosophical Taoist principles.

Tonight, I was paired up with my Tai Chi instructor, Warren, as his class practiced the self-defense application of the Fair Lady movements (with a follow step).

Warren and I have a lot of marital arts experience -- he more than me, naturally. And his Tai Chi background is much deeper than mine. Yet both of us were surprised at what we learned after only a few practice punches that were countered by Fair Lady deflections.

At first I handled Warren's straight right jab with excessive force. My technique was very gentle by traditional karate standards, yet considerably more "yang" (energetic, blunt, rigid) than Tai Chi expects.

"Try being softer," Warren said. "Don't use so much force." I did. And was amazed.

The less effort I put into deflecting a punch, and then controlling Warren's follow-up left cross, the more impressive the result. I'd learned this many times before during other Tai Chi classes, but somehow this evening the lesson came through with unusual clarity.

Meeting force with force is counterproductive. Flowingly redirecting someone's aggressive energy is the best first move. Control follows, as their attack falters by being met with an absorbing response, not a brittle one.

Warren and I played around with various attacking and defending styles. If he punched hard, and I blocked in a similar fashion, we ended up face-to-face. Neither of us had much of an advantage, but since Warren was moving forward with aggressive energy, he was better suited to follow up on the initial punch/block standoff.

This is how fight scenes in Kung Fu movies often look: bam! pow! oof! aiyeeah! Punches and blocks follow each other in rapid fashion. He who moves fastest and strongest wins.

That isn't the Tai Chi way. And by and large, it isn't the best way to handle aggression -- physical, mental, verbal, emotional -- in everyday life.

We found that a hard, brittle, rigid, strong response to an initial attack slowed down the defender. Rather strangely, the faster I moved to handle Warren's first punch, the slower I was able to handle his succeeding punches.

Softness, relaxation, calmness: moving with these "yin" qualities resulted in Warren being controlled to a much greater degree than when I tried to respond to him with the same "yang" energy he aimed at me.

Most of us have a natural inclination to strike back hard when we feel we're being attacked. However, Tai Chi practice demonstrates that this usually is counter-productive. It's better to respond with an inner "OK... no big deal" as you deflect the aggression with a fingertip's worth of effort rather than a strong bunch of muscle.

It isn't always possible to flow with life. Sometimes we need to forcefully interject ourselves into a situation without caring what gets broken. But much of the time we overdo, overtry, overstress.

Before I wrote this post, I checked my Twitter feed and saw that our dance instructor, Lora, had shared a waltz video. These marvelous professional dancers aren't doing Tai Chi, and yet they are.

This is flow. This is Tai Chi. This is life.

 

 

David Leung shows the subtle side of Tai Chi

Along with Eric and Connie, two Tai Chi classmates (we study with Warren Allen at Pacific Martial Arts here in Salem), I thoroughly enjoyed Master David Leung's workshop today at Cafe Noir -- which was sponsored by Oregon CHI.

I'm a firm believer that chi/qi is stimulated productively, and easily if you have about $2, with a good cup of coffee. Cafe Noir didn't disappoint. Their locally roasted Tico's Coffee was terrific.

But this wasn't the only way my mood was elevated during Leung's presentation. He was energetic, entertaining, and exuberant in a charming Chinese manner. Leung's English also is excellent (I think I've used up my "E" words for this paragraph).

He teaches at the Leung Martial Arts Academy in Eugene, which features instruction in several styles: Yang Tai Chi, Wing Chun Kung Fu, Chen Tai Chi, among others. Master Leung demonstrated these three, showing their similarities and differences.

Intensity, concentration, mindfulness.

These qualities shone forth in everything Leung did, whether talking or moving. Along with relaxation, flowingness, and humility. His Wing Chun is blindingly fast. Humbly, he said that he used to be a martial artist "hot stuff," but now is just "warm stuff."

Well, I can tell you that no bad guy would want to meet up with this 5' 2" slender man in a dark alley. After his presentation, Eric and I stayed to ask some questions. Eric's involved a "needle at sea bottom" application that involved a Chin Na (joint lock) move if someone grabs your wrist.

Eric and I are much larger than Master Leung. But when he showed us the technique close up and personal, we both were on our knees almost instantly. (The trick was using three fingers to press on a nerve, rather than using your whole hand to produce the lock.)

That was cool. Yet I found Leung's philosophical observations to be even cooler. Here's some fairly accurate, though not always word for word, recollections based on the notes that I took.

Most people don't see the mutiplicity of what the universe is all about. They focus on what is black and white.

A tiger will flee from a badger, if the badger is committed to saving his life.

If someone is opposed to me, I can fix their heart, not kick their butt.

We must fuse the body with spirit/consciousness.

My success is built on the shoulders of giants.

There are physical transformations, and also transformations beyond the physical.

Change happens from within. We need to get into our internal body.

There is an essence behind this art. Raw power can easily backfire.

A key is doing all things without thinking. My punch throws itself, with no anger, no excitement -- just work.

I've been learning Tai Chi for over six years, after about twelve years of hard style martial arts training. Yet watching and listening to Master Leung reinforced what I never fail to remember:

What I know is hardly anything, compared to what there is to learn.

Master Leung started off the demonstration portion of his workshop with a "this is how lots of Tai Chi looks." He proceeded to do (or "play," in Tai Chi parlance) a fairly short Yang style form. To most people, and even to me, it looked like pretty damn good Tai Chi.

Flowing. Smooth. Graceful. Harmonious.

After finishing the form, Leung pounded his ribs and stomach, saying "But real Tai Chi comes from here." He then proceeded to play the form again, in a much more energetic fashion -- yet not faster.

It reminded me in some ways of what little I've seen of Drunken Style Kung Fu, a subject I alluded to in a post on my other blog. Outwardly, it looked like Master Leung would sway, jerk, move erratically. But inwardly, it was evident that he was fully in command of what he was doing.

(Or perhaps more accurately, what he was doing was in command of him.)

My post-workshop question for Master Leung was this: "Is Chi/Qi natural and physical, or supernatural and immaterial?" He told me that Chi is bodily, though related to mind, noting that he teaches psychology. I said, "But mind is part of the brain, and the brain is physical, so Chi also must be physical." Yes, Leung replied.

This fits with how I've come to view Qi. It's the subtle aspect of Tai Chi and other martial arts. Also, of life. It's the energy that lifts us from the mundane into the shining. (Which relates to another recent blog post.)

Upon returning home from the workshop, I wanted to find out how old Master Leung is. It took me a bit of Googling, but the answer eventually popped up: 61, or thereabouts.

Hey, I'm 62. I can only hope that I'll be as youthful as Master Leung is one of these days, notwithstanding the fact that we're almost exactly the same age. What's he's got is what we all can have: inner energy.

It's just a matter of channeling and expressing it. Caffeine helps, but Chi/Qi is the real deal.

Andrew Luck's big hit on safety: football Tai Chi

Tomorrow Oregon State plays Stanford, whose Heisman-worthy quarterback is Andrew Luck. A few days ago on the evening news, I saw a clip of Luck leveling a California defender during a run.

It was so impressive I had to search out the play on You Tube for a closer look.

 

Like the announcer says, Luck absorbed the attempted tackle. (Watch the closeup at about the one minute mark for the best view.)

This looks Tai Chi'ish to me. In my Tai Chi class there's a big guy who used to play high school football. Sometimes he talks about how basic Tai Chi principles like centering, grounding, non-resistance, and the like play out, so to speak, on the football field.

That's borne out by this analysis of stills from the Luck video. Luck is quoted as saying that he knocked over the safety thanks to momentum and inertia.

But a commenter differs:

As physics was my major at Stanford ...

I can tell you it’s not all about mass. Kinetic energy is proportional to velocity squared as well as mass. Even more important are things like leverage and having your feet planted.

Luck’s feet were planted, so his muscles could push against the ground to absorb the energy of Cattouse without moving Luck. You can see from the pictures of Cattouse that his feet were not planted. He launched himself against the upper half of Luck, a technique that might work if you’re blindsiding someone who’s already off balance, but not someone who’s ready for you.

Yes, that's pure Tai Chi.

You can see Luck rotating his body as he's hit while his feet are firmly planted. That enabled him to absorb the safety's energy and redirect it back onto the defender, who collapsed on the ground while Luck rambled onward down the field -- after looking surprised that he was still on his feet and the other guy wasn't.

My Tai Chi instructor does some training of athletes in various college sports: volleyball, football, track and field. There's a lot in common between seemingly way-different activities. The body only moves in certain ways. Some ways are more effective than others.

Andrew Luck's big hit on the Cal safety testifies to the importance of staying grounded while those around you are flying around. Good advice for both the football field and life in general.

Doing nothing, do everything: Taoism is cool!

I'm a big fan of doing nothing.

My wife can testify to that, especially when she feels its time to attend to some household chores and I've got something less vigorous on my day's to-do list.

Like napping.

So I couldn't pass up going to a talk by Qiguang Zhao at Salem's Willamette University yesterday. I heard about it from a fellow Tai Chi student, who emailed me that Qiguang was going to speak about "Do Nothing and Do Everything."

From a Taoist perspective. Ah, nice.

I figured the talk would offer me more ammunition to fire at anyone who dared to consider that my seeming laziness was anything but a profound philosophical and spiritual stance.

Qiguang is the Chair of Asian Languages & Literature at Carleton College. He's written a book with the same name as his talk, contributing both the words and the illustrations.

I enjoyed the style and substance of Qiguang's talk. Taoism is about flowing with life, rather than fighting what's happening. A skilled Tai Chi practitioner, several times Qiguang used wordless movements to point to what can't be expressed in words.

I've written a lot about Taoism on my other blog, but I'm still trying to grasp the ungraspable nature of this profound,yet simple, philosophy. Here's my recollection of Qiguang's essential message -- an expansion of notes I took on my laptop.

In Tai Chi we trust the body, just as in Taoism we trust nature, which has its own rules. Often we needlessly worry in the present while fearing the future and regretting the past.

People think they are God, that events should happen as they desire. This creates guilt when the inevitable disconnect between what we intended and what happened occurs. We are part of the universe. We cannot control the world.

Recognizing that we are not separated from the cosmos, that our actions are part and parcel of everything and everyone in existence, we do nothing and do everything at the same time.

Meaning, action becomes relatively effortless when we surrender the notion that we are in charge ("relatively," because there are no absolutes; change is the only unchanging fact of life; movement in one direction inevitably ends, or takes a U-turn).

The Taoist religion evolved from Taoist philosophy. Religious Taoists believe it is possible to live forever and to fly. But we moderns have our own ways of living longer and of flying which aren't magical.

Confucianism is about details. Taoism is about the big picture. Both philosophies have co-existed in China for a long time, complementing each other. With so much increased stress in China now, many people are turning to Taoist practices such as Tai Chi for relaxation.

The Olympics motto is "faster, higher, stronger," reflecting Greek/Western philosophy. In Tai Chi, core movements are slower, shorter, and weaker, just the opposite. This fits with the Taoist emphasis on wu wei, effortless doing: yielding like water while being as strong as a crashing wave.

The most beautiful places are where two phenomena meet, like at the beach (land and sea). Also, when two cultures meet, such as when the modern meets the ancient, or East meets West.

Live afloat, like a boat loose from its moorings. Eat your fill and do what you will. Feel small, and your problems will be small. Take care (a Confucian sentiment) and do not tip the boat. Take it easy (a Taoist sentiment) and enjoy the scenery.

After Qiguang ended his talk, I asked him a question. I was curious about his extolling of imagination, since it seems that nature -- which Taoists emulate -- isn't at all imaginary.

In nature, something either is, or it isn't. There's no in-between. By contrast, I said, religions are full of imagination. People believe in an imaginary God. They imagine that Jesus saved them from sin and will take them to heaven after they die.

Since philosophical Taoism isn't a religion, why the emphasis on imagination?

Qiguang's answer was appealingly subtle. He agreed that nature is real. However, we can't know the essence of its reality, which is called "Tao." The Tao is wordless, beyond human conception.

So imagination fills the gap between the nameless and our propensity to name. We use our imagination in an attempt to understand what can't be understood, to gesture in the direction of the Tao -- even though there is nothing that can be pointed to.

Tai Chi – about to be Olympics trendy?

With the Olympics opening ceremony being shown on American TV tonight, I'm enthused about the possibility of Tai Chi becoming trendy in this country.

I've been learning Tai Chi for almost four years and do a modified version of the Cheng Man-ch'ing "short form" several times a week on the wood floor of a weights room at our athletic club.

So far I've been asked what I'm doing exactly once – by a couple who took Tai Chi at the club until classes ended, and hoped that I could lobby the manager to get them reinstated (or, teach them myself).

Most people, I expect, just see a gray-haired guy waving his arms around and doing something strange. Hopefully after tonight they'll recognize it as Tai Chi, assuming that my form somewhat resembles what's going to be displayed at the opening ceremony.

I couldn't find any video of the ceremony, which has already happened. But some descriptions of it make me eager to see the Tai Chi.

[Update: Check out this video of the main Tai Chi section of the opening ceremony. Amazing!]

A liveblog: The dancers fan out again, and it's time for the next section of the ceremony, which will demonstrate the unity of man and nature. And I know what this first bit is too - it's a group of people performing Tai Chi. The dancing squad are holding up reflective screens, which are making ribbons of light flash across the arena. Then the huge plasma screens at the top of the stadium kick in, giving the impression of very specifically focused torrential rain.

Another blog: Some other exhibitions follows but what I like best is the Tai Chi part of the program. A massive group of Chinese people formed a circle around a grand piano while doing their Tai Chi steps. It's so amazing on how did they manage to keep their line straight while jumping and hopping to different places. I am so impressed!

CBS sports blog: Hundreds of guys in white outfits perform a finely choreographed tai chi routine. Wow, that was much more impressive then the solo tai chi routine performed every afternoon at the park near my apartment by that shady unemployed guy.

And: Sydney may have had an army of Hills Hoists and lawn mowers, but the Chinese came wielding drums, light sticks and for their martial arts display, nothing but themselves. Tai chi, or kung fu, or it may have been a mixture of both featured as several hundred performers moved magically as one through a series of moves and spiral kicks. Even their battle cries came as if from one person.

If you live near Salem, Oregon and are drawn to try Tai Chi, you're in luck. My instructor, Warren Allen of the Pacific Martial Arts Academy on Court Street downtown, is top notch.

Don't be thrown off by the "martial arts" mention. Tai Chi indeed is a martial art – the foundation of all martial arts, in Warren's informed opinion – and it can be practiced as such.

But most people in my classes aren't focused on Tai Chi as self-defense. They enjoy it as a movement art, for the physical, mental, and spiritual benefits. It helps keep you flowing and flexible, a benefit at any age.

Me doing Tai Chi

Proving that I'm on the edge of senility and losing my better judgment, I fired up my Flip Video camera yesterday, filmed myself doing a couple of Tai Chi forms, and then uploaded them to You Tube after adding some Tango music.

This afternoon I had a locker room conversation at the athletic club with a guy I'd never talked to before. He told me about playing five games of racquet ball in a tournament against an opponent where he won a total of three points.

"Sometimes I love getting my ass whipped," he said. I told him, "Well, if you're out to lose your ego, this shows that you don't need to go to India or enter a monastery. A racquet ball court will do just fine."

As will the deck of a house, where what whipped me wasn't another person, but the difference between how I thought my Tai Chi looked, and how the video camera recorded it.

Sort of painful. But hey, I've been meditating every morning for most of my life with no discernible effect on my ego. So I might as well start trying uploading videos of myself to You Tube for the world to watch.

That's humbling.

Since I still have an ego, though, here's some exculpatory excuses to keep in mind if you take a few minutes (2:51 and 4:41, to be exact) to see my Tai Chi.

(1) I set up two lanterns to mark how far the camera angle went. The sword form, particularly, moves farther than that. So switch stepping was necessary to avoid disappearing and appearing from view. It took me several "takes" to get those new moves down as well as I did.

(2) I'm outside on a fairly rough wood deck. I'm used to performing (or "playing," in Tai Chi parlance) the forms inside.

(3) I don't have any Tai Chi music, but I've got lots of Tango music. In my psyche I was moving to a faster Tai Chi beat than usual, knowing that I wanted to add some Tango'ish tracks from a CD a friend recently gave me.

(4) Lastly, reducing the quality of the video for You Tube uploading obscures the flowing perfection (in my own deluded mind, at least) of my forms. Any jerks and stumbles you see -- consider them camera artifacts.

Anyway, I had fun. And I got some insights into what I need to improve on. Take a look, and help with my ego-loss.

The first video is a Tai Chi sword form. The second video is the Cheng Man Ching (37) form, expanded to 38 moves with the addition of a Needle at Bottom of Sea near the end. (If you're a Tai Chi purist, blame my instructor, not me – he teaches the form this way).

For a little comparison, here's some video of Cheng Man Ching himself, the Tai Chi master who developed the form that goes by his name. I have to say that he doesn't look as impressive as I thought he would (just watched this video for the first time). But looks can be deceiving, on camera.

Tai Chi as a kick-ass martial art

Like I said in "10 reasons for guys to like Tai Chi," this flow-with-it martial art doesn't have much of a macho reputation.

Yet, it should.

And does, among those who are skilled enough to look beneath the surface of the frequently femininely named Tai Chi postures, like "soft ladies hands" and "fair lady works the shuttle."

The Yang style of Tai Chi (named for the family that founded it, not the yin and yang of Taoism) was taught to the Palace Battalion of the Chinese Imperial Guards by Yang Lu-ch'an, founder of the style.

Pretty clearly, the Chinese Imperial family wouldn't entrust their lives to a wussy self-defense system.

But my understanding is that when Tai Chi was taught to the royal court themselves, and thence made its way into the general culture, it got de-martial'ized. The emphasis shifted to soft flowing movements without obvious combat application.

Still, Tai Chi is a martial art, as this guy discovered during a walk in the park. And as I've learned after taking up Tai Chi three years ago after thirteen years of hard style martial arts experience.

It's more difficult to apply than a hard style like karate. Tai chi is classed as an internal, rather than external, martial art. The distinction isn't absolute, of course, since every martial art is a blend of external moves and internal intentions.

Tai Chi, though, stresses emptiness, flexibility, and fluidly adjusting to an opponent's movements. Tension is a big no-no, along with relying on power and strength.

Thus practicing Tai Chi as a combat martial art goes against most people's (men especially) FIKI instincts. Warren Allen is my Tai Chi instructor. His ongoing project, seven years and counting now, is to cure me of my Shotokan karate-fueled tendencies toward matching force with force.

With its foundation in Taoist philosophy, Tai Chi seeks to meld yin and yang, soft and hard, yielding and resistance. You've got to be able to master both sides of the Tai Chi coin to be an adept, which I'm a long way from.

However, I know enough about the combat side of Tai Chi to recommend it to anyone seeking a softer martial art, or an exercise system with self-defense applications (I'm not sure how much good Pilates would do you in a bar fight, though you'd probably laugh at a punch to the stomach).

It's pretty difficult to find an instructor who can competently teach the marital aspect of Tai Chi along with the exercise aspect. Most Tai Chi instructors don't have much martial arts experience. I'm fortunate to be learning Tai Chi from someone who took up the art after twenty years or so of hard style training and the earning of several black belts.

That's rare. So if you want to learn the martial applications of Tai Chi, don't be shy about asking what qualifications your prospective instructor has in this area.

Perhaps best of all, ask if you can throw a punch at them or engage them in an attempted grappling take-down. If you find yourself on the floor or hurtling toward a wall, that's a sign they know something about combat Tai Chi.

To see how Tai Chi works as street-fighting, check out Glenn Hairston's Internal Damage site. Watch the videos. Yes, you can do Tai Chi to rap music. Hairston proves it.

YouTube has lots of other videos in its "combat Tai Chi" section. I enjoyed this one. You see an unlikely looking Tai Chi practitioner doing his thing, using nicely salty language in the process. I like. Take a look.

10 reasons for guys to like Tai Chi

I'll readily admit that Tai Chi doesn't have a macho reputation. You don't find many would-be street fighters aspiring to be a Tai Chi master who can kick butt.

Partly this is due to the familiar photos of people doing Tai Chi in China. They usually look pretty darn old and harmless.

Which is one side of Tai Chi, for sure. But Jet Li's The Tai Chi Master shows another side, along with a more recent movie with the same name.

OK. I haven't seen either film. But I'm three years into thrice weekly Tai Chi classes at Warren Allen's Pacific Martial Arts studio here in Salem. So I'm qualified to talk to guys like me who might have qualms about taking up Tai Chi.

By "guys like me," I mean more than 58 year old men with previous martial arts experience who are aging halfway gracefully, but want to help assure this trend continues. Maybe even more than halfway – 75%, say.

I'm using guys in the modern generic sense, just as the waitress does who comes to take our order, looks at my wife and me, and says "So what do you guys want for dinner?" (I suspect she says the same thing to a table full of women.)

So here, in no particular order, are ten macho and not-so-macho reasons for guys to like Tai Chi.

(1) The older you get, the better. Tai Chi embraces the Chinese respect for old age. The Tai Chi magazine I get regularly features glowing articles about eighty year olds. Try finding that sort of thing in an Ultimate Fighting mixed martial arts publication.

(2) It really is a martial art. I've heard skilled hard style black belts say, "I don't do Tai Chi because it's too damn difficult." Yes, it is, when pursued as a martial art. It's a lot tougher to redirect and control an opponent without punching and kicking. But more effective. Really.

(3) You don't get hurt. A big benefit. Today I ran into a guy I used to play tennis with years ago. He says he gave it up because he got tired of injuries (like tennis elbow). Tai Chi will make you more healthy, not less. When I was into karate I always wondered why this "self defense" activity caused people to get hurt so much.

(4) There's more women involved. Tai Chi is pretty well balanced, male and female wise. Not surprising, given its foundation in Taoist Yin and Yang. So you aren't surrounded by sweaty guys for an hour and a half, which was par for the course in my previous martial arts and tennis days.

(5) You don't sweat. Well, rarely. Mostly Tai Chi is practiced (or "played," in Tai Chi lingo) at slow speed. You'll feel a kind of burn, but not the dripping with perspiration kind. More of the "I didn't know I had that muscle" kind.

(6) The dress code is casual. In my classes, at least. Compared to my Shotokan karate days, it's refreshing to be able to wear whatever the heck you feel like. Shorts. T-shirt. Shoes. Barefoot. Whatever. I like not having to change clothes from street wear, except for my shoes.

(7) Tai Chi-ish t-shirts are cool. The first thing I did, when I started Tai Chi, was go online and find some cool-looking t-shirts to wear in class. I figured that even if I didn't know much Tai Chi, I could look like I did. Yin-yang symbols are a common theme. Dragons too. I like.

(8) It comes with a built-in philosophy. Taoism. Which is so inclusive, you can be a Christian, Jew, Muslim, Hindu, or anything else and also be a Taoist. Does tennis have a profound philosophy attached to it? Does golf? Nope. Tai Chi is great for philosophical types like me. Also, for non-philosophical types.

(9) Tai Chi will make you a better dancer. I've never considered myself much of a dancer. But after taking quite a few tango, nightclub 2-step, and other classes, I'm a lot more confident than I used to be. Tai Chi has helped a lot. You learn the importance of balance, weight differentiation, not thinking too much, and having a good time.

(10) It's fun. Which brings me to the most important reason. Try it. You'll probably like it.