Return

Thanks to all who came to this weekend's Aberdeenshire workshops, great work. The theme was 'innocence', meaning the unencumbered state one can come to in one's practice out the other side of experience. Adults are not innocent, by dint of growing up through life's experiences. But there is a way in both life and practice, by letting go of our conditioning, by working it through, that returns us to a state where we are not bound up in self. Taoist practice is largely about this: the famous 'uncarved block', and so on. But I am already a carved block! you may protest. Ah that's why we have practice... Yielding, allowing, returning to uprightness and naturalness, disentangling ourselves from the hooks and barbs of life, sometimes turning and walking away from what seeks to enmesh us. All this is clear as day when pushing hands, after 10 years or so!

A great Taoist line:
'Best not start,
But if started,
Best finish.'

The Hexagram for all this is 'Return'. It is the return of primordial energy, the first step on the path after 'the living midnight' or 'the Yin convergence', it is the point when Yang energy starts to return and cultivation can begin. For those not so interested in Taoist alchemy, you could think of it as Imbolc, 1st February, definitely still early days, not Spring yet, but Winter is noticeably receding because the days are longer, buds and catkins are appearing. There can still be freezing days and frosty setbacks, even snow. But it is not Midwinter anymore, there are snowdrops in the grass. Now is the time to stoke the fire, keep the stores filled and practice, literally and metaphorically. This is my take on it all, anyway, based on experience.

How does innocence fit in? It is the time to let go of old habits and patterns, symbolised here by the 5 Yin lines above the 1 yang line. Much work to do? Yes, me too. Going to crack on with it somehow? I will if you will. The way one becomes, after burning away what we cannot help having acquired, is an innocent state, a simplicity, which is more valuable for having come from complexity and strife. Like T'ai Chi's well known phrase: 'the stillness in movement is of greater value than the stillness in stillness', innocence here is not a denial of knowledge or wisdom gained through living fully, but an expression of it, just one where no decisions are made in advance, and our grand plans are not inflicted upon the world. This reminds me of my friend's reading of the Tarot card 'The Fool', a blithe youth stepping of a cliff, yes, but it is also the beginning of life's inner journey, ending in 'The World'.

Imbolc full moon

T'ai Chi Manuals - English translations

A T'ai Chi friend in Shetland put me on to this great resource: https://brennantranslation.wordpress.com
Enjoy.

The Cook and His Cleaver

I wrote this for Dark Mountain 8 - Techne, 2015. With DM11 just about to come out I thought I'd finally post the essay here, as it pertains to our T'ai Chi.

Have a relaxing and enlivening Easter break.

The Cook and His Cleaver

     Our T'ai Chi Master has said to keen young students visiting the school, wondering why they can't download all our 'techniques' from Youtube: 'there is a method, but not a system'. At class we spend our time moving very softly, mostly slowly, although occasionally very quickly. We are studying and teaching many things that can't be spoken about, not because they are secrets, but because they are transmitted by touch and by closely following; movements made a thousand times before they settle in. Corrections are made by smiles and nods as the connection between one's hand and another person changes.

     These days even art, music and T'ai Chi are increasingly taught in costly discrete modules, graded against a checklist, validated by owners of franchises for the purposes of signing you up for the next course, always offering you the next little nugget. Sometimes it seems that no thing, however seemingly natural, free or mutual is completely immune from being taken apart, reformulated and sold back to us. Mindfulness, for instance - possibly the most easily misunderstood aspect of Buddhist meditation - is the new ten-minute-a-day panacea, completely bypassing the radical allied practices of questioning one's fixed small idea of self or, say, practising non-harming (ahimsa) in life.

     Like me you may suspect that the heart of a great matter cannot be told. Increasingly, our society acts as if anything that can't be described in words or measured with devices doesn't exist. Many believe that all we are, all everything is, could be expressed as data. For me, this is a huge and world-damaging misconception – in the language of Iain McGilchrist’s The Master and His Emissary, it is indicative of an overly left-hemisphere-dominant view. If the non-measurable and the ungraspable do not exist, then for about 800 hours a year, for the last 12 years at least, my life has not existed.

     For about a decade I made art, mostly bad paintings, thinking that at least there was something concrete to show for the time spent. The following decade I made music, and some of it was decent, but the CDs are mostly discarded and the digital files exist mainly at the mercy of the web. Since late 2000 I've been regularly practising T'ai Chi and that leaves hardly any physical trace at all. What is made with my time and energy seems increasingly immaterial. Yet what is really going on is steadily more real, not least in its effects upon myself and the students.

     What was good about studying a visual craft, especially drawing – as opposed to making Art – was really learning to look and to see. What was great about being in bands and improvising was learning to listen and to actually hear what was going on between us as we played together. My T'ai Chi forms are deepening, and I love pushing hands – but what is truly being learnt, whilst apparently studying what could be mistaken for a bunch of moves and techniques, is how to sense myself and others, and finally allow myself to feel. All these are examples of 'using the false to cultivate the real', a wonderfully counter-intuitive Taoist method, used to great effect by my teacher, and also shown in Chuang-Tzu's story of Cook Ting:

     Right at the start of the tale, Cook Ting is cutting up an ox for Lord Wen-hui so skilfully that the carcass falls apart with a peculiar sound. The lord (here called the king) expresses admiration and says:

'Good! It seems that this is the consummation of technique.'

The butcher put down his cleaver and replied, 'What I like is the Way, which is more advanced than technique. But I will present something of technique.'

     Here Chuang-Tzu reminds us that Tao precedes Te, prioritising the way in which over the means by which something is achieved. This is restated in how the Tao is manifested by a lowly cook, not a court poet or someone of high status. Iain McGilchrist writes that the story is used to 'illustrate the fact that a skill cannot be formulated in words or rules, but can be learned only by watching and following with one's eyes, one's hands, and ultimately one's whole being: the expert himself is unaware of how he achieves what it is he does.'

     Then follows a great joke: Cook Ting has to put down his cleaver to speak to the king – which is to say he must stop his consummate uncontrived action (or non-doing, in Chinese 'wu-wei'), and start doing something, just to talk about what it was he wasn't doing.

     Later, after showing how his knife is still razor sharp after nineteen years' daily use, since he does not hack into bones or so much as cut into gristle, the cook says, enigmatically:

'The joints have spaces in between, whereas the edge of the cleaver has no thickness. When that which has no thickness is put into that which has no space, there is ample room for moving the blade. This is why the edge of my cleaver is still as sharp as if it had newly come from the whetstone.'

     This is not just another illustration of effortless skill, as is often assumed. Here we are shown another way to be, one almost entirely forgotten in our culture, but real nonetheless. It is not just not-thinking-in-words, not even 'mindfulness', it is uncontrived immersion and truly sensing the world. This is not ethereal nonsense: the cleaver in the story is the mind, honed to the finest edge, i.e. taken far beyond discursive thought to open, empty awareness, sharp and awake, so it can play freely where there is seemingly no space. However the whole person wields it, this is no 'armchair art', (the wryly disparaging term used in some of the T'ai Chi Classics, regarding those who pontificate about correct practice but rarely ever do any... rather like those who hang out perpetually on online forums in our era).

     Cook Ting's still-sharp cleaver is a metaphor for a mind which has not been exhausted by habitual over-thinking; in use it is agile and free, qualities gained through correct training and wholehearted and, importantly, whole-bodied practice. Insights gained from books and study are indeed real, and the rigour and care with which the academic creates his or her work can be immense - how excellent this rigorous approach would be if applied to our subtle sensations and genuine feelings.

     Beyond the fineness of method that this story conveys, it also tells us that any art or right livelihood, however humble, can be a Way. I feel this possibility not just in T'ai Chi, but when out gathering in nature, when absorbed in making things with my hands, or singing harmonies along with others.

     Cook Ting says even of the ox he cuts up: "Now I meet it with spirit rather than look at it with my eyes'.

A good yield

Here comes another push.
You do something and don't get pushed over.
So it worked, right?

Before I answer that I want to recommend a wonderful book: The Essential Writings of Wendell Berry, edited by Paul Kingsnorth called 'The World-Ending Fire'. How can the award-winning writings of an agrarian, a farmer from Kentucky, no less, be of interest and help to us in our ongoing T'ai Chi journey?

The connection is in how we define 'yield'. Very briefly, Berry has spent over 40 years farming and writing about it from the viewpoint of someone who lives on the land, sees its good health and protection as part of his own health, as well as his duty. After each harvest, or when livestock are taken from a field, he describes how the traditional small farmer does not just think in terms of the tonnage of crop or of meat that it yields, but in the condition of the soil, the richness of the wildlife, the possibility of habitat for beneficial species, the prevention of run-off and soil-erosion, indeed from the pleasure he or she takes in it: in sum, a complete picture requiring there to be good conditions for continuing to farm that land. This implies a duty of care to the wider landscape than just your farm, which seems such an old-fashioned idea to the bean-counting mind of the modern person, but makes perfect sense if you, for instance, hope your children may one day farm the same place. (Or if you actually give a hoot about anything other than a fast buck). Quick fixes based on technology or commerce cannot help a whole environment like the combined care of people integrated into and loving of their locale. If yield continues to be measured in tonnage alone, and not in the increased health, depth and richness of the world's soils, and the good lives of the people who live and farm there, then the prediction that our topsoil will be gone by the end of this century will come to pass.

What this seemingly unrelated topic has to do with T'ai Chi yielding, other than the strictly etymological link, is the negative effects of defining yield very narrowly. Perhaps we think in terms of 'did I have to move my feet or not' (which is the definition used in the frankly ridiculous sport of T'ai Chi Competition Pushing Hands). All the great fighting arts of the world (and all actual fights in real life) use stepping of some kind. It's great to practice fixed feet pushing hands and learn to stand your ground using softness, and this is an essential part of our training: but it is an exercise, which must lead to learning how to step. There is a limit to what standing in one place can allow, sometimes after we have turned, we must step, so as not to block, deflect or start wrestling with the opponent. (Note that blocking, deflecting, locking and controlling are the epitome of the arts of the Security Forces of any state, and some ordinary people also devote their time to learning these). It is also true that we should not step too soon to avoid the attack, as any good T'ai Chi player will just stick, adhere and follow: backing us up. I have pushed hands with many other people from diverse schools and styles over the years, and you can search this blog for my reports from Taichi Caledonia and Push Hands Hannover. When I watched two fixed feet folks wrestling over their tiny patch of ground by grabbing, hanging on and winding up in bizarre postures, I felt immensely sad, any beginner Sumo trainee could have moved them with one hand. T'ai Chi is not a great wrestling art! Why make it into one? Greco-Roman, Sumo or plain western wrestling are all vastly superior. It is like like trying to paint a mural with a watercolour brush. I know this strange hybridisation has happened to other martial arts which have become sports, such as Tae Kwon Do, so I should not be so surprised.

What makes all traditional styles of T'ai Chi so rich and so special? Too many things for me to list, but one is yielding, seen most often in the Form and push hands as Roll-Back. I have practised it in Chen Style, Sun Style and Yang Style so far, and all are equally as deep. One outreaches and connects to the push or incoming attack, really senses what is going on, stays upright and turns, not allowing the push to land on you, and yet somehow drawing it out of the person until they are unbalanced and either fall, retreat or stop, at which point the appropriate response can be made, without conscious decision making or recourse to a list of techniques. It takes years to be able to do this well and is as rewarding and frustrating to learn as any musical instrument.

If the answer to a problem such as 'we need more fuel to make electricity' is 'let's strip mine this mountain', or 'let's frack this valley in a National Park', then yes, when someone pushes you in T'ai Chi, or in life, deflect them any way you can so that you don't have to step. In fact, why not just kick them in the head, or better still break their arm? Then you definitely won't have to deal with them again, (maybe just their angry friends...) If you define successful problem solving in tiny, narrow terms, such as 'having yielded' as 'not having moved your foot', then what I am going to suggest won't be of interest to you. Defining problems and solutions in simplistic terms is the popular contemporary specialisation of an entire army of bureaucrats in every walk of life: medicine, education, agriculture, ecology, charities... you name it. Not seeing things as a whole, as interwoven, but choosing to see them as systems and machines, which behave in mechanistic ways, is a widespread mainly undiagnosed disease.

My suggestion is this: in terms of T'ai Chi yielding: a good yield has only occurred if what we gave back was proportional to what we received. Our posture at the end of a yield should be as upright as when we began, and remain as soft. We need to have received and not rejected the incoming energy, or tried to control it and make it go away. In many respects we need to get in the way, rather than out of the way. After yielding there needs to be no lingering discomfort or agitation (I call this 'residue') that prevents us from immediately joining with the next moment, push, person. Rather than lose our posture and wrangle with someone we should easily be able to 'hop like a sparrow' if uprooted, (which is a wonderful form of yielding, allowing us to be rooted and grounded a split second later, inches or feet from where we just were, ready to yield, push or issue straight away). After a push, however unexpected, we hope to be in as good a frame of mind and body as before it, if not better.

Interestingly, in Nassim Nicholas Taleb's terminology, the unexpected push could be termed a 'black swan event', and if we are merely strong or resilient, we may one day still be overpowered, in T'ai Chi that's like practising hard force all our years then finding at a certain age we just can't rely on our strength or speed any more. If we are week and fragile, and have never developed our centre-line and ability to turn, we will be prone to 'tofu T'ai Chi' or 'noodling', and eventually we will certainly be hard hit. However, if we are 'anti-fragile', we can actually be enlivened and energised by pushes, as we can by really engaging with the unexpected things life throws at us.

I hope I have interested the T'ai Chi practitioner in a broader appreciation of what denotes a good yield, inspired by what Wendell Berry suggests is a deeper way to appreciate what constitutes successful, sustainable farming. I am currently up in Scotland teaching the Aberdeenshire students, and we worked physically on all these things last night in the regular partner work session, resulting in some incredibly soft yields and some wonderful returns. Yield is 'what is given up': in the fully paradoxical nature of being totally empty in order to receive, and also completely full in order to give back. When I get home to my copies of the T'ai Chi Classics I will add the relevant quotes for the interested reader, as everything I have mentioned above is fully backed-up in the Classics. But for now, from memory: 'If after many years you still cannot neutralise a push, seek the defect in the legs and the feet'. Not: 'push them away harder', 'lean over and grab them' or 'try and make them move their foot then say you won'.

Much so-called practical T'ai Chi has no practicality outside the gold-fish-bowl of competition. Lists of techniques are no answer for life's, or the street's demands. To quote the Classics again: 'The principles are few, the permutations are endless'. The incredible yielding taught by Dr Chi, which I have felt independently in several totally unrelated students and grand-students of his, has been, without doubt, of greatest benefit to my life, up there with learning to read, to walk, to draw, to sing. Uprightness and softness, that is to say one's integrity and responsiveness, should not be sacrificed to win a hollow momentary victory, or indeed ruin one's environment for monetary gain. For those who say that such ideas are beyond the original remit of T'ai Chi, a martial art that evolved over time originally in China, I say this: writing was first used, for many hundreds of years, as a means of accounting crops and goods. Wherever it evolved it was pretty much for counting beans. That it hasn't stayed that way is a cause for celebration rather than complaint. Sex evolved for simple organisms to reproduce. We don't argue that it should still only be used for that purpose. Similarly, that T'ai Chi has transformed and spread, to be such a vibrant and fertile part of so many people's lives is a great thing.

Happy International Cat Day!

The T'ai Chi Classics say:

'Walk like a cat'

I was just remembering visting John Kells at Blakeney many years ago where his beloved beautiful cats had a huge French 'sleigh' style bed all of their own. They seemed very happy, perhaps verging on smug. 

Service Information

Lost T'ai Chi Classics From The Late Ch'ing Dynasty - Douglas Wile

This book wins two competitions: worst cover of a great book ever and worst title! However, get past that and you have some of the most helpful and clear advice on T'ai Chi that you could ever hope for. Everything is here regarding posture, sparring, the civil and the martial, silk-reeling...

The Taijiquan Classics - trans. Barbara Davis

This is a superb book, essential for further study of T'ai Chi. It's a more in-depth and analytical translation of the Classics and includes a superb commentary by Chen Weiming. It's a real work of scholarship by a genuine teacher of T'ai Chi. 

Yang Family Secret Transmissions - trans. Douglas Wile

Here's my highly annotated and page-marked copy of an excellent book. If you're serious about studying Yang Style T'ai Chi then this book is essential. Douglas Wile has collated and translated key Chinese texts that directly pertain to our art. So much of the book is of immediate benefit, all of it sheds light on our practice. 

The Essence of T'ai Chi Ch'uan - Lo, Inn, Amacker, Foe

A simple and beautiful translation of the T'ai Chi Classics suitable for everyone. Lovely calligraphy too. If you only have one T'ai Chi book, get this one. 

Tao Teh Ching translations

Whilst researching some good translations and versions to recommend to a student, I found this document, with 7 versions side by side for comparison. I hope you will find it useful.

Cleary's is by far my beloved rendition.

Today

Meditation cushion, T'ai Chi Classics, Dark Mountain, library note book I have had since I was 11, woolly jumper... 'these are a few of my favourite things'.

My neighbours went thaddaway.

Halo round the moon.

Hackney Class news and new timings

Here are the new rough timings for class from next week 23rd October, until further notice.

6pm   Warm ups
6.30   Salutations and / or Chi Gung
6.45   Short Form instruction (from beginning)
7pm   Sticking, pushing hands, partner work according to experience
7.30   Whole Short Form then Long Form instruction (from beginning)
8pm   Tea
8.15   Whole Long Form (after some silk reeling [figure 8] warm ups)
8.35   Any LF questions, applications and partner work requests (talu, wabu, push hands, knocking)
9pm   The Dance / San Shou instruction (from the beginning)
9.30   Sabre and Sword Forms and partner work
10pm Finish

New beginners are very welcome to stay until 7.30pm. All other regular students are encouraged to arrive as early as they can to join in with warm ups and revising Short Form. The students who have just begun the Long Form are very welcome to stay and busk a whole Long Form each week with us at 8.15pm in addition to learning it each week posture by posture. This is an excellent way to absorb the form without having to learn it all at once. If staying later means you'll need to arrive a bit later, say at 7pm for partner work, then that's fine. Feel free to bring a snack for tea time if that means you'll have stamina to stay longer! I hope the slight changes in format will work well, and we can adjust things if necessary as the term goes on.

I will also be bringing several of my good T'ai Chi books over the next few weeks and am happy to lend them out to students. Regular students are requested to read the T'ai Chi Classics this term, if they haven't already, as this is the basis of our whole approach. I have several different translations which shed different lights on the work, as well as related Classics of the Yang Family, writings on the precursors to T'ai Chi as well as all the major Taoist Classics such as the Tao Te Ching, in translations by Thomas Cleary and others. Other useful books by the Kobayashis, Morihei Ueshiba, T T Liang, Cheng Man-Ch'ing, Wolfe Lowenthal and others are also available.

Classics available again

Barbara Davis Taiji Classics are now in stock at amazon, or can be ordered from your favourite bookstore  from the UK distributor Random House. Be quick, as there are a limited number being imported into the UK at first. This book is essential for all serious Yang Style T'ai Chi players. Weiming / Davis Taiji Sword is also available again and is very useful for those studying straight sword, it would be a good addition to the Kobayashi book for sword study and reference.

Thomas Cleary Taoist Classics

I have finally bought myself copies of The Collected Translations of Thomas Cleary of The Taoist Classics 1, 2 and 3, published by Shambhala. These books, and all the constituent books therein, are so appropriate to our practice, and so wise in their insight, that I see them as essential. Cleary's translations of Tao Te Ching, Chuang-tzu, Wen-tzu, etc, are by far my preferred ones, coming from what one senses to be be a real and deep practice of his own. 'Understanding Reality', 'The Inner Teachings of Taoism' and 'Vitality, Energy, Spirit' are outstanding in their clarity, pointing out the Way with great compassion. I will add the ISBNs to the reading list soon.

Kuti cat

I had a very nourishing silent, solitary, week-long retreat at the Kuti at The Barn, Sharpham, Devon. People have asked, 'what did I do?' I chopped wood and carried water, lit and maintained the fire in the stove (it was -3 degrees C some nights) and got my food together. I read and studied the Taoist Classics and I sat meditating. One night I drew a tree by the the light of the full moon. This day, when I went to saw wood, it wasn't possible, as Nimbus the cat required a place to perch for a little while, photogenically. I was silent, except for when mooching with the cat, and I was solitary except for when he or the varied bird-life and mice in the roof, came to join me. I will post more at the end of the week. Love and peace to all my sangha, the folks of Great River, The T'ai Centre, our lineage relations and friends.
I will return to the kuti for another week's solitary practice in June.

Sink, Relax

It's the constant exhortation from the teacher of almost any T'ai Chi school, whatever style. It is repeated in the T'ai Chi Classics. I have been told by Yang, Chen and Sun style teachers, in English and in Chinese, and also by the univeral language of being corrected with hands-on. We know well that to relax and yet remain perfectly responsive is a lifetime's work, and extraordinarily beneficial on so many levels. Recently, I have been trying to think of a walk of life, or task at hand, that would not benefit from this lively relaxation... happily I have failed. As I said to the beginners last night, after asking them to 'relax' again: Even fighting for one's life would not be helped by excess tension.

Taijiquan Classics

I have been trying to get a box of Barbara Davis' Classics for a year now, since they last went out of print.
Searching for other sources of the book, I came across the reading list of another CMC (Cheng Man-Ching) lineage school, which has great pictures and a few lines on many great T'ai Chi books, some quite rare and of interest, and this excellent book by Chen Wei-Ming.

Forget Self

Just received this from a dear student, regarding the questions below from Barbara. I expect most of us will relate to this...
When a group is doing the Form you don't go at your default / preferred speed. Instead you stick to whoever is leading the group or stick to the group: knowing that the Form will feel better for everyone with that shared approach. One of the main things that still really annoys me practising Form in a group is if - for whatever reason - someone is steadfastly going at their own speed. Though I can understand why they might want to do that. Still in training for Mr / Ms Judgemental 2011!

Please feel free to send more of your answers, anonymity assured...

The Annotated Classics

I have just finished Barbara Davis' excellent translations of the T'ai Chi Classics, including the commentaries of Chen Wei Ming, a great student of Yang Cheng Fu. I wrote to Barbara last night to give my appreciation and to find the best way to get a box of her books for my students and colleagues. The Classics are essential for anyone sincerely practising Yang Style T'ai Chi. For beginners and those averse to longer books I still recommend starting with The Lo / Inn / Amaker / Foe version of the Classics 'The Essence of T'ai Chi Ch'uan': its clear layout and poetic form is very appealing. However, if you already have a dog-eared copy of that (and if you don't, you should!) then Barbara's book is a must. The intro has a very accessible and well researched history of T'ai Chi, and the Classics themselves yield fresh inspiration via her particular renditions into English of certain words and phrases. However, the loveliest aspect for me was Chen Wei Ming's commentary: really of a piece with our approach to T'ai Chi, and finding out that his school was called 'Achieving Softness' was a delightful detail.

Image from Amazon.co.uk