Posts tagged with "Tai Chi"

A Feint Within A Feint Within A Feint

Knowing where the trap is — that’s the first step in evad­ing it. This is like sin­gle com­bat, Son, only on a larg­er scale — a feint with­in a feint with­in a feint…seemingly with­out end. The task is to unrav­el it.

—Duke Leto Atreides, Dune

A feint can be used as a test, to gath­er infor­ma­tion, or a trap, to get some­one to do what you want them to do, or both.

The most impor­tant part to under­stand is that the oppo­nent is inher­ent­ly involved in the sit­u­a­tion. You can only gain advan­tage from a feint depend­ing on the way he or she (re)acts.

A savvy per­son will react with exact­ly the right amount of effort, espe­cial­ly impor­tant because a feint is only a mock attack. In Tai Chi terms, they bal­ance an oppo­nen­t’s yin (expan­sion) with yang (com­pres­sion), and vice-ver­sa1. In Taoist terms, they act like a mir­ror, reflect­ing only that which is in front of them, noth­ing more and noth­ing less. With a savvy per­son, the feint fails, and noth­ing is gained.

An igno­rant per­son will fall for the trick. They over­re­act and unbal­ance them­selves2, expos­ing their vul­ner­a­bil­i­ties. Without under­stand­ing true inten­tion, with­out see­ing the big pic­ture, they get played like a suck­er.

And the more they react, the more ridicu­lous they look.

  1. Hence the empha­sis placed on stick­ing and yield­ing; a phys­i­cal con­nec­tion is need­ed to know where the cen­ter of an oppo­nent is at all times [↩]
  2. In Tai Chi terms, this is con­sid­ered overex­tend­ing or col­laps­ing the struc­ture of the body or limbs [↩]

Yo-Yo Tuesdays and Thursdays

It’s the same thing every Tuesday and Thursday.

I get home from work. I have some yogurt. I pow­er nap. I wake up. I eat some fruit. I take the bus to my Tai Chi class.

I’m more pro­duc­tive on the bus than at home. It forces me to sit, and removes me of all dis­trac­tions.

Some days I like to zone out. I lis­ten to music and let my mind wan­der. Lately though, I’ve been read­ing, to whit­tle down my list of pur­chased-but-not-fin­ished books:

  • Beautiful Losers* by Leonard Cohen
  • Mao: The Unknown Story* by Jung Chang and Jon Halliday
  • The Te of Piglet by Benjamin Hoff
  • Tai Chi Chuan: The Martial Side* by Michael Babin
  • Power Taiji by Michael Babin
  • Yang-Style Tai Chi by Michael Babin
  • The Taoist I Ching trans­lat­ed by Thomas Cleary
  • The Tao* by Mark Forstater

Note: Those marked with an aster­isk are ones I’ve begun read­ing.

The one I’m focus­ing on now is the Mao book (which is a tome that breaks my back when I car­ry it in a shoul­der bag) because I’m near the end of his life and it’s get­ting so good and so juicy. Nearly 10 months after Bronwen’s par­ents gave it to me last Christmas, I’m almost fin­ished.

And I get so depressed when I read it because it’s filled with sto­ries of such tragedy, cru­el­ty, and mis­for­tune. Mao proves to be such a mon­ster, with over 70 mil­lion peo­ple dead from star­va­tion, sui­cide, or tor­ture, that it fills me with an almost infi­nite sad­ness.

Then I get to my Tai Chi class, and it’s so small and inti­mate, with such a great group of peo­ple, that I feel enlight­ened. It’s such a beau­ti­ful, tan­gi­ble expres­sion of my beliefs. My class­mates are all gen­er­ous, unpre­ten­tious peo­ple. The con­tact when I’m push­ing hands, uproot­ing, force-deflect­ing — the only phys­i­cal con­tact I have in the week now — charges me, and stave’s the lone­li­ness for anoth­er day.

When class is over, I get back on the bus and read more about Mao, and hurt again.

I come home around quar­ter to ten and cook din­ner and eat and write a bit and get to sleep way too late.

It’s an emo­tion­al roller coast­er I go through twice a week.

A Note On Chinese Titles

Both my Tai Chi teach­ers eschew the title of “Master”, and pre­fer to be called by their first names. As I’ve had it explained to me, even the true mas­ters feel like they need a cou­ple extra life­times to com­plete­ly mas­ter Tai Chi. This is what my teach­ers com­pare them­selves to, so I sus­pect they feel it erro­neous to use the same title, even though they’ve been teach­ing for decades.

I find it very awk­ward. In Chinese, the word “Master” or “Sifu” implies a teacher, not nec­es­sar­i­ly a lev­el of skill.

When I was young, I called my cousin by his Chinese name, because I thought it was insult­ing to address him by his rela­tion­al title of biu dai for “mater­nal younger male cousin” (or “moth­er’s sib­lings’ son who is younger than me”). I thought the “dai” part referred to some­one as “under”, the way “junior” could be used pejo­ra­tive­ly in English. The thing I did­n’t under­stand was that it was appro­pri­ate, per­haps even more appro­pri­ate than address­ing him by name. I’ve since become privy to the com­plex rules of Chinese names and titles, espe­cial­ly rela­tion­al fam­i­ly ones.

As a kid, the first thing you’re sup­posed to do when enter­ing a house is greet every­one — adults most impor­tant­ly — by their title.

People con­tin­ue this tra­di­tion though, and even as par­ents, they’ll address their elders the same way. It’s a way of rec­og­niz­ing and respect­ing the roles in the fam­i­ly. Even though my Tai Chi teacher is Occidental, I feel com­pelled to address my teacher as “Master”, instead of “Mike”.

And it’s hard habit for me to break.

To Grow from Yielding

The most yield­ing thing in the world
  will over­come the most rigid
The most emp­ty thing in the world
  will over­come the most full
From this comes a les­son —
  Stillness ben­e­fits more than action
  Silence ben­e­fits more than words

—Verse 43, Tao Te Ching

Sometimes, tem­per­ance is the great­est weapon.

When some­one attacks you with words or tries to make you feel any less than your­self, you mere­ly need acqui­esce.

In doing so, you dis­arm them. You rob them of their only weapon — anger — and their words lose all mean­ing and sig­nif­i­cance.

Tai Chi, as the phys­i­cal man­i­fes­ta­tion of Taoist philoso­phies, fol­lows the same idea.

Then you will under­stand the flow of inter­nal pow­er, and, hav­ing repeat­ed­ly prac­ticed and refined your tech­nique and explored your own aware­ness, you can use and con­trol your inter­nal pow­er at will.

The T’ai Chi prin­ci­ple is as sim­ple as this: yield your­self and fol­low the exter­nal forces.

—Waysun Liao, The Essence of T’ai Chi

When your oppo­nent expands, con­tract. Create a void in your stance, and let them fill that void. By absorb­ing your oppo­nen­t’s ener­gy, you reduce it to noth­ing.

No one proves them­selves more inane than one who match­es ener­gy with ener­gy, force with force.

I’ve final­ly come to ful­ly under­stand such an idea. The the­o­ry made sense, but I nev­er put it in prac­tice, and prac­tice is what makes the under­stand­ing com­plete. It was only recent­ly that I had the chance to apply it. The old me was hot-head­ed with too much to prove. When faced with insult­ing, patron­iz­ing words, I would have react­ed, instead of fol­low­ing the prin­ci­ple of wu wei. The sit­u­a­tion was a test of myself, and I passed.

From this I’ve learned how much I’ve grown.