IT CANNOT BE CHANGED

"IT CAN NOT BE CHANGED"! BUT YOU CAN CHANGE YOURSELF

"TAI CHI IS MINDFULNESS"! SO RELISH YOUR FRUSTRATION WITH LEARNING, THAT IS TRUE MINDFULNESS

I once surprised myself when I said "Guilt is of no help in learning this". I said that to a Psychologist who was a teacher at a College in Buffalo. I said it in response to his saying "...that internal discipline is hard, I don't feel like I can do it...". Notice the word "feel", now if that was only true in terms of one's body and not just the mind. My own teacher has said "Tai Chi is hard" and I have a video of him saying that. I would agree with that. Let me also say that each beginning student makes it so. Don't you just dislike that?

 

Tai Chi does not do itself. There is a saying by Grandmaster Wu Chien Chuan: "It can not be changed". It had to do with what the Wu's learned from the Yang Family no doubt because it looked different. "Grandmaster Yeung Wabu said Wu told him that Wu did not change what they learned from the Yang family and insisted that they cannot be changed.' I could see why Wu said that it cannot be changed. With all the interlocking relationships between various elements, any change would result in some collapse of the logical structure. (See Uncovering the Treasure, p. iv)

 

Tai Chi may seem hard/challenging/difficult but don't fool yourself with that thought. What is difficult is changing prior habits of body and mind. Example of resistance to change: In an election the winning candidate for governor ate the same lunch every day so he would not have to make unnecessary decisions. Was the candidate "mindful" of doing this?

It is natural for the body and mind to want to cling to information provided by the senses. eg. 

 

Once having learned to walk, as your parents taught you, of course, the body and mind resist changing to Tai Chi walking. Are you "mindful" of your resistance or do you blame the Tai Chi?

I had a student who said he was leaving Tai Chi and taking "Mindfulness Meditation". My take on "mindfulness" other than Classical Tai Chi is a discipline for a lifetime, in one's frustrations one learns to observe their habitual nature....this is "mindfulness"

 

This "observation" comes when one sees an opportunity in their frustration rather than an obstacle. How do I as a teacher and vice versa for students, react to unfulfilled expectations of self and performance. I have never heard anyone who quit say "I did not like the sensations and feelings I experienced". It is what they don't say that speaks volumes. I have never heard "I am not good at this".

 

Most times if anything, one hears: "It is not your fault as a teacher", what I think it means euphemistically is "because I don't understand what I am doing". That is an intellectual observation, dualistic thinking, what of your feelings and sensations regarding the frustration?

 

I see that many people come to Tai Chi with intellectual aspirations (moving like flowing water, relieving stress, etc.) Classical Tai Chi is nonverbal, the language of sensing and feeling. This is frustrating to students who relish thinking and concepts rather than the body.

When you sense frustration, relish that instead, take the opportunity to notice your habitual nature and what you do in its light, this is "mindfulness".

 

The problem is however as you say, people don't want to do the work on a superficial level, but it runs deeper, give credit where credit is due, they catch a tiny glimpse of their habitual nature and they don't like it, then they really don't want to do the work