For some time I have been interested in the link between martial arts and health – particularly with regard to the practice of Tai Chi which is widely recognised as excellent for both.

In particular I have been intrigued by the questions:

“Why do the greatest health benefits come when the practice most closely follows martial effectiveness?”

and

“Why does focus on healthy practice bring significant development in martial skill?”

The following article expresses some thoughts as to how Tai Chi in particular and martial arts practice in general relate to those two questions by looking at some of the elements involved and describing some achievable outcomes.

I could only manage a day with Master Chen Ying Jun at his recent seminars in the Reading area – but it was a very full day – both interesting and enjoyable. Thank you to Steve, Vickie and Phil for organising this.

This type of seminar – with a master of his skill, and working with other students of various abilities – always serves as a reference point and an inspiration for my own training – both on my own and with my teacher Karel Koskuba. Such sessions also reconfirm that to be a good teacher it is necessary to continuously improve one’s own Tai Chi.

Immediately I remember the corrections, low stances and very practical approach of Chen Ying Jun – but I suspect that longer term much more subtle transmissions have been absorbed and I look forward to finding out what they were in my training until his next visit.

We are fortunate that in addition to regular visits by Grand Master Chen Xiaowang we also now have seminars in the UK with Master Chen Ying Jun and Master Chen Bing.

Please see links for details:

Chen Ying Jun – Reading – October 2014

Chen Xiaowang – London – November 2014

Chen Bing – Chichester and Oxford – November 2014

From a western/English language perspective it can seem that the Tai Chi classics speak in riddles – and that some teachers in the Chinese tradition do not talk much at all about the how and what of Tai Chi movement.

I am coming to think this is a misunderstanding of what is really going on – based on a cultural linguistic gap.

English language as a technology tends to encourage presentation of very tight definitions of specific detailed aspects in isolation. On the other hand perhaps the “fewer words talking in riddles” approach is actually an extremely accurate use of language in a “jargon” sense, where each short description carries within it many layers of a pre-understood body of knowledge – not just of specifics but also of their inter-relationships.

So the injunction to “relax and sink” is hugely accurate and comprehensive at the same time – so long as you share a pre-existing understanding with the speaker in the widest possible terms – which you can then bring to the very focused matter of moving your body, or where you subsequently are able to correlate subconsciously in your practise.

Perhaps like in car racing where fast lap times involve driver skill and car mechanisms – there are needs to train driver awareness, and to develop the suspension and engine components. But in actually driving we speak simply of how to apply steering and the throttle, without all the detail of the vehicle operation in that process.

In this way we find that very little needs to be said – and that which is said is necessarily broad in sweep – simply allowing the subconscious body to operate naturally. It is for us to delve beneath the surface to establish what we need to do to achieve the desired natural outcome. In this we can simply do the exercises and observe the result so that in the process we come to recognise the feelings involved and attach meaning directly to the words. Plus, we can explore intellectually the possibilities, setting up experimental exercises and so on.

Try standing in front of a mirror with your arms lightly out and palms up
Then open the hands as far as you can.
Relax and let them spring back – can you feel the spring in your hands?
That is an internal feeling
What you can see by looking at you hands in the mirror is the external that an observer sees.
Now repeat by opening as far as you can – but this time think to yourself “ stay open” and direct your intention to your hands – they stay open – or will with a little practice – and without noticable effort.
Then simply allow the hands to close again and reflect that you have controlled your hands by intention not effort.

So here you have demonstrated external movement from  muscle effort with internal feeling and mental intent so you can understand that the external presentation is a reflection of the internal process, but not a definitive one since we cannot directly observe what the other person feels mentally and physically. However as our own experience grows we develop greater understanding of what lies within the movements we observe. Like reading a water course by looking at the patterns on the water – our experience of the depths and shallows is coupled with our knowledge of currents and wind effects on the water surface to gauge what is going on below where we cannot actually see.

So as students we have some very powerful tools at our disposal but they usually need refining.
We can look at our teacher and see the external choreography of their movements
We can sense the internal feeling of our own movement and relate it to the movement of others.
We can listen carefully to what teachers say and use our experience of language to interpret.

When we look we interpret what we see in light of our own internal experience
When they demonstrate we get an enhanced picture in much higher definition which allows us insight to their internal process
When they describe what they are doing then we can relate it to what we ourselves experience and notice how they compare as a way of interpreting the words used.
When we practice we can adjust the movement by changing our intention or the feeling we wish to express eg relaxed, sinking, soft, hard, fluid, extended, light, springy and so on.

I am really looking forward to our next one-day seminar in October covering Tai Chi related exercises and meditation – with the added benefit of Alexander Technique. The mix of meditation and movement combines to create internal awareness and understanding of our body usage – this seminar will take time to explore how we can develop this mind-body link.

Date: Sunday 19th October 2014. Time: 10.00am to 4.00pm

Venue: The Letchworth Centre for Healthy Living, Rosehill Hospital,
Hitchin Road, Letchworth, Hertfordshire, SG6 3NA
Cost: £60.

To book: telephone The Letchworth Centre on 01462 678804

Here’s an idea – think of yourself as a committee – and your body and your mind and your spirit
as sub-committees.

This structure is like a team or a shoal of fish/flock of birds – but unlike any of these you do not
have the option to “drop” one of the team – they are with you for life – so the only option is to
grow the team from within. You cannot rely on a few star players you must get the whole team
home. So you focus instead on supporting the weak players, guiding them and giving them
every opportunity to grow and learn how to co-ordinate with the rest of the team – how to work
in sync, in rhythm and in the same direction as the rest – unless they do then you remain
unconnected and your energy is scattered like a tug-o-war team who doesn’t practice.

So you invest in loss – because that gives you the best opportunity for the feedback which can
show you what is not working and why and allow you to work out how to fix it.
It is the power of teamwork that generates Chi and the skill gained from consistent practice –
your Kung Fu – that enables us to develop it.

The forms and the exercise and the repetition – the experimentation, the mindful observation,
the push hands and the partner work are all tools along the way to help our team grow. So as
one player gets weaker perhaps with old age or illness – the team structure and operation gets
stronger to compensate – the linkage gets more resilient and tougher, the demands on each
player become less as the structure becomes more integrated and focused, and more flexible to
external forces. In a similar way that if you have a chain with weak links there would be no point
in further strengthening the already strong links – you instead first rebuild the weak links to
make the whole chain strong.

So in Tai Chi we work on our bodies and our physical systems using exercises that give us the
opportunity to develop our tissues and co-ordination – which indirectly means that we also work
on our mind and spirit. We work on balance, sensitivity, co-ordination, elasticity, timing,
endurance, connection – and on understanding the experiences of those other Tai Chi players
who choose to pass on their experiences.

Like a good team manager our mind is just one player – we can use the conscious intellect in
observing, researching, learning, nudging, encouraging, cajoling, threatening and nurturing. Too
strong and it takes over and micro-manages – it does not allow our subconscious to work and
so we do not become “natural” in our Tai Chi – but remain robotic and uncoordinated – external
– always catching up, always too late however fast we try to move, always with weaknesses
easily seen and exploited by other Tai chi practitioners who have got their team together.
Worse – over use of the intellect can send us off on many a wild goose chase – thinking that we
know what we are doing – and actually not. This over use can hold us back in our progress by
sending us off in many wrong directions. The intellect is a powerful team player when it works
correctly – indeed it may be the chairman of the board sometimes but it is not the managing
director and all the other directors as well.
For example the intellect can create virtual models, visualisations, exercises and patterns to
help in developing the body and spirit. Just as mine created this article which attempts to
transmit part of my intellectual model and actually therefore forms part of the model itself.

Our spirit plays in the team too – too strong and it takes over pushing us too hard and
demanding we win all the time or just as bad perhaps defending us when not necessary – too
weak and we just take the easy road or don’t even try at all. Too much spirituality and we can
get lost in the “airy-fairyness” of it all and lose track of the real world. Learning when and how to
support the team – when to lead and when to take a back seat is vital for the spirit.

In a very real sense we are the whole committee – from our microbes to our concepts – from
our cells to our structural tensegrity and our conscious/unconscious learning and control
systems. Our outward presentation and inner experience are a complete melding of all these
elements of ourselves – we are the “group think” of the committee/team – our mitochondria,
memories, religious beliefs and physical abilities etc. – if there is inner conflict then it is like
ministers briefing against their own government – the whole structure begins to break down and
quite quickly even the house keeping (civil service) is affected – so we are constantly
negotiating consensus and to stay “on message”.

If we have too strong a leader i.e. any one member controls the committee for too long then the
structure becomes unbalanced. So at all levels studying Tai Chi becomes a quest for balance
and how to allow change from one mode to another – as sometimes one aspect predominates
and then steps down and takes a passive role. We learn to become congruent and to trust
ourselves – sure we still make mistakes – hopefully less as we go on – but we retain our
personal integrity.

So if we allow ourselves to “relax and sink” then we can let the committee work properly and
ultimately more powerfully as a team than as a loose collection of individual parts each fighting
to dominate.

I was intrigued by a story on the radio recently of a western freediver who went to learn from Japanese pearl divers – whose only advice was ” get in the water and dive”

It reminded me of the only advice I got while in the Chen village ” relax and sink, practice the form”

While it does not appear that simple from our western deconstructionist viewpoint – it actually is – as I am finding yet again with my golf. In a lesson today with my coach I found that I need to relax and sink my right hip and my right shoulder. So there is an element of learning which bits need to relax and sink – but only because they are the tense bits in the first place – if you just relax and sink everything then you can move naturally.

There comes a point where you have to make it your own – as my Karate teacher Vince Morris used to say “wear your Karate like your own suit of clothes”.

I more and more appreciate Chen Wangting’s nickname of Chen the Tablet – so named for his upright and no doubt relaxed and sinking posture.