Well, that's a very loose paraphrase of what Jung said about the Western mind encountering and trying to absorb the Eastern mind. Jung wrote introductions to two of Richard Wilhelm's translations of ancient Chinese texts, most notably, The I Ching, which embodies a great deal of Taoist thought. Here is some of what Jung said:
(From “In Memory of Richard Wilhelm” by C. G. Jung, Appendix of Secret of The Golden Flower, by Richard Wilheim.)
People have become weary of scientific specialization and rationalistic intellectualism. They want to hear truths which broaden rather than restrict them, which do not obscure but enlighten, which do not run off them like water, but penetrate them to the marrow. This search threatens to lead a large, if anonymous, public into wrong paths….Unfortunately, the spiritual beggars of our time are too inclined to accept the alms of the East in specie, that is, to appropriate unthinkingly the spiritual processions of the East and to imitate its way blindly. That is the danger about which it is impossible to give too many warnings…. What it has taken China thousands of years to build cannot be grasped by theft. We must instead earn it in order to possess it. What the East has to give us should be merely help in a work which we still have to do ourselves.
How does this relate to learning Tai Chi? Simple. Don't be enchanted by the exotic and mystical nature of embracing an alien lifestyle. Instead, be willing to bring its essence into your own consciousness by experience (and practice!) When Jung was writing, there was a Western prejudice against Eastern philosophy. During the ever-lovin' sixties, popular culture in the United States began to embrace everything non-western (just watch the movie, Woodstock, again for the sequences of hippies doing Tai Chi and Yoga). Perhaps in this century we are a little more level headed about it. There are numerous articles about scientific studies on the health benefits of practicing Tai Chi, Yoga, etc. However, the Tai Chi Snob thinks this might be a sort of renewed prejudice. We justify taking a spiritual risk by basking in scientific data. Well, whatever gets you to try it must be a good thing. Stick with it and it can change you life for the better. Just remember, they're Chinese, and you're not!
Just so you don't think that the Tai Chi Snob has become a Sword Snob I thought I'd show you what I just ordered. I did a lot of research (in other words, browsing ebay) and read some blogs and the comments in some of the facebook Taiji groups. One blog I found very helpful was "Buying a Taiji Sword" where he talks about deciding on, guess what? ---the very same sword I just ordered! It's very rewarding to have your conclusions justified by someone else's logic. I ordered an Adam Hsu series Taiji practice sword made by Paul Chen.It looks like this:
I guess that's Adam Hsu in the picture. This is not a really traditional looking sword, although it was designed by a martial arts guy who knows what it's supposed to do when you swing it (sing... yes, sing!) More about swords later, I have to go cut the grass.
Today was World Tai Chi and Qigong Day. Glennon and I drove for an hour and fifteen minutes from Delavan to Kenosha in a pounding rain ("now THAT'S what I call rain!") It could have been a nicer day weather-wise, but at least we had a nice indoor venue: the Kenosha Public Museum, home of the Schaefer mammoth. My teacher #2, Ron Pfeiffer of Midwest Tai Chi and Self Defense in Burlington was the host. Here are some pictures:
We are doing "Tai Chi for Arthristis" which is a Paul Lam modification of Sun style Tai Chi. Notice the guy in front is doing his move a little differently than the rest of the folks. Heh heh, that's me.
There would have been a beautiful view of the lake through those windows. I think this shows the "73 form," the original Sun Lutang style.
A "brush knee" from the arthritis form.
Hmm.. this might be part of "Jade Lady Works Her Shuttle" Sun style. Notice how that guy in the middle is guarding his forehead in Yang style while the rest of the folks have a Sun style block going on. Maybe I should have practiced Sun style a little more this week!
Anyway, it was great fun and I hope some of the onlookers got inspired to try Tai Chi!
It is natural to want the best teacher possible. I grew up at a time when is was still considered a good thing to be smart (well before Reagan started taking apart the schools and Bush made everyone feel good about being stupid: "hey, the prez is dumber than me, so it must be alright to be stupid!"). In high school we read about "oriental" thinking. On our own, of course. I had an English teacher that wanted to prove to me that Noah's Ark really existed. Of course I turned in a term paper on the Tao Te Ching to her. That was the only English course I ever took that I didn't ace. You see, it was the post-beatnik and pre-flower child era, so we read "On The Road" and Ginsberg's "Howl" and Alan Watts' "The Way of Zen." That of course led to the harder stuff: Taoism, The Tao Te Ching and ultimately, the I Ching. It seems strange to me that I waited another 40 years to discover Tai Chi.
My teacher #1, Michael DeMarco, has an interesting article called "Finding My Teachers" in which he describes studying Tai Chi in Taiwan with his teacher, Yang Qingyu. There was a language barrier so instruction was by observation and imitation, with an occasional correction (like a slap on the head!) Often, we will chose a teacher because the class meets at a convenient time or place. In a way, that's how I discovered Michael's class. I did actually have a teacher #0, a guy named Greg, who taught Wu style over the lunch hour at a health center in Santa Fe. Greg was a good teacher, but I only stayed with him about a month because I got a job and couldn't make the time work out. Then I heard about this guy from Pennsylvania who had started a class that met in the evening near my job. That was the main criteria that led me to Michael. I feel very very lucky to have found him. Maybe, as he says in his article, quoting an old Chinese proverb, "when the student is ready, the teacher appears."
I am not the only Tai Chi Snob out there when it comes to teachers. I have read enough in Facebook Groups and Blogs about choosing teachers to know that others have strong opinions, not only about their teachers, but about the style they practice. I'll write more later about the different styles, and styles of styles, but for now I want to address the notion of teacher knowledge, influence, inspiration and purpose. We Snobs might say, ask your teacher to show you the application for that particular movement (its martial art purpose) and if they can't, run screaming from the room! Some may decide to focus on the healthful aspects of Tai Chi and may even be a little skittish about showing applications to a class where people have not actually attended in order to be thrown bodily around the room. That's a good way to lose students. But they should know and understand that Tai Chi IS a martial art and that the movements reflect an approach to physical combat. Tai Chi is not about the use of force but about the redirection of your opponent's force. It is about being "soft," like a needle enclosed in cotton--- strength inside softness.
All of this is hard to observe during that first (probably free) class you take. But listen, watch the other students, ask questions. You may have to work a little to find your teacher, or, they may appear when you're ready.
There seem to be a lot of artists interested in using the form as a model for painting or sculpture. Here are a couple of examples. These are by Taiwan artist, Ju Ming. I'll try to post more as I find them.
This is too good not to share! Robot does Tai Chi --The QRIO prototype was developed by Sony Intelligence Dynamics Laboratory. There are lots of videos on youtube showing it dancing and other very humanlike movements. I've got to say, his(her) Tai Chi isn't bad! I'm not sure which form this is, though.
I had a wooden sword but it wooden sword. A wanted a steel sword but steel it wooden sword. If I got a tin sword, then I tin sword.
I got up with the morning doves today and drove the hour from Delavan to Madison for my Tai Chi Sword class. Why is it that Wisconsin has never learned how to build roads? Noisy and bumpy! Couldn't hear Paul Butterfield on the stereo! Anyway, everyone else in class had nice metal swords but I only had my cheap wooden one (at least it was made in China). Did I feel like a little kid with a toy sword? Yes! We learned several new moves but now I have forgotten them completely! Admittedly, I entered the class midway through and we have had holidays and skipped classes, so I haven't had the intensity I really need. I confess I've been watching the W. C. C. Chen video on youtube in order to catch up. As I've said before, you can't really see everything on a video... and this one is blurry! I will get it, but I guess I'm not ready for that metal sword yet.
Carina Cirrincione at Raven Studios in Arizone makes some nice wooden swords (pictured above). Jody (teacher #3) says she thinks they are not balanced properly for Tai Chi. A wooden sword is pretty light, though. I wonder if balance is as crucial as it might be with a heavy metal sword. Well, what do I know?
Not! Well, let's set the Wayback machine to around 8 or 9 years ago. My friend Marie was telling me about her Tai Chi experiences and I'd seen clips of Chinese people practicing in the park and I thought, hey, I can do that! So of course, instead of seeking out a class I went to the video store. I think it was Borders in Santa Fe. At any rate, I looked through all the titles like "Tiffany's New Age Tai Chi Workout," and "Relaxercize," and (don't even think about the David Carradine one-- although he was pretty cool in Kill Bill) and so forth. I finally settled on one by Dr. Paul Lam. Dr. Lam has a whole series of Tai Chi videos like "Tai Chi for Arthritis," "Tai Chi for Back Pain," and so forth. Sounds hookey, but what he has done is to modify Sun Style Tai Chi into shorter forms that focus on specific parts of the form that seem to work well with certain health problems like back pain, etc. It turned out much later that I would learn two or three of those modified forms from Ron (teacher #2)... but I digress! I think I might have learned the opening form (raising hands) from the Lam video and got the idea that relaxing was crucial. I learned the very important technique of placing the tongue against the roof of the mouth, but other than that I was pretty lost. You will miss a lot unless you know what to look at. You can't see behind the person or ask them to turn around. You will not have any feedback or corrections. And because the video is "frozen in time" the movements you watch will never vary; this is significant because you need to adapt the form to your own sense of space, time and movement rather than copy something exactly. I do use videos as reference quite a lot, sometimes watching a sequence hundreds of time (really) until I think I understand it. But nothing can substitute for a teacher and a group of other students to follow in real time.
Next week, April 24th, is World Tai Chi Qigong Day. Did this last year in Burlington (WI) in the city park. Ron (teacher #2) brought his Tai Chi class and his Kenpo class as well. The idea is to start a wave of Tai Chi energy moving around the world. It begins at 10:00 AM local time, in New Zealand and as each time zone rolls around to 10:00 AM another group will start. Check it out! http://www.worldtaichiday.org/ If you haven't tried Tai Chi before it is a good way to get a feeling for it. If you're in a class, tell your teacher about it if they don't know. If you live in southern Wisconsin, there will be a group participating at the Kenosha Public Museum, 5500 1st Av, in Kenosha, Wisconsin.
You might ask, "Why a duck?" I was in an early class with my second teacher (more about teachers later) and was talking about having attended a class at a different school which the teacher called "Holistic Tai Chi." Needless to say, I didn't return for a second class. In telling this story I said something like, "I don't know what that was, but it wasn't Tai Chi'" and my teacher, in good spirit, said, "Oh, Byron is a Tai Chi Snob!" He was refering, I think, to the attitude found in many martial arts genres that there is one true way to do things (sort of like The One True Religion) and the resultant dictatorial teaching style and student arrogance that it spawns. Point taken. However, it WASN'T Tai Chi! So one of the themes of this blog will be to explore this idea of the perfect form, the best teacher, the "real" Tai Chi in all its pitfalls... and revelations.
