There is a lot of confusion about what tai chi is, and what tai chi chuan is.
Mostly everybody is
concerned with what form is being done. "Oh, I study from so and so, and he
studies from Master Tsung - or Master Choy - and this is Ma style and this is
the Wu style and this is the Yang style. What do you practice?"
I say "I practice the Huang style."
My style comes out of all these other styles,
and I have to develop to the point where it becomes me.
(Chungliang Al Huang)
Embrace Tiger Return to Mountain
Chungliang Al Huang writes beautiful books about the freedom of
movement to be found within tai chi practice.
He is unconcerned with lineage, masters, forms and formality.
Tai chi for him is a
dance of inward expression.
His books speak of following your inner voice.
Barry was telling us a story about the woman who always cut the end of
the ham and somebody asked her why she did it. She said, "Well I don't know,
my mother always did it that way." And they asked her mother and she said,
"I don't know, my mother always did it." And they asked grandma, and she
said, "Well, I did it because otherwise it wouldn't fit into my biggest
pot."
(Chungliang Al Huang)
A child is spontaneous; he doesn't
try to be.
Spontaneity comes - it just flows, like rain. Thunder comes, trees grow,
flowers open.
You don't force a flower to open; it opens by itself.
(Chungliang
Al Huang)
I'm not here to teach
you anything.
I'm here to share with you how I learn about tai chi
So hopefully by the end of the week you will begin to learn about tai chi
through you.
(Chungliang Al Huang)
You often see people practicing tai chi quite concentrated. There is a
hush and everything stands still except the moving body.
Don't make it an antiseptic, sacred, exotic oriental thing.
Is your body moving like the sound of the ocean? Like the crackling of the
fire log? The wind? The space between leaves on a tree?
Or are you moving like arranged pieces of furniture, very consciously
put-together?
(Chungliang Al Huang)
Shock is a result of your own resistance to an external
force. When you allow this force to come into you and spin around with you, you can have fun with it. This is an example of being
vulnerable, of not being afraid to be flexible, and open to receive.
(Chungliang Al Huang)
Another problem is that the master may try to teach you
what he can do now as a result of years of practice, instead of showing you
a process that can gradually lead you to this.
(Chungliang
Al Huang)
As we work, we use the form as a guide. It is something we work with,
not something you learn to show off.
The form is a process that serves you, not an adornment you bring back to
hang on your wall.
(Chungliang
Al Huang)
The Tao Te Ching is a very beautiful learning and meditation book. It is
like a zen koan: either you dismiss it as nonsense, or you have to dig in to
understand it. It immediately takes you out of that intellectual confinement
of getting stuck with ideas, with what you think you know.
(Chungliang
Al Huang)
Tai chi does not mean oriental wisdom
or something exotic. It is the wisdom of your own senses, your own mind and
body together as one process.
(Chungliang
Al Huang)
In tai chi we do not train
ourselves so our bodies are distorted in one way to achieve something
special.
(Chungliang
Al Huang)
One of my friends studied judo for
years and years. She was waiting for a chance to use it, but for a long time
nobody tried to attack her. Then one day somebody grabbed her in a parking
lot - and she slugged him with her purse!
And then she thought, "Oh! What happened to my judo?"
She must have been practicing judo as if it were an isolated thing. We
should always practice to let the immediacy of the moment come through. Then
you always have a sense of what you are doing now.
(Chungliang Al Huang)
Some of you have talked about
learning a short form of tai chi, which has certain transitional motifs
eliminated. The reason for these repeating transitions is to help you flow
within the form - to ride over it without thinking. When these repetitions
are cut out, some of the major movements become awkward and jam together.
The sequence loses some of its smoothness.
(Chungliang
Al Huang)
The yin/yang symbol is the interlocking, melting together of the flow of
movement within a circle. The similar - and at the same time obviously
contrasting - energies are moving together. Within the black area there is a
white dot and within the white fish shape there is a black dot.
The whole idea of a circle divided in this way is to show that within a
unity there is duality and polarity and contrast. The only way to find real
balance without losing the centring feeling of the circle is to think of the
contrasting energies moving together and in union, in harmony, interlocking.
In a sense this is really like a white fish and a black fish mating. It's a
union and flowing interaction. It's a consummation between two forces, male
and female, mind and body, good and bad. Its a very important way of living.
People identify with this kind of concept in the Orient much more than in
our Western culture, where the tendency is to is to identify with one force
and to reject the contrasting element. If you identify with only one side of
the duality, then you become unbalanced.
Tai chi can help you to realise how you are unbalanced and help you to
become centred again as you re-establish a flow between the two sides. So
don't get stuck in a corner, because a circle has no corners. If you think
in this way, you open up more.
(Chungliang Al Huang)
By comparing, you detach yourself from the flow of what's happening
in you and around you and become preoccupied with evaluating and judging,
thinking and worrying.
(Chungliang Al Huang)
She did not consciously think, "Ah, today I learned this and that; I gained
this much." You do not do it step by step that way, by adding on coatings of
varnish, or new paint. When learning becomes you, then it appears as you
need it, when you are being you. Sometimes true learning surprises you when
it emerges.
(Chungliang
Al Huang)
There are no beginnings or endings.
(Chungliang Al Huang)
Page created 27 May 2000