T'ai Chi as self defense

T'ai Chi As Self Defense

Not what we normally think of as self defense, avoiding physical blows, subduing an opponent, or escaping physical harm in a combat situation.

How often do we actually encounter the necessity for that kind of self defense? And, how often we encounter the following situations where a different understanding of 'self-defense' may come into play?:

Getting out of the bathtub; not slipping on ice; walking on ice; Getting up too fast from bed; a driver who cuts in front of you; being late for an appointment while stuck in traffic; standing in front of a large audience about to make a presentation; having the unexpected happen while making a presentation; being asked a difficult question at a job interview; having your flight cancelled; A job cancelled by your client at the last moment; or any of what I call, "Freeze" moments, when the tendency is to contract, to go into 'Fight or Flight' mode (Which is actually, "Freeze, Flight, Fight" since that is the order in which an animal responds to a threat, which is why I call it 'Freeze' mode).

A practice in T'ai Chi can help with any 'Freeze' situation. The way to break a freeze is to move - literally, just move, as simple as that. The simplest form of movement is breath. We hold our breath when threatened, whether it's a saber toothed tiger or an irate boss. When you hold your breath it's almost impossible to be creative in your actions, or indeed, to act at all. The key is to move. Breath is movement, actually moving the body, a stretch or gesture or step is also movement. That will break the freeze and allow your brain to function once again.

The solution to a freeze moment is simple - move. What is not simple is the ability to recognize that you are in a freeze, that you are holding your breath, that you are contracted. That is where T'ai Chi and other meditative practices come in handy. T'ai Chi is my 50 year preference because it is all about movement, it is often referred to as 'Meditation in Motion.' The practice of T'ai Chi trains you in balance (Mental and emotional as well as Physical balance). This is well known. What is generally not reflected upon is that this practice also trains you in the ability to recognize being out of balance, which is just as valuable a skill. It doesn't train you in how to solve the situation that has caused the imbalance, it doesn't provide you with the creative solution; but by moving, you put yourself, your physical, mental and emotional states, into a position where you are much more likely to come up with a solution. 

My T'ai Chi teacher, T.T. Liang used to call our unbalanced positions in class, "Ready to be beaten." How does T'ai Chi re-move you from the "Ready to be Beaten" state into an equilibium that allows for solutions? Where does it 'move' you to?

It 'moves' you to the Present, the Now, the only place from which action is possible and the only place in which solutions can appear. In "The Heart Aroused," the poet David Whyte does a brilliant analysis of Beowulf that makes this precise point. Beowulf defeats Grendel's mother only by being present enough to see the sword on the wall (there all along but unnoticed until Beowulf relaxed), and then applying it to the monster's neck! A worthwhile read.

So, T'ai Chi is about learning balance, being centered and grounded, being calm and moving from the center. These are what you train in as you practice. The wonderful side benefit is the ability to feel when those conditions are not present, and how to restore them by moving and breathing.

Happy practicing!

Free T'ai Chi! Happy New Year!

FREE ON-GOING TAI CHI CLASS

Begins Monday, Jan 20th    -    Mondays 6:00-7:30pm   

In our beautiful new studio at 110 Ward Hill Road, Phillipston, MA

I have recently been inspired by two things in my life, one recent and the other of more than 40 years ago, to offer some sort of service to the world I move in:  

Recently by my connection with the Indian Guru Amma Chi; the other in 1971 when I was a founding member of the Boston Repertory theatre where we offered free performances. That continues to be one the most memorable and rewarding experiences in my life.

The connection..........

I have often found myself in disagreement with the exorbitant amount of money some T’ai Chi masters charge for their teachings. 

THEREFORE.......

it feels absolutely appropriate and rewarding to me to offer ongoing free T'ai Chi classes for those who want to learn this art. I will freely teach and share everything I have learned from all my esteemed teachers in this class.

I will not be advertising the class in any other way than by word of mouth, so PLEASE pass this on to your friends especially if you live in Central Mass.

Instructor: David Zucker. 

Training: 41 years of experience having studied with a wide variety of masters during that time, including T.T. Liang, John Chung Li, Peter Ralston,  Kumar Frantzis, William C.C. Chen, and Alan Shapiro. 

Teaching: 35 years of teaching thousands of students at many different locations: Interface; New Age Expos; Boston Center for Adult Ed;  Skyros Institute, Greece; Ferry Beach and privately in Boston, Watertown, Belmont, Waltham, and Concord, MA.  I also created the T'ai Chi program for Harvard Pilgrim Health and taught it for many years, employing at one time up to five additional instructors in the Harvard Pilgrim network.

The Fine Print: 

1. Class size limited to the number who can comfortably fit in my home studio (about 10 people). Phillipston isn’t exactly the center of the world, so travel may limit your decision.
2. Donation: You will be expected to make a donation. It is my intention to offer the class for free, but that is more for my benefit than yours, as strange as that might seem (maybe not). For your benefit, however, things are often not valued unless there is some sort of ‘cost’ to the student. I have several ideas on how to establish that cost, one of which is to ask you to make a donation after each class. It should be something you are absolutely comfortable with. I make no judgements on the amount and will make it a point to not know who is giving what. If you truly feel you can afford nothing, then the class will be free in that way to you.
3. Practice: You agree to practice everyday.  T’ai Chi is an art that is impossible to learn without practice. It is possible, for comparison, to get some benefit out of a yoga class if you only practice during the class. It is not possible to approach T’ai Chi that way for the very simple reason that there is too much memory involved, and the memory involvement gets more progressive with every passing week (perhaps a good anti-Alzheimers’ exercise). The good news: You are only required to practice a minimum of one minute a day to fulfill the requirement, but you MUST put at least that one minute into it.
4. Participation:  You are encouraged to sign up and be expected to come to class. I am not expecting hordes of people to descend on Phillipston, so I am initially allowing drop-ins; but people who have signed up for the class will have preference if, for example, 15 people show up some Monday for a space that only holds 10. 
5. Flexibility: My work sometimes calls me to travel. There will be no class on the Mondays when I have to be away. There will be plenty of advance notice of these dates. I will notify you via email of these cancellations (another reason to sign up rather than drop in). My experience is that this will happen less than once a month.

Cardinal or Can of Coke?

I am playing T'ai Chi outside at Harvard Business school yesterday early morning (before teaching a class there - yes, on a Saturday!), and I see a cardinal (bird, not prelate) flying around. Every now and then I see him as I turn, catch him out of the corner of my eye; but also every now and then I would think I see him only to find that my attention has been caught by a red Coke Can that someone has discarded on the lawn. 

It is obvious that my mind is projecting a cardinal when I am really looking at a Coke can. The cardinal is in my mind. The not-so-obvious and even profound thing that occurs to me is that I am probably not seeing the cardinal EVEN WHEN I AM ACTUALLY LOOKING AT THE CARDINAL, that I am seeing the SAME projection of a cardinal that my mind furnishes when I look at the red Coke can. 

Suddenly everything shifts and I start SEEING what I am looking at, without filter or expectation. The remainder of my T'ai Chi workout is pretty sweet. The lesson is deep and memorable.

It is pretty good indication that whenever I look at something I don't actually see what is there. I usually see what I expect to see from my past experience of the thing - my mind furnishing the image from its' memory banks that most closely corresponds to the thing I think I am seeing. When that thing actually is a cardinal it is almost impossible to notice that I am really seeing a projection rather than the real thing. When the cardinal is a Coke can, the phenomenon is much more obvious - (thank you Coke Can for the lesson!).

I am an iPhone, not a mainframe computer!

Scientists have used computers as metaphors for the human experience for almost as many years as computers have been around, so let me extend the metaphor:

Looking at my new iPhone I realized that I am more like that than I am like a desktop or mainframe computer.

I have a running conversation with a good friend of mine about the existence or non-existence of 'God.' He is an Atheist and I am a believer. But I am a believer who admits that my belief is just a belief - I could be right or wrong.

What I realize though, is that my belief is really not about whether or not God exists, but about there being more to life than what most of us see as 'reality'. I am pretty convinced that what passes for reality is mostly illusion, smoke and mirrors, ...... theatre! (Hence the Title of my blog: "Looking Backstage in Life")

I am pretty convinced, through my own experiences, that "I" is more than my mind, emotions, or body; and that "I" continues after 'death.'

From my experiences and from reading about Quantum Physics I have come up with an extension of the computer metaphor.  "I" is more like my iPhone than my old non-cloud-connected desktop computer. Most people think that consciousness resides in, and is generated by, the brain. I think that Consciousness ('God') exists 'outside' the brain, in the 'Cloud' and that my brain is a transmitter, or focuser, of Consciousness, much like my iphone brings the content of the web/cloud to me, but the web/cloud does not reside on my iphone.

If my iphone (mind, emotions, body) breaks ('God' forbid!), then I just get a new one and download the content from the cloud/web - no loss of 'Me.'  Now, just as with my iphone, there is some content stored on the device of my mind/body/feelings, and that content probably does get lost when I die. I liken that to my personality in this particular incarnation. As Alzheimers shows, the personality IS destructible, when memory goes - identity goes too. As Thornton Wilder says in Our Town, "What's left? What's left when memory's gone, and your identity Mrs. Smith?"

So, my grand purpose in this particular lifetime is to make sure that the "I" I identify with is NOT the personality but the larger, indestructible, eternal, evernow "I" of Consciousness.

That is the purpose of meditation, T'ai Chi, Yoga, zen, and all real spiritual practices. It was the purpose of the founders of the world's religions before those religions got corrupted by ignorant followers. Every great religious figure saw into Truth, saw the distinction between the temporal and the eternal and tried, with the metaphors available to them at the time, to point the way to Truth.

I also do not think such an idea is unprovable or lacks evidence. I believe science and mysticism are getting closer and closer - that if such a concept is 'true' then at some point it will be provable and evidence will be discovered. Until that time it will remain a belief for me, but a belief backed up by personal experience, and one that makes a whole lot more common sense to me than the belief that our "I" is just an amalgamation of memory, mind, and body.

Pursue The Ordinary

I don't know if is the fact that I am in spiritual India, or the jet-lag, but I woke at 2am this morning feeling the desire to do T'ai chi. I spent the next extraordinary three hours with T'ai Chi, Standing meditation and just general "Being" This is what came to me as an experience:

If you want to find the extraordinary - pursue the ordinary. The extraordinary exists only in the ordinary. If you pursue the extraordinary you will never find it because you are making a distinction between the experience you are having now and something that you think does not exist at this moment that you are calling, "The extraordinary."

The ordinary IS extraordinary.

Think about it: The extraordinary is experienced as something rare, one of a kind, special. OK then - that is the precise definition of the ordinary "Now." The ordinary, now, moment is rare, is one-of-a-kind, is special. It is these things because it is the ONLY moment that EVER exists - ALWAYS and forever - "World without end."

If you can pursue the ordinary so that you actually get to experience it unfiltered, raw, as-it-is, you will have a guaranteed extraordinary experience. And if you can let go of that so that you stay open to experiencing the very next ordinary moment, you will have another extraordinary experience. If you can let go of THAT one too so that you can fully experience the next ordinary moment as it appears, and the next, and the next, and the next, and........ Then you will have a never ending experience of the extraordinary "Now." You will have eternal life because the only thing eternal is the Now.

That is why I say, "The most transcendent enlightenment experience you have ever had cannot compare to the experience you are having right now." Right now is REAL.

It is ordinary because it never ends.
It is extraordinary because it is the only one there IS.

WOW! THIS is all there is. Nothing else exists. Existence IS "What is." "Right Now" IS what IS. Period. The fun, the play, the work, the game.... the ONLY thing really worth pursuing is the unfiltered experience of THIS moment.

Think of it: Everything else will end. Your children will leave you. Your wife or husband will leave you or you will leave them because eventually you will both die. You car will fall into disrepair. Your favorite shoes will fall apart. Your body will stop being able to do what it is used to. EVERYTHING is impermanent and ends...... EXCEPT right now.

What else is truly worth pursuing but that which is always new and never ends. Every sage who ever lived saw that. Jesus said (supposedly), "Behold, I maketh all things new." I don't think he was talking about himself. I think he was one with the Now moment (God) and having an unfiltered experience of the eternal Now, which indeed does make all things new.

Consistent Physically-Spiritual Practice vs. Anti-depressant Medication

Question: Are there any people who have a consistent (daily), physically spiritual practice (where breath work is involved, like yoga, and t'ai chi)  who also are on anti-depressant medication or long-time (years) therapy?

I am hoping to gather some data.  This is a question that is so obvious to me that I wonder why I have never thought to ask it before. 

I am sure there are plenty of people out there who have absolutely no spiritual practice and are also not on any medication -  bless those hearty souls. My interest is with those who are on such medication and have no physically spiritual practice - that it not only might be able to help them, but that it possibly, beyond the shadow of a doubt, would be able to help them.

My wonder is whether most depression (even the chemical/biological kind) can be treated by a practice which is a combination of these three things: 1) Daily, 2) Physical, 3) Spiritual.

Most of the people I know who have a daily physically spiritual practice are not on medication or seeing a therapist on a regular basis. But that is a small sample and I would love to hear other folk's experience around this.

There is something about arts that combine breath, meditation, and  movement that balance the mind/body. Even going so far as to regulate chemical balances within the body.

I also believe that yoga and t'ai chi connect you powerfully, feelingly, physically, experientially with a Reality that is....... well...... 'realer' than the so-called 'reality' of everyday life. A Reality beyond that which gives rise to depression, anxiety, and fear. Not that people who practice yoga and t'ai chi never get depressed (I get depressed, I get fearful, I get anxious), but that we have a way out; an anchor point, a touchstone, a grounding ---- an expansiveness that we can connect to that dispels the contractive states of mind of depression and fear.  Oftentimes if it is some simple, everyday gnarliness I am feeling I can dispel it just by remembering to breathe!

This is a non scientific poll. I am interested in hearing from health care professionals regarding their own experience in this matter as well as from people who are directly affected. So please feel free to get in touch with me. I promise confidentiality. I really want to know what people's experience is around this question. Feel free to forward this blog to people you know who might be able to add to my knowledge. I will report out here, afterwards, with what I find.

Thanks! Happy Playing.

Why is T'ai Chi such an amazing practice?

What is it about T’ai Chi that makes it such an amazing exercise, meditation, life practice? You can do it anywhere and at any time - Almost any experience can be T’ai Chi practice. I don’t know of any other exercise/practice where this works quite so seamlessly.

I am sitting here at Pete’s Coffee and Tea in Harvard Square, watching the Cambridge world go by: joggers, walkers, strollers, sitters, roller bladers, drivers, standers-by. All of these people could be doing exactly what they are doing and enhance the doing of it by adding the quality of T’ai Chi. T’ai Chi is a way of experiencing the world with more silky smoothness (Ah, that phrase was probably influenced by the soy Latte I am sipping); of moving / Being with more ease, flow, and grace; of taking great delight in the very process of Being alive - moment by moment.

It is the same feeling I used to get sporadically and unexpectedly of, ‘A beautiful day.’ Only now I can design it, I can ‘make’ it happen, actually - allow it to happen -  just by tuning into the very practical, physical ability to allow life, to consciously experience that flow of electrons, particles, current, energy we call the present moment, or the Now.

There is nothing mystical or spiritual about it. If you suddenly become aware that you are clenching your fists or your jaw, or holding your breath, it is a simple matter of opening that fist, relaxing the jaw, or taking a breath. For a T’ai Chi player there is little difference; it just works on a deeper level. We become aware that we are ‘clenching’ our Now and simply let go, melt, dissolve that feeling of clenching.

Clenching, tightening, holding, tensing.... it's the same process whether it is as obvious as a tight fist or as subtle as a tight mind. The process of relaxing them is the same too. It just takes the three things that studies have shown are necessary for learning a new skill or unlearning an old habit: Desire, Feedback, and Practice.

 There is really nothing special about Being. It’s as common as dirt, we all do it all the time. What could be more common than Being? What is uncommon is the conscious experience and enjoyment of Being. As far as I am concerned that is the purpose of life: Enjoying Being. That’s it and it doesn’t matter a whit what you do or who you are. Profession, wealth, social status, gender, political affiliation, are all window dressing, smoke and mirrors concealing the common thread of Being that goes on behind and throughout it all. It is all just Being.  Playing in the fields of Being - “That’s what its all about” (to quote the Hokey Pokey).

Happy Playing.

Come join me to play with Peter Ralston at a weekend workshop in September in Northampton.  http://www.chiwiz.com/Ralston.html