I have just come back from a week in the beautiful countryside of Derbyshire, and I am full of reflections on nature...
On one hand, tai chi can be seen as a skill learnt, a technique or a craft, the refinement of which adds to one's skill and enjoyment in life.
Another way of looking, it could be argued, reveals tai chi as adding nothing in particular to us, but instead stripping away defective, inefficient, and unattractive movements. I like to think of tai chi chuan as perfecting our human movement, after a week in the dales and on the moors observing eagles, crows, sheep and other beasts playing out their own essences in movement. At some point, an eagle learnt its skill-at-flight, the sheep where best to graze and how to keep a watchful eye out and so on, but when we observe them now any sense of technique per se has disappeared. Something to aim at on my part.
We are upright creatures, and should express that. We haven't the natural tools such as claws or horns for the stand-up fight, and this we express also. We are capable of more than just a bloodthirsty fight-to-the-death, and tai chi chuan gives us this option. We enjoy play, and there is much of this in tai chi.
I wonder if it's possible to direct teaching along the lines of revealing natural movements rather than filling people up with supposed technique? Without losing the discipline and form of tai chi, can we convey its essence simply?
I shall be back to my normal less ponderous self soon I am sure...
Zen for even harder times
4 years ago