It is healthy to make a clear distinction between private and public life. Your public life is subject to many influences and concerns that you are required to address.
Your private life is your own. Within reason you are not answerable to anybody. At work you may be the lowest rung on the ladder but at home you are the King/Queen.
It is absurd to think you are going to get anywhere by giving only an hour a week to your practice or that you can regularly skip classes. Martial arts is not like a bridge club, where you drop in when you have nothing better to do. Martial arts will always make greater demands on your time than would most hobbies or avocations.
(Dave Lowry)
Martial arts training, meditation, spirituality and cognitive development all require a great deal of gentle, patient, mindful work. Over a lengthy period of time.
Often the student is wanting a quick fix. Lacking the tenacity to sustain on-going daily practice, the student is hoping for an easier route. Does it exist?
People are often not quite as fit as they may imagine.
This fact might not seem important in tai chi because a lot of the work is slow, but the truth is that you cannot reasonably hope to defend yourself if you are out of shape.Tense muscles are in fact weak muscles. They are not healthy, balanced and toned. They are over-working and straining. Your nervous system is sending and receiving faulty information from the muscles.
This is not good for your tai chi.
Not all forms of exercise are necessarily good for you. For example, running may improve cardiovascular health but is also very hard on the joints.
Lifting heavy weights can cause significant tension to accumulate and - if the muscles are large enough - adversely affect the skeleton. Most forms of exercise have pros and cons; especially sport.
There are a number of martial classics, including:
36 Strategies
The Art of War
The Book of Five Rings
The Methods of the Ssu-ma
Questions and Replies Between T’ang T’ai-tsung and Li Wei-kung
T’ai Kung’s Six Secret Teachings
Three Strategies of Huang Shih-kung
Wei Liao-tzu
Wu-tzu
Talk is cheap in the modern world, so we encourage direct experience instead. Nobody in the class is expected to take the instructor's word for it. Find out for yourself through practical exercises.
Belief is not a requirement, nor is faith. You are not a 'disciple'. We adopt a scientific approach. The evidence is to be found in the doing and the proof in the effect.
This is called 'empiricism'. Discover the facts for yourself. Feel it for yourself. This is the heart of Zen.
Tai chi is the one exercise that can universally help solve our growing health crisis. It has stood the test of thousands of years. We have a generation of baby boomers with increasing health problems; old people who are sick, in pain, fearful, and cranky; a middle class that is increasingly incapable of affording most of the drugs that are prescribed for their ailments; children that are flaccid, diabetic and asthmatic. People of all ages are addicted to drugs, alcohol, sugar, cigarettes, and caffeine. Stress follows almost everyone like a shadow.
(Bruce Frantzis)
Most adults lose flexibility in their hands as they grow older. This is often the result of neglect and misuse. In our tai chi school we often ask new people to try and use baoding balls.
This is usually quite telling. Baoding balls are 2 metal spheres held in the palm of the hand and rotated using the movement of the hand and thumb.
Often people are exceedingly inept. Their hands simply will not move adequately to perform the exercise.
Modern technology is re-shaping how we use our bodies. Jerky, sharp movement is coarse and unrefined; clumsy. The joints of the body are capable of a wide range of movement.
Excessive use of toys is limiting those movements; emphasising the same actions repeatedly.
e.g. if you watch an Asian dancer, the hands perform intricate shapes and minute movements which look simple but are very hard to replicate.
A keyboard, mouse and monitor are interfaces that enable you to use the computer. The same is true of a mobile phone or videogame controller.
They were not designed with health in mind.
Be aware that your health must be your own concern. Continual use of a restricted number of muscles leads to muscular tension in the arms, wrists and hands.
Form teaches economy of movement, centre, range & reach, coordination, footwork, balance, timing, synchrony, flow, natural body use, healthy body use, strong skeletal alignment, power generation, stance and positioning.
Every tai chi form movement has a purpose. The student must understand why they are doing the movement, otherwise that movement is meaningless and most likely incorrect.
What is the movement for? How does it operate? Look at different forms in the syllabus - armed and unarmed - and consider the way in which the body is being used.
Examine the purpose, the method and the outcome.
As a precursor to tai chi, qigong offers the student an opportunity to explore crude body mechanics without the need of direct application.
Structure, balance, stance (foot position), mobility, coordination, use of energy, alignment, posture and poise are all explored using simple exercises.Lower back problems can be caused by various things but the main problem is sitting too much. Sitting causes the muscles to shorten. It is then harder for them to relax and lengthen.
Pelvis problems occur because the spine has lost its natural curvature and the muscles pull the pelvis out of alignment.