HEALING AND MARTIAL ARTS BLOG

The following are our summer 2011 class times for the Long Island School of Tai-chi-Chuan.

Beginner classes chi-gung (zookinesis) and Tai-chi form – Mondays and Thursdays 7-8pm

Push Hands – Tuesdays 8-9pm

Private Classes and Massage at any time (by appointment)

New group classes forming for beginners (call for information)

For information call 631 744-5999

info@movementsofmagic.com

Classes located in Sound Beach, Long Island, N.Y.  (northern, central Suffolk County).  Taught by Bob Klein.

The many ancient cultures I have studied all seem to agree on the secret to obtaining great wealth and power.  They also agree as to how we have been robbed of our power as individuals.  Even nature, herself blatantly reveals this power to us.

When I used to travel through the jungles of Central America to study animals, my favorite animal was the red-eyed tree frog.  This crazy frog is about three inches long, bright green with white spots.  Its sides are banded yellow and blue.  The inside of its legs and arms are bright orange.  Its eyes are bright red with a bright gold lace pattern.  Normally it stays curled up on a branch, showing only the green and white, which is a camouflage. 

If an animal tries to grab it, the frog jumps, opens its arms and legs fully and leaps onto a nearby branch.  The predator, faced with a moving flash of color, throws its attention to where he expects the frog to land, several feet away.  Red-eye’s trick is that it sends the predator’s attention far away while it actually curls up on a close-by branch.  In this way it control’s the predator’s attention.

The secret to great wealth and power is the ability to control peoples’ attention.  The secret to your own happiness is to understand that process and not to be controlled.

We all know that packaging sells a product.  Many companies have spent most of their initial start up money on developing packaging.  Celestial Seasonings tea is an example. The manufacturers fight each other to have the stores place their product at eye level which makes it easier for you to grab the product and plop it right into your shopping cart. 

We are trained to pay attention to the packing. It is much easier to make pretty packaging than it is to make a good product.

The key to great power and wealth, though, is not in manipulating people to buy your product.  It is really in being able to discern the packaging from the product when it comes to who you are as a person. 

In any ancient system of training such as Tai-chi and Zookinesis, you find that you have many behavioral habits, in movement, posture, thinking and emotional patterns.  These patterns have been picked up throughout your life until you think of them as being part of yourself.  Eventually the patterns become your very identity.

We learn in the Push Hands exercise, for example, that the body is so finely designed that it takes very little effort and movement to toss your partner several feet into the air.  It is only the extraneous movements, such as tensing up your shoulders as you are about to push, that subvert your own efforts.  In an attempt to feel powerful (by tensing up), you are actually robbing yourself of power.

In the thinking process, we are used to thinking in words.  We may have an initial “jolt of thought” but can only understand the inspiration if they are translated into words.  A Zookinesis student would practice paying attention to the initial jolt of thought and refrain from translating it into thoughts. 

He does this because the words are only a label of the real thought, which is much more complex and complete.  By being aware of the actual experience of inspirational thinking and not merely the labels (packaging), he has access to the full power of the inspiration.

We learn in Tai-chi that the body is a conduit for the energy of nature.  A student will soon feel tremendous energy flowing through him which enlivens every cell of the body and heals the body.  He soon learns that we, as a society, have been taught to become disconnected from that energy and even to deaden ourselves so that we don’t experience it.  Once filled with energy, we no longer regard the body as just packaging for the mind, as a vehicle to carry the head around.  The vibrancy of the body, the balanced joy of the emotions and the inspirational thinking process all work together in a more powerful way.

Then you will be more effective in everything you do.  You will understand that wherever your attention goes, your life follows.  If it goes to its energetic connection to the vibrant energies of nature, to the experience of sharing your life with the human community, your life will be different than if your attention goes to the bright, flashy representations of value.

Yet, being in a more powerful, aware, integrated state, impervious to manipulation, you will be more successful in the material sense as well. 

The development of your attention has been recognized as the key to success throughout the ages.  My novel, The Doubting Snake, is an attempt to express this in an entertaining way.  The specific training of the attention is hidden in the story line.  Many ancient texts can be better understood as attempts to express this same idea.  As the hero of The Doubting Snake asks:

“And if both the sorcerers and the people who run our modern societies have such power to affect peoples’ minds then what hope does the ordinary citizen have?”

Tai-chi-Chuan teaches you how to avoid attack on the street and to make it difficult for a sparring partner to defeat you in class.  Even if you are not strong or are not used to fighting, there are ways you can thwart the attacker’s efforts.

A mugger is looking for an easy attack on someone who won’t or can’t fight back.  He mugs for a living and doesn’t want to get hurt “on the job”, just like anyone else.  The mugger must assess the physical abilities of his victim as well as the victim’s state of awareness. 

There are three qualities you can develop to lessen the chances of becoming a victim.  The first is the alignment of the body.  If your body is not aligned properly you are probably not involved in any physical activity that requires coordination.  The mugger can sense this.  Any training, such as Tai-chi, Zookinesis, Yoga or Pilates can teach you the proper alignment of the body.  Even the use of such physical therapy aids as the foam roller will improve your posture.  This will also improve your overall health.

The second quality is the fluidity of the body.  If your body is stiff and tight, you probably can’t move very well and certainly can’t run after the attacker.  A person who walks fluidly and is well connected to the ground may offer the mugger trouble.  If your body seems bouncy and alive you may have the energy to run after him.  The training methods mentioned above as well as such activities as trampoline work will bring that fluidity to the body.  Trampoline, Zookinesis and the animal forms of the martial arts are especially good at adding that bounciness to the body.

The third quality a mugger looks out for is awareness.  If you are aware of what is going on around you, you can prepare for an attack.  Strong awareness also shows that you have had some training, as the awareness of most people is very dead.   All of the above training helps with awareness, especially the Push Hands exercise of Tai-chi, sparring in general and the Zookinesis exercises.

In a classroom situation there are ways to thwart the sparring partner as well.  Most fighters concentrate on the opponent’s fists and feet and sometimes elbows and knees as well.  But they don’t concentrate on the space between the sparring partners.  Proper Tai-chi training teaches you to move into the open spaces so that the opponent is jammed.  You should be more interested in the spaces between you than in the strikes of the partner.  Let his strikes trigger you to move into the open spaces where you can easily deliver your own strikes. 

This requires that you don’t keep moving forward and back as with most styles of fighting.  You stay in and don’t allow the partner space to move or even time to relax and catch his breath.

Another way to quickly tire out the partner is to make his attention move rapidly.  Most people have very weak attentions.  While a properly trained martial artist has a “field of attention” so that he can deal with many things going on at a time, most fighters have a “single-pointed attention” which can only be in one place at one time.  That person’s attention has to jump from one place to another and it gets tired.  

So you should strike to different parts of the body.  You can punch the legs as well as the head and body.  You can integrate kicking with the punching rather than using punching for a while and then switching to kicking.  Add a little bit of grappling as well, just for a second or two, here and there and then go right back to punching and kicking.  If your partner cannot predict what you will do next, his attention is uncertain and wears out quickly.

Keep the body fluid.  Allow your hips, lower ribs and elbows to rotate in small circles and allow the head to reflect this movement.  This will allow you to respond quickly and will make it difficult for your partner to aim.  It will require his attention to follow your movements and most people cannot do that for long.

These are but a few simple ways that proper Tai-chi training can teach you to be uninviting to attackers and to make it difficult for an attacker to defeat you.

Tai-chi approaches to health and healing is based on preventing and reversing the aging process.  It is based on understanding the underlying causes of the deterioration of body and mind and providing simple exercises to stay young and active.  The principle of Yin/Yang describes how babies have mainly “Yang” energy which is expansive and growing. 

As you get older, this energy becomes more “Yin” or contractive.  The connective tissue surrounding all your body cavities, bones, muscles and organs, shrinks and loses its elasticity.  Your mind becomes less free flowing and creative and hangs onto fixed ideas and patterns of behavior.  Even the bones condense and lose their flexibility.

Exercises such as the Zookinesis Age Reversal Exercises and Tai-chi Forms directly affect the underlying energy of body and mind, which is called “chi” or “internal energy”.  They maintain the balance of yin and yang of the chi energy so that it can expand or condense when needed.  The result is that you maintain a state of vibrancy and health.

The idea that an underlying energy creates or affects the physical world is common among many ancient cultures. The Tai-chi and Zookinesis exercises are designed to keep chi energy even throughout the body.  As we age there is a tendency to condense this energy unevenly and that distorts the posture and shape of the body.  It can also affect our emotional state and dull our senses. 

A student of these exercises is taught to perceive the pattern of chi in his body, to understand how it has become distorted and to use the exercises to return the energy to an even state throughout the body.  The result is fewer aches and pains, less tension and a more positive, relaxed attitude.  Your body can feel more and you can appreciate every moment of life more. 

The improved state of health gives you a better quality of life and can actually help you live longer. 

So the next time you feel bad, ask yourself, “Is my chi too condensed or uneven?”  Relax your back so that the chi flows behind you.  Relax your hips so the chi flows through your center.  Relax your legs, your head and shoulders so that the chi can flow up and down through the body.  In this way you can become more alive.

Try this exercise the next time you feel bad or tired:  Imagine chi energy flowing through your chest and neck area towards the area in front of you at an upward angle of twenty degrees.  This energy comes from behind you, flows through you, upward and forward at a fast pace.  After a few minutes of this imagery exercise, notice how you feel. 

Both mental and physical exercises can have a profound effect on our health.  Tai-chi and Zookinesis are storehouses of such powerful techniques.

Fear is like a dragon, chasing us and trying to grab us.  It controls our behavior by making us run away from it.  Zookinesis and other Taoist training provides a way to turn fear into power and joy.  Fear is the closed door to the palace of beauty.  We do not run away from it but open it.

The next time you experience the sensation of fear (from whatever cause it may be), focus on that feeling.  Pay attention to how it feels in each part of the body.  Get to know the dragon of fear. 

Fear is just a sensation.  It may include tensing up muscles and a change in breathing, among other things.  When you are faced with a fearful situation, notice how each part of your body reacts and changes.  Don’t try to interfere with these changes; just notice them.  Be the scientist, studying your own feelings.

The result of this exercise is that each experience of fear will allow you to learn more about yourself.  Therefore, welcome these learning opportunities. 

I was taught that whenever I felt fear I should thank the fear for visiting me because it gave me an opportunity to learn. In this way you will become friends with the dragon because you are treating it in a respectful way.

The Gospel of Mary (one of the gospels not included in the Bible) describes this process very well.  In this gospel, Jesus’ disciples asked her what was the basic teaching that Jesus was trying to convey.  She answered that it is about recognizing your attention, your consciousness which she called the “soul”.  There are many distractions in everyday life such as sights, sounds, emotions and thoughts.  Each tries to capture your attention.  The distractions wear your attention like clothes so that you think that your attention is just part of the emotion or thought. 

In fact, in modern times when we talk about paying attention to something, we really mean thinking about it.  Mary said that once you can perceive the energy of attention itself and realize that it is part of you, the distractions can no longer capture your attention.  At that point you are free, in a spiritual sense. 

Fear can easily capture your attention.  So can great thoughts, bright lights or loud sounds.

Your attention is so valuable that advertisers pay millions of dollars for advertising time just to capture your attention.  Your attention is the commodity that television is selling to their customers, which are the advertisers. 

And so there are the “Three Statements” in Zookinesis training.  These statements encapsulate the training that allows you to be forever free of fear:

1. “Attention is not the same thing as what you are paying attention to.”  This means that attention is an energy that has qualities and dynamics.  Too often it is simply captured by every distraction so that we no longer are aware of attention itself.

2. “You are attention.”  At our most basic essence, we are attention itself.  In modern times, we feel that attention is a by-product of the chemical and electrical activity of nerves in the brain.  In this way we think of the physical world as creating consciousness. 

In the ancient world, consciousness and physical matter were equal.  One didn’t create the other.  You are attention as much as you are your body.  But attention was considered to be the most basic part of a human being because everything other than attention itself is what you are paying attention to.  It is as if attention were a person inside a house who was looking out of a window.  Everything that person sees is not him; it is what he is looking at. 

3. “When you know yourself, you know God.”  God is considered to be the creative force in the universe.  Creativity is considered to be the dynamics of attention.  It is what moves your attention from one thing to another. 

Your behavior can emanate from creativity or it can emanate from the distractions capturing your attention.  In the case of creativity affecting your behavior, your behavior is a positive force, expanding from within.    In the case of the distractions controlling your behavior, the control starts from outside of yourself and condenses your attention into the distraction. 

Living a spiritual life requires that your own creativity be at least as influential on your behavior as “outside” distractions (which can include frozen, locked thoughts and emotions.)  As your creativity gains power, your emotions and thinking mind will become more creative.  What you once experienced as the dragon of fear now becomes the dragon of your own creativity.  It is simply your own internal power.

And surprisingly, releasing the dragon of creativity is the greatest fear of all.  Once you gain control of your life you have no more excuses.  You can’t blame everyone else for your problems because you now are a powerful, creative person who can make changes in your life.  You can boldly go where fear did not allow you to go before. 

The main reason this is fearful is that the dragon of creativity is, well… creative!  You don’t know what it is going to do next.  Your life may change and you don’t even know how. 

But having your behavior controlled by fear and being captured by every distraction is not a human way to live.  It makes us victims.  It makes us robotic.  And it sucks out the joy from our lives.

The next time the dragon of fear grabs you, welcome it, thank it and examine your body to see how it feels.  And then laugh!

My doctor told me that it was unusual for a 60 year old man not to be on prescription drugs.  That shocked me.  Apparently most people my age take several drugs on a regular basis.  Does this mean that we are an advanced society because we have invented so many drugs or a very sick society that we need so many drugs?

I recalled a monkey I knew in the jungles of Panama.  He was the head of his tribe but was badly battered from territorial fights or perhaps from encounters with predators.  Three fingers were missing from one hand, two from the other and he had only one eye. Yet he still was the alpha male of his monkey troop.  What he lacked in body parts he made up in attitude. 

One day a potential Tai-chi student walked into my studio with a severe affliction.  He was able to walk only by leaning over and holding his knee with his hands, inching his way forward.  As soon as he made it into the studio he sat down, exhausted from the fifty foot walk.  I thought to tell him that he would never be able to learn Tai-chi but I would never discourage anyone who was willing to try. 

At first he did the Tai-chi Yang form while holding onto two chairs, which I re-adjusted for him with each movement.  He could only last for two or three minutes at a time and then had to sit down.  To make a long story short, he learned the entire sixty movement form without holding onto chairs, the tiger form and the staff form, which are very vigorous.  He also learned the Push Hands exercise and was quite good.  In this exercise you stand facing each other and try to throw each other off balance.

After a few years he told me that he was very discouraged.  He practiced the forms for an hour a day, then did Yoga for fifteen minutes, worked out with weights for forty five minutes and then practiced chi-gung for another fifteen minutes. 

So what was the problem?  He told me that after all this he was so tired he had to stop and sit down.  I reminded him that he used to be tired after two or three minutes and could barely stand up without holding onto something.   He had gotten so used to being healthy that I guess now he expected that he could leap over tall buildings at a single bound.

To some degree we can determine whether we slide down the slope of increasing sickness or lift ourselves up to greater health.  It largely depends on whether we focus on our ailments or our potential.  This is not to so say that we don’t all have some legitimate medical problems.  While modern medicine makes our lives better with great advances, it can also make us lazy.  We reach for the pill or the operation rather than trying exercise first. 

Many doctors will encourage their patients to try exercise to alleviate their problems before trying drugs but unfortunately many people don’t want to be bothered with the exercises.  It is easier to pop a pill down their throats.  But remember that each drug has side effects and you may start taking drugs to alleviate the side effects and then more drugs to alleviate the side effects of that drug and so on. 

I am suggesting that if your doctor suggests exercise rather than drugs then you probably have a caring and knowledgeable doctor.  While the television ads push you to ask your doctor for drugs, I suggest you ask him or her for exercise alternatives. 

Your body and mind are powerful when they work together cooperatively.  Even if you do take drugs, exercise itself can help to alleviate the negative side effects.  Drugs can only really help your body cure itself.  But the body also needs good food, rest and exercise.

Kano tapped me on the shoulder and pointed to a movement beneath some dead branches.  “That is a paca.  Go and get it.”

I walked over to the spot and discovered a paca which seemed to be full grown – about 25 pounds.   But as soon as I approached it, the little brown, creature ran away for a few yards and then froze.   Again and again I approached it and just as many times, it bounded away.

Finally I gave up and walked back to Kano.   “We have to set a trap first,” I said.

Kano merely walked over to the paca, reached down and picked it up.   He held its belly outwards with his arms under its front legs.  Then Kano put the creature down and it bounded under some nearby branches.

“Kano, why did you let it go?”

“So you could catch it.  I’m teaching you to catch paca.”

Again, I tried and failed.   I could hear Kano snickering.   I guess this was good for him to see.   He must feel mentally inferior to me and seeing that he does possess some skills which I do not, must make him feel better.

“What did I do wrong, Kano?”

“You didn’t catch the paca.”

“How were YOU able to catch it?”

“Because I know how”

“Then tell me how to catch it.”

“You just walk over and pick it up.”

“But when I walked over, it ran away.”

“You scared it.”

“How come YOU didn’t scare it?”

“Because I wanted to catch it.”

“So did I!”

“Then you shouldn’t have scared it.”

What a situation!  Kano knows a skill which I would like to learn.   Yet he doesn’t have the intelligence to explain it to me.  I tried once more.

“Kano, listen to me.  When you walk over to the paca, it doesn’t run away.   When I walk over, it does.   Obviously, we’re doing something different.  What?”

Kano thought for a moment and said, “You are scaring it away and I’m not scaring it away.  That is what is different.”

“O.K.   I understand that.   Now what can I do differently so it won’t get scared?”

“Don’t do anything differently.  You can just walk over and pick it up.   You can walk over any way you want, just don’t scare it.”

Kano walked over to the paca once more to demonstrate.   He skipped part of the way, jumped, twirled around and walked in various strange ways.   When he reached the paca, he bent down and picked it up as before.

I had heard that retarded people are good with animals.   The animals seem to be able to sense the retarded  person’s helplessness.  Perhaps Kano’s disability has actually helped him out in this case, although I don’t know how altruistic a paca can be.

The “empty one” insisted that I keep trying.   I wandered about, following the creature for almost an hour, but could never come within thirty feet of it.

Finally Kano picked the creature up and brought it to me.   He suggested we keep it as a pet and told me he thought it was cute.   It was a strange creature with a narrow face, a pudgy rear and slick fur.  I petted the creature and talked to it.

“Why are you so frightened of me?   I only want to eat you.”   I laughed yet I felt a tear come to my eyes.  It was certainly not because of sympathy for the paca.   I feel very comfortable with the idea of eating meat.   Perhaps my subconscious  remembered some painful event which was evoked by this situation. Kano released the paca and once again it bounded for the bushes.

“I thought you were going to keep it as a pet?”

“Do you really want to?”

“Sure!”

“Alright, you get it and bring it home.”  Apparently the paca had grown used to us as I had no trouble picking it up this time.

As we walked back to the hut, Kano said that we could really stuff ourselves on that much meat.

“What do you mean?  Are you going to eat it after all?”

“Of course.  I only said that stuff about keeping it as a pet so you would walk over to it with a friendly feeling.  I taught you how to catch it.”

“Kano!  How could you?  That’s not fair.”

“Not fair?   Why isn’t it fair?  I said I was going to teach you to catch a paca and I did.  That’s fair.”

“But there are morals here.  The only reason I was able to catch it was because I thought of it as a pet.  And now, in a way, I’m lying to the paca.  That’s not fair.”

“Lying to a paca?   I don’t know about such things.   I neither lie to paca nor tell them the truth.  I just eat them.”

The next morning at breakfast Kano took a small portion of his meal and threw it away.   He did this at every meal.   I always assumed there was dirt on that portion.   But his persistence in this behavior finally caught my curiosity.

“Kano, why do you do that?”

“So you have noticed me sacrificing my food.   The food is what builds our bodies.   One day we will have to sacrifice our bodies.   So it is good to sacrifice a piece of each meal.  This way, we are always ready to sacrifice things.

“Why think in such negative ways – death and sacrifice?”

“I am a happy man, am I not?”  I had to agree that if Kano was nothing else, he was happy.

“And look what I have sacrificed.   Do you know what I have sacrificed?  I have sacrificed my understanding.”

“What do you mean you’ve sacrificed your understanding?   Did you, yourself do that?”

“Yes.  I sacrificed my understanding just as last night you gave up trying to figure out how to get home.   I once understood things, like you.  And yet, I couldn’t find my way home.  Then I gave up my understanding and now come home with ease.   And I am happy.

“I have a place to sleep, food to eat and friends with whom to pass my time.   When the mood strikes me, I sing and at times, I cry.  I don’t know enough to do otherwise and I am happy.

“I am happy whether I laugh or cry, for even in sadness there is joy.  I am happy to be a man, to be a living creature and when I call out to the forest, she gives me what I need.

“She sends me a butterfly to hold, but when it decides to leave, I let it go.  She gives me food, but when I am finished with it, I let it go in the outhouse.

“When I see her beautiful sunset, I let it go and night arrives.  When I have enjoyed the dry season for half the year, I let it go so the rains may come and the plants will grow.

“And when this life comes to a close I will look back at all the wonderful things that have happened to me. I will know that my joy in life would not have been possible without knowing how to let go of just those very things which brought me joy.   And so it will be with joy that I die.”

THE DOUBTING SNAKE by Bob Klein is now available on our “Online Store”.  Click onto the link in the  right hand area of this page.  You will then find the novel on the left side set of links on our online store home page (www.movementsofmagic.com).

TAI-CHI MASSAGE is a powerful type of healing that frees you from habits of emotional and physical tension, even those that have plagued you for a lifetime.  The masseur uses principles of Tai-chi as he moves individual parts of your body in relaxing, flowing Tai-chi movements.  You are lying down on a massage table as in other types of massage.

As one part of your body, a shoulder for example, is moved through fluid, circular patterns, you can easily let go of muscular restrictions and the mental tensions that create them.  Once that part of the body is freed, then gentle pressure is applied, also in slow, Tai-chi-like patterns.  The slowness allows the body to feel comfortable letting go of its tensions. 

Even if you don’t do Tai-chi yourself, the Tai-chi Massage allows you to gain the benefits of this ancient exercise while the masseur does all the work.  It also allows people who do practice Tai-chi to feel the principles directly.  They can then apply the experience of the Tai-chi Massage to the Tai-chi exercise itself.

Each part of the body feels as though it was freed from a type of jail, whose bars are made of tension.  You will then feel the body starting to heal itself and self destructive habits lose their power over you. 

You will be amazed about how much of your energy was used up by that tension.  Now, freed of the emotional and physical tension, you have energy to spare. 

If you watch the beautiful wild animals you can appreciate how graceful and fluid are their movements.  And yet we humans are also designed to be graceful animals.  Most of us have lost the relaxed fluidity of our bodies due to stress.  Our bodies harden and deteriorate.  Tai-chi Massage reverses the degradation of the body and returns us to a natural state.

For further information you can call 1-888-9TAICHI (1-888-982-4244) or email info@movementsofmagic.com with your questions.