HEALING AND MARTIAL ARTS BLOG

Push Hands

Tai-chi practice is a way of introducing into the modern world, the concept that each of us is an ecological environment, completely connected to the larger ecological environment. How we balance the internal ecology with the external ecology should be a large part of our “personal culture”. If we can experience our bodies as living and conscious, rather than just a machine that carries our head around, we can begin to restore our health.

Our modern culture is based on the isolated individual, each of us fighting against all the others. To maintain this feeling of isolation we “condense”, that is, we tighten ourselves physically and mentally, turning ourselves into a walled city. We feel that, as long as our lawns are green, the rest of the environment doesn’t affect us.

According to Tai-chi principles, the destruction of the natural world and the destruction of our own physical health, arise out of the same mind-set. When we practice the two-person exercise of push hands, for example, there is a tendency to use physical strength to push the “opponent” over. It is common for someone, being pushed, to grab the arms of the pusher to avoid getting pushed and thereby be able to say that he didn’t really get pushed.

Push Hands is a game of transformation. It is based on not using tension but fluidity. It is based on allowing the push of your partner to be absorbed by your body, the force distributed among all the muscles and joints, and then transformed to go back to the pusher. Your role is to transform the force that comes to you. In this way you learn the connection between your inner self and its connection to the forces around you.

When you learn Tai-chi forms, it is not just a question of memorizing movements. You learn to generate movement from the relationship of the hips and legs to the root (your connection to the ground). The rest of the body then expresses that relationship. So forms teach you how to express your relationship to the earth.

There is a tradition, in Zen practice, of expressing your feelings at the moment of enlightenment. One student expressed it this way, “The inside and the outside – they are made of the same flesh”.

Every time you tense up and isolate yourself, you damage not only yourself, but also your connection to the earth, and even the earth itself. Every time you set yourself against others in anger, you do equal damage.

Tai-chi practice teaches you how to live an ecological life in the modern world. Practicing Tai-chi this way is a powerful way to transform your life.

Imagining a bright future

Recently an Australian farmer’s crops were infected by pollen from a nearby genetically modified organism (gmo) farm. This farmer’s organic status was revoked and he went bankrupt. He is now trying to sue the gmo farm.

I watched an episode of “Dangerous Grounds” yesterday. In this reality show a coffee grower visits dangerous areas to buy gourmet types of coffee beans. In one area of Brazil the farmers have to keep 24-hour guard around their villages to protect themselves against agribusiness. The farmers claim that thugs from agribusiness keep trying to sneak into their villages to shoot them to take away their land.

In many ways our food, and the earth in general, is a battleground of people who wish to live simple, healthy lives and those who want to rape the earth. We can certainly help to protect the earth by joining ecological groups but we also must protect the earth in another way.

Our bodies are part of the earth and part of the web of life. We can protect our bodies and our minds from a sort of rape by the violent patterns within our culture. We can make sure that destructive patterns, which may have invaded us (like the gmo pollen), are rooted out and discarded. The fears that make us distance ourselves from other people and groups can be recognized and the power of those fears over our behavior, dissolved.

This is what Tai-chi and Zookinesis practice do. They give us the tools to bring our original organic consciousness back. The teacher explains what has happened to us internally and guides you back to being human. The Tai-chi Bodywork quickly melts away years of tension, fear, trauma and self-destructive patterns to free you to live a better and more enjoyable life.

Learning and practicing these exercises is just as important to protecting the earth as working politically. They teach you to control your own personal future so you can better contribute to a better future for everyone.

The universe takes place all by itself.  Our body functions all by itself.  Between the two we sit, and wonder how to interfere with these processes.  We want both the world around us and the world of the body inside of us to give us what we want – more money, more power, more respect, etc.  The inside and the outside are like our two parents, who we try to manipulate to give us more of everything and to let us stay up past our bedtimes.  And yet the world seems so hard to manipulate.  Our bodies seem, at times, even harder to control. 

This is the basic “attitude of battle” we set up with our inner and outer worlds.  Tai-chi and Zookinesis training reminds us that we ARE our bodies.  It reminds us that we evolved as part of the world around us.  The world’s weather, climate, environment, fauna and flora, geology etc. affect us on very fine levels, down to our very cells.  And so it is really hard to say where “we” end and the “environment” begins.  The very realization that we are our bodies and we really are our environment, helps to eliminate the “attitude of battle”. 

From the realization that we ARE our bodies, we can begin to live in our bodies.  Tai-chi and Zookinesis training helps you to really feel every part of yourself, restoring awareness and health to every cell.  You no longer fight your body or neglect it, you live in it; you ARE it.  You no longer fight the world but feel part of it and flow with its cycles.

Your consciousness extends within to the finest levels and also extends around you.  Just as all the cells of your body “feel” they are part of you (because they work cooperatively together), you feel part of the biology of the world.

And sitting between those two levels of awareness is the feeling of yourself as an individual – your social identity, your thoughts and opinions.  This level is like a gatekeeper who doesn’t chase away people who want to walk through the gate.  He is amiable and allows the free flow of people to and fro.  He is aware of each person going through his gate and greets them in a friendly way.

Similarly, you can become aware of the influence of the cycles of nature on your body.  You can become aware of how your own behavior affects those around you and the world as a whole. 

When your life is no longer a battle, you calm down and can more easily let go of patterns of tension, anger and resistance.  These will be replaced by a more acute awareness and the ability to adapt to each situation to be more efficient.  Stress will be reduced without reducing your effectiveness in life.  You will be healthier and happier.

When your gatekeeper is friendly, the “towns” on both sides are more cooperative.

Yet it takes a lot of training just to become aware of the “attitude of battle” and learn how to let it go.  The question is, “Do you want to be in a state of battle for the rest of your life or do you want to start doing something about it?”