Everyday Mindfulness

So, Tai Chi is something new for me. I've been to a couple of sessions run locally and really enjoyed it.
I still have problems with my balance and chronic pain in my feet so I don't manage to make it every week.

When I do manage to go I really enjoy it. I was so used to doing exercise as quickly as possible whilst paying as little attention as possible that this is a total change in every sense. It isn't easy but it is peaceful.

Tai Chi can be excellent for meditational practice, but you need to approach the practice for what it is - a fighting art.

What sort of exercises have you been learning in class? And what have you been taking away to practice at home?

We don't get 'homework' for want of a better word and although the class leader talks about stances but I can't really remember him naming the sequences we do. I have a feeling this might not be a good thing?

I would certainly question how the instructor would expect you to make any progress, if he's not giving you anything to work on at home.

There are 168 hours in a week. If you go to two, 1 hour, classes, that still leaves 166 hours in which you are doing 'anti-tai chi' - since the body mechanics and skills need to be ingrained fully into everyday living, obviously, you need stuff to be working on at home!
An old adage I'm fond of:
"Amatuers go to school to practice, and come home to rest. Serious students go to school to learn and come home to practice."

I produced a couple of basic tutorial videos a few years ago when I was first starting out, looking at some basic exercises that you could maybe begin to practice at home?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3yyzEo0jrPw

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ULHDcrAOBy4

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8UlQokY8MEo

I will give them a look.
I'm only making it to a class every other week at best because I have a lot of balance and pain issues and being stood up for an hour continuously sometimes means I can't walk much for a couple of days. I tried this class because it is fairly local but it it is also an over 50's class geared towards those who are older or have mobility issues so I wonder if it is not aimed so much as learning tai chi as it is trying to use it as exercise?

I know the same teacher runs intermediate and advance classes as well but that these are only open to invited members.

Medway Tai Chi wrote:There are 168 hours in a week. If you go to two, 1 hour, classes, that still leaves 166 hours in which you are doing 'anti-tai chi' - since the body mechanics and skills need to be ingrained fully into everyday living, obviously, you need stuff to be working on at home!

Hi, I like your post. Saying that, I completely disagree with your term "anti-tai chi". Of course we need to practice everything we want to get good at, but we aren't undoing things 166 times if we're only doing them 2 times. On the contrary:

• Unconscious processing of stuff we've learnt improves our skill at it even while we're not physically practising
• Doing a little bit regularly can be enough to achieve competence
• According to your theory you would need to do more tai-chi than not, in order to counteract the "anti-tai chi" you're doing whenever you're not doing tai-chi! And according to that, we should all be getting worse (because barely anybody is doing tai chi more than 50% of the time!). But actually it seems that everybody gets better as long as they practice some of the time.

here wrote:

Medway Tai Chi wrote:There are 168 hours in a week. If you go to two, 1 hour, classes, that still leaves 166 hours in which you are doing 'anti-tai chi' - since the body mechanics and skills need to be ingrained fully into everyday living, obviously, you need stuff to be working on at home!

Hi, I like your post. Saying that, I completely disagree with your term "anti-tai chi". Of course we need to practice everything we want to get good at, but we aren't undoing things 166 times if we're only doing them 2 times. On the contrary:

• Unconscious processing of stuff we've learnt improves our skill at it even while we're not physically practising
• Doing a little bit regularly can be enough to achieve competence
• According to your theory you would need to do more tai-chi than not, in order to counteract the "anti-tai chi" you're doing whenever you're not doing tai-chi! And according to that, we should all be getting worse (because barely anybody is doing tai chi more than 50% of the time!). But actually it seems that everybody gets better as long as they practice some of the time.

The issue is that Taiji/Tai Chi is a primarily physical practice, that relies on completely changing and 'upgrading' the way we think about and use our bodies.
Say I'm working with someone who has bad knees. Tai Chi can certainly help to relieve the pain, and strengthen the knees. However, if someone is doing two hours of therapeutic work on their knees in a week, then spends the other 166 hours a week continuing the behaviour that caused the knee problems in the first place - how can that two hours of therapy combat the 166 hours of punishment? It can't!

According to your theory you would need to do more tai-chi than not, in order to counteract the "anti-tai chi" you're doing whenever you're not doing tai-chi! And according to that, we should all be getting worse (because barely anybody is doing tai chi more than 50% of the time!). But actually it seems that everybody gets better as long as they practice some of the time

Yes! Exactly!
Doing Tai Chi isn't just standing in a kwoon, going through the motions of a form, or jibengong, or neigong exercise. That is the training - the 'practice' comes in taking what you learn in 'training' and applying it to everyday living. So in a sense, yes! You [i]should be doing Tai Chi all the time. Not practicing forms etc, but using the refined body mechanics and understandings of your body, in every moment of your life.
And yes, the general standard of Tai Chi IS getting worse - because people think it is enough to go to class twice a week, and then forget about it inbetween times. Even if they practice at home, they're still not doing enough, until they start to 'live' tai chi in every moment.

But actually it seems that [i]everybody gets better as long as they practice some of the time

They may get better at doing Tai Chi when it is time to do Tai Chi. They switch from 'life' mode to 'tai chi' mode, and sure, their performance may have gotten better since the last lesson (and that's all it is, empty performance), but they're still not making the progress that they should do.

Interesting thread here.

My 2 pennies worth is that the taichi practice can really begin to blossom once a daily seated mindfulness meditation routine has been put in place. The two will mutually reinforce one another - the extra physical flexibility and vitality will be noticed in the seated meditation, and the increased mental clarity will be experienced within the taichi. If this doesn't happen, then there must be something wrong in the fundamental approach of either practice.

There's an old saying here in China: "You can't pull on the plant to make it grow". This seems to hold for any practice - whether meditation, taichi, or doing the washing-up. Enthusiasm and discipline emerge naturally and under the right conditions. I'm a firm believer that if someone is thirsty enough, they will drink - and will do so heartily when they find clean water. We have good insticts for purity of substance it seems.

I have enjoyed some of the TaiChi weapons forms more than than open-hand stuff (maybe as a Kung-Fu Movie enthusiast), and yet now I have dropped the TaiChi for YiQuan. That was the source and apparent secret behind my teacher's great push-hands skills.

I agree BioSattva, I have noticed that daily sitting has had a positive impact on my Taijiquan practice.

Just for the record I am currently practicing Wudang style Taijiquan which is very interesting, and also Daoyin Yangshen Gong, (completely different to taiji but also very good especially if you have health issues) with Chanquanshu