Thursday, March 25, 2010

Seek Stillness in Movement

[Path to Mastery 3/25/10 – Wk28 D4 (Str 9.12.09)(Ph2 11.15.09)]

Continuing our Tai-Chi Journey:

Seeking Stillness in Movement… isn’t that contradictory to seeking life?  Yesterday we talked about Movement being Life.  So, if you seek Stillness in Movement, isn’t that the same as seeking death within life? 

Seeking Stillness in Movement is seeking quietness within movement.  It is seeking a continuous steady flow.  We recognize a continuous steady flow as grace. 

In Tai-Chi there is a concept and a training method that is called silk reeling.  There are Tai-Chi styles where there are separate exercises that are called silk reeling and then again there are styles where they use the form to practice silk reeling.  The concept of silk reeling came first before the exercises were developed, so you may practice silk reeling either way.  The important thing is what it means so you may seek it in your practice.

When you reel silk from a cocoon, it has to be done with a steady hand.  If, at any point, you vary the pulling speed or the strength of the pull you damage the silk.  So you are not allowed to pull suddenly or hard.  From the perspective of the silk cocoon, it is one uninterrupted continuous pull.  You have to train the form with the same idea.  It is said in the Tai-Chi classics that the Tai-Chi form is sometimes referred to as the long form.  The reason it is called that is because it is considered one long continuous move.  When you do the form, you are not doing a lot of different moves.  You are indeed doing one long form, continuous, steady, and uninterrupted.

For some of you this may seem too abstract.  On a more practical level, you may consider this as carrying over the structure and flow you learned during standing meditation to moving meditation, the form.  As you do the form, you have to carry the same principles you maintained during the standing meditation practice.  Since you seem still when you are doing standing meditation, and you are carrying it over to movement, you would be seeking stillness within movement.  This principle is deeper than this, but this is the right entry point to a whole new world.  You will see the rest as you walk down this path.  Once the journey starts, follow the journey, do not hold on to the doorway as truth.  If you hold on to the entry point, you will never experience the journey.

As your training in this principle deepens, eventually you start understanding how this applies in relation to another person.  Until you gain the continuous connection within, you will not be able to understand the secret of the explosive power in Tai-Chi. 

I have heard that infinite patience is immediate results.  This is definitely true in Tai-Chi.  Train with infinite patience, and you will understand what it means to have immediate transformation.        


History of Tai-Chi Journey up to this point:

Before the blog opened to the public, we covered the single person part of the system.
1. Chi-Gong (Taoist Longevity, White Crane Chi-Gong); 2. Standing Meditation
3. Stepping Meditation; 4. 7 Basics; 5. Basic Form; 6. 30 Form; 7. 108 Form
8. 4 Type Pushing Hands

Interactive training after we went public with the blog. 
1. 8 Type Pushing Hands (Covered from 2/2 ~ 2/11); 2. San-Shou (Covered from 2/12 ~ 2/15)
3. Ba-Gua.(Covering from 2/16 ~ 2/19); 4. Weapons (Covered on 2/23)
5. Healing System (Covered on 2/24)

Non-Structured System:
1.Introduction (Covered 2/25); 2. Free moving – conditioning (Covered 2/26); 3.Free hand pushing hand (Covered 3/1); 4.Free hand (2 person drills and multiple person drills) (Covered 3/2); 5.Free hand weapon (2 person drills and multiple person drills) (Covered 3/3)

Detailed Instructions:
1. Principles (Covered 3/4)
2. Principle of Principles (Covered 3/5)
3. Principles of Upper Body #1~5 (Covered 3/8 – 3/15)
4. Principles Governing Lower Body #1~5 (Covered 3/16 – 3/22)
5. Principle Governing the Whole Body:
    1)Body Body Center Upright (Covered 3/23)

6. Principles Governing Movement
    1.Seek Movement in Stillness (Covered 3/24)
    2.Seek Stillness in Movement (Covered 3/25)
    3.Mutual Connect without Interruption
    4.Top Bottom ‘Each Other’ Follow
    5.Insubstantial Substantial Distinguish Clearly

1 comment:

  1. It is something to set as a marker, the uninterrupted form. I'll keep that in mind as I train. I also like how you wrote not to cling to the door, it may be nice but the journey is nicer.

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