Obey My Blog

My Qigong teacher liked to emphasize paying attention to subtle queues. For example, if you find yourself just a little bit thirsty, go get a drink of water. Don’t wait until you are parched. If you are feeling just a little bit stressed, take a break. Don’t wait until you’re on the verge of a nervous breakdown. Waiting until the last minute can cause harm to the body.

I understand this completely. It makes perfect sense. But I personally tend to push myself and go to extremes. When I work, I WORK and then some (okay, aside from my occasional bouts of laziness). When I relax – or try to – I relax in relatively small, extremely focused amounts of time. If I feel something – happiness, sadness, insecurity – I have a tendency to take it to the absolute extreme until I’m utterly exhausted.

I don’t know how I developed these habits, but it is why I am now practicing Tai Chi and Zen meditation (zazen).

These extremes scare me a little. So much so that in the past I’ve preferred to retreat into numbness rather than endure another erratic train ride on the emotional choochoo.

But over the past couple of years, I’ve started to wonder if it’s really necessary for me to take things so far.

And for God’s sake, why?

One of my theories is that extremes make me feel more alive. They make most people feel alive, obviously. Who hasn’t experienced the tingly thrill of a new infatuation? Or the absolute high of accomplishing something you once thought impossible?

There’s nothing wrong with that.

It’s when you find yourself constantly running from one extreme to the other in order to feel alive. That’s when things seem to get messy (and destructive).

And as it turns out, I have never been more disconnected and out of touch with my own sense of aliveness than when I have chased extremes.

Perhaps that sounds bizarre. But in reality, when I am chasing an extreme, I am running away from something else. From discomfort, pain, fear, boredom, etc.

What I’ve learned through the martial arts and zazen is how to stop running and to stay with whatever it is I am experiencing.

Which is probably one of the hardest frickin’ things I’ve ever done in my life.

I’m not kidding.

Because I kinda thought when I got into these practices – no matter how much I may hate to admit it – that they too would offer me some sort of escape. I thought, yes! I am going to face all of my fears, my stress, my pain and my suffering head on! And then of course, I will move on!

To what I’m not entirely sure…I don’t think I got that far.

But saying you’re going to face your fear and suffering is one thing. Actually facing your fear and suffering is a whole other ballgame. One that isn’t, uh, always that fun.

So why do I do it?

Because there is no escape. There never was! So if that is the case, and this is the only game in town, I might as well figure out how to play it and play it well. Without causing further suffering for myself and other people.

I took a bubble bath the other night (don’t laugh – they are AWESOME) and got a chance to really check out these meatsticks I call legs. For all my claims of not having a lot of strength, I have to say my legs are actually looking a little beefy!

To strengthen my legs, my teacher has me stand in a type of  horse stance with one arm out in front and one arm curled back and up and resting on my lower back with my fingers touching my thumb to form a cup.

For at least 3 minutes.

It can get painful. By the last 30 seconds curse words are streaming through my head and my legs are usually shaking.

When I practice this stance regularly, it is not nearly as painful. But I hate practicing it, so I avoid it. Which means it’s just going to be that much more painful the next time I get around to doing it.

Why I do this to myself I don’t know.

Or maybe I do.

Because, well, it’s just normal human behavior to try to avoid pain or what we perceive as pain.

But what if this painful thing is actually good for you in the long run? How do you overcome your aversion?

By showing up.

I once read an interview with William H. Macy, where he said that the hardest part of his job was just showing up. It shocked me, because it was so true. Just showing up can very hard – especially if you are attempting something new, difficult or challenging. Even if you know that it is ultimately good for you, there is an initial hesitation and resistance.

And boy do I resist the horse stance.

And sometimes I don’t show up for it.

And then later I regret it.

Well, okay, I don’t regret it that much. I mean c’mon, it’s just the horse stance… But you get my point I hope.

You just need to show up. Again and again and again.

It’s not easy. But nothing that is really worth while ever is.

(Except for mozzarella sticks. Those are pretty easy and so very tasty…).

Alrightie. This is my last attempt to write for the Best of 2009 Blog Challenge. Heck yeah!

Today’s topic: Resolution you wish you’d stuck with.

Hmmm… I don’t really want to write about 2009. I don’t want to write about 2010 either. Because today, outside, it is absolutely gorgeous. I should be out there. Absorbing the beautiful Texas sunshine. Not in here, attempting to reflect and be all deep-like.

But okay, I’m gonna do it. I’m going to write you an article you can’t refuse. Or reuse.

I kept all of the resolutions I made way back when in January. Jealous? Eh, you shouldn’t be – they were very broad resolutions anyway. I wanted to be healthier physically, so I started slowly changing my diet. I stumbled my way through Qigong, found myself delightfully and unexpectedly in a Baguazhang class and then returned to my first true love, Chen Style Tai Chi.

I wanted to be healthier mentally, so I started doing Standing Meditation along with my martial arts practice. And then found my world completely turned upside down by one little book, Zen Wrapped in Karma Dipped in Chocolate (Damn you Brad Warner! Just kidding.).

Zen Buddhism. Holy crap.

I don’t think I’ll be making any resolutions for 2010. I was pleasantly surprised and humbled by 2009. Despite all the mistakes I made, the stupid things I said, the heartache and my sometimes awkward social moments (please don’t ever ask me about my master’s degree. I will get all kinds of awkward on you), I held steady with my desire to be a healthier person. Not the healthiest person, mind you – just healthier. Which, I think is much healthier. Heh.

Here’s to a healthy 2010.

A few weeks ago I moved into a new place. It was stressful! I experience a lot of anxiety when moving, despite the fact that I’ve moved a lot in my adult life. Weird. But anyway, I was feeling stressed and wanted to partake of a frosty beverage and a cigarette (my sister talked me into it – it’s all her fault!).

I couldn’t even finish it. I got halfway through and had to put it out. I used to smoke all the time when I was younger and now I can’t even finish one lousy ‘ol ciggy. I’m not sure if this is because I am getting older or healthier. Hmmmm…

But it got me thinking about my breath. I spend a lot of time focusing on my breath these days. It’s what I focus on when doing Zazen and it helps guide me as I practice Tai Chi.

Just this morning, as I grew increasingly frustrated over a move I haven’t been able to get down, I remembered my breath. The whole room suddenly got quiet and I was able to do the move flawlessly. Okay, not really, but I did it without being frustrated. Which is a plus for me! I kind of got excited and jumped up in the air a little.

How is it that we pay so little attention to such an important thing? It’s not even a thing really – it just is. You breathe. Period. Otherwise you wouldn’t be reading this right now.

Then again, what’s the big deal? Is it really necessary to be aware of something that is just a natural part of life?

In Tai Chi we do breathing exercises where we stand with our palms facing our abdomens and exaggerate pushing and pulling our hands with the movement of our bellies (It’s a bit unnerving to look over and see my belly fully extended, but I don’t get any points for looks in class. So there.). This is meant to strengthen and cultivate awareness in the abdomen or dantian.

But it’s also meant to cultivate an awareness of the breath.

If you think about it, breath is pure action, without thought (wait, then maybe you shouldn’t think about it). When you breathe, you are automatically connecting the mind and body.

Sometimes, as Jan Diepersloot points out in Warriors of Stillness, students are told not to worry about the breath. They are told simply to focus on the movements and the breath will follow. But many students – myself included – find it useful to use the breath as a way to integrate the body and mind and the upper and lower torso. What one can discover later, Diepersloot explains, is that it is possible to just use “yi, awareness or intention, directly to achieve integration.”  This method, colorfully coined as, “suck and tuck,” amounts to “tucking the pelvis under, forward and up and sucking the abdomen in.”

Many beginning students are so stiff and frozen, though, that attempting to use yi, or awareness, can simply result in more tension. Thus, Diepersloot finds it more beneficial to emphasize the conscious use of the breath before introducing the more direct method.

Personally, I’m still not quite ready for such a direct approach. And honestly, I kind of enjoy focusing on my breath (is that weird?). But the more natural my breathing becomes in my practice, the more relaxed I become.  And the more relaxed I become, the easier it is for me to just be aware.

But I still have a long way to go…

This time last year I was a mess. Okay. Not completely. But I was seriously stressed out.

I look back and I realize how incredibly hard I was on myself. I also look back and realize that I had no earthly idea what I was getting myself into as far as Tai Chi and Zen were concerned. No clue!

Well, sort of…but not really.

I was trying so hard. I really was. Getting into Tai Chi and Qigong and then Zen was supposed to help me. They were supposed to help me become the person I wanted to be – stable. Or at least just not insane.

And they have definitely helped me accomplish this. But what I didn’t realize at the time was that I wasn’t insane. I was actually stable (sort of). And I was actually okay. But I thought I was supposed to be something I wasn’t. I thought I was supposed to be someone else. I thought I was supposed to be this ideal I kept in my head – this perfect, unattainable ideal comprised of god-only-knows what.

How wrong was I! Well, as it turns out…very!

And so I set out for ways to reach this. And I ended up -

Right. Back. Where. I. Started.

Apparently I’m just supposed to be me. Nothing else. Nothing more.

Really??!

I try not to write too much about zazen here, because that’s not what most of you come here for. You come here to read about Tai Chi (I think). But I learn so much from zazen and I have found it helpful to bring what I learn into my Tai Chi practice and vice versa.

Many times I have stood in Standing Meditation and been overwhelmed with an emotion I had been trying (in vain) to suppress. Many times I have come home from a Saturday morning at the Zen Center utterly exhausted and in tears.

These activities are not to be taken lightly. And yet they are some of the gentlest ways to get back into your body – to become aware of the things you’ve kept buried in the muscles of your back, shoulders, neck and head. Move these things around a bit and you start noticing things come up. Sit or stand in meditation with nothing else but you and your never ending thoughts and see what you find. It is amazing, horrifying, humorous, delightful, scary, pleasant, gorgeous and sad.

This article was supposed to be about the breath. Uh…whoops! I do still want to talk about breath and Tai Chi. Next week then. I’ve been thumbing through Warriors of Stillness by Jan Diepersloot and it is quite interesting…

Okay. I did it. I joined the twitter brigade. But not for me – for my blog! I am now a tweep. Or a twit, I don’t know which (maybe both!)… If you’re into twitter, follow me. I’ll be posting Tai Chi and martial arts related goodies. I run across a lot of really great articles, videos and martial arts nuggets on the web that don’t always fit into my blog articles. So now they’ll just live on twitter rather than in my head.

Speaking of nuggets, Buddhist Geeks did a wonderful interview recently with Kenneth Cohen, renowned Qigong and Tai Chi practitioner and author of The Way of Qigong (an excellent book by the way) about tea and his training with Japanese tea master Millie Johnstone. There’s a transcript available if you can’t access the podcast or prefer reading. Check it out!

I remember in Baguazhang watching one of my classmates struggle with some of the circular movements. But his struggle was different from mine or any of the other students in class. I couldn’t quite figure out why, until our teacher began talking with him and asked him if he was a Tai Chi practitioner. He could fa jin and the teacher could tell.

I may not be a newbie-newbie any longer, but I certainly haven’t cultivated  fa jin, or “releasing power” (also referred to as, “issuing power”).

When you first begin Tai Chi, you are constantly told to relax (well, I was anyway). So much so that you start thinking oh my god I can’t possibly relax anymore or I’ll fall over. But this relaxation should not be taken too literally. I think Westerners are probably told to relax more often simply because most of us don’t know how.

But true Tai Chi practice requires a balance between relaxation and tension.

You are not one or the other.

I came to this same conclusion when trying to explain to my sister what Zen meditation was like for me. I had thrown down some lettuce on a nice meditation cushion and was complaining that all I got in return was back pain.

“But I thought meditation was supposed to be relaxing?”

“It is not relaxing!”

“Then why do you do it?”

“Because it helps me.”

“But then you’re tense?!”

“Not exactly…I’m somewhere in between.”

“You’re just aware.”

“Well…trying to be, actually, yeah!”

I heart my sister…

Fa jin, of course, is not meditation. But by relaxing, oddly enough, you generate power, jin (not to be confused with jing or “essence”). Which you can then use to fa, or issue. You don’t get this by being a tough, macho guy and you certainly don’t get this by languidly flopping your arms around in the air.

To quote Laurie Cahn, from Women in the Martial Arts (which I am just finishing up and would like to review here in the near future!),

“Jin is not just power, but a special energy or force, one that is lively and spirited and contains all your essential elements. When you fa jin, you use everything at your disposal, you don’t hold back.”

In order not to hold back, you have to become like a baby. This doesn’t mean you should start drooling on people or attempt to stick your toes in your mouth. It simply means you have to be open, unafraid and completely uninhibited.

This is not easy!

But when I think about releasing everything I’ve got in one punch, I get goosebumps. When I think about being unafraid and uninhibited, I am reminded of why I got into Tai Chi in the first place.

Will I be able to fa jin some day?

Only time and lots of practice will tell…

Matt over at Ikigai Way challenged me to a meme. Because I have way too much pride not to accept this challenge, here ya go.

The meme works as follows. You post five things about yourself. Four are untrue. One is true. All are so outlandish, implausible or ridiculous that no one would be inclined to believe that any of them are true. And despite the pleas from your readers, you never divulge which is true and which are fabrications. You then tag five other people (four seriously and one person you are pretty sure would never participate).

Fact or Fiction:

1. I have a black belt in kicking your ass.
2. I once drank a beer with David Carradine in Heathrow Airport.
3. Upon meeting him for the first time, was told by Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh that I was “awesome.”
4. Used my Qi energy to save a group of innocent children from a mob of bloodthirsty, ninja unicorns.
5. I was taught Qigong by a famous Chinese movie star.

I’ve had one crazy life. no?

Okay, gotta tag some peeps. Walt, if you had a blog, I would tag you. Suzy Kohout come on down, Mike at MyTaiChiLife you’re the next contestant, Steven at Real Taijiquan (I know you’re still out there!), Taylor Shanklin at T-Shanks Cycles you’re up chica,  and last but not least, Wujimon.

I kind of had a mini-nervous breakdown a few days ago. Which is weird cause it was a Sunday. Sundays are supposed to be my down days. The one day out of the week that I reserve to do whatever I want. Which usually means saying no to social events, staying in and reading for hours on end and then taking care of household chores and laundry. But on this particular Sunday I became completely overwhelmed. Thoughts kept creeping up on me one by one, stacking themselves higher and higher in my head until I just couldn’t hold them any longer. I came home from the grocery store and for no reason at all burst into tears the moment I walked into the kitchen.

After I had calmed down a little, I looked over and noticed a Zen book that was lying on the counter next to me. I picked it up, read a few words and immediately felt a wave of peace wash over me. A white butterfly flew by the window and I contemplated the ephemeral nature of our emotions, our lives, our dreams…

Just kidding.

But I did ask myself what the hell just happened. What was that?? Why am I so completely stressed out? And then it hit me – all of these “should” thoughts I’ve been thinking. I should sleep more. I should eat better. I should cook more often. I should read more. I should write more. I should write better. I should do more to improve my skills at work. I should save more money. I should travel more. I should practice Tai Chi more. I should meditate more. I should…I should…I should… It’s exhausting! And it’s never enough.

In light of this, I’ve decided I need to chill out a bit. No more torturing myself because I’m not doing enough. No more running myself into the ground because of just one more thing I feel I have to do. How did I get on this self-improvement roller coaster anyway? I didn’t even realize it was happening. When I started the year, I made resolutions based on becoming healthier in all aspects of my life, but I never intended them to take over my head and completely turn on me. The idea was to help myself become healthier, not make myself feel bad for not meeting ridiculous expectations.

This whole idea of self-improvement and perfection has come up a lot for me in all of my martial arts classes – in Tai Chi, Qigong and Baguazhang. It’s even come up for me while doing zazen (but that’s another story). I know full well that the idea of perfection is completely unrealistic and that self-improvement is pretty much a myth invented by publishers to promote their latest self-help books (I should know – I bought them all when I was in my twenties!). I know all of this and yet I fall for it every time.

Every time I approach something new and unfamiliar, I want to perfect it. I want to get it right. It’s almost as if I think being perfect will keep me safe or keep me from making mistakes or making a fool of myself. Yeah right! But since I really prefer not breaking down in my kitchen, I think  it’s time to start letting this go and just enjoy learning. Isn’t that why I go to class every week? And why I practice at home every day?

Well, almost every day…

Lately, I’ve started taking meditation more seriously. Meditation has been a part of my martial arts experience since I started, but it has never really been discussed in much depth. In my first Tai Chi class it was a small part of our warm up. In Qigong it was what we did in the last ten minutes of class. In Baguazhang…well, you’re supposed to reach a meditative state while doing lots and lots of drills. But even though it has never been seriously discussed, we are all, as martial arts students, expected to slough off our everyday minds so that we can be at one with the movements. So that we can become the movements. But what does that mean exactly? And what does it really mean to meditate? How do you know if you’re even doing it “right”?

There seems to be a lot of mystery surrounding meditation. At least, that was my initial impression. There is a prevailing belief floating around that meditation is supposed to take you somewhere, but where exactly would that be? For the purpose of martial arts, this isn’t really helpful. Meditation for me means remaining in the present moment. I don’t want to be anywhere else. Where would I go? I want to be here, practicing Tai Chi or Qigong or whatever else I’m doing. To become the movements, it is necessary to be in the moment completely, so that you no longer even think about yourself and completely forget you even have a self.

In Tai Chi I learned Standing Meditation. In Qigong we did short guided meditations where we visualized moving our qi up and down through the central meridian (or whatever meridian that is…). In Zen meditation – Zazen – which I am learning now, we sit facing a wall (this is Soto Zen, to be more precise).

I have stuck with both Standing Meditation and Zen meditation, or Zazen, because they have one thing in common – no one is telling me what to do. Also, while I enjoyed the guided meditations in my Qigong class, I cannot do them on my own at home, like I can Standing Meditation and Zazen (okay, technically I can, but it feels silly). And so I have developed my own routine – Standing Meditation and Tai Chi in the morning, Zazen at night before going to sleep.

But how do you know if you are doing it “right”? That’s the thing – there is no right way, really. Which I was kind of surprised to discover. There’s also nothing mysterious or magical about it. It’s simply a way of being in the present moment, being aware of your breath, the room around you and the thoughts that go in and out of your head every day and almost every moment.

It sounds so simple, yet can be so incredibly difficult sometimes…Still, meditation  is an integral part of the internal martial arts and is actually one of the things I enjoy most about my practice.

…

While I don’t follow him, Sakyong Mipham Rinpoche has an excellent video on the Shambhala International website that sums up the basics of meditation very nicely. Also, Patrick Reynolds, of Zen is Stupid, has a really great (and funny) video about how to do Zazen and what to expect – see below.

Happy meditating.