Missing the point
One can function freely and totally if he is 'beyond system'.
The man who is really serious, with the urge to find out what truth is, has no
style at all.
He lives only in what is.
(Bruce Lee)
Beginners bad habits
It is very important for beginners to lose their bad (external) habits.
This is a monumental task for many people, especially if they are chronically
tense or have a background in an existing martial art.
The process takes a lot of patience.
Soft
You can learn to be soft, to feel, to be sensitive in your physical relation
with the opponent.
It will involve re-training your nervous system to be conscious of the existing
tension.
At first, your body will tell you that you are being soft.
But that is faulty information.
In time you will see that there is absolutely no need for force.
When your tai chi feels effortless yet there is a notable effect, you are moving
in the right direction.
Work together
The beginners partner work is not realistic self defence. It is foundation work.
The partner exercises we practice are designed to teach a whole range of
complementary skills.
None of them are actual self defence methods.
Not even silk arms; it has rules, pattern, routine - it is a drill.
Partner exercises require that two people work together on their skills, help
each other to progress.
In this way, strengths and weaknesses are highlighted so both people benefit.
Skills
Our school teaches you skills:
Sensitivity, balance, yielding, groundpath, softness, whole-body movement and so
on.
What you choose to do with these skills depends upon your inclination and
ability.
It is your choice.
The partner work and applications merely represent possible expressions of tai
chi but this is not the limit of the system.
Incorporating tai chi into your daily life will affect your wellbeing and
happiness far more than punching a bag each day.
Seeing
People see what they want to see.
If you see tai chi as being fa jing, dance or deeper striking power - then that
is what you see.
Your desire clouds your perception.
To see tai chi in a narrow, exclusive way says a lot about you and almost
nothing about the tai chi itself.
Naïve
In classes, it is common to hear new students grumbling that a playful partner
drill will not work against a real attacker.
We do not pretend that a beginner is engaged in 'real' self defence.
Lacking very few skills and no experience, a beginner is simply laying the
groundwork.
This process typically takes some time.
No instructor teaches their advanced material to a beginner.
You must earn the knowledge by working hard.
When your character has been improved and your relationship with others is no
longer conflictive, humility emerges and you take life as it comes.
Impatience to use the tai chi in combat only reflects your own fear.
Assembling
To build the system from scratch, we must re-build you from scratch.
Your body, mind, responses, sensitivity and reflexes must all change.
The tai chi grows like a virus, transforming you from within.
Going nowhere
If you are resisting the syllabus; being tense, training old habits - you will
not make much progress in our classes.
The effect of the tai chi will be negligible.
Forcing a result, struggling and clinging to opinions is not the way.
Missing the point
It is common to see beginners being unnecessarily awkward with other people.
The reasoning behind their behaviour is perplexing. Only by working together
will you make progress.
Before you have any hope of using tai chi in self defence you must understand
how we use the body.
This understanding must be grounded in substance not talk.
Partner work is the only means you have of learning to use the body correctly
for tai chi.
Without biofeedback, how can you gauge the success of an action?
All of the drills that you learn are pieces of a much larger puzzle and you need
to master the basics before you can proceed.
If you choose to treat every game as a battle for life and death, you will never
gain these skills.
Freeform
Freeform will your first real opportunity to deal with random, unpredictable
attacks.
If you have not garnered the necessary skill, you will flounder at this stage.
Students start freeform work quite early on in the self defence syllabus.
Eventually, freedom is non-compliant. The attacker will do everything they can
to defeat you.
Page created 5 August 1999