Understanding yielding
We read the world wrong and
say that it deceives us.
(Rabindranath Tagore)
Yielding?
Yielding is not
about giving-in, collapsing or being cowardly.
It is a strategy.
In fact, it is tai chi's primary strategy.
Yielding is the ability to make space, to allow an incoming force to
over-extend, to expend itself.
Having yielded, you step-in and counter.
With growing skill, you will find that the moment of yielding may seem quite
small and even go unnoticed by the attacker.
Attacker
When the attacker comes at you, it is necessary to meet the assault with
a calm mind and relaxed emotions.
Only then do you possess the wherewithal to use tai chi correctly.
Allow the attack.
Encourage its advance.
Do not flinch back or rush.
Let the force surge in towards you, volatile and dangerous.
Then meet it softly, establish connection, remain sticky and re-direct the
incoming power.
Without yielding,
this cannot be accomplished.
Allow your attacker to go in the direction they want to go. Do not impede them.
Root
Rooting is the outcome of yielding to the pull of gravity.
You do not tense, fight or clutch the ground. You cooperate with gravity.
Neither flaccid nor resistant, you allow gravity to strengthen your connection
with the ground.
Groundpath
Groundpath involves putting your bodyweight into someone else.
This is not merely a matter of connection, structure and alignment.
It also requires yielding.
Your entire framework must be soft and loose, but integrated.
Let your weight fall through your body into the other person, without in any way
compromising your own balance.
You must yield.
Jing
Jing can be
translated to mean 'power'.
Yet it is not power that you own. It is power you can use. There is a
difference.
This quality of borrowing power is 'te' in taoism.
By aligning yourself with 'what is' - the
moment, the event, the
happening - you can make best use of the attacker's strength, balance and
intention.
Your power comes not from your own strength or will, but from your ability to
find accord with the
moment.
If you can flow in harmony with the incoming force, you can skilfully defeat the
attack using very little actual
strength.
Success in this endeavour demonstrates an understanding of 'mutual arising'
(verse 2 of Tao Te Ching).
Rather than impose, you allow. This allowing is called yielding.
Mind
The greatest form of yielding must take place internally.
Your ego, pride, arrogance and vanity are all
obstacles that need to
be discarded on the way to understanding the art.
Holding and fixity will hinder your progress.
Sifu Waller's job is to encourage you to let-go both psychologically and emotionally.
Fear
People are afraid.
Ego-armouring is manifested by the huge
4 x 4 tanks people
hide within, the big houses with their gates and fences, the 'power-dressing',
identification
with a job, an organisation, a guru, an image.
You do not need all of that stuff.
It only serves to highlight just how insecure you feel, and how much you depend
upon external things for comfort and support.
It is OK to feel afraid, to doubt, to worry, to be uncertain.
Pretending that you are fearless is naive, macho and deceitful.
Who are you really fooling?
Surely, only yourself?
Understanding yielding
Yielding is about feeling comfortable being you.
Experience the moment. Enjoy it for what it is. Do not seek to interfere,
control or fix it.
Let-go.
When you let-go, you relax.
Your body moves more smoothly. The joints open and close freely.
You mind becomes receptive and aware, adaptive and flexible.
Instead of needing plans and techniques, you flow with what is happening.
There is no forecasting, no anticipation, no struggling, no forcing.
It just happens, and you are part of that happening.
You allow things to go their natural way.
Page created 3 August 1999