Games | ||
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Games
Chinese martial arts often include
a wide range of partnered 'games' designed to encourage
good natured practice between students.
Rather than battle one another, students work together to better
their skills.
These games can be simple or complex.
Purpose
The tai chi games were designed to address
the acquisition of technical skills.
They also serve as a medium for the exploration of
emotion,
mindfulness and awareness.
Usually a game teaches many different things
at the same time and requires the student to immerse
themselves fully.
Both people learn
The partnered games were designed to ensure that both students
learn important lessons relevant to their
practice.
Both people have a role to play and things to work on.
Each role must be performed carefully, thoroughly and consistently.
Baggage
New students often bring emotional,
psychological and physical
baggage with them to class.
Partnered games usually expose these
problems.
If a fun game is warped into some sort of 'contest'
it is pretty clear that one student (or both) must have 'issues'.
Coordination
It is not enough to have solo coordination (qigong
and form). What is your coordination like in relationship
with somebody else?
This is a much tougher question.
Questions
Tai chi games prompt a whole series of important questions:
Are you balanced? Relaxed?
Composed?
Is there central equilibrium?
Sticky? Sensitive?
Using 4 ounces of pressure? Present or spaced out?
Are you tensing up or going with the
flow?
Success or failure?
By practicing with others we can find out what works
and what does not.
Other students can offer assistance and obstruction - both of which require
you to adapt, change and progress.
Success/failure is not the same as
winning/losing.
Win/lose
If a student adopts a competitive
attitude, this runs contrary to the spirit of the tai chi partnered games.
There is nothing to win. Nobody to beat.
e.g. when a student succeeds in taking their partner's balance, this is only
possible because their partner lacked stability,
presence and awareness.
The fault needs to be corrected and the tai chi
improved.
No one has been 'beaten'.
No fighting
Games are not combat.
Their purpose is to teach fundamental
skills that are necessary for everything else in the
syllabus to work.
Exploration
When a child discovers their universe, they do so through
play. A playful mind is not tense or uptight.
In tai chi we learn in the same way.
Students are encouraged to explore the art
in partnership with other people.
This approach is cooperative and experiential.
Playing
The notion of 'play' must be considered carefully.
Most adults perceive play as tooling around - insincere,
light-hearted and carefree. But is this play at all?
Children at play
When a child plays, they are usually engrossed
in whatever they are doing; their minds are in
the here and now.
It can be quite difficult to distract a child who is playing.
What play means to you
Can you see the danger here? If you think that play refers to an opportunity to
behave an irresponsible, carefree,
childish manner... then you have got the wrong idea about
tai chi.
Play is about immersion in the event itself.
Time wasters
Students who want to talk (or
dance around, show off or act foolishly) rather than train are
not in earnest.
They are not focused at all.
An inexperienced student cannot talk and train
competently at the same time.
If they are talking, then they are talking. They are not
training tai chi.
The tool
Now and again a student decides to be a total tool during a playful
partnered game.
This is the equivalent of agreeing to play cricket and pitching like it's
baseball.
Or using rugby rules during a football match. Would anyone be impressed?
The necessary balance
A student needs to concentrate in some
respects, and be unselfconscious in other
regards.
Both facets of this requirement are addressed through the act of
playfulness.
Find out for yourself
The beauty of play is that you do not have to
believe anything. You can find out for yourself.
If something works, examine the physics
behind the success. Why did it work? Can it be improved upon?
If something fails, figure out why it failed...
Unselfconscious
Adults forget the advantage of play.
Once you remove the barriers of right and wrong, approval and disapproval -
you can totally relax. If you make a mistake, so what? It is only play.
Relax
When you can relax and just be yourself, your mind will
open to new
possibilities.
You can see the wonder of things and laugh.
You may start to play in other areas of your life...
Martial
science
Tai chi cannot be learned by copying
somebody else.
You need a concrete, tangible
understanding of what you are doing and how it works.
The imagination must be engaged.
Without play and exploration, you will
have tai chi
classes filled with students who
possess absolutely no grasp of what they are
practicing.
Their aim was to discover the essential
nature or real constitution of things,
which they called 'physis'.
The term 'physics' is derived from this Greek word and meant therefore,
originally the endeavour of seeing the essential nature of things.
(Fritjof Capra)
Page created
25 January 2006
Last updated
16 June 2023
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