Physical Strength

The importance of strength in any pursuit cannot be overemphasized, especially in physical endeavours such as Tai Chi or Heartwork. A good solid musculature is a necessity. How to achieve it? I'm afraid I know of no other way quite so effective as pumping iron. Back in 1990 my teacher, finally sick to death of my feeble 120lb excuse for a body, told me I had to put on 40lb. Always one for a challenge I then proceeded to eat like there was no tomorrow and within a year I was over 200lb. He then took me aside and gently suggested that I now convert all that fat to muscle. This changed my life. I dug into weight-training with a vengeance, assisted by the similar efforts of Paddy Gallagher, Heron Beecham and Charles Bell. By the end of 1993 we were all squatting well over our own body weights (no mean feat), my chest had increased from 38" to 45" and my thighs were larger than my girlfriends waist. And, more importantly, my teacher told me that my energy had improved ten-fold. John had said to me at the beginning that there is something inherently honest about iron. "That 10 kilo plate will always weigh 10 kilos no matter how you feel", he would say. Doing Tai Chi it is always possible to fake it - not to sink quite as much, to ease up when the pain becomes too great. However, with weights there is no faking it, or rather, there is no escaping the fact that you are faking it (we fake everything really). A body-builder knows as a cold fact that when completing a set of repetitions with a bar loaded with iron, it is only that repetition which brings him to failure, and then the next one, that will stimulate growth, the earlier repetitions have simply been getting to that point. So his composure and mental strength have to increase as the set progresses. He has to sink into the pain, dig deep and somehow find the strength to lift more than he has before. Progressive resistance training. I know of no better way of training the spirit than heavy weight-training (body-building). Each time a body-builder trains he is asking a miracle of himself - to lift more than last time - and miracles are achieved with spirit. Meet a good body-builder and once you've got over the strangeness of the bulk and the narcissism, you'll be overwhelmed by the warmth of the good energy exuding from them - they really are larger than life. This comes from using their spirit to enter the unknown on a regular basis. Using weights to merely keep up your fitness will not develop spirit - it wont improve your ability to explode. Growth not fitness. I would recommend weights over any other strengthening regime, including sunk tai chi and all chi kung. I have met advanced chi kung practitioners and they just don't have the open-hearted, joyous and honest demeanour of a practising body-builder. Similar to John's experience with the Tibetan Buddhists (with whom he studied for years), "I actually far preferred the Jesuits, they were more honest, stronger and real warriors - soldiers of Christ". The problems with body-building is that much of your strength stays locked in your muscles, and it tends to develop a feeling of power which often just isn't there. There's a famous story of Bruce Lee walking on the beach in California with Dan Inosanto. They pass a bulky body-builder, well bronzed, pumped and stripped to his trunks (as always). Dan Inosanto gasped in awe and said, "Wow, he's strong!". To which Bruce replied, "Yes, but no power". Meaning, I think, that the man didn't possess the ability to harness that strength and direct it into physical interactions with others. Having said that, body-building will improve your performance in many fields. Tim Henman's failure at the highest levels of tennis can be put down to a lack of physical and mental bulk. Many musicians, especially classical ones, would be well advised into weights regimes: as well as advancing their instrumental facility, it would improve their ability to project and give substance to what they say. If you feel better about and in yourself, and have more energy, then as a communicating entity you are going to have more to give. It is what you give to the world that defines you, not how you feel or what you do. And because heavy weight-training opens up your skeletal structure (as well as adding muscle to that structure), your heart frees up and is much more "out there" - not just on your sleeve but everywhere. Watch a good body-builder perform (go through his poses) and you'll be overwhelmed by the heart that fills the auditorium. I went to see Dorian Yates, the greatest of his generation, perform in a converted aircraft hanger. When he snapped into his lat-spread you really felt that he was wider than the hanger. I was speechless whilst Pip Pennington and Victoria Bridges at my sides were squealing and screaming their appreciation. Next to John, I have never met anyone with anywhere near the sobriety and heart as that man. I found out afterwards that he meditated for two hours before each training session - "To prepare myself for the visceral agonies to come". A directed life with not an ounce of compromise. For many years he was my hero.