Rhythm

My 8 year old daughter has been phoning me nightly to play me her newly practised violin and keyboard exercises. She has always been aware of the need to establish and maintain some sort of dialogue but has never quite found any common ground before, so I'm very pleased we're finally getting it together. What's fascinating me about her music studies is just how naturally, quickly and organically she learns, and it's all led by her ear rather than any feeling or notion of self. What's also striking is just how much the sound she gets from the violin is a reflection of her character and essential energy. And also, of course, the importance and efficacy of practice is always in evidence. At that age they're so malleable and open that as long as they have correct teaching (and the motivation to practice) they can't go wrong. The thing that's difficult to get into her is that it's not just playing the right notes that's important, it's getting the right rhythm. Rhythm is the common ground really. Without it she'd never fit in with others, either within an ensemble or communicatively with an audience. Communication is all about catching and carrying an audience and this is usually a matter of timing rather than self-expression. The same in pushing-hands - if you catch the other's rhythm then you naturally fit in with them and yielding and uprooting are effortless. To hear their rhythm you obviously must be relaxed and open but also some part of you must have swallowed or embraced the exchange in its entirety before it has started. Like John saying he always used to feel that Dr Chi had yielded to him before he got up in the morning. To do this effectively there can only be one thing in your life. You must approach everything on every level in exactly the same way you'd approach the other in pushing-hands. Yielding must be the consuming interest and passion in the life of a Tai Chi student.

Back in 1985 I visited New Zealand. One evening we were staying at Lake Taupo, the large lake at the centre of the North Island, and I was struck by the sounds the lake was making so decided to get up in the early hours when there was no traffic about and record the sounds on tape (I had a good tape recorder with me). I spent 90 minutes squatting on a rock ledge at the waters edge with a microphone dangling over, sleepily catching the lake's many rhythms. The most obvious sounds were the constant lappings of the water against the rocks, however, deeper than that there were slower swells, coming every five minutes or so. The longer I stayed there the more I became aware of the deeper rhythms and the more I was drawn to relax into and ride them. It occurred to me that there were rhythms probably thousands of years per beat which if I relaxed sufficiently I could fall into and join and become a part of. Then I would know the real secrets of that lake. On one level I was catching the lake on tape but on another the lake was catching me. It is the same in Tai Chi: on one level you are the yielder, swallowing, embracing and processing, but on another level you are being yielded to - something is swallowing, embracing and processing you, all of the time. If you can relax and soften into this process then you become a much more potent yielder and life takes on a deeper significance which my teacher calls destiny.