Posture

One of the difficulties in the teaching (one of the many) is the concept of always going forwards. The idea sounds great – if you manage to achieve it then you'll always have the advantage of immediacy – you'll be there at the inception of things, before they've developed into problems. However, it's important not to misinterpret what is meant by this instruction – to ensure that when you drive or project forwards that you do so from the right place. Many martial artists, and especially natural fighters, have a quality of always being out there – in front – looking for the next fight – intentionally on a short fuse. Such people just enjoy fighting – love the adrenalin rush and the pain, especially the infliction of pain. Psychopaths. Their aggression always stems from some negativity such as anger or fear or arrogance. They learn early on in life that losing their temper and lashing out works for them – brings the desired results – and so they spend the rest of their life practising it – making a virtue of it. And they become real masters – masters of anger and aggression – masters of laying their filth on the world and basically making it a worse place. These are extreme cases – extreme cases of getting is completely wrong. However, to some degree we are all like this – we all have our problems – problems which cause us not to listen and to respond inappropriately, carelessly and clumsily. The thing my teacher abhors more that anything else is coarseness – lack of refinement. As far as he is concerned the path forwards is the path into greater awareness, a path which naturally and obviously leads to greater refinement and subtlety. This will be achieved if, and only if, that thrust forwards comes gently and compassionately from the heart, and the key to this is posture. Aggressive people lead with their head – their angry spirit – not with their heart – they tend to lean forwards, if only ever so slightly. Our leaning back posture – driving the sacrum and belly forwards so that the energy from the ground thrusts up the legs and into and out of the heart is vital. Cheng Man-ching had it beautifully, especially when he was just standing rather than doing Tai Chi. It means your energy naturally rolls under and up the opponent, and it also means that your heart is always being stimulated to open and give – to connect. It is these connexions – made with heart and in the spirit of generosity – that open you up to other possibilities and are the impetus behind the refining process. The other, on some level, is always beyond what you could ever imagine and it is touching the unknown in them that wakes up those similar parts in you – increases awareness.

This all sounds wonderful but to achieve it requires such honesty that it is very rare. The problem is that we have all managed to convince ourselves that all our qualities are good in the sense of being natural and vital to our identity; we have all made virtues of what we are, including what others would consider glaring faults, and can't come to terms with giving up anything, especially anything that is going to be painful to lose. We live in a culture obsessed with acquisition and with alleviating suffering, with becoming wealthier and with avoiding pain, and those obsessions have driven deep into all parts of the modern psyche. How often have you heard students say, “Oh I just haven't had time to practice”? It doesn't occur to them that if they want to take up Tai Chi and do it justice then they'll have to give up some of their other activities in order to give it the time and energy it deserves. And if you tell a class of beginners that as they progress at their Tai Chi they'll have to give up more and more you'll probably never see them again, and if you do it'll be because they either weren't listening or don't believe you, which amount to the same thing.

To progress probably at anything, but especially Tai Chi, the student must have regular periods of real soul searching, trying to decide where their faults lay and what can be done to eradicate them. A good teacher will always stimulate such times – their company is always enough to shake your confidence to its foundations. If you have regular contact with your teacher then you have to struggle not to learn to protect yourself against his explicit or implicit criticism. Take it to heart and treat it as the blessing it is. The deeper you go the more difficult it becomes because the things you need to confront are closer to the bone, and just getting your mind around what they are is problem enough without the terror of having to do away with them. Our one saving grace is our posture. My teacher has always said that it is the most important part of the teaching – having the bum in. The rest is coming to terms with the implications of this posture.