Attack

Tai Chi versus Heartwork is belly versus heart. They are not really antagonistic or in competition, but the two poles of one big organ of connectedness and power. My teacher always stressed this: that if your posture is correct then your energy naturally gathers in the lower dandien – belly – and with time and sincere practice slowly grows up to fill and open the heart. This is his own experience and is something he insists on in his best students. The emphasis of our work shifted from belly to heart when my teacher realised that one's personal power – centred in the belly – is always limited unless one learns to connect through the heart with other energies pretty much on a constant and permanent basis. Such connexions allow one to tap into these energies and coordinate them with one's own into a far more engulfing and far reaching vehicle for transformation. This smacks maybe of manipulation and I suppose it could be but our approach is a natural one – it happens by itself, obeying the agenda of some higher aspect of the living teaching – the same natural consequence of our discipline, devotion and softness that allows the energy we gather and develop, as well as the energies we connect to, their own awareness.

The anatomy or dynamic or a Tai Chi posture is, simply put, an opening and entering, a connecting, a swallowing, a gathering or marshalling, and an expression – attack – explosive or otherwise. The opening, entering, connecting and swallowing would be the yield, and the gathering and expression would be the attack. The yield itself, if it is to be effective, is a small attack (the entering) followed by a yield, and the attack is a small yield (the gathering) followed by an attack; every component, if it has any power, derives that power from the dual nature of the component and the tension or interaction in that duality. This shows that no matter how connected you are, how large and inclusive your heart is, your actions, in the final analysis, come from you and you alone – they are your imposition on the world – your attempt to make a difference, and this final act of power comes from the belly. The heart is the organ that allows you to reach out and connect and gather. This energy or information or knowledge or awareness is then passed to the belly – the gut – where it is transformed into an expression of you – your statement. This is a difficult one for us humble, soft Tai Chi students to get our minds around – that eventually you have to stop pussy-footing around and actually attack with all you have. It's what the Irish tramp did to me on Friday – he just threw his energy out, willy-nilly, regardless of whether he connected. It is the ultimate act of courage – the big naked leap into the unknown – and if we think of courage as heart but also guts then we can see that it requires all we have.