I was recently talking with an old friend of mine now living in Perth who tracked me down and rang me out-of-the-blue. I had taught my friend Taichichuan many years ago. I never thought this person would survive into their elder years but there you go wrong again thankfully, not that I would condone my friends early life-experience. You know as a young person my friend would have no qualms about loading a shotgun and robbing someone or business, would have no concern for inflicting hurt upon others with steel pipes, glasses, knives, bottles or bricks and was handy with his fist to boot. Violence was his first and last resort, he was on occasions a stand over merchant acting on behalf of unsavoury collection agencies. I think it fair to say my friend was a "little messed up" back in the day...
When a good student and their teacher have a falling-out and stop discussing, questioning and playing Taichichuan together, each becoming slowly more isolated from the other, the creative cycle of learning/teaching has ceased for both of them, growth is impaired and stagnation imminent. We do not know tomorrow, hurts need to dissolve, stubbornness forgone, and equilibrium restored. The Ching-Shen “spirit of vitality” must be raised? It is precisely in the space of healing and regeneration where the function of Taichichuan is most effective and best served, it is also where the true depth of one’s art, practice and character is better developed and ultimately revealed.
- John Hartley 2015 How do we know if what we are doing is correct? One indication our practice is deepening is when at first the posture goes quiet. This quiet has a vibrant quality and fullness to it, and is unmistakably, soft, clear and gentle.
We are faced with so many distraction and pressures in the world of today, so many reasons why we cannot practice our Tai Chi Chuan, why we must be somewhere else, having to do something else, so many things to snatch away our centre and relieve us of our root, and in the entanglement we tend to neglect the things that really matter, but Tai Chi Chuan is not an investment in the erratic whims and fears of the worldly market of today, it is a quiet investment in oneself, in improving our feeling of health, our feeling of wellness, of nurturing our feeling of belonging, of connection and re-generating our relationship and just-ness with the natural world and each other and resting in the enduring quiet strength of being.
In today’s world, for our Grandchildren’s world, I think this is so much more the medicine needed. From today, reclaim your time, invest it in the things that matter, water your practice just a little bit and in your every tomorrow growth, not decline, will accompany you. - John H 2015 |
AuthorJohn Hartley, Founder and Principal Instructor of Inner Health School of Taijiquan, Adelaide Categories
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