Author: Unknown
In the Oriental arts to practice is to deepen the experience of being. The experience of being deepens with practice. The experience of being changes with practice. It isn't better than it was nor is it worse. It is simply different than the last practice of experiencing. In our infancy we gathered in the details of our physical body and then gathered in the details of the world around us. Over time, gathering in the details of the world around us became our chief preoccupation and the details of our body sort of went on auto pilot. Tai Chi returns us to that inner discovery and uses many of those early methods of self learning.

 Practice is essential. It may be helpful to remember the studio and where you stood in the room. Remembering the view of yourself in the mirror and your teacher before you. Try to see it. If all you can remember is standing with your feet at 45 degrees - do that! The visual memory will help you find the rest. Practice the little bit you can SEE. In time it will grow. Just standing, emptying the left leg of ALL weight and finding what you need to do with the right leg to get the left leg empty is not a waste of time. All of Tai Chi hinges on one leg empty and the other weighted. 70%-30% These first moves help you to discover how wide your shoulders are. Taking that first step so your heels are exactly even is no small task. You have to FEEL the moment that the left foot is in position. That means knowing where your foot is other than at the end of your leg. That means knowing the floor is other than down there somewhere. Feel where your weight is. Each time you practice you are experiencing Tai Chi.

I study Tai Chi with Mr. Frank Wong in North Carolina. Mr. Wong does not talk philosophy of yin & yang. He communicates the philosophy through the experience of the form, through practice, through repetition of the experience of the form. He is both teacher and student as you are both teacher and student. He cannot TELL you when you know where your foot is. He can only remind you to FIND your foot or your hand or your waist. He can only remind you of their presence. So there is no right or wrong in Tai Chi. There is only a being in touch with some of yourself or more of yourself or less of yourself. Learning to SEE the position of HIS body is a guide to find the position of your own body internally.

Practice is not a common western learning trait. Part of what you will experience, particularly in the beginning, is self-directed impatience. It is frustrating to discover that you have an auto pilot relationship with your body. It is frustrating to discover that you are out of touch with your body parts. Your mind will go into overdrive trying to THINK your way through a movement. The impatience will take several forms. Why can't I remember what comes next? I go home and can't remember one thing I have done in class. How can I practice when I can't remember? HELP! I need a book to tell me what comes next. HELP! I want to meet someone in between classes to help me remember! Is there a video on Tai Chi? This impatience is part of building a new relationship with your body. You are in a sense opening pathways, lines of internal communication. It will take practice, lots of practice before the impatience begins to ebb. Impatience will come and go again and again. It isn't a hurdle you cross just once. Invariably impatience signals the beginning of a deeper level of experience. You are learning to TEACH yourself as you taught yourself to sit, crawl and walk. Learning to count on your internal teaching is part of the learning. Part of the learning is to bring the motivation to practice/experience within yourself rather that to depend on the external for growth, for change. I asked a friend who was instrumental in my discovering this class if she would meet with me to practice. She said That's funny. Everyone I have ever done that with would up dropping out. Finding the time to practice without using the leverage of having an appointment to practice is part of the Learning. Using the embarrassment of not showing up as leverage to practice delays an essential learning.

Learning not to resist your own impatience, your own frustration, is part of learning NON-RESISTANCE. NON-RESISTANCE IS THE SIGNATURE OF TAI CHI. Discovering that the resistance is internal is part of the learning. At first your mind will resist seeing, your body will resist moving. You will resist practicing and experiencing. You will resist coming to class. Tai Chi teaches you how to deal with resistance. How to use that energy as simply energy. A study of an Oriental Art has been traditionally taught through oral and experiential transmission. The teacher teaches you to teach yourself. Regardless of the art form---- be it martial arts, calligraphy, flower arrangement, painting, or pottery==== the study begins with the student observing the teacher practicing for years while he or she performs menial tasks for the teacher like grinding ink, or wedging clay before ever picking up a brush or sitting down at the wheel. You teach yourself to SEE. You teach yourself to FEEL. You teach yourself to experience a deeper reality.

Many westerners become frustrated with traditional form of learning because it requires the student to involve aspects of the self that we the west do not usually bring to a learning class. We are expecting to be TOLD what to do and how to do it through words rather than action. For a long time you will simply be learning to SEE. Sounds simple, but it is really quite difficult. For a long time you will simply be learning to DO what your eyes have seen. In the beginning you may find it helpful to visually scan your teacher from head to toe, matching yourself to their body. Note in particular the position of each body joint. If your elbow is dangling it is because you have not SEEN your teachers elbow. Or if you have SEEN the elbow, you haven't internalized what you have SEEN. It is a two-part process of learning to SEE rather than to look; and INTERNALIZING what you have seen through your BODY rather than through your mind. Try to keep your mind quiet and still and let your eyes take in what you are seeing. Developing a visual memory of the postures in part of the learning.

A bit about books--it is said in western contemporary language that Tai Chi is learning through the right brain rather than the familiar culturally endorsed left-brain of words and logic. You will want a book because it is a symbol of western learning. Your teacher is the book and you are learning how to read. You will feel a need to acquire language and terminology. You are finding an experience rather than finding a word FOR the experience. In the beginning it will be very difficult to know how to ask a question in class. You will think that if you find a book, you will find the language in which to ask a question. There are only two types of questions; I cannot see your feet teacher in this movement though I am LOOKING right at them; I cannot FIND my arms in this move though I know they are here somewhere. A book will give your mind something to chew on. Your mind is not used to being so passive in a learning situation.

Like you, I heard of my teacher speak of impatience and frustration but I didn't realize it was part of the learning and unavoidable. Because I keep going back through beginning classes and have seen students meeting the same impatience and frustration again and again, I decided to write to you in the hopes that it will support and encourage you. Impatience and frustration have triumphed too many times. From just one class, this is a particularly fine group of green willows. It is my hope that you will bend and not break as you meet the winds of impatience and frustration.

Retyped & shortened by Vicki Norman written by Karen Auman