Pouring

Pouring

By Lee Wedlake

The term “pouring” is a popular one used in describing how one transfers weight from one leg to the other when doing tai chi. I feel it’s a good one for getting the mental picture of just how that transfer occurs.

“Shifting” is ok but just does not quite illustrate how we want the change to occur. The word pouring describes a controlled moving of a fluid from one vessel to another. This bars our notions of pouring down rain or emotions verbally pouring forth since they impart the idea of an uncontrolled event. Using the thought of pouring water from a pitcher to a glass is much better.

We don’t dump the weight from one leg to the other, an equivalent of splashing. One who plods or stomps along is splashing their weight. The tai chi practitioner carefully, mindfully moves weight from one leg to the other in a slow, controlled manner. We know what it is like when a clumsy person attempts to fill a glass; missing, splashing or over-filling it. It’s not the picture of what we want to do when we step.

If we think of chi as a fluid, pouring is the perfect fit. As we move from posture to posture in our slow, controlled way, we transfer that fluid from one place to another without missing (not the right weight moving), splashing (stomping) or overflowing (too much going everywhere). Our goal is the perfect pour every time.

This takes time and thoughtful practice. One goal is developing the discipline to do this since it’s not prone to immediate and consistent results. In the long term we want the ability to unconsciously place the weight where we need it so that when our step is disturbed by catching a toe or an unstable or slick surface, our practice allows us to compensate in a flash. It’s the basis behind using tai chi for fall prevention.

Pouring, as a term, is a nice tool in getting our mind and body to work together in this process since it produces a valuable visual to work with. I’ve written of it in the context of shifting weight but the idea works with the whole body. Since the legs are the base for the rest of the body it stands to reason our focus will be there, particularly for beginners.

I believe we should do this with conscious efforts, the aforementioned mindfulness, to get the feel of how it works. As we progress we’ll make it more subconscious and be able to sense the movement of chi and later be able to direct it, should be we desire.

Until next time,

Lee    

The Theoretical Basis of Tai Chi Ch’uan by Robert Burns Amacker.

A serious book for a serious student.

I met Bob many years ago when he did a tai chi seminar at my studio in Florida. I was immediately impressed when he said “If you can’t throw a side kick, you’re not doing tai chi”. He’s a fighter. This book could not be written by someone with less years and experience. It’s technical and conceptual, and that means it’s not a quick read. It’s nicely chaptered and that makes it easier to absorb the related subjects. He starts with defining “the Principle” and moves to yielding, adherence, discharge, the civil and martial tai chi and more. This is not a book for the dabbler.
He only had 150 printed, hardbound and they even have a gold fabric bookmark. I hate to tease you but I don’t know where you can get one, Bob sent a copy to me. He says it may appear in e-book form on Amazon.  

Built-in Frustration

My teacher told me the system has built-in frustration. This is facet of a discussion you’ll probably have regarding how long it takes to “get it”. He said that if one person takes 10 years and the next takes 20, what difference does it make as long as they both reach their goal? That’s connected to the thinking that we compete with ourselves, not with others.

If you’ve done only one lesson in the arts you have probably told yourself that it is harder than it looks. Being that most humans will seek the path of least resistance in most things, it may be easier to tell yourself that the activity is not worth it. That’s where we start to see the frustration factor.

I have had people come in to take a class and decide that it’s just too hard. One only took 15 minutes to make that decision. She holds the record for the shortest intro lesson. Discussing this with other people we have the opinion that she’s the type of person who needs it the most. She succumbed to the frustration factor.

Preconception is typically what hurts us in this matter. We see it and think it’s easy. We try, and find it’s not. It’s the beginning of a logic tree. See it- decide to try, yes or no. If no, we go to the next idea. If yes, we find a class. We take the class and decide if it’s for us – yes or no. If no, we invested some time and effort and move on to something else. If yes, we return for more. Now we may have built an artificial timeline of goals. “By June I’ll know the short form, by December I’ll have the long form,” etc. Any number of events may occur to slow us down or even prevent us for making those goals. That’s frustrating.

We have laughed about how we come to class thinking this will be a great thing to relieve stress, improve health, calms the mind and so on. Then we find that it’s more difficult than we thought and get rather wound up about not knowing the next step in a sequence or that we don’t have the breathing right. More frustration. This path has resistance.

The logic tree says we need to make a decision. Do we continue or quit? My teacher told me that in the traditions of tai chi, you were required to do it for three years once you started. Only then were you experienced enough to make an informed decision. Not a Western type of thinking at all.

You have to work through the tough parts. This is where the art teaches or reinforces discipline. The benefits are not given, they are earned. If you quit or do not get yourself on a regular practice schedule, you don’t get the fruits of the labor. Frustration is part of the dues paid.

The Western mind does not want to hear a “you get it when you get it” statement. The teacher is a guide and can give you some direction but the rest is up to you.

Until next time,

Lee    

Tai chi beats back depression in the elderly

This was on the univ. of California website. It is not a complete copy of the article. but what I have here is interesting.
Researchers at UCLA turned to a gentle, Westernized version of tai chi chih, a 2,000-year-old Chinese martial art. When they combined a weekly tai chi exercise class with a standard depression treatment for a group of depressed elderly adults, they found greater improvement in the level of depression — along with improved quality of life, better memory and cognition, and more overall energy — than among a different group in which the standard treatment was paired with a weekly health education class.
The results of the study appear in the current online edition of the American Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry.
"This is the first study to demonstrate the benefits of tai chi in the management of late-life depression, and we were encouraged by the results," said first author Dr. Helen Lavretsky, a UCLA professor-in-residence of psychiatry. "We know that nearly two-thirds of elderly patients who seek treatment for their depression fail to achieve relief with a prescribed medication."
In the study, 112 adults age 60 or older with major depression were treated with the drug escitalopram, a standard antidepressant, for approximately four weeks. From among those participants, 73 who showed only partial improvement continued to receive the medication daily but were also randomly assigned to 10 weeks of either a tai chi class for two hours per week or a health education class for two hours per week.
All the participants were evaluated for their levels of depression, anxiety, resilience, health-related quality of life, cognition and immune system inflammation at the beginning of the study and again four months later.

The new DVD is here!

I have finally gotten the DVD you have been asking for over the years. I know it took quite some time but I'm sure you'll be happy with the product. It's a 55 minute disc with the warm-ups, basic postures, eight chi-kung exercises and the Four Corners set. It's professionally shot and edited by Spearman Resource Group in Ft. Myers. The cost is $25 and you can get one direct from me at a class or order online at http://www.leewedlake.com/ in the store. A follow-up DVD with the short form is in the works, too. And it won't take years to get done!