Lately I have been ‘out of the loop’ so to speak with the teachers and skilled people that I like to practice with. This is for a number of reasons, some outside of my control and some due to my own decisions.
I have a 2 year old son and therefore less spare money and time than I did before he was born. I’m not complaining for a second but it has meant that I haven’t been able to travel to see my teachers or training buddies. Normally I would go to London or overseas to Tai Chi retreats where I usually come away tired, but exhilarated and with new perspective and skills….and very sore muscles.
Lately my current training partner has been away on holiday so my training has been completely solo. Although a lonely period it has been an opportunity to reflect on my practice, ‘what am I doing, can I train smarter, am I doing enough’? These are usually the questions that plague me.
So during the quieter times in my training I tend to default to one of two approaches. The first is to do more meditation and still work. Which in practice means sitting practice and ‘Zhan Zhuang’ or standing practice.
The second is to study the written and video materials that I have particularly around form or ‘Ji Ben Gong’ which is basic training.
Lately I’ve tried to do more sitting practice and meditation. The method I’ve focused on is simply to sit in the ‘Burmese’ posture in a quiet space and become as still as possible. This means no external movement, no fidgeting and internally to simply allow the mind to settle becoming more and more absorbed inside the body. I might check in with my breath however the idea is not to ‘do’ anything other than maintain the sitting posture and put up with the discomfort which usually starts to kick in for me after about 30 minutes.
I call this ‘passive’ practice because the goal is really to simply rest with full awareness and to be as still as possible for the allotted time (usually 25 - 40 minutes). My future goal is to sit comfortably for 1 hour with no physical adjustments and with my mental activity as still as possible.
People often say that Tai Chi is moving meditation. It can be however my approach has been to use sitting meditation to build specific skills or qualities particularly ‘Song’ and ‘Ting’ and then put what I have built back into the form practice. See my other posts for more on the meaning of Song and Ting.
So this is what I mean by ‘cultivation’ where the still practice builds the attributes and skills that are the most important spiritual components of the art. And why we say Tai Chi is an ‘internal’ art.
Then when I’ve had enough of the still practice I can go back to the active components - form, push hands, yi jin jing etc. And back again. In other words an interplay of movement and stillness, Yin and Yang.