Good news at last about the Taichido Long Yang Form electronic learning media (see the section at the bottom of this newsletter), we are expecting to bring out a DVD-ROM version for computer DVD users of the entire Form in time for next month's newsletter - more of that next time. The Project still continues to publish a DVD version that is specifically for using in TV-based DVD players rather than computers, as many of you have expressed the opinion that you can't practice in your tiny workstation cubby-hole, but would prefer to learn in the middle of the living-room! This is a very different format from computer-based media and so is an interesting excersise, the shape of which we now are ready to develop.

And finally a thanks to all those who have left something in the Guestbook, and to those who are partaking of the Taichido Blog arena.

Best regards, Mark
webmaster taichido.com, taichidoshop.com, editor Taichido Newsletter

So you get this newsletter ... and then what?

Some of you delete it immediately and some of you don't. Some of you read it now and some of you read it later. When you get around to it (some of you sooner and some of you later) some of you read it all at once and some of you read it in bits. At least I assume that is what you do, but I can make this assumption based only upon what students that come to train here with me in my home dojo tell me what they do with it; and they only tell me when I ask. The trouble is I rarely ask and anyway, the 20 or so that I meet with here is an insignificant portion of the many subscribers of this newsletter, and we don't really need a newsletter to tell them what we are doing together - because we are doing it!

Since deciding to have a bash at earning at least a portion of my income from teaching tai chi I have put more effort into the art of teaching than I have into the art of tai chi. After all, when I started tai chi I knew a bit about tai chi but I knew nothing about teaching! I Soon I realised that just as everything that I had learnt about tai chi was so learnt through personal experience - i.e. doing tai chi and just doing tai chi as I was taught, so too must I learn how to teach by doing it. It was this personal experience had confirmed to me without doubt that doing tai chi does a person good - because it had done me good. My further experience was that the doing of it (tai chi) seemed to encourage me to try to do everything else I did (including the the thing I didn't want to do at all) with just a little more care and consideration.

I like to think that now, eight or nine years later, I have learnt a thing or two about teaching and number one is that the best lessons that I give are the ones students don't know they are getting. Therefore, as I have become more familiar and comfortable with the art of teaching - and crucially, bearing in mind that I teach only one thing (tai chi) - I see to it that those that come to meet here personal with me never really know what to expect. Sometimes and with some people I just get straight on to Form practice but usually we do chi kung first, and sometimes we carry on doing this for most of the session. It all depends. It all depends upon the person, the individual. Some people get a lecture, some a cup of tea, some get entertained and amused and some leave here more confused than when they come. It all depends on the individual.

So, I've learnt a trick or two about teaching in order to teach just one thing, tai chi. Likewise I have learnt a bit about writing by committing myself to writing this newsletter on a regular and routine basis and ... what do you expect? I bring you just one piece of news every month: "Doing Tai Chi can do You good".

A Personal Thing

This newsletter is for You, not for one of the 20 or so that I meet in person. Clearly it is a different medium not least because it is addressed to people that I never have and never will meet or get to know in person. But, as the message is the same ("do tai chi") I have decided that I shall treat this issue as if it is one of the "free and no strings attached" initial meetings that I have with prospective students and as if it were You the stranger that just walked into the Dojo and asked "why should I do Tai Chi" or "what are the benefits of Tai Chi and what should I expect". I would say something like this perhaps ...

Tai Chi is not a miracle cure for all ills but more like the rain that falls on flower. Without this rain the flower would wither and die, so in a way these droplets are matter of life and death for the flower - but it would not survive on this alone. It short, the seed that might become the flower needs first to be fortunate enough to enter the earth at favorable time and into a suitable environment and then it needs to be able to put down roots and then, if this fortunate thus far, simply get on with being what it is where it is. If the conditions (wind, sun, competing and assisting species etc.) are correct, the flower will grow, yet still the health or hardiness of the flower will depend entirely upon these 'conditions'. If the seed of a Rose found itself in a desert it could not decide to become a Cactus!

We are very fortunate to be born as human beings and we are without doubt the most versatile species on this planet, not least because we are able to adapt to our environment and (some of us humans on this planet) have a free choice in exactly what of sort of 'nourishment' we wish to partake of. I will not waste words here now discussing the politics of the world and mans inhumanity to man (what a bizarre statement that is!) because this is far too complicated, but I will tell you what I am personally doing about 'it' and ask you please continue do the same. And what is that? Tai Chi, that's what it is!

Doing good or doing no good

There is a phrase from the Alcohol Anonymous 12 step program: "You come into A.A. as a drunken son of a bitch. You stop drinking (getting drunk) and all you are left with is a son of a bitch". In another words, conditions can be changed but just not doing one 'bad thing' does not make everything else you do be good. One is urged to do good, though it is fine to start off by not doing what you know is bad. This is why the first step of the 12 step program is to admit that you have a problem or that you are doing something wrong - and you want to do something about it. I am wandering into the personal now but only because this is essential to my Tai Chi (or my attitude) and I beg you to allow me just one more anecdote from a 12 step meeting that I did personally attend many years ago, if only as background information as to way these days so enthusiastic as far as Tai Chi is concerned. I once hered someone say: "If you come into A.A. (or any of the other 'self help 12 step programs) as a horse thief, the 12 step program can make you a better horse thief!" In other words, you can do anything that you set your mind to do but no one can tell you what you ought to do. You have to decide this for yourself.

I teach Tai Chi with one aim in mind which is, to try to help any human being achieve his/her full potential.. But ... all I do is teach Tai Chi. I don't try to tell people what I think is good or bad or right and wrong; I just teach Tai Chi and expect them to decide this for themselves.
So, if a son of a bitch comes to me wanting to learn Tai Chi, I can teach him Tai Chi but personally I can't teach him how to not be a son of a bitch ... and I certainly won't tell him he is a son of a bitch or tell him he ought to be doing something about being a son of a bitch ... if he does not know he is a son of a bitch! All that I want to do is try to help him fulfill his full potential. As "the art of harmony" or "intimate self examination", Tai Chi is a reasonable place to begin. I don't just think this, I know it!

Some flowers need to be trodden on

Some flowers need to be trodden on if only to make them stronger, but some cannot survive the lightest breeze. Some trees need to become alight with fire as this is the only condition in which they are able to shed their seeds that it turn may only germinate in cinder ground; yet others rely on running water to shed their buoyant seed into. If a Rose is transplanted to the desert it does not become a Cactus. It dies. Similarly, if a Cactus is rained on as often as a Rose ... it dies.

So, I believe that as a Tai Chi teacher it is not for me to decide 'what is best' for any individual student. I believe that this at least pointless and at worse perhaps even dangerous.

The repositioning of a single stroke

The Japanese word "Sensei" says, translates or more correctly transliterates to something other than just "teacher". The Chinese word "Sufi" has similar connotations. Both imply the same the same thing, but due to the sociological and cultural richness and complexity of these cultures that developed over thousand of years in complete isolation from western influences, the full implication of certain single words are lost in the translation. Whilst the words Sensei and Sufi 'mean' similar things in those two eastern languages, the concept of what/who a teacher is - is simply not the same here in the west.

In the pictorial written language of those two cultures mentioned, one single (written with a brush and not a pen) character can 'say' as much as one of our paragraphs. And even then, the meaning of one character can be completely altered by addition, removal or slight repositioning of a single stroke within that character.

For instance, we say "Yin and Yang". I challenge you now to 'say' what that means in English in just one sentence! When a person who understands the concepts and culture of the written characters ying and yang 'written' in its original form of a 'picturegram' (another word for words written in Japanese or Chinese) he/she sees - a mountain with the sun shining down onto it. One side of the mountain is bathed in light and the other dark. The mountain is in it's own shadow! On the mountain there is a small dwelling and like the mountain (but in microcosm) one side of this hut is in sunshine and the other in the shade. That is what this character 'says'; but we just say Yin and Yang. This is O.K. for most of us that study Tai Chi because we have come to understand the concept a little better - because through the practice of tai chi we are fortunate enough to feel these universal forces in our bodies as opposed to understanding them only in our heads.

And this is where a Sensei of Sufi comes into the picture. The fuller implication of the word Sensei or Sufi is ... "someone who has been down that particular path before you." This does not mean that he/she is superior in intellect or social status or even more learned than the student; it just means that if you are interested, he or she can tell you what they did or didn't do on the way to learning their art. And this is why it is quite common that a Sensei or Sufi would say to you "throw away your books, do this (tai chi) and then decide for yourself."

A Sensei or a Sufi is not a Guru

In just my opinion, a Sensei or a Sufi is not a Guru and not really even a teacher in the sense that we westerners have become familiar with. Strictly or technically, your Sensei or Sufi is anyone that has been doing/studying/playing tai chi for longer than yourself - and those that have been doing it for the longest are those that have made the most mistakes. Thus, a Sensei or Sufi is there for you learn from his/her mistakes and you will here them say "I did this (X,Y or Z) and I found out (say) ten years later that this was a mistake and a complete waste of time."

I wasted a good decade of my life by looking for intellectual solutions to my problems and all the time that I was doing this I neither 'cured' a single problem or improved in my tai chi one iota. And then someone said to me "when you are in a hole ... stop digging"! That is when I stopped looking for answers and solutions or even hoping for things to 'get better' and just did tai chi. In so doing I gave up on trying to be what I was not or wanting to be what I would never be and I soon learnt that there was not so much 'wrong with me' - but that what I was doing was wrong.

And now I find myself doing what I never dreamt of and have people asking "should I call you Sensei or Sufi?" Technically, I suppose the answer to that is Sufi but only because what I teach is a Chinese Form ... but I would rather you call me Gary ... because that is who I am and this is what I do.

To end (your hour is almost over!) I would like to refer you to an entry a few down in the taichido guestbook because this is someone else (who I have never met and don't know from Adam, though it appears that he lives in the same country as me) who says much the same as I have here. He, who I dubed as "Ladder Harry" says: "I had always been nervous of climbing ladders. Ten feet off the ground and shaking like a leaf ! I found that after practising tai chi I could cheerfully climb a ladder to roof level since I was thinking about my hands and feet instead of thinking about falling off."

I will 'see' you again this time next month. In the meantime just keep doing Tai Chi ... just do you best and whilst you are doing it be happy, because this is a good thing to do.

Gary 14th Sept 04.