End of the Garden

Monday, November 14, 2005

Investing in Loss

Yielding is yielding.
Loss is loss.
Yielding is loss.
Loss is yielding.
In yield is attack.
In attack is yield.
In loss is gain.
In gain is loss.

All is ego, fear, anger, compassion and wisdom. When I don't yield, I am stuck in my own self-importance. When I don't accept loss, I am mired in my fear. When I don't accept that in my lack of yielding I am meeting my inability to attack and protect. In that place, if I remember to do so, I can see I am stuck in the delusion of believing that nothing ever changes. When I do not accept gain I am caught up in an inflated ego that descends into false humility. When I cannot yield, loose, attack or gain, I am in stagnation - depression. Yielding is softening. Loss is melting. Attack is weakening. Gain is illuminating. Yielding, loss, attack and gain contain softness, weakness, illumination and flexibility. All are contained in the breath and the thought. They exist somewhere in the lungs, the belly and the bones. Not in the clever mind, they inhabit the mysterious territory of the wisdom mind. They can be heard in the heart, our open, soft spot of vulnerability. The ability to stand up straight, poised, at ease, with a confidence in every pore and fibre yet with a soft and open heart that listens to the silent signals of the flow of blood in the veins, listens to the sound of nature and hears the heart wishes of our fellow beings, that is yielding, this is loss. It is a yearning and sadness that contains the light and the meaning of life: happiness.



I am still searching. I have yet to understand yielding. I have experienced loss and have yet to understand its beauty and gift. I continue to practice, to reflect, to live, to seek. I attempt to soften, be weak, generous and open. My stagnation and deep, deep sadness makes my body stiff, my spirit unyielding. My mind, not my body, pushes me into the future, back into the past and stubbornly refuses to allow me to witness the present, the place of each and every breath of my short, stagnant life.

Yielding and loss is found first in the muscles, bones and sinews. The explorer travels fearlessly deeper into the tissue's secrets, awakening to an awareness of the habits that are patiently structured into lives over years, a gradual on-going building site with its foundations cemented deeply into the daily struggle to get out of bed and into the air, into life. Sometimes, and unexpectedly, the wider lighter picture of existence is glimpsed. Then the transparent luminosity of yield and loss becomes the breath in, the breath out of the universe. Of which we are a part. It is a blissful place, I have glimpsed this land when I have forgotten to remember and allowed the present to reveal its utter abundance.

Wednesday, November 09, 2005

Autumn Sunshine

Richmond Park on a day when the forecast was heavy rain. Not a cloud in the sky, the sun low and dazzling, the dog leaping with joy through the trees, chasing squirrels she will never catch. This is joy. Kashi paddling in the pond, teeth firmly clenched around a saggy yellow punctured tennis ball, her delicious delight. She shakes herself and rainbow sprays of water splash over my clothes. We laugh - or she barks, her laughter? Throw the ball, she demands loudly, when I put it away in my pocket. Another squirrel. Ball forgotten, she rushes off in hopeless chase, the stub of her tail franticly wagging in her glee of being outside in this beautiful November morning.

Tuesday, November 08, 2005

What is T'ai-Chi Ch'uan?

What is T'ai-Chi Ch'aun? I have been practicing now for almost 20 years, and it is still revealing itself to me. What is it? What does it do? Some of the benefits of practicing T'ai-Chi are well-known: reduced blood pressure, stronger back and legs, better balance, good bone density etc. But I don't practice T'ai-Chi with these very sensible facts in the front of my mind. I practice T'ai-Chi because I enjoy it, and because it keeps me sane.

The world we live in is complicated. As human beings trying to lead our lives in a demanding and competitive world, the struggle to keep things together can be overwhelming. I know I need a means to give me support through the complications, worries and fears of this short life-span. T'ai-Chi offers me help with all that.

One translation of T'ai-Chi Ch'uan is 'Ultimate, Supreme of Boxing'. It is the most subtle of the martial arts. But I knew nothing about this when I started learning T'ai-Chi. All I knew was that it was slow and that there was something else about it that I had not encountered in other forms of physical exercise.

In 1986 I enrolled on a beginners' course at John Kells' studio. I rolled up full of energy and eagerness. The first few classes were puzzling, and very packed. I didn't know what was going on. I didn't get it. Although it was a physical training, the class structure and the manner of teaching was very different to what I was accustomed to in my dancing life. I was a bit disappointed. I am not sure what I expected, but these slow, puzzling sessions weren't it. I stuck it out as I had paid for a course of ten classes up front. Being a very broke professional dancer, I was going to get my money's worth. Yet this was too, too strange for me initially. But then during the fifth class I got hooked. I had an 'Ah-ha' moment. I saw how I had been presenting myself as a target to the world. No wonder I used to get so much flack from here, there and everywhere! Working with the posture and the energy flow of the form helped me to understand this. And become less of a target too. Then the class started to thin out - a lot of my fellow beginners gave up. They found it too slow, too difficult, too boring, too different - I don't know, but at that stage of the initial course, it seemed that only the inspired, determined and dedicated carried on.

At first I was not interested at all in the martial art aspect of T'ai-Chi, I was more interested in the meditation, healing and postural aspects of it. But this glimpse into understanding the energy and its self-defense use during that evening class in a bare and cold studio in Upper Wimpole Street changed my attitude towards learning this physical philosophy utterly. Now my fascination with T'ai-Chi kicked in.

Gradually I started to work with the being weak and soft. Of getting back to the posture of a child. That four ounces can overcome ten thousand pounds. Yielding. Sticking. T'ai-Chi was different to all other forms of movement I had studied. In my ignorance and through habit, I applied my dancer's way of learning to T'ai-Chi: through practice. I did not read a book about T'ai-Chi until about two years into my training. I didn't think to. All my dance skills had been handed to me from other practitioners, not from books. I now see that this was a gift. I was not cluttered with the weight of what great T'ai-Chi practitioners had written but relied on my teacher, John Kells, to pass on the practice on as and when we, the students, were ready. I learnt about T'ai-Chi through watching and listening to John and his advanced students. Indeed, it was these people who had practiced with John for years who kept me going during some periods of dullness in my training. They had a certain luminosity about them, and I wanted some of that. I was savvy enough to know that this would not arise overnight, but gradually through practice.

Over the years my understanding has deepened, an understanding that arose, and continues to arise, from a language of inner, emotional feelings and physically, in the body, not in spoken words. Apart from limited conversations with my fellow students I did not speak about T'ai-Chi until I began teaching it. I had not wanted to teach it, this was my practice, something for myself. But when I was asked to teach in 1990, I got on with it. And that is where my true education of T'ai-Chi began. The questions that students have asked, and continue to ask, demanded that I reflect more deeply on the practice. The simple question 'What is T'ai-Chi?' can have a simple answer. Or the search for an answer can lead to a life-long exploration of this complex and profound technique. As we practice we start to get a feel of what is T'ai-Chi. By practicing regularly it seeps into everyday life. Gradually it helps to bring about positive and life-enhancing changes. A luminosity of being.

T'ai-Chi is many things: balance, health, freedom, protection, strength, softness, loss, awareness. The form is itself a metaphor for our journey through life. It begins in simplicity, in 'Attention', then progresses, like life, into complications. Towards the end, after 'Bending the Bow to Shoot the Tiger', the form returns to simplicity - a metaphor for our preparation for death. Birth, life, death, this is T'ai-Chi.

Waterless swimming, this is T'ai-Chi. Balancing ying and yang, this is T'ai-Chi. Living in a state of ease and poise, this is T'ai-Chi. Listening to and living by the messages of the heart, this is T'ai-Chi. Developing a soft and open heart filled with compassion for ourselves and others, this is T'ai-Chi. T'ai-Chi is a warrior's path, a quiet path that cultivates fearlessness and compassion. The Ultimate and Supreme form of Boxing.

Thursday, November 03, 2005

Stepping Out

As we get older our steps get shorter. My sister, an occupational health nurse, told me this years ago. She had found it in some research she was doing. After that I took a deeper interest in how my students moved, especially the young men and women I was training in movement at drama schools. I noticed that their strides reflected what was going on for them, how their way of walking changed when they were worrying, were not focused. How they carried a lot of tensions in their upper bodies when distracted. I noticed how their strides became fluid and almost dance-like movements when they relaxed, lowered their centre of gravity from their shoulders and jaws into their bellies and softened their muscles. How this softening went further when noticing when they were holding their breath and allowed a more fluid easy way of breathing to arise. Most of all their strides became confident and fluid when they made a heart connection to their actions and intentions. Ease arose, their way of walking became freer, their strides longer. They could step out confidently.

It set me thinking about fear, worry and limiting our possibilities. Is that shortening of the stride physical or to do with how fear and worry increases as we age? Sometimes as we get older, our worlds can shrink. This is the ground of insurance companies profits. Something may happen. I have to take care. I had better insure against that, or this, or the other. So the shortening of our steps might not be physical. It could be due to habitual thinking and endless worrying and planning, the rehearsing constantly a fear of what might happen.

Last night at our beginners' T'ai-Chi class Chris talked about the difficulty the beginners were having when first meeting Single Whip and the large, deep step that this posture seeks. He reflected on the inability of most of the beginners to take a large step. We talked about this over our tea. Maybe taking a large step is a psychological process, not just physical act. As we soften and relax, then something else becomes possible. The attentive teacher understands that when a posture is not grasped when first introduced that this is not just to with physical ability or memory. The form gradually, subtly and invisibly opens up the practitioner to habits that have become ingrained over years. Unconsciously. We just don't notice these habits, they have become 'us'. The teacher softens, sinks, relaxes, supports - and twinkles. My teacher John Kells said that the most important aspect of T'ai-Chi is the twinkle in the eye. This twinkling can only be there if the heart is open, and the heart opens when we soften, sink and breathe. Gradually the form releases a heart opening confidence. Then we can stride fludily out into the rest of our life.

Breathe in peace, Breathe out a smile. Twinkle, twinkle little star.

Wednesday, November 02, 2005

Freehold

Sitting in the hut at the end of a the garden on a dismal wet grey day getting my mind around another language - freehold. Terms such as concurrent and reversionary lease, occupation leaseholder and enfranchisement - all new, in a language that dates back into the depths of legal history. I try to stay present, not panic. Do the form with keen attention, stay sunken, weak, soft, breathe. Mind calms. I look at the garden. Yesterday in the warm autumn sunshine I yanked out the mildewed courgette plants - their bounty was generous this summer, and the runner beans, also beneficent in their produce. The next dry day I plan to bring loads of compost onto the soil, to prepare it for its winter rest before the spring planting. Freehold - a very T'ai-Chi term for ownership. In T'ai-Chi there is no ownership, letting go, lightly touching, no hold. Yielding always, yielding to the situation, to the land, to another. Be free. More attention to the freehold documents and information which is piling up on my desk. Stay light, long term. This will move on, this language learning and seeing where others grab greedily at others homes. Yielding to the freehold. Stay sunk.