What is the best way to learn Tai Chi?

Traditionally, Tai Chi has been taught with a studious approach: Study, strive for excellence, remain loyal to your teacher, school and style, foster dilligence and respect…but there is another way that that encourages an approach to learning based on play and letting go, rather than study and the accumulation of detail, information and knowledge.

“​It is…not an acquisitive process of learning more and more facts or greater and greater skills, but rather of unlearning of wrong habits and opnions.” Alan Watts.

If Alan sounds just too over-quoted these days, how about Tom Horwitz in the book Tai Chi Technique of Power where he warned that:

“In striving to execute more and more perfectly the given movements, (the) expressive source of motion is too often lost.”

​Students come to learn Tai Chi becasue they see in the flowing moves a freedom and liberty of movement that they once had as children, but have somehow lost as adults. If, however, when they sign up, they find they have to sacrifice spontaneity for discipline and rigidity of form, they may find themselves just a tad disillusioned. If they are taught methodically where to position their left eyebrow in the move Squatting Single Whip, where to place their big toe in the posture called Golden Rooster and what angle to direct the left ear-lobe in Diagonal Flying, they may just question if the short-term difficulties don’t outweigh the long-term benefits.

Now I know that Jet Lee, Donny Yen and even Kwai Chang Caine have all promoted the striving and disciplined approach to learning, but what if they were wrong? What if — and just try to imagine this for a moment — they were just acting the parts as though they were in a fictional film or TV series?

So if discipline and striving are to be eschewed in the pursuit of the way, then what tools would be available for us to use? Well, Al Huang said in “Embrace Tiger Return to Mountain:

“Play your tai ji body like a bamboo flute. Lift it up to the wind, it plays itself”.

And it is here that we find an indication that if we change our approach to learning — we can change not only the the process, but the outcome too. And we do that by embracing the notion of play.

​PLAY DON’T STUDY

Let’s look at play in music for example. We say we are learning to ‘play an instrument’. Why is it that we use the verb to play in this context, but not when learning mathematics or physics. We don’t say ‘learning to play’ at hairdressing, heart or brain surgery. We don’t say I’m ‘learning to play’ criminal law, or ‘learning to play’ economics, banking or political theory. (Maybe we should given the poor track history of some of these professions). Why is that? Is not a violin just as technically challenging as a scalpel, an investment bond or a hairdyrer?

Whereas study demands mental discipline, the pursuit of Play encapsulates a dexterity that unties the body and mind — and it is here that we stumble upon how we best learn Tai Chi

​In Tai Chi we aim to learn (amongst many other things) a sequence of postures or moves: To Repulse the monkey, Brush the knee, Stroke the shoulder, Ride the tiger — and Play the Guitar. Some teachers describe the process of learning this sequence or ‘Form’ as play because it is in the act of playing that we can become fully engaged. Being fully engaged, we experiment, we employ our curiosity and sense of adventure. We don’t judge. We learn to see not only what is there in front of us, but also what is not there. It’s not just the strings on the guitar that give it the sound, but its hollowness that produces the music. Space becomes as important as what moves within it. Even languages depend on this too. How would we ever learn a language if we could not distinguish one word from another by the spaces between them?

In Tai Chi this space is the air around us. To move through the the air around us is a sensual experience, not unlike moving through water. We swim over dry land — or ride through the dothraki sea.

PERMISSION TO FAIL

But there is another important characteristic of play that is essential for anyone wanting to learn. And that is permission to fail. When we play at something, we are giving ourselves permission to GTW: to Get Things Wrong. We learn by making mistakes, by stumbling and falling and in so doing learn our new boundaries. Create an atmosphere where it is desirable to fail, and you will generate confidence and exploration. Create an environment where failure is frowned upon, and you stagnate growth, evolution and reproduce only a copy and pasted version of the past.

So when we play, we relax. We look to stumble as a way to learn, and in so doing we discover simplicity. We return to the state of an uncarved block , untangled from the complications that turn life into a discipline with its rigorous training methods and competitive language: Achievement, mastery, certificates, awards, coloured belts, grading systems, examinations, trials and tribulations. Dispense with these and return to a state of awe in the world. Become as a child once more.

Chpt. 49 — Tao Te Ching
A Master throws herself
into the world completely,
forgetting everything she’s been told.

People pay attention to her 
because she lives a life of child-like wonder.

FIND YOUR PATH

It is said of the Tao that for the whole shebang to work well, each one of usmust fulfil our separate destinies. To fulfill our destiny, requires us to create our own path, not that of others. And that upon finding it, we ought not to go looking for where others have been, but instead to skip and dawdle, to gaze and pause, to watch the clouds pass and to smell the scent of the eucalyptus tree.

Having taught Tai Chi for over 20 years, I’ve unfortunately seen too many students leave a class, overwhelmed by infomation, posture angles, breathing techniques and repeated instructions to relax under stress. These departure figures are of no surprise. As long as the art is considered best learnt by study, such absences will occur. However, when we drop the anxiety-producing pressure on getting things right, employing instead the idea of embracing mistakes and learn once more to dawdle and pause, we might just stumble upon the path we are seeking.

How do we know when we are on the right path? Easy: When everything we do comes naturally. Blockages, struggle and resistance are signs that we aren’t there yet. There is another way to learn.

Find out more about 21st century learning at the teapot temple or drop by the online school to test drive a few classes.