“The eye goes blind when it only wants to see, “why?””
The centuries old Laojia Yilu (Old Frame, First Road) is the fundamental training set in our Chen Taijiquan system. Its 75 movement (plus or minus depending on how one counts the movements) progression systematically takes the learner through the rules of the art: alignment, relaxation, stances, footwork, waist/dantien movements, angles, energies, and so on. Each stage of the form is logically designed to provide both an opportunity for study of these rules and to gradually integrate them. Traditionally, a student would not move on until a basic level of comprehension was achieved at each level, and once achieved, one reworks the new levels of understanding into the previous stages. Over years of focused systematic study in this way, one’s skill definitely improves. There are multiple forms and application possibilities within the system and once the basics are mastered, these other more complex methods are much more accessible. It is a magnificent physical and mental educational system!
Often a new Taijiquan student will ask if I have or know of a list of associated applications for the various movements within the Laojia Yilu. It’s a fair question from a curious mind. And there are lists and YouTubes that show sincere and skilled teachers demonstrating applications for this and that move. Depending on the class we ourselves demonstrate possible applications. It can be somewhat helpful to see and experience these training options in what can be a challenging art to penetrate. Ironically though, the founding family of one of the most powerful martial arts in history does not focus on applications in this way at all. We’ve all experienced our teacher Chen Xiao Xing’s response when we become too fixated on what something “means.” He’ll playfully whack us or give us “the look” and stay “never mind!” And back to the basics we go.
Indeed focusing exclusively on a specific technique for a specific movement can be limiting and even dangerous to our progress. When we emphasize A movement with A application, B with B and so on, we may end up with a very large cache of memorized movements, but what happens when there is something outside of that list? No matter the length and breadth of any list, in a martial art there will always be the unpredictable. There will always be something we don’t expect. So how do we train for that? The answer is right in front of us. It is not to memorize more; it is not to attempt to conceive of more as yet unimagined scenarios and their possible responses. Instead we go back to the basics. We train relaxation, alignment, footwork. We grind out the simplest of patterns. We eliminate anything superfluous. And we do it over and over and over again. The discipline in learning anything complex is to stop fantasizing and keep practicing the basics. Training in the basics over and over again reveals the possibilites of our art. We do not train for the myriad “I knows,” we train to be able to deal with the circumstances we do not know.
Right now, for me, in the midst of our global pandemic, my practices and how my teachers have trained me to think about them have never meant more to me. We are indeed right in the middle of no scenario we could have ever imagined. There is no A=A, no B=B. In fact, the alphabet is not even written in recognizable script. How then to navigate the world? The only way I know is to go back to the basics. So every day I set up my living room practice hall. Every day I turn on the Zoom app and my screen lights up with students who similarly situate themselves. Over our online month together I have seen living rooms and bedrooms and patios all over the world become personal practice halls and every day we practice together, right in the middle of having no idea. We breathe in and breathe out, we shift right, we shift left.
This time is the real test of our training systems. Perhaps better stated, it is the test of how we ourselves train within them. The attacks are coming faster and at much different angles than we have learned responses for. As learners and teachers, we are searching our collective knowledge base on how to deal with this. We are coming up confused, unclear and adrift. We find there is no application. Instead, there are big glitches and few answers. Many systems and people within them have no idea how to work with the current circumstances; they cannot think beyond A=A, B=B. Because of this lack of flexibility, because of this trained historical rigidity, there are big losses and great suffering. Yet at the same time all over the world, there are glimpses of great training. There are profoundly flexible, experimental and creative responses. Here we see the body and mind’s capacity to pivot, shift and change while we navigate this overwhelmingly unfamiliar time. Yes, this time is the real test of our training. Do we flail around locked up, losing our balance because what we know, no longer even exists? Or do we, like our Taijiquan and Qigong training teaches us, demonstrate the most essential and useful application we have in our cache of techniques: our capacity to change, to move flexibly and pliantly within the unexpected. I posit if we practice the latter, even just a little bit, we stand a better chance of coming through this and offering something of value to the future.
As Grandmaster Chen Xiao Wang says, “the most important thing is to make the mind like a Taiji Ball.”
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Additional edit, December 21, 2023 - this morning a student sent me a link to this blog I had long since forgotten. It has been 3 years and 8 months since it’s writing. It’s hard to wrap my mind around that, so much has happened we didn’t see coming, personally, in our country and in our world. Most of it very difficult.
Since it’s writing we’ve kept practicing. We’ve kept a continuous presence online, even moving out of my home and opening a dedicated “Zoomjo.” We were fully online (with a few park classes) for almost a year. Then, we re-started a few in-person classes, fully masked, windows open. It was cold then; we taught and practiced in masks and puff coats during that time. Masks became optional in late 2022. This year, 2023 we settled into a rhythm of “normal” in-person and online. This week I finally closed the streaming studio and with the exception of a couple of classes again from home, we are back in person. Forty four months later. My head spins.
At the beginning of the pandemic I had one goal in mind: to do everything I could to show up in these circumstances we never saw coming. And when it was over, I wanted to look back and know that I had done everything I could to keep people on the floor, in their bodies and practicing. I wanted to look back and know I did that one thing.
It’s not over, it's just changed but I do look back over these past 3.8 years and know I did what I set out to do. It wasn’t just me though, we all kept each other going, my students and I. And by doing so I know we kept our larger community going too.
We passed our test and continue to pass. We keep ourselves flexible and like a taiji ball. Yin change to yang change to yin. Breathe in, breathe out, flow through.