Q&A Taiji

Questions From a Taiji Student

Q. I am unclear as to the meaning of spiralling up and down. When watching the DVD [Luke Shepherds Short Form DVD] it is spoken of when no external movement is taking place.

A. When movement is present it very often involves simultaneous combinations of horizontal and vertical circles, both in lifting and sinking – i.e. 1st & 3rd loosenings, and most of the movements in the form – some less obvious, some more so.

Preceding the movement one may use a line of intention like a line of light, that line of intention can be spiralled to good effect preceding the movement itself.
Take the 1st loosening for eg, from the foot pressure create an intention like a line of light that spirals from the centre of foot pressure, out and up around the ankle, calf, thigh , around the waist, then spirals back down and in around the other leg, in a diminishing ‘vortex’ into the opposite foot. Of course the movement follows that. (The upper body follows along drawn by the movement of the waist – generally best to keep strong intentions out of the arms as much as possible)

Q. Is taking the mind through the body tracking the feeling of a movement through the body.

A. Yes and no….. movement of the mind when listening to the body (awareness) is in fact following behind the responses and movement of the body because it is listening to something that’s already taking place. We call this body active mind passive. – it’s not bad.
But the ideal is that an intention is formed and drawn strongly through the body (or around the body), and then the response to that intention is ‘listened’ to – we call this mind active body passive.

Q. If this is correct I find the concept of taking the mind through the body when rising which follows the lower body leading the upper body easier to understand and try (if not easy to do).
However taking the mind down through the body from top of the head to the feet when relaxing from the feet to the head (upper body following the lower body) is considerably more difficult to get my mind to accept.

A. This is because I think you are confusing intention and awareness and using 'body active mind passive'.
Over-time work towards developing an intention that lifts through the body preceding the movement, and then use awareness to listen to the responses, and then allow the intention to fall away back down through the body, and once again listen to the response.

I think of a liquid light
– liquid has some weight therefore requires some effort (of will) to lift and like water liquid readily and easily falls back down through the body ( light co-responds to the energetic component)

Or the analogy of throwing a ball up in the air:
The hand = intention, the ball = body.
After the throw the intention withdraws (the hand falls away) but the ball continues up, and then the ball slows, changes direction and begins to Fall / follows the intention.

Think of intention having the ability to grow stronger with use – like a muscle. Attempting to use it will create and strengthen it.
In the beginning move the mind up with the rising body , and down with the falling body – then slowly separate the mind movement to be just slightly ahead of the body movement and listen to the responses.

Allowing the intention that’s lifted the body (like a line of light or liquid light) to be cut or switched off with a definite intention to let it fall away quickly down through the body, and then the body follows behind that to fall or follow in a wave of release from the ankles on up.
This rising wave of release, within the downward movement, can lead the minds intention back up again if you allow it to – this is not correct.
Better to have the sense of falling through the body with each body part falling into the space created by the release of the preceding part.
So the intention is down, but the awareness may follow the process up through the body – two different aspects of mind.

We are training 3 things here really in the ‘Movement of the mind’:
1. Intention & 2. Awareness.
Intention precedes and creates the responses in the body – activates motor neurons and so on.
Awareness is the sensory feedback mechanism – that the body’s mind uses to regulate the situations without our conscious intervention mostly – through muscle state changes which results in joint position changes, pressure changes.

The 3rd active component is the intelligence that interfaces between intention and awareness, it refines the intention and modifies responses. Over time intention becomes clearer and generated from a deeper part of the mind, responses become more accurate with a greater ability to appropriately control them.

One of the problems is that intention can be created from any mind state, so that at a superficial level will result in activating the gross responses of the body causing contraction and rough unrefined outer movements. This is seen when beginners attempt to issue in the pushing hands – in the heat of the moment the body contracts and pushes using gross force generation from contracted muscle states.

The ideal is to, over time, find away to create an intention from the deeper mind state, whilst simultaneously working to release the double contractions and residually held state of the muscles. The result of all this work is seen in the resulting characteristic looseness and resulting elastic force.

Of course that’s just the body level – to make those changes in ourselves locked or habitual mind and emotional states must change – we have to make fundamental changes at a deep level within ourselves that is reflected in the body changes we find.

Practically speaking our meditation method begins process of awakening the deeper mind without the difficulty of having to move at the same time.
Although only temperature (warmth), pressure (fullness) & pain (tingling) are used in the unmoving 8 paths, body sensing meditation, it pulls the mind deeper in the attemp to find those sensations which will then also help with clarity of muscle state and joint position changes when moving.
Listening at a deeper level, or at least attempting to move down towards the level of the body’s mind (muscle states, joint pos, pressure, temp, pain sensors) slowly pulls one from a superficial mind state (that only feels the grossest of outer movements that are a long way behind the real processes that have taken place) and eventually awakens a deeper mind state from which an intention from a deepmind can be created.

Q. Areas I am actively trying to work on using the form I know are:
Maintaining foot contact/pressure throughout the form and loosening exercises.

A. Ok to maintain contact is good, but pressure should not be maintained as it changes constantly

Q. Breathing, relaxing/emptying on each out breath.

A. OK – but don’t over emphasise linking form movements to breath, sometimes the form is practised too slowly to give time to work on other aspects - to match the breath completely in this case would be detrimental.

But it is reasonable to attempt to begin the release and sink with an out-breath, and begin the lift with an in-breath, what happens in between allow to be natural – until the time it naturally unifies.

Q. Taking the mind through the body. (Is this tracking the sensations felt through the body as it moves or a more proactive exercise).

A. Better the more proactive as previous note – But it take s time to develop intention – and jumping ahead is not possible and may just involve imagination if not careful – so slowly move from body active mind passive to mind active body passive – over time don’t rush. Slowly things separate out and become clearer.

Q. Any thoughts on if I should concentrate on one first, if so which, all together or chose one for extra attention each session.

A. All need to be worked on but - not all at once!
Ensure the mind moves when you train - but choose the thing that blocks your progress or interests you most and work on that until it becomes semi natural – then move on.

6-9 months is not too long to spend on one aspect.
and then check if it's reasonable to move on by switching concentration to something else and see if what you were working on remains at a reasonable level.
if it completely goes away then it’s clearly too early to move on, if it remains half reasonable then OK to move on as long as ‘half reasonable’ is good enough and doesn't block the next thing you work on. You have to experiment for yourself.
We have to endlessly cycle through the various aspects of training, but hopefully each time at a higher turn of the spiral......

JOe.