Find Peace within Nature

李白: 望廬山瀑布
View of a Waterfall at Mount Lushan
By Li Bai (701-762): Translated by Andrew W.F. Wong

日照香爐生紫煙
Sunlit is the Incense Summit, aglow in smoke and steam;

遙看瀑布掛前川
To afar, like a drape that glitters, a waterfall hangs upstream:

飛流直下三千尺
Flowing, flying, fluttering ~ plunging three thousand feet,

疑是銀河落九天
As if ‘twere the Silver River, falling from the heaven supreme.

This is one of my favorite poems by Li Bai. Although I haven’t been to the Famous Lu Shan, but I have been to many waterfalls here in new England. It’s very rewarding after a long hike, to reach the beautiful waterfall. I found it’s very pleasing and relaxing being in front of a waterfall. Negative ions and fresh airs flows around you. So quiet without any people around, yet noisy because of the sounds of water , but quieter because there are no other sounds. This is the power of nature. It relaxes you as opposed to man made things such as computer, phone and car. Only things in nature are truly beneficial to you; The real taste of food without any chemicals or spices. If you want to have a longer and more relaxing life, stay away from the computer, TV and cell phone( check your email only once or twice a day, silence your phone), stay close to nature. Visit your city park, go hiking, go canoeing, do your Tai Chi.

You can also try to bring nature to your home by having plants, or a little aquarium, and get a copy of a New Calendar I made - The Flow of Nature - Wisdom of Lao Tzu. Have a fun and relaxed Holiday and New year.

Copyright by Huan's Tai Chi 2009

Do Heaven and Hell exist?

Zhang Chu asked monk Zhi Chang.
“ Do Heaven and Hell exist?”
“Yes, they exist.” Monk Zhi Chang answered.
“ That’s confusing, when I was meditating with Monk Jin San, Jin San said ‘No’ to this question.” Said Zhang Chu.
“Do you have a wife and Children?” Zhi Chang Monk asked.
“ A wife and two kids.”
“ What about monk Jin San?” Zhi Chang Monk asked again.
“ Monk Jin San is a monk, he can’t get married!” Zhang Chu became angry.
“Well, just on the family situation. If you were in the same situation as Monk Jin San, then you could say ‘No’.”

Why might I give two different corrections to the same posture on two different students on Tai Chi? Why does their final posture look a bit different? Why do I give two different usages when I teach in two different Tai Chi Classes? It’s the same answer Monk Zhi Chang gives to us on Heaven and Hell.

Copyrighted By Huan's Tai Chi '09

Perfection for Tai Chi Practitioners and Rest of Us

This article is for people want learn every thing fast with no patience or people don’t spend much time to practice and wish one day miracle can come and they become very good on some thing.

At first, I want say, there is no perfection in Tai Chi and our life, but it doesn’t mean we should not look for it. Why we still look for perfection which does not exist? The unique status of closer to the perfection is better than the rest, it differs you from other people. When we were in college, we often study for finals. We always want over prepare rather than just remember enough. When you study hard and aiming 100 for you test score, you might get a 90. When you aim to get 120, it’s possible you can get a 100. Since Tai Chi is also a martial arts set, perfection is important. When people need martial arts to protect themselves in war thousands year ago, its life and death which means you have to be better than your opponent. That’s why people have practiced so hard in the past and many famous martial arts masters appeared in the past.

When new student came to class and did three times of a move and can’t get it, they thought it’s too difficult. I mentioned to them, “When I tried to get a perfect elbow strike when I was first learning martial arts, I couldn’t get right. My father, who is also my teacher asked me to do this move 300 times. After I tried more than 200 times in different ways, I know which way is better. After I almost done 300 times, I believe I found the feeling the way that father was talking about. After I showed my father the best way I found, he said “oh, this is very good, but it’s not exactly what I taught you. You can keep it for you routine; however, I still want you to learn my way, so you can have both. This is how it works.( showing me) Now, do another 300 times on both sides ( right and left) and get it right.”

What I believe is the quality not quantity. For example, a restaurant offers 100 dishes, which all tastes very good. Another restaurant only offers 10 dishes, but they are all exceptional. Which restaurant will be more appreciated by people? My suggestion is learn only one or two movements a time and learn them again later. When you have a teacher who can give details for just one movement for just one class, you know he is exceptional! Whatever we do and learn in our life, such as making a business plan, prepare a date, paint your house, please take your time. Only carefully learning and doing everything in detail, then you can be closer to perfection. Our new beginner class will start coming thursday. I hope our new students will take this advise.


Copyrighted by Huan's Tai Chi '09

Strong Shower, Tai Chi, and Jade Lady

It rained very hard last night. I thought many people would miss class. What a surprise! Almost every one was there. We went over the movement Fair lady Works Shuttles (to four corners).
People are very careful. They wanted to make sure their movements are right. After I gave applications of the movements to them, they have a better understanding and the movement become smooth. Even though I only taught two corners in last night's class, they got some decent information for this movement.
"Some people translate to Jade lady Works Shuttles instead of Fair lady. Character "Yu" means Jade. When we talk about fine and expensive jade, we talk about a jade with fair color and no black spots. A nice jade looks very fair and even. A better translation should be fair lady since a lady is not made of Jade or wearing any jade."

Viewing Self-Defense in different ways

I will give a Seminar on Self-defense tomorrow. When people think about self-defense, they will think about how the opponent attack you, and then how you going to attack back or escape. That’s not really self-defense is about, that’s is only a part of it. This is the procedure during the self-defense. There is before and after. In tomorrow’s seminar, I will show how can you prepare yourself before the attack or even prevent the attack, and what if it happens, how you deal with it and how you wrap up. Grandmaster Cai use to teach some of the techniques to the secret police force for the Chinese government. They can use the minimum energy to defeat the enemy with maximum power. I think it will be very exciting for most of my students, since we only discussed about Tai Chi in our public class. It will be some new knowledge for them.

All about Drawing

Tomorrow will be a busy day for me. I will have four meetings and a Tai Chi class. I am writing tomorrow’s paragraph today to keep my promise of posting the tulip picture on the blog. I went to MFA after work today for the Wednesday night drawing. I have done a lot of figure drawings while I was learning martial arts to help my self remember the movements, but I am still a beginner on drawing. I am still at the level of filling the blank with shadows. Today’s drawing is to pick an object and draw. I picked a painting and tried to draw the human figure that painting has. It took me an hour and I am still not very satisfied on what I have. I have few phone calls to make tonight, so I need to get home soon. On my way out, I saw few people also doing drawing and they have a teacher. The teacher was showing some of the techniques. Just few simple lines made the figure so alive. It’s almost like Martial arts. It’s all about practice and technique. Once your technique is mature, you can simply draw any thing with simple lines. When we have computers, no one practice their hand writing any more. When we have digital cameras, less people interested in drawing. These are some really good things we need to keep.Because an drawing and handwriting tell people your view of life and your personality, that makes you unique. Will life be bored that every one’s letter is typed in times new roman?

Caterpillar and Butterfly: The Meaning of Life

Last week, I got an email from one of my students, his dog for many years passed away last week and he has tried to stay alone for a while. I have emailed him that he need to talk with friends and go on with life. I am sure his dog wants him to be happy in rest of his life but being sad.

After I wake up today, I see a beautiful day with Blue sky and sunshine! It’s another happy day as always. My tulips are blooming today. ( will post picture tomorrow) As Helen Keller used to say, Keep your face to the sunshine and you cannot see the shadow. There is so much great things you can enjoy in your life, why bother to have negative thoughts.

What the Caterpillar calls the end, the world calls a Butterfly. Things can be change all the time. Ying can be Yang. The grass is turning green. A great season for wonderful activities has begun. Have friends over, drink tea, talk and enjoy the literature and art.

Enjoy food, enjoy work, enjoy your study, enjoy helping people. Being creative and trying to think what kind of fun I can have from this little thing I am doing. When you can turn every little things in your life into enjoyment, you life has it’s own special meaning!

This Article is copyrighted By Huan’s Tai Chi

Tai Chi and Fears

It’s been raining for last two days. Hope it didn’t kill the seeds I planted. Am I worried about the plants or I just love the natural or flowers?
As the classic book “Think and Grow Rich” written By Napoleon Hill mentioned,

People have 6 fears.
1. The fear of POVERTY,
2. The fear of CRITICISM,
3. The fear of ILL HEALTH,
4. The fear of LOSS OF LOVE OF SOMEONE,
5. The fear of OLD AGE, and
6. The fear of DEATH.

I thought I don’t have any of these above, because I have been poor, I have been criticized, I have been sick, I have lost love, and I know it’s human nature we all going to die in the future, I have been on the edge of life and death at least three times. Now, it’s funny to think about sometimes, I am still worried on the flower seeds I just planted. As Napoleon mentioned, worry is based on fear, so I guess I still have fear in my life. In a human society, your joy of life is related to others. When you care about people, you worry. When you care about people, you fear. For example: I was worried what students would do when I was late for class last Thursday.

Why people doing Tai Chi? There are so many reasons people told me.
“It’s really cool.”
“It’s fun and healthy.”
“It can make my life less stressed and healthy.”
“It can make me more flexible when I am older.”

All of these applied to three of the six fears
3. The fear of ILL HEALTH,
5. The fear of OLD AGE, and
6. The fear of DEATH

If Tai Chi can conquer 3 fears for you out of total 6 human fears, isn’t this a great activities to do?

This Article is copyrighted By Huan’s Tai Chi

Daily Tai Chi Meditation

When I first asked my students when we were having class, “Did you do your Tai Chi every day last week?” Only few people raised their hands. I kept asking once a while and I found the numbers has been increasing. That’s a good start!

I remembered that one time a student asked me. “ How many hours I should spend on Tai Chi every day. Do you think I had enough each day?”

I mentioned to her. “Well, you need at least one hour of Tai Chi to help you remember the movements since you are a beginner. Two hours or more if you want an improvement. Now, you spend 8 hours at work, 2 hours on the road from and back to work or walking on the street, to your apartment or to supermarket. 2 hours for breakfast, lunch and dinner, and 8 hours sleeping. That’s total of 20 hrs already, if you spend 2 hrs watching TV or chat on the phone with friends. You only have 2 hours left for Tai Chi. You can tell me if you have enough time for Tai Chi or not.”

She smiled and said, “ Now I finally understand, as much time as possible is the answer!”

This Article is copyrighted By Huan’s Tai Chi