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

The Three Situations of “Double Weighted” in Tai Chi

Double Weighted is a mistake in Tai Chi and Tai Chi Push hands. Double Weighted can be explained in many ways. They all involves in empty and solid. From my point of view, it can be conclude into three situations:

1. During Push Hands, When person B pushes against person A, person A also tries to push against person B. This is a good example of being Double Weighted. When person A pulls back while person B pulls back, this is also called Double Weighted. In these cases, Double Weighted causes pause of the movements.

2. You try to have a foot movement in Tai Chi. You don’t transfer weight from one leg to the another and you lift the other leg while it still has weight on it, this is also called double Weighted. In this case, Double Weighted was caused by lifting weights and the use of force.

3. When you try to unbalance someone while doing push hands, you try to use your right arm push him to the left. At the same time, you tried to use your left arm to push him to the right. You are against yourself and make your opponent balanced. In this case, making the opponent balanced caused the double weight.

When the above three situations happen to you, you’ll know you are Double Weighted. To avoid being double weighted, you need to know how to transfer from Empty to Solid and vise Versa. During push hands, you also need to understand how to listen to energy and determining if it’s a solid energy or empty one. Without Double Weighted, your Tai Chi will flow smoothly like a continuous long running river.

Copyrighted By Huan's Tai Chi '09

Wisdom from the Oil Salesman

Ouyang Xiu (歐陽修) was a Chinese statesman, historian, essayist and poet of the Song Dynasty. I have read many of his literature. When Ouyang was a little kid, his family was very poor. He couldn’t afford school supply. He used tree branch as a pen to write on the sand. I have read many his literature a long time ago but I still have memory of his work on “Regarding the Pavilion of The Old Drunkard” and “Old Oil Salesman”.

Kang Su Gong was the most famous archer in Northern Song Dynasty. He was practicing shooting in his front yard one day. Many people went watching him. There was an Old cooking oil salesman had two buckets of oil with him. He left two buckets of oil on ground, taking a rest and watching Kang Su Gong. Kang Su Gong has missed only one shot out of ten. Every one started to cheer, but the salesman only nodded his head.

Kang Su Gong saw that, not very pleased.
“ Do you know archery? How do you think my skill?”
“Not very special, just because you have done it for a while” Salesman said.
Kang Su Gong become very angry, “How can you put me down like this?”
Salesman said, “I can show you by pouring my oil.”

He placed a calabash on the ground, then placed a small Tong Qian(Traditional Chinese money with a square hole in the middle) on top of the mouth of the calabash. He took a big spoon and scooped some oil out from the buckets. He then poured the oil into the calabash. You can see the oil formed a long string and went into the calabash through the small hole of the Tong Qian. He was very steady, so you couldn’t see any oil left on the Tong Qian.
After the salesman has done this, he said, “It’s not a big deal I did this, I have done that easily just because I have practiced a lot.” Kang Su Gong smiled and politely sent him away.

We are not only learned that practice make you good from this story, but also found that being humble can prepare you better from learning new skill, because there are always some oil salesmen around whom has unique techniques to show you.

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?

Late for Tai Chi

I was very relaxed as always, at a restaurant and enjoying my dinner and then a phone call interrupted me. "hi" I heard. It was David C. I immediately realized its Thursday night and I am supposed to teach the Tai Chi class. "The whole class is waiting for me! Aww!" We had a holiday Monday in Boston and I was in Amherst for part of the weekend. Somehow, I thought yesterday was Wednesday. " Will they be ok without me?" I thought.

After I get on my car and hurried to the studio, I saw people are having fun doing Tai Chi.

David Grant, the beginner class teacher was teaching some movements there. I found out that Eric has lead the warm ups, and then David C. has lead the Chi Kung exercise. Things were working well without me. People felt so comfortable to share their knowledge with each other. I took my time, went to the bathroom and washed my hands. Slowly, I walked in with a wonderful smile ( showing only eight teeth J ), trying not to interrupt this good atmosphere. People started to laugh friendly after they saw me, they are so understandable. Their laugh has so many confidence that tells me they are doing well so far.

I have taught some students before that they only will do some movements if you lead. They don't share with others. If you want improvement, keep doing it even the teacher is not here. If you want to be better, share with others, such as your classmate, so both of you can getting better. Sometimes, late for a class for a teacher is a good thing!

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