As I teach my classes at TigerLily I often find concepts emerging I need to learn, or explore more.  As fall turned into winter this year the concept that jumped out, landed on my shoulder and started demanding attention was connection.

Connection is not new to me for sure; but during this time of short days and long nights it came home to me how important – and neglected – it is.  Connection in the martial arts is simple, but not easy.  In order to move a partner through a techniques, taking their balance, absorbing or deflecting an attack you need two things:  relaxation and timing.
Relaxation – or being free from tension – is paramount to working with a partner in technique.  When the  body is tense or rigid, it hampers the ability to move.  If we cannot move our own body fluidly and well, we cannot partner well with another.

We can prove this through a simple exercise with a partner to compare a tense versus a relaxed state:

1. Part One: Have one of the partners tense their body – clench the fists and the jaw; lock the knees.  The other person gently pushes or pulls.  Immediately the tense person loses balance and in all probability staggers a step or two. 
2. Part Two: The same partner now releases their hands, shaking them out, wriggle a little and gently bend the knees.  Then gently push or pull them – you might even go a little harder.  Notice how easily they resist the movement and maintain balance.
   

This idea carries over to relationships between people or within a group.  Have you ever been with a friend and their body is rigid, they’re in a bad mood, and verbally snap at others?  In that moment, they cannot connect, the flow isn’t easy.  Or if you are having a disagreement with another person.  If both parties are rigidly attached to their position, what are the chances of a solution to the argument?  Pretty much zero.

The answer to being a skilled martial artist or a communicator lies not in driving the other person, but in making sure we are ready to connect by relaxing, softening our energy and paying attention to what and how we are engaging.  Are we rigid and attempting to force our partner?  Or are we connecting to our selves, grounding into the earth and inviting the other person to join in creating our technique, our relationship or our community?
(this concept is true through movement arts, from martial arts to ballroom dancing or any other form of movement)

I tell my t’ai chi students often “The feet are more than a place to hang your shoes!”
 
The idea is that as we increase our awareness of the how the body works, it is essential to include the FEET in our awareness.  So often in our daily lives the only time we consider our feet is when choosing a shoe or if the feet are in pain.  By keeping the feet in mind while we are moving, especially in the slow, deliberate AWARE state of T’ai Chi Chu’an, the benefit to our stability and balance is remarkable.
 
Grandmaster William C.C. Chen (the founder of the system I teach), first brought this to my attention in his article “60 Movements” (see article here:  http://www.williamccchen.com/60Moves.htm) where he explains his system.  He speaks of the toes “crunching” which is a description of gripping the ground with the toes.  By energizing and activating the toes through “crunching,” the joints of the legs are brought into alignment, the stability of the knee is improved and tone and strength of the legs are engaged and can be improved over time.
 
See this video for a demonstration of this quality of the engaging the toes.
 
A key principle of T’ai Chi is moving the body as a unit.  This is impossible without engaging the feet. As we slowly shift the weight and take the steps of the form, the feet must engage. I have found that the folks that struggle the most are those that have tight or rigid shoes.  For the practice experience I highly recommend a loose fitting shoe (not so loose as to not stay on the foot on its own) or one designed for martial arts movement. Training in bare feet is also an option.  A floor training shoe or the cloth bottomed kung fu slippers are very much the preferred footwear for T’ai Chi Chu’an practice.

Grandmaster Chen also championed the concept of the “Three Nails of the Foot.”  This is closely related to energizing the foot, but gives more detail.  His “three nails” are the the big toe, the ball of the foot and the inner part of the heel. 
 
In addition to the benefits above, by bringing our awareness to  these three points (nails), our entire body’s alignment improves, and any unconscious tendency we have to lean over in an direction is lessened.
 
Overall awareness is a critical part of T’ai Chi Chu’an practice.  Expanding our awareness to the activities of the foot, down to the muscle seems like a frivolous, non-important thing.  My experience is that it is one of the most important concepts if our goal is to improve our balance. 

I like things to be easy.  One of the hidden gems of studying a martial art is there is the built in method of making the difficult easy – a gem called “technique.” 
 
A technique to a martial artist is like a hammer to carpenter.  It’s a tool that makes a difficult task easy (or at least easier).  The great thing about this little gem is that it really isn’t the sole province of a martial artist – but a martial artist’s study is literally about collecting and perfecting technique in a way that isn’t as up front in many other areas.  ANYONE can use the concept of technique to make something – a task, a conversation, a blog post – quicker and easier to get to the result we’re seeking.
 
The video below demonstrates the technique for making a simple breath throw (aiki nage in Japanese).  This is a common technique for throwing I teach in my youth classes.  We take two key principles – bend the knee and keep the arms extended – to make this simple movement very effective in causing our partner to lose their balance and fall down.
 
There are many ways a novice Aikido student might try this technique (believe me – I’ve seen many of them tried), mostly using their strength.  Typically the student will stand in one place and try to force the partner down by applying force to the arm.  This doesn’t work and they get frustrated.  The technique teaches us to use a distinct methodology to cause the partner to lose their balance.
 

1. As the partner attempts to pull on the student’s arm, the student turns and takes a long step – keeping their knee bent, weight forward and, and arms extended.  Immediately, the partner/attacker starts to feel their balance give way.
2. Immediately, the student/defender takes another long step, again keeping the knee bent and arms extended.  The partner/attacker can no longer keep their balance and falls down (keep in mind that the attacker knows how to fall – with technique).

 
In everyday life, many things can be really hard without a technique.  The one that sticks out in my mind is a push-up.  Yep, a push-up.  Eons ago in junior high school, one of the truths of our lives is that girls couldn’t do push-ups.  We’d lay on the floor and push mightily with our arms and our shoulders would rise and while our hips and legs lay like limp rags on the floor.  Then we would gather our strength and stick our butt up. It was a LOT of effort.  Two or three of those and you’d be done.  The boys on the other hand, would crank out 10 to 15 reps and laugh at us.
 
Years and years later, I joined a Cross Fit gym and one of the first things they taught me was to do a push-up.  At that point, I’d spent almost two decades in the martial arts and when the Frank, the instructor showed me the technique, I was amazed.  By following the technique, which was placing the arms and hands rotated slightly in toward the shoulders and (most important), engaging all the muscles of the body to firm up the posture I was able to do 10 pushups.  The real kind – full out with my whole body rising and lowering like a plank.  Oh, yeah.  Women were finally taught about planks in the years since I was in junior high.  A push-up is simply a plank where you lift your body with your arms. 
It’s a technique – a tool that gets a result in the easiest, most efficient way possible. Take this idea into your daily life and become aware of the many techniques you use.  Increasing your awareness, slowing down and identifying a better technique in almost any task can allow you to use your energy wisely – and have more of it throughout your day.

​First and foremost, living powerfully is about not being a victim.  Life has ups and downs, tragedies and triumphs.  When bad things happen, and I seek to place blame, when I rail about the injustice of it all, when I complain about the SYSTEM or SOCIETY, the more I give away my power. I have decided that the story is all about how innocent I am and that all this stuff happens without my consent.  With every telling, I am less. 
 
There is another way.
 
In 2013 I was laid off from my job as the operations director of a printing company.  At the time, I was focused on my loss of income, insurance, security.  Five years on, I have enjoyed working at different projects, getting to nap in the afternoon before class, and working with others who have a similar passion for movement.  I could have spent the last five years talking about how poor the company was run, but I found peace with the situation by looking ahead.  Almost immediately, one of my good friends introduced me to someone I’ve been working with for 5 years – and I also get to do what I love.  I chose not to blame, but to simply accept that when I work for someone else, I don’t get to control all the outcomes.  Some things I can prepare for – others I can’t.  I choose to not be a victim – I choose the mindset of the powerful.
 
How do you DO it?  In one of my favorite books, the Art of Possibility, author Benjamin Zander refers to “being the board.”  He’s talking about life as a board game – and you are aren’t one of the game pieces – you are the board.  What he means is that everything that happens is your responsibility, because your world is where it’s happening.  Please know that I’m not talking “fault” here.  Fault and responsibility are two different entirely different things.  When I drive, I take the risk that another driver might be drunk, sleepy or reckless.  I OWN that, therefore I am powerful.  If a drunk driver hits me, I might be angry, want revenge – and suddenly I’m stressed, I can’t think about the positive things in my life, and I’m obsessed with this horrible driver that ruined my day, and my car.  This mindset is completely understandable – but what does it do to me?  Nothing really good.  If instead, I look at the fact that I chose to be on the road, and I know that on any given day there are drunk drivers out there, and one of them might hit me.  Suddenly I have given myself the powerful realization, that I CHOSE this, and I can deal with the consequences. 
 
Choice is a powerful antidote to victimhood.  Many times in my career, I’ve had discussions with individuals who are unhappy in their job – not necessarily with the occupation, but the daily grind of their current employment.  Knowing the answer, I often say – why don’t you leave?  Pretty much 100% of the time, I get a shocked look and the answer: “But I CAN’T leave.  I need the income, the insurance, the stability.”   For everyone who has read this far.  You CAN do anything you want.  But every choice has consequences.  In looking at the consequences, and making a choice – whether it’s to stay in a job or leave, whether it’s to drive to the grocery store – if you look at the possible outcomes clearly and accept the risks, you’ve taken the first step into accepting your innate inner power.

Everyone seems to have “heard that T’ai Chi is good for you.”  In this month’s blog, I am citing just a little of the information that is currently in world in terms of studies and information that brings out the many benefits of T’ai Chi in terms of balance, strength, confidence that increases the quality of life for T’ai Chi students.

One of the first significant studies on t’ai chi was conducted at Emory University in 1997.  This was a controlled study with 200 adults, aged 70 or over, and mostly inactive.  At the end of the study it was concluded that the t’ai chi practice was successful in improving confidence (reduction in the fear of falls), and in the actual incidence of falling.  After adjusting for variables, the T’ai Chi group’s risk of multiple falls was 47% lower than the control group. The individuals in the study participated in T’ai Chi classes per week for 15 weeks.  In addition to the improvement of the falling incidents, it was noted that lower blood pressure following a 12 minute walk was also statistically significant in the T’ai Chi group.

A follow up study in 2003 in Portland, Oregon replicated the findings of the Atlanta Study.  This time 256 adults were divided into a control group that used stretching and a second group that participated in T’ai Chi classes three times per week for 6 months.  This time, the improvement in the risk for multiple falls was 55%.

Emory University Study
Portland Oregon Study

Osteoporosis is a concern for many women, particularly after menopause.  The first controlled study in this area occurred in 2002 by the American Congress of Rehabilitative Medicine.  The study matched 17 self-selected T’ai Chi students with over 4 years of practice and 17 matching non-practicing control individuals.  The conclusion of this study was that the bone density of the t’ai chi practitioners was 10 – 15% higher than the controls.  In 2014, researchers at the University of York conducted a review of 6 studies that included 425 individuals (including the one cited above).  The conclusion of the reviewers suggests that t’ai chi may be a viable intervention for maintaining bone density. 

Osteoporosis Study

Chronic diseases and their symptoms can also be moderated with the practice of t’ai chi.  Studies involving individuals with Parkinson’s Disease and Multiple Sclerosis have shown significant results.  A 2012 study with 195 patients who were assigned to groups participating in T’ai Chi, resistance training, or stretching programs.  The study groups participated in their activities twice a week for 24 weeks.  The T’ai Chi group reported 67% fewer falls than the stretching group, and also reported signifantly few falls even after the program ended.

“These results are clinically significant because they suggest that tai chi, a low-to-moderate impact exercise, may be used, as an add-on to current physical therapies, to address some of the key clinical problems in Parkinson’s disease, such as postural and gait instability,” says Dr. Fuzhong Li, leader of the research team. This low-cost, simple activity could help improve the lives and safety of many patients with mild-to-moderate Parkinson’s disease.

In addition to these studies, many students in my classes report improvements in everything from their own strength and energy to markers for cardiac health in their annual physical examinations.  Since T’ai Chi can be fun, and does not require equipment or to be in “great shape” to start, it’s a great exercise to begin at any time or any age.  The hardest part?  Simply showing up.

For more on the health benefits of T’ai Chi:
www.worldtaichiday.org

Am I getting old?

Do I have enough time to dream?

Kind of wish I’d done that forest ranger thing I thought was cool in 7th grade.  Or found out that rocks could be a career when I was in college.

I’ve racked up 5 decades on the planet now, and despite being pretty satisfied with life, these thoughts arrive, uninvited, and make me feel bad, or anxious, or regretful.  I’m fairly sure that I’m not the only one, either, because I hear them from other people who are no longer at the beginning of their adult lives.

These thoughts have a note that’s off from my reality.  I don’t FEEL old, and this brings me to a curious question:  what is old?  Is it the count of years? Is it an attitude?  Is it being physically frail?

I’ve come to think of this “old” concept as a simply an invention of our culture, and the media.  After all, we are a “youth oriented” culture (just ask an advertising professional).    Of course there are other stories that are also invented by culture to educate or indoctrinate.  Those are called myths.  What if this “old” concept is another myth?

Let’s look at the measurements around “old.”  First, there’s the count, right?  How many years have you lived through is how the government and restaurants count whether you’re eligible for discount cards and retirement checks. That works, but does it define old? If we take away the judgment, it’s a reward, like a rebate for paying full price for a certain amount of time.

Ahh, time.  Time is an invention of culture, too.  It’s a functional tool to determine when something happened, to prevent arguments between the uncles over whether little Ritchie was born before or after Danny bought the house.  We created dates and measured the cycles of time.  But life is a circle, of birth and death, of creation and destruction.  The measurement, the counting, gives it the weight that goes along with this myth of “old.”

If you can’t run a marathon or do 50 pushups, is it because you’ve watched the earth revolve around the sun 50 times? I bring that up, because we are seeing more individuals full of live at that significance laden number of 60 years do stuff most of us couldn’t do when we had only counted 20 summers.  So, maybe physical ability (or lack of it) doesn’t have much to do with the concept of “old.”  Football players don’t retire in their mid-30’s because they can’t do push ups, it’s because of the repeated damage.  Point of fact, if I ran my car into a tree a few hundred times every fall, it wouldn’t work very well, either.

The physical frailty question is a little trickier, because there seems to be a direct correlation between people getting sick when they are old.  Yes.  But it’s not a given.  There are many vital healthy individuals who have been around a long time, and there are many very sick individuals who haven’t.  I’m not buying the inevitability of “getting old, sick and dying.”   My body definitely works differently than it did before.  But it’s been a bit of an opportunity, to also keep learning to do things differently.  The accumulated bumps and bruises sometimes ache in the morning, and the plate in my ankle tells me when it rains or is really cold.  But my body still heals, and my eyesight hasn’t changed since it settled into severe nearsightedness when I was 13.  The body changes, all the time, and sometimes it’s to a more comfortable place.  In my lifetime, my body changed at 21 to a state of hayfever.  I never had it before, and I thought I had a cold for six weeks until I went to the doctor.  That was followed by a period of over 15 rotations of the planet around the sun (yeah, years is a more efficient term), when I could tell when the ragweed came out in August by the state of my misery.  Another few years and it went away.  Completely.  I did some things, and it might have helped (local honey was one thing I tried), but I currently have no need of allergy medications.

I don’t believe in getting old, and I reject the thoughts about running out of time when they come up.  My practices of t’ai chi and other martial arts give me tools that allow me to be aware of the changes in my body, and the mental discipline to decide how to modify my movements to accommodate.  I live to learn and the circle of the seasons is a never ending promise of a new tomorrow, a new season, a new adventure.

I do believe in the circle and purpose of life.  When we are done with our purpose, we leave.  While we are here, let’s make the most of it, and not blame our lack of trying on the number of sunrises. 

Live as if you were to die tomorrow. Learn as if you were to live forever.
― Mahatma Gandhi

As the warm spring weather starts to come our way, I'd like to share some principles of Self Defense and Personal Safety.  My philosophy is that these should be positive and enhance our quality of life, not restrict us in our fear.  

For example, the same awareness that allows us to recognize danger, allows us to appreciate the newly green grass and the magic of a baby's smile.  Please consider these principles and have a fun spring!

Personal Safety & Self Defense Key Concepts

Self Defense is a Life Skill:  The same skills that will keep you safe, will lead you directly to a more powerful, successful, joyous life space.

Fear is a signal:

• Trust your instincts–they are right.
• If you think something is wrong, act accordingly.
• Train to move from fear to power.

ABC’s to Personal Safety

• Awareness
• Boundaries
• Confidence

Awareness: Recognizing Danger Signals

• Learn danger signals.
• Appearance does not predict a dangerous person or situation.
• Look for attempts to isolate you, for situations that are out of the ordinary.

Boundaries:  Isolation and Invasion

• Isolation occurs when you are alone with another person, or outnumbered.
• Where others can’t see you OR you can’t be heard
• When your resources and “social contacts” are limited.
• Invasion occurs when your personal psychological space is violated: staring; gestures; peeping; ignoring; refusal to answer or communicate.
• Standing or sitting too closely; threatening/invasive movements; stalking behaviors; invasion of privacy (your room, desk, home, notebooks, letters, pc files, journal or diary, eavesdropping)

Competence Leads to Confidence

• Physical training of any sort will let you know yourself and your body.
• Verbal confidence allows you to express yourself competently.

Choices.  I think a lot about choices.  For many years in my life, I’ve thought that I was without choices, or had very limited ones.  It wasn’t true, but my early life trained me in those thoughts. My family didn’t have a lot of money, I though my choices were limited.  It was true in some sense -  expensive things were out of reach – but I exercised choice in come very real ways, that I didn’t recognize at the time.

A very significant example of this was my choice (determination, really) to go to college.  This decision was made early on in my life – elementary school, think – and I gave myself no exit from the path.  I was going to go to college and this was a reality for me. 

What I didn’t realize (and thankfully didn’t find out until I grauduated from Ball State):

·      It takes a lot of money to go to college.

·      Traditionally, you have parental help for some things

·      You weren’t supposed to have to go it alone.

I didn’t have the money or the parental support, either monetarily or figuratively.  I was on my own.

What I did have was the vision of going to college, a decision that was cast in stone in my mind.  I met with my guidance counselor, put together a financial aid application, which included my parents’ financial information, applied for different schools, and chose Ball State University for its journalism school.

When it came time for Freshman year orientation, I took a Greyhound bus to Muncie, Indiana for the 3 day orientation.

My parents did get me a ride to school with all my stuff for the first of the year, but mostly I found my own way, finally taking over an ancient Toyota Celica my sophomore year.

I look back now and find it rather extraordinary, and marvel at the determination an 18 year-old had to make the dream of years come true.  The emotional heavy lifting you might envision just wasn’t there at the time.  I had made a decision and every action, every circumstance was simply a task to be completed to follow through on that decision, on that choice.

The key pieces I learned from that are still with me, the power of intentionally making a decision, and then never wavering.  I don’t believe I had any naysayers in my life around this decision, and if I did I filtered them out, because I certainly don’t remember them now. 

I was scared and uncertain sometimes, but the power of the choice I made was stronger than the fear. 

    While teaching an aikido class a number of years ago, I made the statement that aikido “slows down time.”  I got more than a few skeptical looks from the students attending that day.  But who could blame them—what an outrageous statement!

    I sincerely believe that it’s true.  I am talking about the perception of time, the ability to be very, very present in THIS moment in time.  Aikido - martial arts - isn’t the only practice that creates this sensation.  Any time we are COMPLETELY absorbed in an activity, time slows down for us.  We, in essence, step outside time.  I have had this experience working on a creative project, writing, drawing, working on a design.  The sensation is one of being very focused, but very aware of everything going on around us.  Time slows down.  

    What makes this happen is the total absorption.  When we bring everything we are — our entire person —to something, we are creating something really special.  You process information quickly, see what is happening as though it were in slow motion.  Some call this the Zone.  Has it happened to you?  Is it even possible in an age where we are constantly distracted by e-mail that can find us anywhere, phone calls, and thinking about the e-mails that can find us anywhere.

    The martial arts can teach powerful skills to combat the constant distractions of electronics and being busy, busy, busy.  For one thing, you can’t check a smart phone when someone is throwing to the mat or you need to block a strike from a rattan stick, or keep your balance against a partner trying to unbalance you.  Those things have a way of focusing the mind very quickly.

    The very process of martial arts practice also gives us a break from the distractions.  We put on a uniform, or collect a piece of equipment.  We come to a special place:  a dojo.  The dojo is “the place of the way.”  For a brief while, we separate ourselves from what has come before, and what will come after.  We practice movements, and work with a partner.  We set ourselves apart for just a little while.  During these practices we are exploring some very basic concepts:  focus, practice, mastery.

    Elite athletes know these concepts well.  They also know that they are not easy to attain.  Football players, figure skaters, runners.  For every fleeting moment in the sun, there are hours, days, years of practice with team mates, practice alone, lessons with coaches.

Obtaining mastery is simple, but certainly not easy.  The first step toward these vital concepts that allow us to be present is very simple:  show up.  Show up for class, show up for the workout, show up for the practice.  The hardest part of an exercise plan is putting on your shoes.  Then we do it again. And again.

    Once we are there, we practice.  We keep practicing.  Sometimes we may know we are getting better, but most of the time, we just have to get out of the chair go to our practice and do it.  Then do it again.  It’s a lifelong journey.  

    Author George Leonard, an acknowledged Aikido master, wrote a small book entitled Mastery.  In the introduction he writes:

“If there is any sure route to success and fulfillment in life, it is to be found in the long term, essentially goalless process of mastery/  This is true, it appears, in personal as well as professional life, in economics as well as ice skating, in medicine as well as martial arts.”

The great thing about the process is that every once in a while, we have that moment where it seems that “time stands still.”  It’s a glimpse of what it might be like to be present.  It’s a gift, and the pursuit of mastery in an art of our choosing can lead us to more magic moments.