An interesting thing happens when we try too hard to relax – we create tension!  We get the exact opposite of what we wanted.  I touched on this phenomenon in my article Pistol Qigong is a Blast.  Here, mental tensions create excess physical tensions.  In general, the more we try to get our bodies to do something the more tension is created which, in turn, negatively impacts our performance.

In terms of relaxation, the loop goes: mentally straining to relax–>creating physical tensions–>poor erformance–>mentally straining even more to relax–>more tensions–>poorer performance–>…etc.  This is what I refer to as the Negative Relaxation Loop.   We’ve all be there and hopefully through experience we find ways out.  Here are six ways
that I use to interrupt The Loop in my practice:

1. Shake it off. Use this one in the context of solo forms.  A nicely placed Pah! is like hitting the reset button.  Sure, maybe a vigorous shake isn’t in its rightful place according to the teachings, but that’s okay, you need it.
2. Breath. Attend to your breathe.  Belly-breath into the tensions you want to release.  Fill tensions with breath and empty
   them while expiring.
3. Slow Down. Use this one in partner work where a violent shake could be dangerous.  As tensions created by the Negative Relaxation Loop escalate, you put yourself and partners at risk.  The pace quickens with mounting tensions whereby mistakes can be costly.Take the time to slow down and breath.
4. Indulge. Instead of fighting your tension, indulge in it.  Deliberately create tension where you’re trying to relinquish it.  Find it and bare down on it.  Hold it for a bit.  What does it feel like?  Release it.  Again, what does it feel like?  If we can figure out how to create certain tensions deliberately, then we should be able to figure out how to alleviate them.
5. Take a note. Mentally note how you’re talking to yourself when you’re in The Loop.  Be nice.  Understand.  You’re learning and you’ll always be learning.  Forgive yourself for not being perfect (an unrealistic ideal anyway).  You may even notice more pervasive mental themes that aren’t exclusive to your taiji practice.  As opposed to the previous methods, the interruption of The Loop isn’t as immediate.
6. Get out of the way! Chances are your body knows how to do what you want it to do.  It’s probably done it before.  Let it do it again.  Instead of thinking about doing it, do it.  Better yet, don’t do it, let your body do it or let it happen.

If you have other ways to circumvent The Loop, please share them here.

Are you coming from out of town and need a place to stay while you study WTBA methods? If you’re interested in a room with views of Salt Lake Valley, check out this list*. These high-rise hotels have commanding valley views of the surrounding mountains.

• Best Western – Salt Lake Plaza Hotel
  122 West South Temple
  Salt Lake City, UT 84101
  Website: Salt Lake Plaza Hotel
  Telephone: 1 (800) 366-3684 or 1 (801) 521-0130
• Embassy Suites
  110 West 600 South
  Salt Lake City Ut 84101
  Website: Embassy Suites Salt Lake City
  Telephone: 1 (801) 359-7800
• Hilton
  255 South West Temple
  Salt Lake City UT 84101
  Website: Hilton Salt Lake City Center
  Telephone: 1 (800) HILTONS or 1 (801) 328-2000
• Marriott®
  75 South West Temple
  Salt Lake City UT 84101
  Website: Salt Lake City Marriott Downtown
  Telephone: 1 (801) 531-0800
• Little America Hotel
  500 South Main Street
  Salt Lake City UT 84101
  Website: Little America Hotel Salt Lake City
  Telephone: 1 (800) 453-9450 or 1 (801) 596-5700
• Radisson Hotels & Resorts
  215 West South Temple
  Salt Lake City UT 84101
  Website: Radisson Hotel Salt Lake City Downtown
  Reservations: 1 (800) 333-3333 or 1 (801) 531-7500
• Red Lion Hotels
  161 West 600 South
  Salt Lake City, UT 84101
  Website: Red Lion Hotel Salt Lake Downtown
  Telephone: 1 (800) RED-LION or 1 (801) 521-7373

If you know of others, please let us know.

* This list does not intend to be exhaustive nor does it intend to imply any relationship between Tai Chi Utah and the listed institutions.  Tai Chi Utah does not recommend any one institution over any other.  For more information on these businesses check out their websites and be sure to read reviews by folks who have stayed there to determine which is right for you.

Photo by Onera at http://www.onera.fr/english.php

It’s tough to put internal events into words and it often over-simplifies them.  The truth is, you’ll never know what it’s like to experience the world as Jason Socci and I’ll never know what it’s like to experience the world as anyone but Jason Socci.  It’s ultimate existential loneliness.  This doesn’t mean it’s pointless to try to come as close as possible.  Try with me now, won’t you?

Allow me to share my experience of sinking.  I’ve noticed this experience most often during the dim mak heart qigong.  It goes something like this: My hands hover at about chest level, elbows dropping downward.  Just below my hands, running parallel to the ground is a membrane.  It’s like a very viscous liquid.  My mind slowly drops down into it.  Other times it’s more like I find a small crevice or whole in the membrane to drop into.

It’s gradual.  I can’t try to do it; I must let it happen.  Once I am engulfed, my awareness relaxes.  In other words, instead of being aware and struggling with the burning muscles in my thighs or shoulders, I am aware and simply observe my physical body from a distance.  It’s akin to experiencing the outside world while under water.  The sensations are there, but they’re softened.  Typically, I waver in and out.  Bobbing up occasionally due to distractions or thoughts.

Wow, that sounds strange to read!  Keep in mind; I don’t think any of these words while practicing.  It all just happens abstractly through internal impressions and feelings.  I came up with these words in order to help others (who are not me) get a taste of my experience.

Don’t be shy, please share some of your experiences here.

• Anton Boxrud Bed and Breakfast
  57 South 600 East
  Salt Lake City UT 84102
  Website:Anton Boxrud Bed and Breakfast
  Telephone: 1 (800) 524-5511
• Ellerbeck Mansion Bed and Breakfast
  140 North B Street
  Salt Lake City UT 84103
  Website: Ellerbeck Mansion Bed and Breakfast
  Telephone: 1 (801) 355-2500 or 1 (800) 966-8364
• Grandmother’s House Bed and Breakfast
  6401 Holladay Boulevard
  Salt Lake City UT 84121
  Telephone: 1 (801) 943-8343
• Haxton Manor Bed and Breakfast
  943 East South Temple
  Salt Lake City UT 84102
  Website: Haxton Manor Bed and Breakfast
  Telephone: 1 (801) 363-4646 or 1 (877) 930-4646
• Parrish Place Bed and Breakfast
  720 E Ashton Ave (2340 South)
  Salt Lake City, UT 84106
  Website: Parrish Place Bed and Breakfast
  Telephone: 1 (801) 832-0970
• Wildflowers – A Bed and Breakfast
  936 East 1700 South
  Salt Lake City UT 84105
  Website: Wildflowers
  Telephone: 1 (801) 466-0600 or 1 (800) 569-0009

*This list does not intend to be exhaustive nor does it intend to imply any relationship between Tai Chi Utah and the listed businesses.  Tai Chi Utah does not recommend any one institution over any other.  For more information on these businesses check out their websites and be sure to read reviews by folks who have stayed there to determine which is right for you.

Josephine Anderson holds consistent World Taiji Boxing Association Workshops with Head Instructor Eli Montaigue. Located in Ottowa, Ontario, up there in Canada, Double Dragon T’ai Chi Studio hosted Eli right before Tai Chi Utah’s Event in Sept 2008.

They host their next WTBA Workshop already in February 2009.

Contact Josephine Anderson or Eli Montaigue to get this one.

In January of ‘08, I wrote that Tai Chi Utah organized its foundation around Yang Chen Fu’s Early Form. That was then; things change. We head into deep waters.

Tai Chi Utah organized around the Yang Chen Fu Long Form, because I had trained that form since 1993. I knew that form better than the Old Yang Form. I taught people Yang Chen Fu’s Form, so we had a small network here that practiced it regularly. Many people here know the full length of it: it’s quite a bit longer, breath for breath, than 108 movements.

We practiced it in-depth and in-detail. We worked applications, martial and healing, for all the motions, and we covered the nuances that finesse fa-jing from this form. I know how it works, and I have received corrections that brought me deeper into the Supreme Ultimate Fist.

With the help of many students, I built a small skilled Tai Chi Chuan School here, in Salt Lake City, Utah, USA. Everyone grew talented and strong. We thank Yang Chen Fu and the World Taiji Boxing Association’s Erle and Eli Montaigue for passing to us a fantastic, fluid, fun form. Thanks.

Eli taught here twice now. In each Tai Chi Chuan Workshop, he’s demonstrated the beginnings of the Old Yang Lu-chan Style. It’s better. It’s more slow (in parts), more explosive (other parts), more fluid, more dynamic, and more fun.

It goes deeper.

Old Style T’ai-chi Chüan

I have actively reformed Tai Chi since 2005. I restore the warrior nature—the fighting, combat, and precision to Tai Chi Chuan. The martial nature of this dynamic art brings more real and honest internal health and healing. Details about the reformation lurk in this website and, mainly, at RealTaiji.com.

While I taught the Yang Chen Fu Form, I kept a personal practice of the Old Yang Lu-Chan Style, sharing experiences with my instructor-in-training, Jason Socci. Mainly I’ve focused on

• sharing real push hands
• developing fluid fighting drills
• cultivating combat applications
• producing precise form movements

It’s working.

Bringing Eli Montaigue to Utah upped the ante. Plus, we’ve had a number of folks, from out-of-state, attend the WTBA Events consistently, generating and compounding enthusiasm for the work of the World Taiji Boxing Association.

The Old Yang Lu-Ch’an Style Reformation

After the more recent World Taiji Boxing Event, Real Taiji shifted to working on the Old Style exclusively. It’s detailed and requires a bit more attention to detail, but all responses are overwhelmingly favorable and excited.

Inevitably, I shift the Foundations of Tai Chi Utah to the Old Yang Style too. We’ve worked on it in each WTBA Event so far, in 2007 and 2008, and we intend to continue working on it. Eli Montaigue’s Yang Lu-Ch’an Form is advanced and sophiticated. Seeing him do it and working on it while watching him brings great, immediate benefits and long-lasting, subtle gifts.

Each workshop this year brings—

• Qigong
• Old Lu-Ch’an Form Practice
• Other Forms (in February—Dim-mak Circular Form, in September—Large San Sau!)
• Pushing Hands

We go deeper. Join us in the Reformation of Tai Chi Chuan.

It was at Steven Smith’s condo-complex, on the big lawn.

130 South 1300 East #210

Salt Lake City, UT 84102

For Eli’s second journey to Utah, we took it a step further.

Eli demonstrated and taught us:

• Advanced Small San Sau
• San Sau’s Deadly Mother Applications!
• Old Yang Form
• Single & Double Pushing Hands
• Striking Methods
• and Qigong

Plus, everyone worked directly with Eli, receiving corrections and tips on Pushing Hands at the workshop. A number of folks signed up for private instruction before or after the workshop. And Steven Smith hosted dinner on Saturday night—that’s becoming a tradition.

Mother Applications in Taiji Small San-Sau

Mother Applications do not appear much in writing or on DVD. This is exclusive. From Eli: “The mother applications from the small San-Sau are some of the best multiple strike kill methods out there, teaching you all about body movement, Fa-jing, and Dim-Mak. These method were banned in the US for a time due to being too violent! There is one Mother Application for every move in the Small San-Sau, the postures in the form are your first reaction, your defence, even though some of them alone can kill, the mother applications are your follow ups, never giving a sucker an even break as we like to call it!”

Recommendation:

Learn Basic Small San Sau. The following videos demonstrate varying levels of Small San Sau: MTG 3, MTG 24, MTG 53, MTG 134. Books by Erle Montaigue entitled Internal Gung-Fu Vol.2 or the classic Dim-Mak: Death-Point Striking both detail the Small San Sau.

Learn it, know it, advance it.

You can also get up to speed on Basic Small San Sau at RealTaiji.com’s Small San Sau Review Workshop in November 2008.

Rumor, the next workshop might be in February.

I won’t need to compromise my principles. I can protect folks close to me (including myself), my family, my friends, and anyone who stands nearby. And I cannot be provoked, with pushing or screaming, into chaotic scenarios. T’ai Chi Chuan — the system of martial-art training methods including martial pushing hands and death point strike training — lets me live so well.

Martial Stillness

I remain calm and present — often achieving more quiet, more calm, and more presence — when confronted with aggression or chaos. I trust that my reflexive responses will be appropriate to any aggressor, situation, and level of violence; I just turn on my senses, wake up. It’s nice. It’s good for everyone’s safety.

You could attend varieties of seminars that teach deadly point strikes. But it’s not enough to know the points and the angles of attack; one must be able to touch such point on aggressors, in the midst of a chaotic scenario. So, while we must build some intellectual knowledge of the death-points, we must also develop real methods to hit them.

To emulate chaos and forces generated by attackers, we train the martial art aspects of Tai Chi Chuan these abstract ways.

1. Qigong and natural motion studies instill stillness and an ability to see and hear more clearly.
2. Practice Tai Chi Chuan Forms. This way, if done right and well, we program our bodies to strike at particular points at peculiar angles. It’s a perfect, subconscious training device!
3. Push-hands using pressure develops a capacity to cope with real force; change speeds and levels of force to learn to accept and divert whatever force presses on us.
4. Strike things the Taiji martial art way! Strike mitts and pads using elastic, waist-generated, fast, fierce fight-power — Fa-jing!
5. Study acupuncture points from Traditional Chinese Medicine. Learn to touch one another’s points (lightly, never with Fa-jing) to see and sense proper angles, distance, and timing, with varieties of opponents.

Deep-quiet responses may provoke quiet and calm in an aggressor, settling a hot situation rather than heating it. I divert violent tendencies by acting unpredictable. Using my heart sounds and my stillness as a guide, not using common, fearful defensiveness, my actions and choices take on a clearer, cleaner resonance. I bring calm into wild scenarios. Inner confidence overwhelms, projects outward, and assuages others.

Fighting for Peace

Learning to fight, to maim, and to kill expands available choices in every scenario. Widening a spectrum of choices — from backing away peacefully to attacking ruthlessly — creates a vast and powerful array of options. Allowing stillness to enter mental, emotional, and physical bodies, one can allow the heart to guide, choosing proper and necessary actions.

The real challenge: maintain calm under pressure. Too often, I’ve seen soft-stylists tense when they feel real forces approach. It’s difficult indeed and it requires work to teach one’s body to maintain calm even as the pressure cooker of martial-arts training increases. Real stillness, deep calm, and true quiet, however, require these early, preemptive pressure that teach methods to cope with stress and tension while under duress.

Begin soft and end soft but allow for a crescendo of struggle, of force, and of real work inside Tai Chi martial-arts training drills. Use repetitive actions, not random hand-pushing, to create patterns that gain amperage as the pattern develops. A tight, pressurized push-hands drills, for example, may uncover and flush out fears and anxieties. In such a controlled scenario, one releases the emotion and realizes more and more competence and confidence. At some point, the acupoints on the opponent’s body can be seen.

The internal, systematic, martial-art of Taiji Quan, permits studies of aggression and fighting practices that can begin softly and increase in pressure, duress, and intensity as experience grows. Such martial methods explore and release personal stress and tension in safe ways, so that, when (or if) the real pressure is on, options do not diminish, but expand.

Peace of Fighting

Studying fighting, maiming, and killing methods expands awareness about the fragility of human beings, about being alive. I am fragile. I see that others are too. Everyone — even the apparently toughest loudmouth — is vulnerable and fragile.

Because I see and empathize with this vulnerability, I show my vulnerabilities. By showing it, paradoxically, I am safer.

The calm that one can exude in stressful scenarios has, at its root, an acceptance of vulnerability of life, the tedious nature of existence. And we all have it, somewhere, inside. It’s that little something that one can tune to, in others, to let them release their angst, their terror, their aggression, and calm down.

But it take guts. It requires the tender heart of a warrior. And to get that: learn to fight. No one can be invulnerable, but everyone can feel safe. Everyone can tap on the sensitivity and vulnerability at the heart of us all.

Study Death Point Striking. It’s a fragile art of war and a hearty study of peace.