My teacher said to me recently that one of the keys to understanding Taijiquan is attitude of mind, this is one of the first things to learn. I have heard and read this many times from various teachers, but I think that today is the first time that I've really understood what it means, and how to achieve some level of stillness of mind. Not because of an achievement, but because of a failure. The failure came after I planned a ninety minute Zhan Zhuang session for this morning, but failed because I had not prepared my mind [I could only stand for twenty minutes, much less than normal]. Yesterday evening my wife and I had a small disagreement that made me feel annoyed, and that feeling undermined my chances of successfully completing the Zhan Zhuang session.
I realised that developing Zhan Zhuang is not necessarily about physical endurance [although I accept that it may be for some] it is about state of mind, meaning that in order to stand for extended periods of time, one needs to be in a state of quietude. I discovered that if the mind is vexed in some way then too many distractions upset the mind's ability to endure standing still for a long period of time.
The outcome is that I have to keep a good relationship with my wife [and others in life] in order to maintain a state of appropriateness. This is one of things that I really like about the style I'm learning now, the method requires that one's life be in order otherwise one cannot practice correctly or successfully. As we all know, one of the keys to health and longevity is to have a stable and regular lifestyle, and it appears that it would be virtually impossible to call oneself a practitioner of this style without that stability and regularity.
So as you can see the method encourages the development of good habits and good habits support the development of the method, sounds like a "win-win situation" to me, right?
2 comments:
Wow... Great comments about the relationship between one's state of life and taiji. Before, taiji was a hobby, but over time, it becomes a life style.
I'm still shocked you're going after the 90 min session of zhanzhuang. To me, that is just mere craziness. The most I do is 40 mins but lately can only last for about 20-25.
It's true that my teacher's requirements are tough to meet.
But, I'm discovering a lot about myself and my lifestyle going through this "learning" process, which is very interesting to say the least.
90 minutes is a goal, but not the end goal, so only part way there...
Wish me luck ;-)
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