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| Laozi image in the Chen Family Temple |
A
prospective student phoned me recently informing me that he had studied martial
arts for some years and was now ready to do "something spiritual"! It
brought to mind a case in the news a little while ago about a yoga teacher who was
told by the church where she taught that she would have to find a different room.
Yoga teacher Naomi Hayama was outraged at the suggestion that she was doing a
"spiritual" discipline: "They
are trying to say it is a spiritual practise but my classes are not… I respect
people who are religious but I am not. That's what attracted me to yoga”. I was tickled by the response of a friend of mine
(who happens to be an Indian guy and a committed yoga practitioner) on Facebook
who dryly commented that, "900 million Hindus might disagree".
In
one of the featured articles in the book Asian
Martial Arts: Constructive Thoughts and Practical Applications, Michael
Maliszewski Ph.D. revisited a ten year research project he had previously completed dealing with
meditative practices and indigenous healing traditions associated with many
Asian martial arts. Some twenty years since his work was published he believed,
“there had been a decline in the depth that has characterised the more
traditional systems. The spiritual or meditative focus is more “generic” in the
sense that any loose association with the ethereal is deemed spiritual”.
Maliszewski concluded that, “in general martial arts study today, practitioners
do not have the dedication to endure the long hours of training required to
reach a level of authentic mastery in a tradition”.
During one of our training trips to Chenjiagou
someone asked about the “spiritual dimension” of Taijiquan. They were told that there are three reasons for
training Taijiquan: first for training an individual’s strength, constitution
and general health; second, on the basis of good physicality training for
combat; finally, on the basis of the previous two aspects they could begin to talk
about spiritual development.
Over a lifetime’s training the committed Taijiquan practitioner embarks
on a process of nurturing and cultivating or “xiu yang”. In The Taoist Body Kristofer Schipper describes xiu yang as the: “means to arrange, to smooth down any
roughness or irregularities by repeating
an action many times in harmony with the cosmic order, until perfection is
achieved. The perfect and complete body is thereby nurtured, its energies
strengthened; it thus becomes totally integrated into the natural and cosmic
environment. From there, the way is led – by repeated, cyclical movements – to
spontaneity, which is the essence of the Tao”.
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| Morning practice in the Chenjiagou Taijiquan School - ongoing daily effort, the real path... |
