A few years ago we
were training in Chenjiagou when one of our group posed the question "what
is the most important element in determining whether a person would develop a
meaningful level of skill"? The answer - "discipline and the capacity
to work hard for an extended time". But is the willingness to "eat
bitterness" enough? An old Taijiquan saying suggests that "Taijiquan
can only be taught orally" - that is from person to person. The
aforementioned "oral transmission" refers to a close, long-term interaction
between teacher and student, and assumes that the teacher understands Taijiquan
theory and is capable of and willing to impart it to another person and that
the student has the intelligence and ability to understand the teaching as well
as the diligence to put it into practice.
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| Chenjiagou street mural - Chen Zhaopi passing on his skills to the next generation |
So, simply training
hard is not enough. We must understand and train in line with Taijiquan's
principles and philosophy. If a person does not learn the correct method
or take the correct path, it is difficult for them to advance to a higher level
of skill. On reaching a certain level, it is not a question of time
whether someone can further improve. The key is whether he has acquired
the technical ability/skill to enable him to take his practice to a higher level.
Modern society tends to emphasise "hustle",
"efficiency" and "life hacks" - "five steps to a
perfect relationship"... or "the one thing you must do to be in the
top one percent" etc etc. Taijiquan is a subtle and multi-dimensional
discipline that cannot be simplified in this way. In a beautiful passage
taken from Dr. J: The Autobiography, basketball great Julius
Erving talks about the dangers of confusing rhetoric with high level
experience. Specifically he was referring to the difficulty of conveying the
reality of playing on court through the second hand medium of commentating from
the sidelines:
"It is remarkable to me how we can fill hours, days even, of television
talking about basketball, and yet I always feel that we are failing to
communicate the truth of the game. ...I worry that I am not up to the task of
explaining the essence of basketball as it is played at the highest levels. I
feel that it is like trying to explain music through words or to describe a
painting through text. You can give a feeling of the work, or compare it to
something else, but you can't re-create the actual feeling of being on the
court, or making that move, of imposing your will, of the precise moment that
you realise you can reach the front of the rim… Because it is not a moment, it
is a sense, an instinct, a flicker of insight and nerve so sudden that you have
to act on it before it is a thought. What do you see? A subtle shift of weight,
a lowering of the hands, a leaning forward, a glance, and that is enough to set
off a chain of events. They are actions that set off a thousand instincts. But
from where we are sitting above the court, we are unable to explain the game
through these small moments, and instead talk about the Bull's second chance
scoring and the Rocket's bench production. I understand the need to do
that...but I also know that we are simply describing a simulation of the game,
rendering a three-dimensional activity into two dimensions".
The parallel with
Taijiquan is clear. Where the spectator or lower level player gets caught up in
the obvious manifestation of a particular action, skilled exponents act
from a deeper place. From a training foundation that considers every aspect of
physical and mental harmonisation they reach a place where every "action
sets off a thousand instincts".
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| Chenjiagou street mural - "Everyone in Chenjiagou knows Jin Gang Dao Dui" |
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