Make your will one! Don’t listen with your ears, listen with your mind. No, don’t listen with your mind, but listen with your spirit. Listening stops with the ears, the mind stops with recognition, but spirit is empty and waits on all things. The Way gathers in emptiness alone. Emptiness is the fasting of the mind. Zhuangzi (Chuang Tzu) trans. Burton Watson Ting jin is “listening energy”–sensing the insubstantial as well as the substantial. Knowing that is not entirely depending on the outward appearance of things. It’s the sixth sense that tells you Little Jimmy had a bad day at… Read More
Strange Meetings
March 21, 2012 By Leave a Comment
In last week’s post I talked about how to get authentic power from your Wardoff. The secret lies in “meeting” the incoming force rather than resisting it. The implications of this are huge, and they go far beyond just having badass gongfu. Once you have met the force without resisting, any increase in the incoming force only weakens the attacker. That’s right, the harder they push you the weaker they get. What do I mean by meeting? I remember being told in hitting a baseball or golf ball to “meet” the ball, don’t try to “kill” it. I never got… Read More
Seeking the Sweet Spot
March 5, 2012 By Leave a Comment
By first seeking to develop conscious movement in yourself and realizing it in your own body, you will naturally be able to know it in others. If you seek it first in others, it is likely that you will miss it in yourself. It is essential that you understand this principle, and the ability to interpret energy follows from this. Yang Family Forty Chapters We never realize how little of our movement is “conscious” until we practice taijiquan. Superior athletes and dancers are humbled when they encounter these mysterious movements. “Good” taiji is so different from the way we’ve learned… Read More