When people talk about the benefits of Taiji, often they mean the health benefits–both physical and mental. Sometimes, there’s the added talk of how it helps shift your mindest becaause the basic tenet of Taiji is that you take is what is given to you and return it. It’s also known as the lazy person’s martial art beacuse you want to put out as little energy as possible in order to get the biggest result.
I’m an American (with a Taiwanese background). Both my cultures are very driven and believe in given “110%”, “no pain, no gain”, and “do it until you can’t do it any more–and then do it for five minutes longer”. My Taiwanese parents were perennially disappointed in me beacuse I was not (and am still not) perfect. My mother made my brother and I do a million things when we weren’t in school, including (for me), piano, cello, dance (ballet, jazz, tap), volleyball, softball, tennis, ping-pong, church every Sunday, and summer school every year. Not all of these were formal things or all at the same time, but it was a lot for a dreamy kid who just wanted to read and write.
It was never enough. And, of course, American culture is like that as well. You’re supposed to work fifty-plus hours a week, want to be promoted every few years, and what work-life balance? Not to mention that there are so few worker protections in America, and it’s a recipe for disaster. Oh, and let’s not forget that healthcare is tied to insurance, too.
When I first started Taiji (fourteen years ago!), I was so tense. Most Americans are. My teacher explained to me that Taiji was about relaxing. Not collapsing; you did not want to be totally floppy, but relaxing. She said that most Americans are in the 7-10 range (on a scale of 0-10) when it came to tension. 0 was collapsed, and you wanted to avoid that, too. 1-3 is ideal, depending on what you’re doing at the itme.
I also had crippling back pain. I mentioned it to my teacher, and she told me to do the one stretch we do in which you lie on the floor and let your knees gently fall to one side and then pull your knees to your chest, one, then the other, then both. She told me to do this on each side, three times each. I was so skeptical beacuse it seemed too simple to take care of the excruciating pain.
Within three months, there was a noticeable reduction in the pain. I was astounded that I was no longer wincing in pain every time I moved. Then, after a year, the back pain was completely gone. And I mean totally. It was incredible, and I excitedly shared it with my teacher. She wsa so enthused to hear it as well, but not surprised, obviously.
That was what made me trust her wholeheartedly when it came to Taiji. She was honest with me; she would look up answers if she didn’t know them; and, she alawys encouraged me to ask questions and have a bad attitude. One of the things that makes her a great teacher is that she takes each student as they come. She knows that people learn in different ways, and she tries to accommodate that as best she can. In my case, I learn by questioning the hell out of everything. And being cranky when I didn’t get something right away.
This is something that I talk about with my teacher on a regular basis. How it’s hard to get over that feeling of perfectionism. It’s not a good thing, mind, but it had been drilled into me since I was litle. If you can’t do something right, well, then don’t bother. Oh, and that’s if you can’t do it perfectly on the first time. As a result, I have difficulty being bad at things. I feel ashamed and like a total failure.
The first time I did Pushing Hands, I hated it. My teacher said that she felt thet same way when she first tried it, and it wsa something she had really been looking forward to. I was not looking forward to it, but I knew it was important. I did not anticipate how much I would hate it. I attended an all-women’s class that my teacher taught, and by the end of it, I was more sanguine about Pushing Hands. I still didn’t like it, but I didn’t hate it, either. And as I got more comfortable with it, I appreciated what it could do.
Here’s the thing. I fell yesterday. I was going down my front stairs (only two of them) and totally missed. As soon as I started to go down, I instantly relaxed. As a result, I was hurt much less than I would have been before I started Taiji. Just like several years ago, I got into a minor car accident. I was going straight and the person on the other side of the road suddenly turned left to get onto the on-ramp for the highway. I saw her barreling at me, and I instantly thought, “I’m going to get hit.” I knew there was nothing I could do to avoid it, so I relaxed as she hit me. I walked away with a huge bruise on my stomach from the seat belt and nothing else.
This is one of the benefits of Taiji that I never wolud have foreseen. I’m still clumsy (though not nearly as much as I was before), but I’m much better able to avoid hurting myself whe I trip on things. The fall I had yesterday only left me with a scraped up right leg and a slightly puffy right pinky. I’ve fallen off two ladders as well in the last decade-and-a-half. I got a bruise on a leg from the one and not even that with the second. It’s not good that I’ve fallen off ladders twice, but it’s good that I wasn’t hurt more than that.
When I had my medical crisis, I said that the three things that pulled me through (other than my medical team, of course), were love, luck, and Taiji. I want to be clear that it’s not ‘if you don’t do Taiji, you have no chance’, but that Taiji gave me the basis for my body, well, surviving. It’s every little accident I’ve had writ large. I’ve been practicing Taiji for so long, it’s automatic for me to relax when something bad is happening to me.
I will say that despite my years of practice, I am still probably at a 5 on the tension scale in my daily life. Maybe a 4. It’s the American in me. I can’t seem to get it lower. But when it matters, that tension drops 2 or 3 points. Which is so invaluable. It’s not something I knowingly do; my body just defaults to that when something bad happens.
This is one of those long-term results I could never have imagined when I first started studying Taiji. It sounds so banal, too. Or unfathomable. Like, what do you mean you learned to relax? And why is that a life-changing thing? It’s also difficult to explain that it wasn’t something I consciously worked on–it just happened. The ability to immediately relax, I mean.
That’s the thing about Taiji. The practice should be thoughtful and deliberate, but the benefits are not things I’m actively working towards. I have more to say about it, but I’ll do that tomorrow.