So it’s the rentrée and we’re all entering back into the mad swing of non-holidays (you see I’m almost French now!). It was an up and down summer with Yin and Yang manifesting themselves more in Cha Yi than in Zhuan Hua, like the weather in Jasnières where we went from 38° to 18° in the space of a week. (Please don’t be put off by the Chinese terms – I’m putting together another blog posting with lots of this stuff explained in French).
As with all rentrées, we are seeing some new blood in the classes (not always young veins though) and we (the teachers and older students) are getting some old questions. One question, which is generally shrouded in statement, is that such and such a posture or movement is “not natural”. This is a complex question in fact, on the one hand raising the issue of just what is natural and on the other potentially calling into question the healthy benefits of practicing taiji quan. To answer the former, I would point that all human activity, from nuclear bombs and 9-11, to smoky cities and social dereliction, are all entirely natural. What else would you expect from a species that is “intelligent”, self-aware, tool-using, gregarious and competitive? This kind of response is often a bit shocking though for those naturalists who would like (and sometimes believe) that taiji really was invented by a crane and a snake, or at least uses animal movements (ah but we don’t have tails, beaks or claws and are mostly bipedal). So we have to look at the other side – that taiji quan practice is an evolved method for health and self-cultivation which, whilst remaining within the logic of Chinese medicine, uses “non-natural” postures and movements to work its magic. This is not actually totally wrong – the rub, of course, is that the postures and movements reflect martial techniques and not health exercises.
I remember a few years ago watching someone give a taiji class in a Paris park (not the jardins de Luxembourg). It was deep winter – there was even some snow on the ground. One young man, long hair natural, tangled and rather greasy, clearly thought his Qi would circulate better if he wore no shoes (or socks). His feet were quite literally blue as he bonded with the gravel and dirt below him (as well as the fag-ends, dogshit and other natural objects). This kind of approach is of course almost never found in the places where oriental martial arts originated: even the semi-mad daoist mystics had some method. The only comparison I can think of would be the annual Kyukoshinkai bash in Japan where they go doing loads of gyaku-tsukis under a freezing waterfall in a semi-frozen pond. The idea is to see how much pain they can take – nothing to do with “naturalness”.
For some reason I tend to associate the naturalists with the pacifists. Wei told me just the other day that her mother (an avid practitioner of the Jian) had explained to her how practicing taiji led to a state of inner calm, which was balanced with outer serenity. Someone should have told Yang Ban Hou, or Cheng Tin Hung (just to mention some past masters) who were known for – well, they were’nt well known for their inner and outer calm and serenity. Anger, after all, is entirely natural. So is violence and getting annoyed by fools and knaves.
IMHO, Humanity is not outside nature, and what we do is always natural, though it may not always be appropriate. Something to reflect on as you join the other worker ants bustling and hustling for survival in the urban jungle.
