Wu Wei

There is a concept found in Chinese philosophy called Wu Wei or doing-not doing or effortless action. If you have ever played push hands with me you will have a small taste of what wu wei is. Effortless action is where you do only what is required to perform the action and then stop. This is a powerful counterpoint to the idea of "Going the extra mile."

My students often comment in pushing hands practice that the harder they try, the more they get thrown backward or up into the air. This is correct. This idea this counterpoint to going above and beyond and putting in the effort to do something may seem like an invitation to laziness. Putting extra effort into doing a thing is pointless. The only work that is required is that required to perform the action. This however is not the only thing going on in the action.

When you see a Kung Fu master throw someone effortlessly, or you see a chef prepare a wonderful meal, or a writer produce an outstanding piece of work you are not seeing their efforts. The throw, the cooking, the piece of writing are in essence effortless. Does this mean that no work was involved? Not at all!

The Kung Fu master has put his or her effort into the practice and honing of the craft. The effort is expended not in the action we see but in the roots of the action. In the thousands of hours of learning movements, practicing stances, analyzing the movements of more experienced practitioners. The same goes for the chef and the writer. Thousands of hours of work and practice go into the meal or the writing.

What is the difference between this effort and the effort invested in performing the action? Simple... the effort of practice is a sustained, daily. It is spread over time and this means its results are more profound and far reaching. The amateur, the one who only puts forth effort when he or she is performing the action, can never hope to match that kind of effort.

I suppose the essence of Wu Wei lies in this: Small sustained efforts create actions of great power. Large, sporadic efforts create actions of little meaning and great strain.

The I Ching, Change, Awareness

The I Ching (Yijing) is a very old and very interesting book. In an earlier entry I talked about Yin and Yang. And that is precisely what the I Ching is about. Yin and Yang are two variables. The I Ching is a book of relationships between those variables. The name I Ching means Book of Changes. According to legend a prehistoric emperor name Fu Xi created Eight Diagrams or trigrams, three lined figures that depicted Yin as a broken line and Yang as an unbroken line. (Yes these are the Eight Diagrams referred to in Baguazhang the martial art. In Chinese the words for Eight Diagrams is Ba Gua.

Change is an important theme in all the internal martial arts. We accept and realize that we cannot be strong all the time. We have periods of strength an periods of weakness, we have times of good fortune and times of ill fortune. Cleaving to one side or the other is not an option. Not because we aren't good enough or strong enough but because the universe isn't built around standing still. Everything is in motion. Tides ebb and tides flow. No bad situation is hopeless and no good situation will last forever. The real art lies in recognizing this fact and using it to our advantage. When things are good, enjoy them... but put aside something for when times are bad.

As I tell my students when they train the applications "Never stand there and congratulate yourself with an 'Ooh I got them!' Because your attacker will take advantage of it. Always move forward, keep attacking until the threat is neutralized." This applies not only to martial arts but to life itself. Am I saying I have it down? Not at all. I get depressed, I get sad... I spend too much money sometimes. But the key is that the more I practice changing myself with the changes that occur, the less those things happen. And that's the key here really.

Awareness makes us better able to cope with change. Remember you cannot control the situation most of the time but you can control your reaction to it.

What are Yin and Yang?

Yin and Yang... if you study Tai Chi or any other Chinese martial art you are going to encounter the concepts of Yin and Yang. A lot has been said or written about these concepts some of it good, some of it complete hokum. At the most basic level Yin and Yang are simply variables for expressing complementary and opposite relationships. Most people are familiar with what in the West is called the Yin-Yang symbol but is more properly known as the Tai Chi Tu or Supreme Ultimate symbol. Yes this Tai Chi is the same one as the martial art name. Meaning that Tai Chi Chuan is based upon the concepts of Yin and Yang.

Yin is a variable representing one half of a relationship. Yang is the other half. Some people say that the black half of the diagram or yin represents the bad or negative aspects and the white half or Yang side represents the good or positive aspects. Well that is one point of view and a viable one depending upon what you are talking about. However to assume you know what Yin and Yang are by saying Yang is good and Yin is bad makes about as much sense as walking into an Algebra class and saying X is good and Y is bad.

Traditionally Heaven is Yang and Earth is Yin. The sky, sun, moon, and stars are both considered Yang when compared with the Earth which is Yin. This time we are measuring light. The more light an object gives off, the more Yang it is. The less light it gives off the more Yin it is.

Now if we decide to say that movement is what we are measuring then stable things become Yang and mutable things become Yin. In this case Earth would be Yang and Heaven would be Yin.

Yin and Yang balance and complete one another. In other words once you recognize one, then you automatically recognize its opposite. All well and good, but what does this have to do with Tai Chi.

Quite a lot actually. In Tai Chi we start with Chi Kung exercises that help us to become strong and fit for applying Tai Chi. Chi Kung deals with breathing, energy, and the internal organs and systems of the body. It could be considered Yin. Without the Yin training the Yang cannot be effective. The structure of the Tai Chi diagram indicates movement. Meaning that when Yin reaches its extreme then Yang is born and vice versa. Our task in Tai Chi is to become cognizant of this constant ebb and flow and to take advantage of its movement.

In daily life when someone becomes angry at you, you have two options. One is to stand up and defend yourself in righteous indignation. This is considered double heaviness in Tai Chi terms. We have opposed the angry person's force with our own force. The second option is to listen to what the person has to say and be receptive to the argument. Accept that they have a grievance without judging it and then respond logically without resorting to meeting the attack head on. In other words you have applied Yin to overcome the angry person's Yang.

In martial arts terms this means that if you attack me I will accept the attack flow around it with the utmost softness, using only the minimum force to circle around you and find the places where you are Yin. If you are not mindful I will apply an attack to those unguarded places.

So you see, Yin and Yang mean a good deal more than just good or bad, desirable or undesirable. They are philosophical concepts that underpin a profound and useful understanding of the world. This understanding makes a major component of modern life possible. Computers actually work with Yin and Yang all the time. Binary computer code uses 0's and 1's or on and off to make all the marvelous things from the internet to I phones possible.

Knowing this, then perhaps an understanding of Yin and Yang is more useful than we can imagine.