A New Challenge (14)
Living In The Here-And-Now
Reading Time: 6 minutes
Balancing always happens in the here-and-now. Image: Myriams-Fotos
What do dancing, drumming and swimming have in common? They all require the ability to move our limbs independently and some degree of control over our breathing movements. Moreover, as soon as you begin to think about it the flow is lost and you can start all over again, or make for the edge of the pool while coughing and spluttering.
I tremendously enjoy practicing all these activities, which immediately shows what kind of challenges I like and what suits me. Tai Chi fits in seamlessly with that. This martial art in which strength, relaxation, flexibility and coordination come together can be made as simple or challenging as you want, and can therefore easily be practiced into old age. Enough reasons to travel to China for eleven months and learn Tai Chi full-time from a Chinese martial artist.
However, that was not the only reason to temporarily leave my known world behind. I noticed that there were still compulsive tendencies that were connected to old thought and behavioural patterns. Certain people and situations were still able to push my buttons hard, which threw me completely off balance. At such moments there was usually immense anger about something from the past or paralyzing fear of something in the future, which usually ended in frantic attempts to combat the incredible uncomfortable feeling in my body by means of the well-known distraction behaviours. That prevented me from fully exploring the talents and dispositions that fit my unique body-mind organism.
In the past I had long said that I wanted to become a rich and famous drummer. But then I let my buttons be pushed so chronically that it was easy to fool myself into believing everything in my power was done for that dream, while in fact that wasn’t the case at all. Now, however, the call to discover which activities suit me and what gives me energy became louder and louder, and the conviction grew that two things had to be done in order to make that happen: learn something that fascinates me and do that outside of my native country, the Netherlands.
Learning Tai Chi in China answered to what I thought I needed, and then there's only one way to find out :-)
Once in China, it quickly became clear that the training and the new environment initially provided peace of mind. During the training, full attention was needed to absorb, learn and integrate all the new movements and associated information. In addition, the new environment required just as much attention getting settled and finding my way around, so there was little chance that buttons would be pushed. But alas, wherever we go our buttons go too, so it did not take long before people in the new environment were also able to push my buttons. Yet there was an important difference with previous situations, because I had primarily travelled to China as a researcher.
This meant that the self-inquiry which commenced with some difficulty in 2017, gained momentum (of which this blog site is a result). As soon as buttons were pushed I became more and more aware of them, which also accelerated their acknowledgement and acceptance. In practical terms, this meant that the choice to respond differently or not at all to a pushed button could be made more often. In other words, it became increasingly possible to stay in the here-and-now, despite the pushed button begging me to focus on someone or a situation in the past or the future.
In addition, the Tai Chi training taught me a second big lesson: spend x number of hours a day over a longer period of time on anything, and it will develop naturally. That experience was invaluable due to my tendency of being somewhat of a perfectionist. That often manifests itself in stubbornly sinking my teeth into a project or article and not stopping until it is finished, which leaves me feeling quite hungover the day or days after. Finding out where my talents lie is one thing, but as long as the ghost of perfectionism is still haunting my mind, I continue to identify myself too strongly with my creations, which means that many of them never see the light of day. Therefore this lesson has a great influence on my daily schedule in Chiang Mai, but more about that later.
Receiving instruction from Qu Shifu (Master Qu).
In any case, it was an honour and a pleasure to train under Master Qu and I cannot help but be incredibly grateful to him for all the trainings and lessons he was kind enough to offer. Comparing my flexibility, stability and balance when I started almost a year ago with my current state, it seems like two entirely different people (which is actually true, but we will leave that philosophical discussion aside here). I have never experienced so much conscious pleasure in movement as I do now, which is expressed in one and a half hours of Tai Chi/Qigong practice every day and one and a half hours of wonderful swimming twice a week.
With which we have arrived in Chiang Mai in Northern Thailand. This is my third visit here and feels like home. The atmosphere is super relaxed and I have moved into a lovely cosy guesthouse run by a Thai brother and sister in their mid-60s with whom I drink coffee and have breakfast in the morning after training.
With Kung & Tanya in their guesthouse in Chiang Mai, Thailand
Immediately after arriving, however, I felt a bit lost. I love writing articles for this website and it’s very rewarding, but I also want to do ‘something with movement’, which sounds rather vague. Yet as always: the universe provides! Shortly before my departure from China, Master Qu had already mentioned that Tai Chi could make a nice contribution to my work as a physiotherapist and massage therapist. He recommended that I start making Tai Chi and Qigong tutorials for YouTube. The idea planted itself in my mind, but the conviction wasn’t quite there yet. Until an old friend of mine, a digital nomad whom I had met eight years ago here in Chiang Mai, told me exactly the same thing as Master Qu: start making Tai Chi tutorials for YouTube. Then the penny immediately dropped because some time ago I had already experienced that as soon as two people give me the same tip in quick succession, it benefits both me and my environment to act upon it.
So I took my friends advice to heart and began researching other content creators who make similar videos and took the first steps towards creating a plan. At the same time, the ghost of perfectionism started to loom, so the question became: how are we going to keep it at bay? The answer was found in the daily schedule of the Kung Fu school in China. I used that as a model to (continue to) develop two projects: Creating, producing and publishing Tai Chi / Qigong tutorials and continuing to write articles for this website.
The five workdays begin at 6 am with one and a half hours of Tai Chi/Qigong training. Then there’s breakfast, shower and then three hours are spend on project 1. Subsequently one hour for lunch and then another three hours are spend on project 2 (with a half hour break in both 3,5-hour sessions). During the days off there’s one and a half hours of swimming and time to do groceries, laundry, etc.
The fixed timeslots ensure that I am no longer exclusively occupied with the goal, but that the emphasis is much more on the process in the here-and-now. This provides an incredible amount of peace in both body and mind and gives the creative juices a boost like I have never experienced before. The realization that each goal is only a point of reference that serves as a tool to be able to keep the focus in the here and now on wonderfully fascinating processes, feels nothing less than liberating.
What I hope to convey to you, dear reader, is that you are also completely free to discover where your unique talents lie. Discover which circumstances you believe to be necessary in order to find your talents and surround yourself with them, because only by testing will you find out whether those circumstances really work for you. Have you found them and discovered one or more talents that give you energy? Then spend at least an hour (or more) on that every day.
After all we are learning organisms and the more time we spend on something, the better we become at it. That applies to Tai Chi, writing, cooking, but also to worrying, for example. By practicing one or more activities that give you energy and in surroundings and with people that give you energy, you literally become a freer and happier person.
Jolly greetings,
Erik Stout
Picture overview of eleven months Tai Chi training in China
