Stopping and Starting

Recently I've noticed that many of my tai chi students are lacking a bit of "flow" in their movements. When enduring painful low stances to develop strong legs and having focused breathing to relax the torso, we often forget that the sequence of movements we call "form practice" is intended to be done continuously and without even the slightest pause. I spent this past week thinking about the importance of this uninterrupted flow, and decided it has three primary highlights: body, energy and mind.

The body must move without interruption in any martial encounter, therefore we cannot simply practice one isolated movement well and disconnect to see what happens; an opponent will seize that opportunity to attack us. From an energetic point of view, our life force, or qi, flows through our body like an army obeying the commands of a general called yi, our intention. When that intention changes from movement to a pause, the energy flowing through our body stops too. It is rather like having the general yelling for the army to charge, and then a moment later crying "HALT!" The soldiers were about to conquer a critical hill or push through an obstruction in our energetic system--alleviate a headache, say, or bring much-needed circulation to an inflamed joint, but with the confusing command the maneuver fails, the energy recedes, and the benefit is lost.

It is in the training of the mind, however, that constant movement does the most good. Moving without stopping requires the mind to remain present and on task. Developing this ability deepens our ability with any task that requires focus and concentration, and certainly makes us better meditators. This dimension of tai chi is so important that it is definitional; when your mind wanders you are not doing tai chi. The practice returns when your attention resumes.

What about outside of tai chi? Staying focused without interruption is ever more difficult in our speed-and-greed world, ever more challenging when we are inundated by stimuli ranging from odors and noise and media bombardment to the unnatural pace of everyday life in the high-tech age. There are cycles to all things--times to stop and times to start, times to persist and times to leave off. Still, learning to beat back all comers and remove yourself from the fray can be a fine and powerful therapy for everything from high blood pressure to anxiety to digestive disorders and more.