The Tao of the Maze: Taiji (Tai Chi) Philosophy, Somatic Loops, and Navigating Late-Diagnosed Burnout

I've never really got on with Tai Chi and Taoist practices, I don't know why, but they make me feel like an overcoat on a wheelbarrow, but I respect those who get on with it. My ex husband was into Tai Chi and Aikido too, his Tai Chi teacher told him that everybody has a martial arts style that relates to the elements. How do you feel about this? 

I know from my own practice that I get on better with yoga and that my elemental style is water, as Monty Python would have it, I'm a watery bint, I'm a water tiger in Chinese astrology and in my Western chart I'm nearly all water, I'm still waiting for my Indian chart to be translated and interpreted.

One strange thing I've noticed is how my body seemed to desicate over the weeks of drought, I was properly hydrated and everything, but now it's started raining again I feel as thugh my internal aquifers are starting to refill.

I think being with and in our element is an overlooked part of who we are and how we operate, physically, mentally and spiritually.

Maybe something that replicates the actions of spraying something with WD40?

In the west we only have four elements, earth, air, fire and water, we don't have wood and althgough I love wood I find it a bit confusing as an element.

Another difference I've noticed and something I think needs discussion and work is how different the elements and directions are from east to west and the reasons for them.

East, in the western system is air, signifying clear thought, think of an esterly wind blowing in, cold and clear, the sort of lazy wiind that can't be bothered to around you, but has to go thtrough you, its cuts like a knife.

South is fire, our hot summer winds. It brings passion to our lives and can be used as an inspiration and a driver

West is water, to our west is our largest body of water, the Atlantic, it brings rain and winds. It's healing, its a different kind of passion, more the passion of lovers than the zeal to achieve something, it's softer and more encompassing.

North is earth, the place of grounding, it's steadfast, holding out against the storm, hunkering down, preparing for a stage of active inaction, little grows but we prepare the ground and lay solid foundations.

I've seen variations of the Chinese elements with some saying south is water, which makes sense as the largest body of water to China is the South China Sea. We don't have the idea of wood holding the centre as a fifth element.

Maybe something that replicates the actions of spraying something with WD40?

In the west we only have four elements, earth, air, fire and water, we don't have wood and althgough I love wood I find it a bit confusing as an element.

Another difference I've noticed and something I think needs discussion and work is how different the elements and directions are from east to west and the reasons for them.

East, in the western system is air, signifying clear thought, think of an esterly wind blowing in, cold and clear, the sort of lazy wiind that can't be bothered to around you, but has to go thtrough you, its cuts like a knife.

South is fire, our hot summer winds. It brings passion to our lives and can be used as an inspiration and a driver

West is water, to our west is our largest body of water, the Atlantic, it brings rain and winds. It's healing, its a different kind of passion, more the passion of lovers than the zeal to achieve something, it's softer and more encompassing.

North is earth, the place of grounding, it's steadfast, holding out against the storm, hunkering down, preparing for a stage of active inaction, little grows but we prepare the ground and lay solid foundations.

I've seen variations of the Chinese elements with some saying south is water, which makes sense as the largest body of water to China is the South China Sea. We don't have the idea of wood holding the centre as a fifth element.

TheCatWoman said:

Having to wear a bra is pants!

hehehe

that lower centre of gravity appearance perhaps is that they may be more "grounded" - I don't think of it necessarily being anatomical differences - maybe more about how they   "inhabit" their body = a little game to try if you fancy one?  if you're seated and can manage the mental gymnastics - try thinking about inside your head and then whilst doing so look around you,  then try thinking about the inside of the sort of "empty" bowl of your pelvis and look around you - i'd be really interested if you can notice any difference about how your movements might differ with your "mind in different places" :-)  lots of fighting cocks in martial arts - hehe lots of self inflicted injuries throughout humanity

Having to wear a bra is pants! No matter how supportive.

I did know that about Winchung kung fu, something that a lot of practitioners like to forget, or have never learned. Many like to try and make it more macho to compensate.

One of the things I've noticed is that South East Asian women seem to not be as "busty", as many Western women, I've noticed that South East Asian walk differently, like they're either more aware of or have a lower centre of gravity to most Westerners., their general body shape seems "flatter" than Europeans. I dont' know, its something I've been noticing for years and have tried talking about to martial artists and sports people and trainers and they never seem to understand what I'm talking about.

I remember my friend taking her son to get his next Tai kwondo belt, she said all the boys of his age looked like fighting cocks as they were all doing jump kicks!

I think a lot of my problems with coordination and movement are to do with dyspraxia and sequence dyslexia, if I get a sequence in martial arts muddled I'm more likely to puch myself in the face than anyone else!

Yep, completely understand the dance like and moving aspect of it- it took me a few years to be able to get he hang of it being an "internal" art rather than an external one ( I was a taekwondo practitioner before getting into taiji more deeply) .  When i eventually twigged the "internal part more deeply and slowed down my high speed  practice down then it started to fall into place for me. 

Jump kicks and things are in my experience often brought into martial arts practice far too early in most peoples journeys - partly because classes are set up and run in such a way that all standards and capabilities are treated for one group of instruction and practice and also to tailor for the demand of people who want to "run before they can walk".  Personal experience being that getting the hang of being able to stand up and balance is often overlooked and rushed past because the assumption is that people can do it well enough to move on!

Never had the problem of big boobs personally :-)  But did get larroped by a senior grade lady once for accidentally punching her in one of them!  

From a practical point of view, as I understand it, Wing Chung gungfu was developed specifically for and by women - taking into account the practical difficulties of "chambering" punches at the hip and having to negotiate getting past boob.  The hands are brought higher and closer to the centre - line in it.  Likewise it takes into into account wider hips for standing and moving postures.  I also believe "crane style" has a more feminine biomechanic too perhaps.  I've been exploring recently how the internal " energy flow" for taiji has these differences accounted for in practice - essentially the energetics of some of the more subtle enrgiy fields run with the opposite spin for women and men.  A tricky thing when many of the classes are run by men or by women who have had their training passed down to them by men who maybe haven't understood the really quite substantial differences.  (as an aside the number of lady footballers  who have serious knee injuries is really bad - and I suspect many of these could be resolved if the training and practice techniques weren't so directly copied from the male game...)

Sorry apart from agreeing with you that clothing ranges aren't made to fit the whole range of real people please 'scuse me by maybe making light and sharing an updated old joke that i hope might make you laugh:  "I believe that years ago playtex, developed 3 major bra ranges - now being developed for male intimate anatomy too -  1 The political agitator - for making mountains out of molehills 2 The dictatorship - for the suppression of the masses   and 3 The  social support - for the uplift of the fallen"

Modesty dictates that I can't tell you which number (or combination thereof) that I'm wearing at the moment... :-)

Best Wishes 

I think maybe the reason I don't get on with it is because its dance like and moving, yoga's more stationary and I'm terribly uncoordinated, there are certain things I can't do in martial arts, like some of the jump kicks and stuff, it's like a connection between my body and brain is broken. I can see in my mind what I need/want to do, but my body can't do it.

I always had problems with form too, my ex husband was always going on about it and that I wasn't doing it properly, I eventually realised my boobs were to big and got in the way and I have narrow shoulders too. People, particularly male people, can never appreciate how much big boobs get in the way, how little choice women have about the size of them, and it's not as simple as getting the right sports bra, I can't even find one in my size?

I completely understand that it's sometimes tricky to be "objective" about peoples lives - lot of change often means lots of misery for the many and a fine time for the few - at least to start with...

I don't know if such a thing as a "happiness index" can ever be reliably be applied to people in whatever age.  We are led to believe the cultural of vector of hierachy often says that those "at the top"are happer - but then they seem to spend all their time literally backstabbing and the more people have the have the less they seem to be able to enjoy sharing often.

TheCatWoman said:

Do you feel the practice of TaiChi is like a dance?

Personally - it can be.  We and all of the universe are dancing one way or another all the time I reckon.   To start with definately yes - "learning the moves and seeing them as "external" actions to copy  Then a big chunk of working out what was going on " internally" in my body to fulfill the external functional "dance" - like learning what lever or cog to work on internally to get a desired external result.  Then moved on to what was going on internally to fulfill an internal function in the body - igiess maybe like learning to identify with the emotion that might go into the dance .  These days more a sense of just kind of living it  with the inside and the outside being less obvious if that makes sense.  Less line dance and more letting go and just going with the music in me and the music outside if that makes sense?  The formal tai chi form is as i see it  a strategy to learning how to do something by not doing something - hehe that's good because I have kind off banned myself from actively doing "the form" pretty much these days  (which is not to say that it doesn't come out - like the other day when someone was annoying me by banging on my post big meal belly and i found I had gentle but firmly sunk my knuckles about 2 inches into their belly!  In the end i just kind of figure that learnng taiji was about it being just another mask to take off!  But one that when taken off had left me in a shape to be a lot more myself than i ever was before - if that makes sense!!!  To quote mark Bolan tho' " I love to boogey" :-)

We've been a mixed population for thousands of years, so has most of Europe and the rest of the world too for that matter, Ireland's an even smaller island and the Highlands of Scotland are quite small, but have retained thier traditions.

I wonder if the Irish and Scots, hung on to their traditions because they had the English to blame for things like the clearances, famines, plantations etc. The English have been encouraged to forget and quite successfully so, by governments and the ruling classes in general, that so many poor rural tennant farmers were cleared from the land too and used to fuel the industrial revolution. We're taught such a glossy spin on the effects it would have had on those newly moved to towns and cities, we're shown progress, new technology and products, the ability to travel quickly and safely. All great, but, what was life really like when there was no real sanitation and to many people sharing a common well? Thousands of lives lost to cholera and typhiod, plus the many who were killed in industrial accidents and the effects of things like breathing in cotton and wool fibres. 

Fed on the crumbs of empire, displaced from homes and families and the land that had fed and healed them, its no wonder in some ways the English lost their folk heritage, maybe it didn't happen in other places because they industrialised later and at maybe a more managable pace to us? 

There are still some like the Cheese Race, the earliest thats recorded is 1838, according to wikipedia. The history of Morris Dancing is a bit vague, but somewhere between C1450 and the reign of Henry VII some 25 years later are among the earliest references to it, although many think its much older.

Sorry went off on a bit of a hobby horse there, (another Morris character), social injustice always get to me, especially when its sold as glory.

Do you feel the practice of TaiChi is like a dance?

Can you imagine the English without the ministry of silly walks tho' TheCatWoman hehehe i think English folk tradition is so very hard to pin down because the "English" are so, so culturally mixed - living on an island means so many things and people come and go - and so do the cultures - personally i think it's sad - tho' just like in America when someone wandered around recording folk music and songs they're still here maybe - Cornish sea shanties?  counting sheep with a special number set,  hehe in Norfolk where I hail from ladybirds were called "bishybarnybees"  - I've made sure my kids know aht they're called in that respect - funny in it - I chatted the other day to some other norfolk "dumpling" introduced to me on the phone who I'd  never met before in "broad norfolk" - an we ha a rite ole larf - hmmmm... and I felt more "authentic"! So I guess maybe why people in England feel a bit unsure about national or even local traits and traditions is because they're "masking" them maybe?

I've never heard of that Phased and I've studied a lot of Celtic stuff, I'd be interested to learn more?

I don't feel grief about the potential loss of Western somatic traditions, I just wonder if we had them, if we did how come they were lost?

It's quite possible that we never had them, it always amazes me how many things peoples didn't do even though they could, like drawing in perspective, theres a big debate thats been going on for ages about it. Most medieval "art" we see is more like a graphic novel than what we'd call art, but is the problem with them or us?

I suppose one example of a martial tradition thats been lost is quarter staff fighting, it would seem to have it roots in spear fighting, spears being far more commonly used in battle than expensive swords. it seems that first the Romans banned spears, but allowed staffs for defence, more from wild animals that humans, but it's basically the same skill and then the disarmament after 1066.

Another surprising thing is how "modern" so many of our folk traditions are, Morris Dancing for example is actually "Moorish Dancing" and came to Britain after the Crusades. Others are Victorian creations or recreations of what they though ought to have happened, much like the way they "Gothic'd" up existing Gothic buildings to make them more in keeping with how they imagined they would of been.

There are some traditions though that I do think are far older or have been labled as Morris Dancing etc, I've learned a tiny bit about Black Morris traditions and thats were things do get old, obsecure and murky and I believe more shamanic. The blacked up faces of the dancers, remind me of Voodoo Obee make-up where faces are whitened, they serve the same purpose of making the facial features both stand out and recede.

Another wondering of mine, is why are the English so embarassed of thier folk traditions? Scots and Irish love their music and dancing, the English will run a mile from anything that sounds like folk music and I don't know if theres English folk dancing. The Welsh have Eisteddfod's, which are a later creation but one that gaining popularity for Welsh music, song and poetry. It does seem to be peculuiarly English too, can you imagine the Spanish without Flamenco, the Germans with Oompah bands, the French without competions over who can make the best Cassoulet?

TheCatWoman said:

Metal is something we dont' see in Western elemental systems

Celtic framework, where the five elements are Earth, Water, Fire, Air, and Aether (the space or void that holds them)

.:-)  I think that answers that question - best wishes

Phased said:

Celtic god Cernunnos. Intriguingly, he isn't sitting on a throne; he is seated flat on the ground in a perfect, advanced yogic lotus position

hehe - or maybe it just illustrates that they didn't have chairs in those days!  gawd i do go off on one some times...

I love that feeling of Being, of feeling everything moving through and around me.

I wouldn't say that the elements are static as such in the Western system, but their very nature they're moving.

I wish we had a tradition of movement such as TaiCHi or Yoga, I'm sure we must have done at one time, but when and how it was lost I don't know.

TheCatWoman said:

Are there other interpretations in China of what the elements relate too? I was thinking in particular of Feng Shui.

I shall sit with your explainations of the elements for a while, its not something that sits naturally with me, although I get what you mean about the pole star. Metal is something we dont' see in Western elemental systems as well as wood, although I guess you could see north as wood and stone.

Are there other interpretations in China of what the elements relate too? I was thinking in particular of Feng Shui.

I think we'd probably both get in trouble on here if we said what we really think about things like the potato famine, the clearances and a lot of other things.

yep i'm really up for that discussion TheCatWoman In five element theory from Taoism : West is metal, North is water, east is wood, south is fire and the centre is earth.  The journey of a thousand miles begins underneath one's feet, it is said,  (hehe by some old person...)  that is to say the centre or the Earth and maybe that's where we have different models to talk about.  Here's a kindof "boiled down" Taoist take on it

Yep, it makes sense that peoples' biology reflects the environment they developed in over generations - i save the seeds from plants I've grown in my garden and allotment and they seem to do better than ones brought in - makes sense that the genetics leans towards adaptation for what the soil etc is like after a few iterations.  Moving stuff around becomes bit of a problem in this context - take potatoes for example - the really crazy thing is that Ireland a that time was exporting vast amounts of other grub - grain etc. but the people growing it only had potato and it was seen as a good way of clearing away such poor genetic stock for such people to starve.  (oh don't get me started on exploitation of the working class....) 

Have you come across epigenetics? According to AI, my love of water, the west and needing to live on the western seaboard, preferably the north western part, my love of the watery almost misty light and dislike of the south east with its stronger sun and harsher light, comes from epigenetics. Apparently its all linked to my 4 times gr grandparents who came from Western Ireland during the potato famine, I don't know about epigenetics, I feel it something I've just scratched the surface of and would love to learn more and am quite prepared to accept that the AI explaination is rubbish.