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.

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" :-)

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" :-)

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?