I don’t have anything profound to say - just that I appreciate your posts so much, they always introduce me to new and inspiring ways of looking at things - thank you!
Hey Ashley, looking forward to seeing you in Blighty at some point. A revolving door is possibly the one place where non-taichi folks will have experienced that uncanny feeling of 'Hey, but I am now going the exact opposite direction than I had intended!' Which of course is the main feeling for anyone starting pushing hands study with Mark... or indeed after 20yrs...
For myself the older I get the more it feels like the path is narrow. That is, that often there is only one right way. Which is paradoxically freeing. It is to do with the Muse, as you say: craft is like an animal that requires the right conditions. So there is no choice
As one of the men who found you through looking up Tao and substack I would say that, in my opinion, you follow it beautifully. I'm really happy to have found your writing, it has provided me with some great insights. So thank you for your writing and I look forward to what is to come.
This one feels very important, Caroline. I've been coming round increasingly to the notion that we might remember how to be in relationship with nonhumans (as you say, the Earth) again by practicing with other humans. Said another way: how we are with them will be no different than how we are with one another. And your descriptions of practicing staying in the dynamic tension of relationship, or finding another place to stand (a brilliant image that changes the frame on the current trend toward disposability) seem to offer a way into the work that also denies the seduction of easy solutionism. Well written, and thank you. With care, Adam
Thank you Adam. One of the reasons my teacher Mark Raudva's approach is still central to my own way is the applicability of all the so-called physical lessons to almost every sphere of life and to my relations with other life forms. I have been meaning to write about this particular aspect for years. Just this morning, while doing the simplest of T'ai Chi practice in a new spot about 100 metres from here, I was working on 'stepping as though on flowers', a traditional instruction that asks us to tread lightly during the form, and not to trample the earth beneath our feet in some misplaced search for perfection. So that if there were a bee there, we could feel it, and place our foot elsewhere. I think I first heard this instruction from Kajedo Wanderer, my second T'ai Chi teacher, about 35 years ago! And yet today, as 'invasive' grey squirrels stashed acorns in front of me, and chased each other around the oak trunks, it finally settled in my heart, and in my feet.
If no one is disposable, human or otherwise, (including all our inner parts), then it makes us move differently in the world, eh? Great to talk with you, Adam.
Well said. I'm reading Gordon White's Ani.mystic, and his pushback on the invasive designation--and the state of mind and heart it betrays--is stunning. In your story here, it sounds to me like you are describing a practice of home-making, a disciplined response to a displaced time, it seems to me. The pleasure of the conversation is mutual. With care, Adam
Ani.mystic is high up on my to-read list, but I don't currently have funds for book-buying, so I am reading the 'books recently given to me' pile instead. Looking forward to getting it soon as autumn's work is over.
Thanks Peco. It is instructive, though. I learn a lot. Like going to a big push hands event like the annual one in Hannover - noticing how much energy some people put into trying to win at all costs. And how it bends them out of shape.
I received this originally as a free article and responded by email with a question. Caroline responded so thoughtfully and gifted me with a complimentary subscription so I could comment online. Thank you for your kindness and for sharing your thoughts with all of us! Below is the question I asked:
In one paragraph, it says sacrificing principles by standing your ground and using softness was incorrect. But in the next paragraph, it says to stand your ground using softness. This seems contradictory - what am I missing?
Dear Marianne, thankyou for this, it's a good question, and in life it is sometimes also unclear. This softness of which I speak is so many things.
Some of the times when I think I have managed to practice softness, and yet not compromise my true principles, nor lose my integrity, might not have looked like much from the outside, but I have known it from the inside. For instance, sometimes it has meant staying silent, rather than forcing my opinion into a situation. At other times, it has meant putting down my desire to get something, most usually, to win. A few times it has meant quietly stating something I know to be true, and then not forcing the point. In one of the current personal 'push hands' that is ongoing, a dear friend and I have different interpretations about to how to be of good in the world.
The softness that my teachers speak of, and that I am barely able to describe, is like a blessing, when we feel it in others. Perhaps you have felt it when you have gone to see a busy friend, with some heaviness in your heart that you need to share. Then as you begin to talk, your friend pays attention in such a loving, open, generous way, that your heart spills out of you, and all yours cares with it, and by the end of telling it, your heart is back inside you, and so much lighter; you feel completely understood. They have not tried to fix you (which would mean them 'leaning out of themself' and 'losing their integrity' by interfering, or saying they knew what to do).
It is like the grace described in the prayer of St Francis of Assisi; 'Make me a channel of your peace' and 'seek to understand rather than be understood'. When we practice this softness, we no not have to condone or agree with what we are engaging with, but we do not shrink away, we stay in connection, if we can. Indeed, it is a measure of our depth of practice that we can stay in connection with more and more difficulty, rather than need to run away, condemn, fight or banish something (whether in ourselves or others).
I hope this goes a little way to helping explain softness. Sometimes, softness is like a huge sigh, and the shoulders drop, and we just carry on, in the moment. It seems so little, but it is huge in its effects.
I don’t have anything profound to say - just that I appreciate your posts so much, they always introduce me to new and inspiring ways of looking at things - thank you!
Thank you Kate.
Hello Caro.
Hope your cold is departing.
Bizarre - and literally ridiculous - for anyone to call anyone else an “awful Daoist” !
I feel the same about the muse!
My tai chi teacher Keith Good often uses the revolving door metaphor in relation to push hands and frame development.
Hey Ashley, looking forward to seeing you in Blighty at some point. A revolving door is possibly the one place where non-taichi folks will have experienced that uncanny feeling of 'Hey, but I am now going the exact opposite direction than I had intended!' Which of course is the main feeling for anyone starting pushing hands study with Mark... or indeed after 20yrs...
My hair stood up again! Good luck with whatever it is you are softly standing with
For myself the older I get the more it feels like the path is narrow. That is, that often there is only one right way. Which is paradoxically freeing. It is to do with the Muse, as you say: craft is like an animal that requires the right conditions. So there is no choice
'Craft is like an animal that needs it own conditions.' Exactly this; great phrase.
Yes indeed, those gnomic ponderings were the perfect footpath for further wanderings. Thanks once again.
Thank you for this. So helpful to me today. ❤️
As one of the men who found you through looking up Tao and substack I would say that, in my opinion, you follow it beautifully. I'm really happy to have found your writing, it has provided me with some great insights. So thank you for your writing and I look forward to what is to come.
This one feels very important, Caroline. I've been coming round increasingly to the notion that we might remember how to be in relationship with nonhumans (as you say, the Earth) again by practicing with other humans. Said another way: how we are with them will be no different than how we are with one another. And your descriptions of practicing staying in the dynamic tension of relationship, or finding another place to stand (a brilliant image that changes the frame on the current trend toward disposability) seem to offer a way into the work that also denies the seduction of easy solutionism. Well written, and thank you. With care, Adam
Thank you Adam. One of the reasons my teacher Mark Raudva's approach is still central to my own way is the applicability of all the so-called physical lessons to almost every sphere of life and to my relations with other life forms. I have been meaning to write about this particular aspect for years. Just this morning, while doing the simplest of T'ai Chi practice in a new spot about 100 metres from here, I was working on 'stepping as though on flowers', a traditional instruction that asks us to tread lightly during the form, and not to trample the earth beneath our feet in some misplaced search for perfection. So that if there were a bee there, we could feel it, and place our foot elsewhere. I think I first heard this instruction from Kajedo Wanderer, my second T'ai Chi teacher, about 35 years ago! And yet today, as 'invasive' grey squirrels stashed acorns in front of me, and chased each other around the oak trunks, it finally settled in my heart, and in my feet.
If no one is disposable, human or otherwise, (including all our inner parts), then it makes us move differently in the world, eh? Great to talk with you, Adam.
Well said. I'm reading Gordon White's Ani.mystic, and his pushback on the invasive designation--and the state of mind and heart it betrays--is stunning. In your story here, it sounds to me like you are describing a practice of home-making, a disciplined response to a displaced time, it seems to me. The pleasure of the conversation is mutual. With care, Adam
Ani.mystic is high up on my to-read list, but I don't currently have funds for book-buying, so I am reading the 'books recently given to me' pile instead. Looking forward to getting it soon as autumn's work is over.
Thanks for your writing. I wouldn't give much mind to those negative voices. They are way off.
Thanks Peco. It is instructive, though. I learn a lot. Like going to a big push hands event like the annual one in Hannover - noticing how much energy some people put into trying to win at all costs. And how it bends them out of shape.
This is such amazing information and gives me a lot to think about! Thank you so much for sharing it.
I received this originally as a free article and responded by email with a question. Caroline responded so thoughtfully and gifted me with a complimentary subscription so I could comment online. Thank you for your kindness and for sharing your thoughts with all of us! Below is the question I asked:
In one paragraph, it says sacrificing principles by standing your ground and using softness was incorrect. But in the next paragraph, it says to stand your ground using softness. This seems contradictory - what am I missing?
Dear Marianne, thankyou for this, it's a good question, and in life it is sometimes also unclear. This softness of which I speak is so many things.
Some of the times when I think I have managed to practice softness, and yet not compromise my true principles, nor lose my integrity, might not have looked like much from the outside, but I have known it from the inside. For instance, sometimes it has meant staying silent, rather than forcing my opinion into a situation. At other times, it has meant putting down my desire to get something, most usually, to win. A few times it has meant quietly stating something I know to be true, and then not forcing the point. In one of the current personal 'push hands' that is ongoing, a dear friend and I have different interpretations about to how to be of good in the world.
The softness that my teachers speak of, and that I am barely able to describe, is like a blessing, when we feel it in others. Perhaps you have felt it when you have gone to see a busy friend, with some heaviness in your heart that you need to share. Then as you begin to talk, your friend pays attention in such a loving, open, generous way, that your heart spills out of you, and all yours cares with it, and by the end of telling it, your heart is back inside you, and so much lighter; you feel completely understood. They have not tried to fix you (which would mean them 'leaning out of themself' and 'losing their integrity' by interfering, or saying they knew what to do).
It is like the grace described in the prayer of St Francis of Assisi; 'Make me a channel of your peace' and 'seek to understand rather than be understood'. When we practice this softness, we no not have to condone or agree with what we are engaging with, but we do not shrink away, we stay in connection, if we can. Indeed, it is a measure of our depth of practice that we can stay in connection with more and more difficulty, rather than need to run away, condemn, fight or banish something (whether in ourselves or others).
I hope this goes a little way to helping explain softness. Sometimes, softness is like a huge sigh, and the shoulders drop, and we just carry on, in the moment. It seems so little, but it is huge in its effects.