What it Means to be Strong

My daughter was studying for a Physics test, and I was helping her prepare for it.  One concept was equilibrium.  She demonstrated by pushing her hand down on the kitchen table and explaining that the force of the table pushing up against her hand equaled the force she was exerting.  So the net force was zero.

In effect, the table was strong enough to withstand her force.

It wasn't part of her study, but I explained that Albert Einstein assumed an inertial frame of reference in his Theory of Special Relativity.  That is, objects moved at constant speed, meaning that no force was acting on them to alter that speed or change their direction.

In one essential respect, the Theory of Special Relativity is an abstraction.  I argued that in reality there are actually a myriad of forces acting on any object and even with each other.  Our world, in other words, is a non-inertial frame of reference.  Isaac Newton posited this as one physical law:  An object in motion will go on to infinity, in a perfectly straight line, if no force acts on it.  Again, that's not our reality, as no such object can do that.

So what does it mean to be strong, and how does T'ai Chi come into the picture?

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Simply being strong means having enough force to withstand and overcome any sort of force we face, which we have to withstand and overcome.  It also means that if we don't have sufficient force in our reservoir, we work at getting more, building it, or engaging others' reservoir.

We may tap a universal source of energy, which isn't as esoteric as it may sound to some of us.  Recall the last time you were out on a sunny or windy day.  Depending on the temperature, that sunshine lifts our spirit, energizes our body, and prompts us to play a game, walk the dog, or simply just cavort in ways that children do.  That wind rushing on our face, too, can be such a refreshing thing that we can skip the coffee to wake us up or boost our alertness during a lunch break and launch us into a productive afternoon.

T'ai Chi is a (w)holistic exercise:  It's a complete workout for the body, the mind, and the spirit.

Physical strength

As all practitioners know, T'ai Chi is harder than it looks.  Yes, we must be wholly relaxed, and move gently and slowly.  But it requires, and therefore builds, strength in the legs - hips, knees, ankles and feet - in order to execute movements.

I remember a good friend from a long time ago.  He was a skilled Aikidoist, and he was very muscular and agile.  I had been practicing T'ai Chi for just a year, when he led us through a Qigong exercise.  His legs were shaking so much from the exertion, before the end of it, that he had to pause for a moment and loosen the tension out.  I remember being surprised to see someone so obviously strong to have physical difficulty with a form that seemed so easy to me.

That was an early lesson in how T'ai Chi can be deceptively easy and simple to do and at the same time be so powerful at building our body.

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Psychological strength

I was very shy and reserved through my childhood and adolescent years.  I was playful and friendly, but in the classroom and in social situations I was pretty hesitant to raise my hand and speak up.  In the year or two before I discovered T'ai Chi, I worked at improving myself via self-help books and tapes.  But it was T'ai Chi mainly that gave me strength of mind.

In Dubai, for example, there is a wealth of expatriots working at various companies.  One colleague had a great sense of humor, and he was fun and friendly in casual conversation.  But in business meetings, he can be quite outspoken, emotional and even offensive.  He sometimes came across as bullying or condescending, for example.  I don't argue for the sake of arguing, but one time I needed to confront him.  (Actually it was a number of times.)

You see, he's a British senior-manager, and a number of our colleagues were too polite or afraid to respond to him firmly.  But when he deserved to be confronted, I was not hesitant to step in.  He and I have had heated exchanges, for instance, in a meeting with the CEO, who clearly took it all in stride.

That's T'ai Chi having built up my mind over years of study and practice.

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Spiritual strength

My classmates and I grasped the Universal early on as a reservoir of infinite energy and strength.  We studied the Tao Te Ching, the well-known philosophical treatise by Lao Tzu, and learned about the way of nature and the way of virtue.  We practiced T'ai Chi to be on the Tao.

We came to appreciate that there were spiritual forces, not just physical, at play in the world and that we needed to build up a different sort of strength to withstand or overcome any noxious forces.  Call it fortitude, or moxie, or belief.  We learned and developed it in T'ai Chi.     

In T'ai Chi, we work at having whatever force we needed - physical, psychological and spiritual - to withstand and overcome negative forces.

Listen to the Wisdom in your Body

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The Skill of Self-Confidence, by Ivan Joseph

This is really an awesome talk by Ivan Joseph, Athletic Director and varsity soccer coach at Ryerson University.  He's full of spirit, humor and wisdom around building self-confidence.  The fact that he views it as a skill, as opposed to attitude or belief, makes it something that we can all acquire and develop.

Joseph doesn't talk about T'ai Chi, but how does T'ai Chi play into what he talks about?

• Repetition, repetition, repetition.  T'ai Chi is not school, which has a beginning and then you graduate.  It goes on.  In this respect, study and practice, when done daily in small, manageable sessions over years, allow you to feel confidence that you can learn it, grasp it, and perform it.
• Patience and persistence.  The slow movements of T'ai Chi require us to take things in a more relaxed, reflective fashion.  It teaches us not to hurry, and simply to keep going.  It is a genuinely pleasant exercise, so it can be fairly easy to keep doing and thus persist in.
• Positive reframe.  In T'ai Chi, we are gentle, we are kind, and we are encouraging.  We look at people and things in a positive vein.  Joseph takes a humorous turn, when he chooses to interpret rejections from a lady he's courting (who would eventually become his wife) as positive feedback.

Take Small Steps, Build Confidence Gradually

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Take small steps, show that you can do something. Confidence gradually builds up from these.

From Self-Confidence, to Great Undertakings

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What it Means to be Confident

Being confident can mean different things for people.  So you might consider what I write about, and how I implicitly define it, but I encourage you to reflect on confidence and arrive at your own meaning.

Yours truly

My main sport is road cycling.  I love the rush of the wind against my face, and I love the camaraderie and competitiveness of riding with friends.  When I lived in Dubai, it was a great community that rode early Friday mornings, for 80 - 120 kilometers, and returned for breakfast together.  

For a long while, I'd  have terrific training sessions during the week, but inevitably hit the wall during those Friday morning rides.  I'd straggle back with a couple of other riders who were dropped, too.  I studied my body, and altered several things in my training and preparations. 

To make a long story short, I was now consistently riding with the lead group and occasionally mixing it up with the guys on sprints.   

I also made mental adjustments, one of which was this:  I imagined that I was the best rider in the lot and believed that I could smoke anyone of the others with my cycling strength and speed.  In reality, of course, I was not the best, because there were very fast riders among us.  

But what I imagined and believed were hallmarks of the confidence I built.  For a long time, I was very frustrated with hitting the wall and getting dropped, but I proved that I could figure things out and make effective changes.  I was already pretty strong and fast, but my improved performance was proof positive that I could be stronger and faster.

This confidence was a positive vicious cycle, as it actually helped me to ride even better.  The better I rode, the more confident I became.  

I knew I could do better, and I did.  Confidence was in my mind (belief), my spirit (purpose), and my body (muscles).          

Where does T'ai Chi come into the picture?  

I have been studying and practicing it since 1978.  I am energetic by nature and therefore engage in many activities, and T'ai Chi is the underpinning to everything I do.  For example, it teaches me how to be aware of what is going on outside of me and inside of me.

It encourages me to follow the Tao, the way of nature. In this regard, I realized I was pushing my training way too much. T'ai Chi helped me to ease up, reflect more, and make adjustments.  Practically speaking, the way of nature meant I had a strong body that also had limits. T'ai Chi prompted me to train, prepare and ride within that strength and those limits, and I realized there was quite a reservoir inside me.

Finally, sitting in meditation alone wasn't going to keep me fit.  T'ai Chi was a perfect activity for me as it kept me calm and rooted, while building up my body, too.  Over time I could do more things physically, and the more I could do, the more confident I became that I could keep doing those things.  And more.   

One World, One Breath

In 1999 a global event was born that has now expanded to hundreds of cities in over 70 nations, a global family of personal and global healing health education events held every year... 

World T'ai Chi & Qigong Day... coordinates a global health education effort to expand the use of T'ai Chi and Qigong into society on many levels: healthcare, corporate wellness, prison and drug rehabilitation, public education, senior care, and much more. 

The free Medical Research Library at www.WorldTaiChiDay.org provides evidence of how these mind-body tools can save global society trillions of dollars annually in future health costs. 

You'll find a global T'ai Chi and Qigong teacher directory... [with] local contact information. 

You'll also find free online lessons, learning and teaching tips, and much more. 

The motto of the global event is "One World ... One Breath." 

Qigong means "breathing exercise in Chinese.

Qigong - or Chi Kung - basically means the cultivation, development or study of our life energy.  Some practitioners focus on this.  T'ai Chi is the broader, more elaborate practice, which also includes Qigong.  Qigong may very well look like T'ai Chi, because it relies on proper movement, posture and breathing.  For the most part, they're the same.  But I believe it's good to know how they are different and related.

Moreover, chi is sometimes spoken of as breath, which it is, as part of our broader life energy.

That said, I cannot say enough about how good this annual, worldwide event is.