One of the things I notice when I teach piano to adults is
how people get in the way of their learning.
People will say they’ve wanted to learn piano for years and it’s a dream
come true to be starting lessons, but all too often they stop because it’s ‘too
difficult’.
I had a guy I taught for a few weeks. He was incredibly keen and actually quite talented,
but had never had formal lessons and couldn’t read music. He could learn complex pieces by ear, but his
technique needed work and he was missing details because he couldn’t read the
score. He had a lovely piano and was
retired so he had lots of time to practice and for a few weeks he made good
progress. He had to start learning to
read music at the beginning so there was a huge gulf between what he was reading
and what he was playing, and he found this demoralising. Although I reassured him every week that he
was progressing, and even though HE could see he was progressing, he kept on
insisting that it was too difficult and that he would never be able to read the
scores to what he was playing. After a
couple of months he stopped having lessons.
Almost every adult I’ve taught has been like this to some
extent. They can’t accept where they are
in the learning process and always want to be a few steps ahead, thinking
they’ll be happier there. When they get
there, they want to be somewhere else again.
Basically, most of my adult learners have been stuck in a thought
pattern that says ‘I cannot do this’.
This conflicts with their desire to learn, and creates an internal
battle between the negative thought processes and the person’s goal.
I’m mentioning this because it is exactly how I’ve been feeling
about learning tai chi. In fact, reading
what I just wrote, I realise I have described myself perfectly! And it’s only in the last couple of weeks
that I’ve become aware just how damaging this chain of thought is. That negative thought process is
insidious. It pads around your mind so
quietly that you don’t notice it’s there.
You don’t realise that you’re spending all day telling yourself that
this is no good, that you can’t do it, that your body can’t manifest what
someone else’s can.
Fighting yourself like that is draining and depressing. I’ve often finished a training session
feeling like shit. I hadn’t realised
before I came to Chen Jia Gou how inflexible my hips are. I was shocked and constantly fought against
my body’s limits. I started to get
pains; not healthy muscle-working-hard pains, but really unpleasant pain that
felt like bits of string in my back and down my legs were being pulled out of
place. In particular, practicing
silk-reeling was, if not quite agonising, seriously painful after twenty
minutes or so, and I’d have to ease myself into the posture bit by bit. Practicing the form brought up a lot of
anger, mostly directed at my perceived lack of strength and capability. It’s true to say that for a while the only
part of the practice I was really enjoying was the Nei Gung breathing. Stand still and breathe! I can do that!
Finally something happened which caused a shift. Last Sunday, Yan Fei bounced over with a
beaming smile and asked if I wanted to go for a run to ‘the mountain’. As it was a sunny morning, I thought that a
little jog around the countryside might be nice. And, Henan being as flat as a pancake, I was
intrigued by where the mountain could be as I hadn’t seen even a small mound
around Chen Jia Gou. So, off we all
went. We got as far as the aqueduct.
‘Okay!’ Said Yan Fei. ‘Let’s go!’
Then I understood that the ‘mountain’ was just the very
steep concrete slopes of the aqueduct, and that was what we were going to run
up. And down. And up again.
I remember my exact thought. It
was ‘you are fucking joking!’, but I didn’t have a choice. Tin Tin launched himself off the top,
backwards, while Yan Fei raced down STILL smiling! I hauled myself up and down, telling myself
that this was impossible and I’d never be able to do it.
When we went again on Tuesday, I practiced something I’d learnt
on a shamanism course: imagine you’re
being pulled up by a rope of energy around your tummy (also good for cycling
against a strong wind). Suddenly it wasn’t
so hard! The second I stopped bombarding
myself with negativity, the task became doable, and almost enjoyable.
That effected a change in my whole mental outlook about my
practice. I started consciously being
nice to my body, thanking it for all the work it was doing, and keeping an eye
on my train of thought so I could catch negative thoughts as they arose, which
is a very hard thing to do! However, ten
days later I feel a lot better about what I’m doing and how I’m doing it. This is a lesson which goes far beyond tai
chi and out into other aspects of life.
Lessons like these are a good reason for learning tai chi, or anything
else which enables you to learn how to observe your own mind.
There’s a lack of new photos on this blog. This is because I have been lazy! I’m waiting for a sunny day to take some
pictures and will upload them as soon as I can.
