Just watched a video Interview: Josh Waitzkin. He's a nice guy and touches a lot of interesting areas - static vs. dynamic learners - catering to personal learning styles - learning from loss - accepting and learning from all emotions being encountered - analysing random breakthroughs for their technical basis - infinite learning - using someone's strengths against them - creating and taking advantage of micro patterns of behaviour in others - deconstructing and unlearning one's own knowledge and habits - recognising that repeated failures may have a root cause that is manifested both technically and psychologically - beginners mind - less attachment to ego and more focus on the value and struggle of the constant learning process - taking advantage of (as my tai chi school puts it "double weighted") stances in an opponent - about being in the zone blending unconsious and conscious minds - technical prowess integrating into a flow at a higher level.

He was a little abstract throughout but no doubt nails it down a bit more in his book. There is more that he could have emphasised, like the importance of listening. And body posture. He didn't mention relaxation, which is a huge component of my thinking in this area. His mention of yin yang interplay treated "retreat" as a tactical creation of a micro pattern rather than as part of a more postural, positional and Taoist advantage - though no doubt he knows about that stuff.

I'd love to see a video of his push hands sessions to see how much force he actually needs to use, or whether, as we believe in the Cheng man Ching school, that the lightest touch can deflect a thousand ounces.

-Andy
www.atug.com/andytaichi

Internal Technique and old engineers

One thing about the term "internal energy" is that it is a bit mysterious. The term energy as well as the term internal - both combine to befuddle.

Whilst it may take many years to decode this sort of thing by practicing tai chi and having a curious mind, it also makes sense to read Mike Sigmund, who explains some of these concepts in a way that is more like physics, rather than mysticism. Its not a replacement for your own practice, but its a bit more down to earth than your usual learning material.

Mike talks a little more like an internal energy engineer - without actually crossing the line and talking like an regular engineer trying to make the world fit into his old mechanical engineering concepts. There is more than engineering and physics involved - lets call it internal physics :-)

Here is a video example of Mike talking about Internal_Strength, which was emailed to me recently. He goes on a bit with the detailed locks but the core idea of a “ground path” – or some sort of postural structure – whilst being relaxed is at the heart of internal strength as I understand it.
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-490520230360622262

Sharing Knowledge

Doing Tai Chi means you have a body of knowledge that you can share with other Tai Chi practitioners. This has opened up a lot of doors and magic moments.

Just up the road the other day was a family practicing Tai Chi. It was a different style to mine, but still it was Tai Chi.

I respectfully watched (much to their astonishment, as they were Asian and I am a "gwailo" westerner). Then I did my form - again to their astonishment. I could hear the father occasionally commenting on something.

Later as we talked (the daughter translating for the father) we swapped a few ideas. The daughter was the more talkative. What is the difference between our forms, she asked. I replied: We don't lean. Oh? she exlaimed and started thinking hard.

I've had dozens of these magic moments in my Tai Chi career. Might tell some more stories later - there is a classic of me in Taiwan approaching a big Tai Chi contingent in the park. Stay tuned.