Welcome to a conversation with Justin Stone the originator of T'ai Chi Chih Joy through movement and my teacher thank you for joining us on the program Justin thank you for having me Kon during our session our viewers have been learning about softness as the originator of T'ai Chi Chih how important is this to their practice softness is all important to T'ai Chi Chih both philosophically and physically from a physical standpoint if we move with tension if the muscles are tight and we're stiff in this manner what what happens is that the chi the intrinsic energy does not flow freely through the channels of the body when however we move softly with no muscular tension the Chek can flow freely and we can learn how to balance the chi so from the physical standpoint it's very important psychologically in life I think we may learn the lesson the softness often is much stronger than firmness I'll give you an example of that in the orient they talk a good deal about the bamboo tree and the sturdy oak tree the sturdy oak tree stands this way and faces the wind when there's a storm and resists and resists and then suddenly topples but the bamboo tree is very plant very pliable when the wind comes the bamboo tree gracefully bends back and stays there until the wind has passed and there's no longer a storm then it slowly snaps back to its original position unharmed now there's there's much to be learned from that but that is all important in T'ai Chi Chih another example is the fact that the tongue is soft but the teeth are hard but the tongue lasts the teeth the water is soft rocks are hard but the water wears away the Rocks we could give any number of examples how softness works and I think that people as they learn taichu will find that this lesson May spill over into their everyday lives I think that probably our audience has found that it already has started to work in their lives right now even with the short time that we've been together I know that some of my students have told me how that softness really does influence their life later well I think that their students are going to hear you say softness and continuity a good deal I know of many T'ai Chi Chih teachers who write it on blackboard and they keep referring to it and finally about the fifth lesson somebody will say oh you want softness and continuity why don't you say so right softness is all important in the practice and it will feel good when you do something with no strain then you get the benefit of it you feel that you are relaxed and so forth good example of that happens when people come in off a freeway of a big city and they're very tense but after they've been doing TI Che for a little while they no longer move in a hard manner where the RIS wrists are stiff uh they begin to relax they feel better and they get the benefits sometimes they're sorry when the lesson is over sometimes they notice it in their waist too wouldn't you say well yes when I look at a new student I look at the waist and the wrists if the wrists are like this I know there's no tension if the waist turns very freely there's nothing inside that's that's holding it up so we can say that one of the really strong principles of T'ai Chi Chih is softness and I'm sure all of your students will learn it while we're moving we continue to stress how to move can you tell us a little bit about why this is so important well for the new student there is nothing more important than learning the correct way to move the movements themselves are easy to learn and they're easy to do if the student starts out by learning how to move in an effortless manner from the center there'll be no problem in learning T'ai Chi Chih the idea is to move effortlessly or to flow effortlessly through very heavy air which seems like a contradiction but once the student begins doing the movements he or she will understand what we mean we are flowing through very heavy air without any effort it's what we call the effort of no effort and we are really flowing from the center of the body I'm going to stand up and show you what I mean by that would you please when we move we move from the spot 2 in below the navl and then when we begin to move the hands we find that there is no effort involved there's no muscular tension at all this is much different than just moving the hands and the legs and a very important point is this when we finish the movement we come to a great graceful conclusion and we finish with the hands parallel to the ground and hold that for a few seconds I'll explain why that very necessary when we begin to move the yin and the yanii separate that is the positive energy and the negative energy separate and in a sense we are fragmented when we come to to the conclusion of the movement and we come to the rest in this fashion then the Yi and the yanii flow together again and once again we're whole what this is in the orient is returning to the uncarved block that is the state the ecstatic State before there is any fragmentation any separation and we hope by balancing the ch we will return to the state which the Zen people call your face before you were born the most important thing though for beginners is to know that when they move that they are just moving so softly I was noticing your hands as you were moving and they were you know they would have moved in either direction that they they weren't stiff like a board that when you were you picked a place below the navl to move from well flowing smoothly from the center is really one with softness flowing effortlessly and remember the word is Flowing not moving flowing softly from the center naturally brings with it a softness a softness in doing it and then the chi flows very freely you also notice that these movements tend to be round they tend tend to be circular whether we go around like this or we push like this but go down slightly come up and over in sort of an ellipse motion we're doing a circular movement and the secret of energy has to do with circularity just look at the Windmill picking up the energy as it goes flow effortlessly through very heavy air and all the rest will take care of itself well that's good advice for us as we move through our daily lives to move effortlessly not just not just while we do T'ai Chi Chih but also Daily I'm sure that everybody including myself needs to hear about that when we do our T'ai Chi Chih we can feel sometimes a sensation in our hands sometime there's even trembling there and we tell the students that this is the chi that's flowing inside of us what can you tell us about this mysterious Chi well Chi really is the basis of the whole ball game when we talk of chi we're talking of the intrinsic energy that is the vital force which is really the Life Energy J for instance if we meet somebody on the street for the first time and we feel rather bad vibes what we're feeling is the character of the chi that is flowing when I was living with the yogis in the Himalayan Foothills in India we would meet late in the morning for our one meal of the day and there was a good deal of talk almost of all of it had to do with Prana or could which are other names for Chi they're Sanskrit names Prana is the universal energy the intrinsic energy the vital force Kundalini is thought to be the evolutionary Force within the body but these are all aspects of the same thing and this talk that went on was very important because these yogis were devoting their entire lives to spiritual practice and we're doing some rather strenuous practices having to do with quini I would say not only strenuous but in some cases rather dangerous I have seen yogis meditating with water up to their neck not because they like swimming or because they wanted to horse around in the water but to keep them cool because the flow of the cundalini force through the body caused tremendous heat and they're they were doing this in order to get results that would be very extreme but we who do taichu are working with the same forces without any of the dangers and any of the difficulties we simply make some simple movements we move the chi or The Prana and the way that we are doing it helps to balance it so that the negative and positive postive are brought into balance she is a very deep subject that we could talk about for a very long time well I think that the important thing one of the important things that you just said right now was that our audiences can feel very safe that what they're doing with their Tai chicha practice is very safe that they won't be harmed in any way shape or form how can you be harmed doing a simple movement such as that the great Chinese scholar and teacher Wan Wang from whom I learned a lot used to talk about the chi a priori and the chi aposteriori meaning the chi with which you came into this life and the chi that you accumulated during the lifetime and taii Chi is very helpful in this respect a great deal of chi is accumulated and it is stored either 2 Ines below the naval or in the bones being stored in the bones of course it hardens the bones and as you know as people grow older sometimes their bones become rather brittle and the chi is probably responsible for the fact that dentist has a very difficult time getting dental floss through my teeth it hardens it hardens the gums and brings them closer together so there are many many ways to use Gene get the benefits and we are getting all those I believe in our Tai chichu practice well I think that as people do this Tai chicha they're going to feel this Chi it's nice to know that it's something very safe that they're working with because it is taicha and that as they go along they're going to get better and better at knowing how this Chi Works in their own body they don't even have to know it all they have to do is do that's true too when the student begins to practice he knows that something is Flowing inside of him and then as time goes by he begins to become aware that there are more levels to taicho than he realized in the beginning that he's beginning to tap into the essence of Tai chicha the essence of taicha let me tell you a story having to do with that one time I was practicing taicha in a Japanese garden and as I was doing movements and enjoying motion suddenly I realized that nobody was doing anything taichu was doing taicha in other words I had gotten myself out of the way this is a very ecstatic feeling and has a lot to do with the essence of taicha it won't take very long for practices to get to that point where they feel that the effort is the effort of no effort that things flow by themselves and when this happens there is a feeling which is hard to describe perhaps I can best describe it by using the Chinese word de te which is usually translated as the power of inner sincerity now when people who practice Tia and become good at it decide they want to become teachers and take a teacher's training course which is quite intensive for one week when they come there the first lesson that they will learn is that good teaching not only means repetition it also means the power of in sincerity and I believe it is because of D that these teachers have spread taichu through most of the world because they are sincere teachers and because they have experienced the essence of taicha I think it's very easy for them to get it across to the students there are no tricks and no hype it's just very simple movement and then after a while of course you begin to get the essence of taich CHA I would say that after you do taicher for quite a while and begin to realize the essence much to your surprise you will find you get to a stage where you can do it mentally that won't happen in a few weeks but it means that you can be sitting in a concert or on a plane closing your eyes eyes you'll begin to do the movements mentally and much to your surprise you will find that the chi begins to flow and it's being balanced so in any circumstance you are able to do tai well that certainly takes it out of the realm of just going around and just being able to do it with your hands and your feet that there's something else going on that maybe taicha is affecting you on more levels than just the physical I believe that the essence of tauch come comes across very well to all people who practice it sincerely one thing that they should remember is the taii CH practice is cumulative that is the effects the results are cumulative you begin to accumulate Chi do you remember I spoke about the chi with which you came into this life and the CH that you accumulate in this life as you accumulate this Chi it is stored in the bones and stored below the naval and when this happens of course the bones are firmer it has quite an effect upon the health but I think the greatest effect that one can have is to begin to realize the essence of what is happening the life force is Flowing freely through you it is is being balanced you yourself are out of the way now you understand the essence of taich in other words you can relate to people much more easily because you know so much more about yourself when you're at home with yourself it's much easier to relate to other people the words Yin and Yan that's y i n and y a n g seem to be words of a lot of interest in our society you see it in magazine articles children are wearing Yin Yan symbols on their clothes some are wearing it in necklaces what can you tell us about Yin and Yan in Chinese cosmology Yin and Yan are the basis of the universe Yin is the negative energy Yan is the positive energy Yin corresponds to the Moon because it is cold and corresponds to the kidneys in the body Yan the positive which corresponds to heat is the same as the sun and in the body the heart now Yin and Yan are both always present but in various relationships our aim in taii is to bring the yin and the Yan into balance very often in our way of life we tend to eat too many sweets we get a little canker saw on the tongue and that means that we're overly Yin we're not as upt to be overly Yan when we are overly Y and we do TAA it tends to bring us back into balance which is desirable because not only is the bodily condition better at that time but it seems to have quite an effect Upon Our Lives well this effect that it has it seems that taich cha affects us in a lot of different ways but we don't always think about it in terms of this wonderful balance that's going on I can't think of anything more important to tell you the truth that's a personal opinion when we are able to bring the yin and Yan into balance and the metabolism is IM balance changes take place I'll give you example for instance there was a woman from London a nurse who came over here to take the taich cha teach's training course she became a teacher after she had been doing taiii for quite some time her children came to her and said mommy you don't yel at us anymore in the morning and you don't kick the cat what's what's happened and her husband said you seem to have lots of energy when you come home from work cook the dinner your good company and so forth now she hadn't noticed these changes others had to tell her about it and this happens very frequently but as the yin and Yan are brought into balance first they must be circulated and then they are brought into balance then we may note changes in the way we feel in our energy level and so forth and so on and and of course Yan the great heat which corresponds to the to the Sun and Yin which corresponds to the moon are always with us in Chinese cosmology they are the basis of the universe these sound like weighty matters but we don't have to give a lot of mental thought to these things one of the things I've heard you say so often is just by doing the taich ch we begin to find this balance and then other people will tell us oh look how much better you are doing you're more balanced and sometimes they even use that word if we could come perfectly into balance we would be entering what is called the uncarved block which would be an ideal condition that isn't likely but we can come very close to being in Balance this makes all the difference that you can think think of and so often we get letters or we get phone calls telling us about changes that take place in people's lives as they bring the yin and Yan into balance and then they always say well this doesn't have anything to do with that does it and the answer always is what's the difference it's happening well it does make a difference and we're glad that it does and we're very appreciative of what you had to share with us about yin and Yan Yin andan very important and I'm glad that we got a chance to talk about it the subject of weight control comes up often some people think that they're too light some people think they're too heavy nobody thinks that they're at their Optimum weight can taicha have an effect on weight control very definitely it's my opinion the tauch chi is one of the best weapons that we can have and bring the weight to an Optimum level what it does it is not the effort it's not the muscular effort that does it it is the flow of the chi which drives up the aquous excess that is the excess fluid and it is that excess fluid which causes overweight now when somebody begins to practice regularly he or she may find the weight is going off without any effort uh I know of one case where it didn't take any dieting at all and yet there were wonderful results there was a fellow named John who was in one of my very early classes and he later went on to become a teacher John weighed about 255 pounds and he was rather embarrassed by his appearance because he was quite pudgy he did a lot of taich chia for a number of months I think it was five or six months and at the end of that time he had gone from 255 lbs to 180 his wife looked up one day and found she had a handsome husband and it changed many things about him it changed his whole personality as well what is interesting is that his best friend lived with them his best friend was 6' 3 in tall weighed 155 lbs which is much underweight ate the same food did the same amount of taich and over the same period of time found that his weight went from 155 PB to 170 lb now how is this possible what happens is that the metabolism tends to balance out in his case there was no need to lose weight there was no excess to get rid of so they will feel better at the end of that period of time well these are two very dramatic stories one went up the other went down so this is a good thing it helps us in our own unique way is that right if what we're looking for is weight control the flow of the chi is the most efficient way that I know to do it and do it effortlessly but there is one other case which is more dramatic there was a woman who later became a teacher who lived in a Midwestern town she was very very much overweight she had The Misfortune to contract a potentially fatal disease the doctors wanted to put her in a scanning machine and she was too big they told her to lose weight that is the reason she took up TI at that time she practiced very Faithfully over quite a period of time at the end of which she says she had lost 100 pound I was very skeptical until she brought out her skirts of that time which were 4 in larger than her current waistline then she went on to become a teacher and today is a very active teacher doing well it has no problem at all in keeping from Gaining the weight back because doing this much teaching she constantly has the chi flowing and the metabolism tends to reach an Optimum level that way so in both these cases it made a decisive change in in people's lives if one is looking for weight control he or she might try titr Cher practice with the attendant flow of the chi the lady that you're talking about I I saw the skirt that you're talking about it was very impressive to see what had happened to her it was and there have been other cases quite a few people who came because of certain diseases later wound up as teachers and forgot all about what was wrong with them well that's always a good thing to happen isn't it it's a desirable result and the way to get it is to practice T we hope there are people who ask is taicha an exercise I feel great benefits in my body when I do it I feel stronger I feel more energized and other people say is it a meditation I feel very quiet very Serene very contemplative when I'm finished doing Tai chicha what would you say I don't think of taicha either as exercise or meditation it is true that the movements exercise the internal organs which can be very important and contain many benefits and for this reason I want to warn people after you do tou each practice don't drink something cold right away but when I think of exercise I think of perspiration and getting tired you go out and you run three miles and you come back B in perspiration and you step on a scale you've lost a couple of pounds you drink some water you eat your dinner and you've got the couple of pounds back but this isn't a description of taich CHA at all we don't tend to perspire doing taich cha and while it is graded controlling weight it isn't done through effort it is the effort of no effort that does it as regards meditation anybody watching a group practicing type CH will notice the difference in the expression after half an hour or so when people come in they may be under a lot of pressure perhaps they just came off a freeway they had a tough day at the office and so forth but as class wears on you begin to see a different kind of look they begin to relax and even to yawn and then as you get close to the end of the class feeling good they're rather sorry that it's all over for the day of course they can go home and practice if they want so I don't think of it as exercise or meditation though certainly it has the benefits of both well this is good to know so that people essentially can take it individually they can think of it they can do it in any way that is best for them is what you're saying as long as they do it correctly that's true that's that's very important this energizing business is very interesting uh I had an 89-year-old student named Mimi and while she was taking her course or her beginning course she one night said I'm going square dancing and I said maybe you've been exercising or moving for an hour and 15 minutes aren't you tired she said tired I do T cha and many people feel this energizing effect almost immediately but it is good to remember because of this I would not practice taucha after dinner at night do it in the morning and the late afternoon if you practice it in the evening you may be so energized that you don't feel like sleeping I've had some students tell me that they couldn't figure out why they been so tired when they went to bed and then later on they were wide awake I asked them did you do your Tai chicha and they said yes that's the key question did you do it the benefits come by themselves you don't have to practice or you don't have to rather tell people that they're going to come just do the practice and see and they usually tell their teachers about it afterwards so while we are not really exercising what we are doing is doing movements some of them are very quiet movements and we're not really meditation meditating in a true sense at the same time we are getting the benefits of both but it isn't important to analyze it or rationalize it in any way the important thing is the practice and then the results of the practice very often I hear from students in my class about effects that taich cha is having in their lives some of them are pretty astounding but I'm sure that as the originator you've heard even more about taicha share with some many people do write yes and and say what is happening some of them are rather minor and occasionally they're very major uh the first example is rather minor one in the very early days of taucha I taught a young lady who was a real estate agent she was very shy and had trouble approaching people one day when I was downtown I bumped into her and she was sitting in her car talking on a on a car phone long before telephones were customary in cars when she got through I said hey what's going on here and she said well you know I seem to have a lot of confidence I'm making sales I start out the day with a lot of optimism doesn't have anything to do with t does it and my answer was what's the difference it's happening the second example had to do with a doctor who was from East Asia medical doctor and when he took his lessons he confided in me that for nine years he had had high blood pressure and he was having problems reducing it he was trying to skip rope a TH or 2,000 times a day which enabled him to lose weight but that what wasn't what he was aiming at after he had done taicher for a little while he found that his blood pressure dropped but he thought it was probably a coincidence so he stopped doing tauch chair for a week or so and then it went up again after that he came to me and he said Justin I will be doing this practice for the rest of month life I had the same story told to me by a fireman and it was pretty amazing he was very impressed too well was important to him now a major experience was this one there was a young lady of 21 who had suffered an infirmity from birth and consequently was slightly backward her mother became a taicha teacher and taught her daughter how to do it and the daughter practiced regularly then she wrote me a letter that said one day as she was practicing suddenly she stopped with a feeling that she had all knowledge I remember this was a backward girl all knowledge she said at that time perspiration was running down her body and that she was laughing and crying at the same time but she was crying from joy that is a perfect description of a sator Enlightenment experience this girl in doing her taichu practice had had an Enlightenment experience which is a way of proving to me that more is happening that meets the eye I of course wrote her mother and said please keep me informed about this girl let's see if this carries over and lasts and be sure she continues to do her practice and you've heard from them since no it wasn't very long ago I expect to though well I would imagine so there are so many stories that happened with people and each one is wonderful taicha doesn't promise anything but it's amazing to me what people themselves share with us I don't like to hold out this promise as a carrot that will lead you on i' would rather say to somebody practice and see what happen happens because each person is an individual case but many older people have written to me and said not only has taich cha improve their physical balance that is the way they stand on their feet and so forth but it is also hardened the wounds so they don't seem quite as susceptible to Falls that shatter the bones various people get various benefits and I'm sure each one of your students who practices will know what we're talking about sometimes when I go to a zen garden I feel a wonderful quiet and peacefulness inside of me even though all around there is so much activity going on what can you tell us about seju well I'm glad you mentioned this subject seju is one of the seven principles of a zen garden as you said it means Stillness in the midst of activity but it doesn't mean Stillness by getting away and hiding doesn't mean off there were only no phones or my family wasn't around or there were no business problems you can get away but you can't get away from yourself what it says is that right in the midst of the turmoil one finds a center of Stillness and I learned this great lesson when I was staying at a small Zen temple in Kyoto the head priest there evidently was annoyed by Something I Said So he turned to me and he said don't be the small hermit be the big hermit and his wife came out and she went like this showing a flower opening it was quite a lesson but I didn't think much about it until about a year year later when I was living with the yogis in the mountains of India and one day after I had been there for a while I was thinking back about Japan now at that time I couldn't have cared less about the world all I was thinking about was my own self-improvement meditating and so forth but this particular moment suddenly the voice of that priest came to me be the big hermit and I thought what am I doing here I will be able to do this at 42nd Street in Broadway I left the asham in the mountains the next day and shortly after left India so the lesson be the big hermit got across to me very strongly sounds like it was an important lesson it was an important lesson and it is only possible to experience that Stillness when there is a centering what I call in my books the growth of certainty once you have this growth of certainty then you're not tossed around like a tumble weed you know where you stand what you should be doing what you yourself represent and to give you an example of how important this is one day in ancient China there was a Zen monk walking along the streets it was a very rainy day and suddenly he saw in the midst of a puddle he saw tiny scorpion that was drowning without thinking he went over picked it out and as he did so the Scorpion bit him anybody who's been bitten by a scorpion knows how that feels he put the Scorpion down and this perverse little scorpion promptly turned around and walked right back into the puddle once again without thinking he bent over picked it up then he put it down on the ground and bystander watching all this walked over to the Monk and said you fool don't you know that every time you pick that scorpion up he's going to sting you the monk replied yes I do realize it it's in his nature to sting me but I also realize that it's in my nature to keep picking him out of the water now there's a man who's experienced the growth of certainty there is a centering there he knows how he's stands he experiencing say jaku it's a very wonderful feeling to experience that Stillness inside kind of like being in the eye of a storm isn't it yes and once you experience once you get that it doesn't leave you it's something that we can learn to do or come upon us as we're doing our Tai chicha movements I think Tai chich cha is a very helpful way to experience that centering we have a tendency to think of strength as only muscular strength but as we study taich cha as we learn what happens inside of us we begin to find that maybe there's more to this strength business than we thought very definitely uh I had an older woman as a student in a class when once and after the class she came up to me and she apologized she said I'm so sorry and I said what did you do she said well I accidentally tore the phone book I said tore the phone book she said yes I didn't mean to do it I'm sorry I said wait a minute in other days in the circus the strong man used to tear a phone book as a feet of strength and you did it accidentally she said yes and she was Sor she had done it now many people have had this type of experience and that they find that there is a strength sometimes coming from very old people that greatly surpasses muscular strength I'll give you an example of this which I find very interesting I had a friend in Los Angeles who taught taii Chuan he was Chinese and he was a wonderful physical specimen he was also a black belt Judo man now he had a friend who was larger than he was who was a black belt Judo man un taught taich Chuan these two one was 200 lb one was well over 225 PBS these two heard that an Asian Master probably from China was coming to San Francisco and they decided to go up and see him they arrived there but when they saw they were disappointed he was very old he probably weighed about 85 lbs and he wasn't very prepossessing looking nevertheless they had come a long way so they asked him this question all our lives we've been hearing about this Chi can you demonstrate it to us the old man thought a moment do he said I'll tell you what you two fellows separate and come at me and throw me down my friend said we'll kill you he said do me the honor of not taking it easy with me well two big guys huddled and one said I'll tell you what you throw him and I'll catch him before he hits the mat we don't want to hurt the little fellow there was quite an audience watching this as a matter of fact the two big guys went out to the side separated and came at him watching his breath doing everything that they had been taught to do and suddenly they lunged at him then what the spectators saw was this the big fellow was thrown up against the wall and a fck of blood came from his nose my friend was thrown 15 ft away lying on the ground with his glasses knocked off he said that he was looking for the freight train that had hit him what is remarkable is that none of the spectators saw this little man move at all now does that give you the power that a master has over the chi that's quite an impressive story and the same story occurs in a famous book called uh Magic and magicians in Tibet by Madame David Neil it's it's quite ordinary are there any other faculties that the chi affects yes I think that you'll find it well will affect the intuitive quality the intuition I remember the first time I picked up a phone book and opened it right to the page I wanted to but other people tell me they have started towards the phone and then the phone would ring after that many things will show the intuitive strength that grows and I hope one day because of this growth that athletes in athletic terms will begin to examine a maximum Chi program for physical fitness and for developing greater strength and the intuitive quality that goes with it looks like we have a lot to look forward to with our taicha practice I hope so well we'll just continue to work with this and see what happens I know that our audience has already started to feel some of these wonderful effects taicha has many teachers how do they become teachers it's a good question because I would like the viewers to know that those who are accredited teachers have gone through definite training to do so let's say that somebody decides to First study TAA either that person studies with an accredited teacher or if there's none in in the vicinity can learn through your videotape or my videotape and then can begin practicing by him or herself now after practicing a while and getting quite skilled at it that person might decide that he or she would like to go on and pass this on to others because he or she may have been getting great benefits from it if he or she decides that then there must be a recommendation from an credited teacher a letter written saying that this person does taichu well and has the right attitude if that letter is written then he or she will be accepted into one of the five or six teachers training courses we have in various parts of the country during the year that course lasts for six days and it's very intensive you are not there to learn how to do taicha you're there to learn how to teach teach it and you're also there to learn how to present it to groups when you come out of there usually you're accredited not everybody is but I would say 98% of the people already they come out as accredited teachers and begin spreading taucha and then get the great joy of seeing the faces of their students the serenity the enthusiasm and everything else they also come out from there with something else that's very very important and that is De it's not something we teach them it's something that they have developed from inside de T the Chinese word which means the power of inner sincerity is the basis of good teaching if you're just trying to be glib and get across with a minimum of effort it doesn't work your students know very well what you're carrying inside you so I would say the power of innoc sincerity is the biggest reason that taii CH spread around the world as rapidly as it has which brings me to another question is taich cha a martial art no it certainly is not a martial art very different now as you know I have great respect for taii Chuan which I taught for many years but the purpose of taich is different the Japanese call it n the Chinese call it NE and they both mean inner efficiency in other words although you're working with the hands the legs the outer parts of the body what you are developing is something inside and that is quite different from learning how to throw somebody through the air or to punch somebody or commit some sort of violence uh many times I've had had students write me that they have had experience as one in a dream when a voice came to them and said this is not the way he had had all sorts of fantasies about doing violence with the moves that he had learned after that when he woke up in the morning he decided from now on it was all going to be inner and of course there's a great deal of love that goes with that so it is to be stressed that if you're looking for is action that is throwing people through the air and forms of violence you might be unhappy with TAA however there is nothing wrong with doing these other disciplines it simply is the taich cha has an entirely different Outlook leading to Serenity physical fitness and so forth well I think that for our purposes that is exactly what we want yes I would say outer cult cultivation and inner development and if you put those two together the results sometimes are very rewarding Justin after what you've told us I think that our viewers will look forward to further studies of taicha with an accredited teacher let's hope so I don't think they'll be sorry if they do many students have shown me very creative works that they have written um whether it be music or poetry maybe even a term paper and it's always very inspiring to hear them say that they think that this happened best after doing their Tai chich cha practice could this really be a result of Tai chich cha I think the taii chi practice that is the flow of the chi definitely stimulates the aesthetic sensibilities and the creative urge and perhaps you could say the creative abilities people have told me that after doing tauch Chu for a while when they would go to a concert they would realize that suddenly they were hearing the music for the first time the heightened aesthetic sensibilities made it possible for them to really get into the music and enjoy it in my own case as you know I'm active in music in painting and in writing and usually my work is done spontaneously I don't plan it out in advance sometimes however I'll sit down at the piano for instance and nothing of of Interest comes when that happens I'll just drop it get up and do taichu practice and maybe even a little SE jaku which is Advanced taicha then if I sit down to write or to play music or whatever I find that it just flows by itself it's almost as though I'm spectator and I have the feeling that what comes without effort is the best that turns out very well so you could say that stimulating the flow of the chi will greatly help you in doing your creative work which can not only be painting or something of that nature can be making money can be doing anything else now I've also found out in my Travelers that highly spiritual people usually tend to be deeply aesthetic people for instance the ancient Chinese Masters the Zen Masters and Japanese Zen Masters very often excelled in calligraphy in painting and particularly in poetry they brought great truths to the surface in their poetry and sometimes their humorous pictures and this got across very well I can only assume that this has to do with the flow of the chi as well well some of these works are very very touching uh sometimes from a quiet point and sometimes from a very humorous point but can this uh taicha practice can it bring to the surface something that's not there creative ability that isn't inside I don't see how it can make somebody creative but almost everybody has inherent abilities inherent C creativity aesthetic sensibility and so forth and in addition to this it very very often stimulates humor Paul reps the Zen writer who did these black and white pictures to go with his work usually did his work in a humorous manner it was only after you left that you realized there was a deep meaning to it and his were completely spontaneous but as to becoming a great pianist simply because the chi is Flowing I'd say no first you do your finger exercises you learn to play the piano then you will find that your ability is greatly heightened by the flow of the chi Scholars and others who do a lot of studying may find that it helps very much too in their work I think that well even people who have kind of a terror or fear of doing any kind of writing find that they're inspired to do some well as you know when the Tai quy Journal comes out there's always great poetry in almost without exception and the these were people who had never written poetry before your things are great and I believe that this has been heightened by the flow of the chi but then the whole art of life is heightened I think by the flow of the CH there is so much talk on this program about practice I tell people to practice and every time that you've talked you've also talked about practice do you do a taii practice every day I certainly do sometimes twice a day there's a good deal of difference in how you feel if you get up in the morning and do your taichu practice and stays with you all day Chinese have a saying which is you cannot appease the hunger by reading a menu you've heard that before you have to eat the food in in order to get the nourishment same thing happens with taicha regular practice means that it will gradually accumulate because taii Chi practice is cumulative the flow of the chi and the balancing of the chi are cumulative in effect and after a while friends may say to you they notice while you're practicing there's a slight trembling in the fingers the energy has has accumulated and it's coming out in that way now if you don't practice it's similar to the idea that I tell you about chocolate what chocolate is what the ingredients are how it's shipped to this country and how it is disposed of so forth you won't know anything about chocolate but if I hand you a chocolate bar and you take a bite you taste then you know what chocolate is so it is important to remember you must practice if you want to get the benefits of taicha and it is best to practice every day if you can and again I want to remind you that the effects are cumulative the chi will be stored in the bones and will accumulate 2 in below the naval it's there when it's needed perhaps you'll find that the bones get much harder not brittle and sub adct to accident to Falls and so forth at any rate it's not hard to practice because practice is very joyous you get so you enjoy it well that's very very true the students are always saying that on the days that they don't practice they notice that something is missing from their day as to practice my suggestion is that you work out a routine I do think that one you learn all the movements that it would be good to practice every morning for 20 or 25 minutes after a while you may enjoy it enough so you make it a little longer if you find that there is some movement that bothers you just skip it do the ones that you enjoy and get the benefits from them but practice them enthusiastically and do not practice them carelessly that's very very important now if you have time when you come home from school or from work or whatever late in the afternoon try to get in five minutes 10 minutes of practice before dinner you find you may be a little sleepy when you start but then you'll be wi awake to enjoy your dinner however it is important to stress that you shouldn't practice after dinner at night why because the energy that is generated may very well keep you awake may cut into your sleep 2:00 in the morning you'll feel like running down the street instead of getting the restful sleep that you need there have been many who have wondered about that they've tried it just to see if if it was really true what I was telling him about it keeping him awake and it did how many times you should practice each movement is of course up to you we usually practice in groups of nine do the movement nine times or do it 18 times or do it 36 times couple of teachers have at one time or another practiced one movement several hundred times and got a good deal from it you'll have to work out your own practice schedule according to the amount of time that you have But be sure to do it well I agree with you it doesn't matter whether we have five minutes or 10 minutes of practice that it's always good to practice so I think that with that thought since this is our last program thank you so much for having been with us we'll just continue to practice and see where our practice leads us seems to be going in a good direction thank you for inviting me Karma in