The Dragon Looks Around

Meditation and Memories

2009-09-09T19:24:00.000-07:00

Meditation is a fascinating exploration of the self. At times I actually crave quiet settling and meditation. In its most quiet sustained moments, some images present themselves without thinking. They just come.

It's fascinating how such relaxed moments produce memories in extraordinary detail.

Not all memories are in pictures. Some are sound, smell or even touch. This discovery was a surprise of sorts.

While settling this past couple of weeks, reoccurring images of the ocean at night have come to me. Here's what presented itself: Deep blue to black, with flattening, over lapping light lines of the layers of dark water. The thinning water becomes almost clear over the gray level sand—I stand there. My feet pressing into firm damp sand.

The ocean at night, appears vast and open. It stretches to a far curving horizon. In the image, there is the noise of breaking water, the smell of moisture in bits and fragments. Over the dark as far as peripheral vision will take, my eyes are wide open. Sometimes as I settle in, the image of a dark horizon and the whole panorama becomes more an more clear, almost like a glossy finish of a quality photograph. Then in the far left side and upper corner, a brilliant green flash. I had been told by the locals that I was seeing the occasional flash of the light house, out of sight, down below the horizon. The flash reflecting off of moisture in the air. Sometimes, behind me, I hear voices, commotion and laughter of the houses back along the shore road. Still that is back ground. The vast deep blue to black in front, across and to the sides dominates.

Now this night water horizon, I see the constellations breaking as my eyes adjust more and more to the dark. Now there are patterns that can be seen along with the haze of the milky way, and a million stars appearing in every direction. It is contrast of starlight and darkness over the deep black water. Its motion, its shear mass and vastness, its movement now is less and less. Water hoizon becomes more and more settled and level. The magnificent and clam vastness envelopes me. It is curious that there is no sense of fear or smallness or in significance. It is just the opposite-- calm, peaceful, immediate, here and now. The longer my breaths, the more glossy blue to black, the more stars and over light of the light house become.

Now the most amazing part. In wuji, my arms relaxed at my side, while below, I feel a slight pressure, then becoming a touch, to a light holding clasp. A small hand now holds mine around the tips of my first two fingers.

This memory was one of touch. It brought me out of the meditation. Now halfway thinking and halfway in the “zone” I looked down. It was my youngest daughter with her flashlight in one small hand while holding my hand with her other. I remembered her hair in tight braids and beads done by a lady who weaved them at the beach. She kept that weave in her hair for weeks afterwards. The beads were sky blue.

Stability, Great River, Expolorers of Ourselves

2009-09-04T09:39:00.000-07:00

Bagua practice is always a series of small corrections—several fine points give much insight.

One of the pieces that really hit home was in the simple –but not so easy—shifting exercise with the 5 circles. In going over the fine points of the shift, Dr. Painter pointed out that the turn with the weight shift occurs in the hip crease so that your arms and torso turn as a unit. This small point of turning at the crease, actually made the shift exercise feel quite different. I felt much more stable.

The image that popped into my head was that my legs and hips were an “A” shaped hoist. I thought of the portable type of hoist that when I was a teenager we used to rent from the tool shop to lift an engine from the hood of a car. I hadn’t thought of that particular tool for years. I thought of late nights at my friends house, and we'd cranking up an old straight 6 out of the car on that hoist.

With this image, my legs and the apex of the hips felt very stable.

Another small correction occurred on working the square stepping. There were two points—one was using the turning thigh to turn the leg. This thought helped me prevent any twisting at the knee during the square step. The second was his direction that as you rotate around the square, the turning point of each step is the leading hip socket. Keeping my focus on that point of turning at the hip joint with each step definitely added a sense of stability with little or now sway and helped keep a feeling of the ridgepole in tact.

One of the most interesting pieces in the body mechanics end of things was the detailed look at the “crossing the great river” principal. I thought I understood this concept, however, I missed it in part. Specifically, it was the point that the emphasis/majority of force shifts at the centerline. So that with the hands in the rolling pearl posture there is a pulling with one active hand and at the center, begins to shift to a pushing with the opposite—now more active—hand. Previously, I was working double weighted for the first half of the turning movement. I noticed that in the past week as I have practiced linear walking and focusing on the great river that this sense has actually transferred to my legs. It actually seems to help/complement the sense of pulling with lead leg and pushing with the back leg. This “enhancement” just happened along with the corrected focus on the great river and noticing the change in active hands.

For me the meditation discussions are always fascinating. This weekend, I was particularly interested in the how the sense of focusing on how in a very real way this is really about self exploration. It is about learning to read and feel very minute bits and pieces in your body, very subtle differences and changes. Being able to relax small parts and let go of tension. Sometimes you can discover tension and not even realize that you are tense on one area or another. It is a remarkable discovery to suddenly realize for example that there are places in you body you are holding tight. In someways it is about control of you own body, but first you have to find those distant places and signals.

So in a sense we are all explorers. But explorers of ourselves--our own mind-body connections in the tiniest details. We are looking into rooms and spaces were we have always dwelled, but have never been able to turn a light on them.

Weeding the Garden

2009-06-28T14:50:00.000-07:00

A friend who is a garden expert and landscape architect once explained to me why there is a constant need for attention to keeping a garden weeded. He said that in any given square meter of ground, there will be many, many seeds. If you take a square meeter of pavement and vacuum it, you will see many --some are only specks or the size ground pepper bits, but lots of seeds. And seeds can sometimes remain ready to germinate up to 5 or 7 years with more seeds adding to the area each season. So in any garden, you can't prevent weeds from growing. A finely landscaped garden must be weeded regularly or it will soon become over grown with wild plants and even trees. Even one season of inattention can spell the end of what was well planned and crafted.

Seeds then have a way of drifting in and some stick around for years--just like life's issues that can create stress.

Recently I got a Friday off of work and a long weekend. but some of my relatives were visiting and it was just a point where I briefly got away from my daily morning and evening and through out the day ritual of settling. On one night I intended to train late after everyone turned in for the night, but instead spent time with the friends and then I fell asleep. At any rate the bottom line was that I neglected my settling and mediation and regular posture work for about 4 days in a row.

Life happens our SGL always says. But here's the ting. Without realizing it, I was experiencing a great deal of anxiety over having to begin a new work week on Monday. I was easliy angered and a little depressed as I dwelled on what problems were occurring there. These thoughts were dominating my evening. And of course I started thinking about what I hate about my job, wishing it were different. It was in a moment when I noticed that I spewed out a string of negative comments about my career, that I realized in a moment that I was headed down the same pathe that I had went so many times before. I realized I hadn't taken the time to at least do some quitet sitting--even for brief periods. In short, the wild horse mind was returning.

How important settling now seemed. It is the foundation of the training. It was the settling that leads to focusing your attention on your training. Settling makes you receptive. And then after this period of time, I recall sitting for just a few moments seemed like a nice warm bath. I realized in a way it was like taking time for myself. It was like respecting myself enough to take a moment of calming for its own sake--and do a sort of mental grooming to try to get myself back on to a more healthy route. You have to have your own house in order first before you can give. You help others better when you are calm and have a clear uncluttered mind.

For what it's worth, left to itself, anger, negativity and stress can take over your thinking. And the bottom line though is that settling and calming is a practice, as well as a learned skill, and must constantly be weeded and maintained to avoid that "wild horse mind."

Turning While the Dragon Serves Tea: Exercise & Elegance

2009-06-27T12:17:00.000-07:00

It really goes without saying at our study group that the Dragon Serves Tea is among everyone's favorite exercises. There's a certain elegance to the movements and also a wonderful feeling in the long and slow moving stretch that the exercise produces. It's a very dynamic exercise--lots turning, shifting and energetic motion, even when done excruciatingly slow.

I remember how our study group leader just told us after learning the exercise on the right side that it was our homework to teach ourselves to do it on the left. This was not easy. But after some back and forth between the learned side and the unlearned side, it all began to make some sense. At any rate, there is just something about the dragon serves tea--it's dynamic quality or it's elegance--that I really enjoy.

One other piece I like about the exercise--it actually that there is a story behind it. That little story about the body guard who began as a waiter. It's such a humble occupation, one of an ordinary person in an ordinary kind of job who has made body movement into an art form of hands and feet. I like the story of how he could move effortlessly though the crowd without spilling a drop, and how this seemingly small humble task was recognized by some emporer or chief, who saw its potential.

Recently in class, we have been working hard on our turns, "ba turns". Getting the footwork and the shifting correct to carry the momentum of movements with the turns. The turns are something that can be worked into daily practice in any small space. Almost the tighter practice space, the better--you have to make more turns. I even begin work turns while talking on the phone. Anyway, I've been doing a lot of these in a lot of different places. So sometimes with and without shoes. With the turns, the piece that made it finally start to go was the realization that I was missing the weight shift to the leg that would make me turn slightly in the opposite direction of the turn. This little, seemingly counter movement, really seems to piece the turn together. So there's been much slow think-about-the-weight-shifting kind of practice.

Anyway, I was putting away dishes the other day and had two saucers in my hands. Without thinking, I just moved right into the serves tea exercise, and the kitchen counter was in the way, so I turned. By coincidence, the backward movement of my right arm moved precisely with my opening foot in the direction I needed to go to avoid the counter, and I moved into the turn. Then I turned again and then opposite, and then again now serving with the other hand in a different direction toward an open space in the kitchen.

It all happened spontaneously. I was just moving, turning, shifting. It was just happening. But it was really delightful to put these two pieces together. It was actually a lot of fun and after several turns, I started laughing because I couldn't believe how "in synch" it was all happening.

It reminded me of when I first learned to play songs on the violin and then later on the guitar. With both instruments, at some point you begin to play a song the way you hum a song. Not one note at a time as you have been drilling it, but with the fluid sound of humming. Plus, with both instruments (since they are both string instruments) at that point, it has always seemed to me that I could "hum" the song instead playing note by note because "my fingers were remembering" the song for me.

I think something like that was happening. Finally at a point in the learning curve that my feet were remembering the turns and my arms and waist were remembering how to serve tea inthe same way that my fingers remember a song.

Of course in science terms, it is the brain controlling all of these motor skills. your finger tips don't really remember "Jesu joy of Man's Desiring" on the left, while your fingers on the right know exactly how to cross slur the bow. But at that point you have put much of it together. Even if it is a little rough yet. At that moment you can play a song the way you hum it, and get a little lost in your own music. So at least for that moment there was something of a genuine song made out of dodging a corner and putting away the dishes.

On Settling

2009-06-18T21:37:00.001-07:00

Stand like a tree-- the base is rooted into the ground while the top reaches toward heaven in beautiful opposing forces

While everyone knows Baguazhang is famous for its legendary martial applications, ironically, it is the calming aspects that I believe are the most powerful. Any trained high school wrestler can take most people down. But the gift of Nine Dragon Baguazhang is what it can give to you in self control. I now believe that with practice and over time, it can change your life in significant ways. That seems so extraordinarily powerful for me.

Make no mistake, calming, settling is a learned skill. And already I find that it has to be continuously practiced to be learned, maintained and polished. I mean I didn't get it at first when our instructor told us we should attempt to settle twice each half hour--even if it were only 4 to 6 breaths. Also at this point I am only a little way there, maybe 10%, but that 10% has improved the quality of my life. Learning a method that begins to control my tendency to over react is in itself is a miracle of sorts for me.

"When one is still it is possible to counter excessive excitement
By learning to hold back one can counter the plans of those who would harm you."
-Li, Zhang Lai

Here was a strange way that my view changed with settling. On my job I am in many heated and emotional meetings. It is very easy for my own emotions to follow the rising tensions of others. They get angry, my heart starts to race. Now when I sense this happening, I say to myself. Hey, this is an opportunity for me to practice the settling thing. Initially, just that thought disengages me momentarily. Then a few settling breaths and "looking through" the others. I come back more focused on the problem. I can work with a clearer head. Of course if I can settle for a bit longer that it better, but whatever the case, it really helps.
One odd thing happened a few weeks back. I had a really heated episode. It was pretty serious stuff. And in the middle of it, I got real angry, and I got angry real fast. I was on the verge of having my old self come out

But something just happened. The idea of settling pass through me. Then the simple mental act of just telling myself, "Mike, you needed to breathe, visualize, settle," made it begin--I mean that very second I was told myself that, I mentally disengaged and gained some measure of control over myself. In the act of breathing, maybe after just 3 or 4 breaths, I could actually hear my pulse racing. I was conscious of that heart beat. It seemed as loud as a truck, and I thought "damn, I didn't know I was this pissed."

I tried to settle longer but things were moving fast. While I did not get it slowed all that much, I did manage to regain control over what I said--and what I did not say.

For me, this was remarkable. Also I repeated the settling right after the episode was over, and was quickly able to bring the focus back to solving the problem and communicate with the other person involved. I got past it quickly. We actually solved some of the problem, and although he really is not talking to me much today, I think he came off of his anger, becasue I came away from mine.

While my settling was not perfect, maybe-- 20%-- It was the thing that helped me. It was tons better than how I would have reacted before I was in this class. Before, I would have stewed over it, I would have said things I regretted, I would have brought up past stuff. In a nut shell, I would have been totally "wild horse" in my response. Settling was invaluable.

The bagua meditation has really changed me—in such a slow way, in such a subtle way, in a way that happens without trying. Sometimes, the meditation gives me a better appreciation my life. Occasionally, if I keep with a lengthy meditation, it leads back to family. It was happening not long ago like this: As I sat, I noticed the room around me, the sounds, the things in the distance, the cold air in the room, the wind and snow hitting the dark windows. I hold a moment at the top and again at the bottom of each breath. I begin to "even out." With my eyes closed, I see the snow out of the dark window drifting in and out of the street light, there is moist air moving over cold skin, there is darkness, there is quiet there are lights, spotted over the obscure distance. I step slowly, my feet sink in wet grass under a thin layer of snow. I am calm, I am tall, I am here and now, only here. If I close my eyes, I see nothing but the moment, nothing but the time, there is her and there is now, there is no more. Nothing here but moisture, a hole in the dark, where the snow now moves in and out. I am reminded breifly of key points in my life. I think what family means to me, how much a part of my memories, experience, day to day events, attitudes, and outlooks-- I see my wife and what she influences, I see her as she was when we were first in love. The way she just made me happy to see her, the way my attitude quickly reversed after a few minutes with her, the way she believed in me, the way she believe float back to when we were young together. I see my son, my daughters. How they make me laugh, make me excited about things that are important to them. All of the things we thought we had ahead of us. The fact that we talked about what happiness lie ahead of us the way we looked forward to things together was almost as powerful as happiness itself. The anticipation of what the years would bring was in itself a pleasure. There was something about that energy that draws me, something about her positive nature, about her outlook on things

On Wuji and why I love it. (Stand like a tree)

2009-06-17T21:27:00.000-07:00

In the first months in Nine Dragon Baguazhan, I often skipped doing wuji. I thought "what was the point of it?" I mean you are just standing there. I just would get to embracing posture. Wuji just made no sense to me at all. But one day, I was sort of going through the motions of standing in wuji because I was supposed to, and the breathing, the settling, the music all started to work it settling on me.

At any rate I started to feel extremely comfortable just standing in wuji. The settling progressed and I just did not want to move out of wuji. I wanted to just "stand like a tree." as Dr. Painter has said. In the following weeks my feeling for it had completely reversed. Wuji and settling became the thing I looked forward to the most. It was like settling into a warm bath--a bath I didn't want to come out of. It was my personal place, here nothing can harm me. I am slow time. It takes a year to add a ring. Ther is nothing to time, it is the moment, it is stability, it is connected to the earth, nothing can harm me. The arguments of the day spin and swirl over me. I let them pass.

Steadily, I began to wonder if it what I thought was meaningless, was perhaps the most important posture. Wuji carried me, wuji held me. There I was beautifully balanced ridgepole spine. I could feel it balanced and plumb, and stable with the earth's gavity, my legs with just a touch of "squishy" flex now feeling as solid as barnstones, a century they have been here leaving their mark in the clay, and no tornado or storm can move them. my head expanding up--beautiful opposing forces. And there's more...

2008-12-04T12:48:00.000-08:00

Vizualizations

2008-08-20T07:24:00.000-07:00

Muddy water begins to clear, and breath lengthens
Keeping the horizon, a line pulls my center forward, expanding though warm honey or cool lake water. Foot braced against earth, turning
waist, knees arms circle over, under, across, up, down.
A few breath clears water moves though the body, ebbs, flows, a tidle force, fingertips become blue to gold, breath nourishes, stepping past seeing beyond,
obstacles become gateways, see beyond, step past open body, open mind

The Practice of Calming

2008-05-12T13:32:00.000-07:00

The practice of “calming” is another part of B training that I find particularly interesting—and also a probably healthy skill, one that has already on 4 occasions now actually helped me on my job.

If you asked anyone in my family who is the biggest hothead, I’m sure that I would be the top vote getter. For that reason, I’ve always admired calm and analytical people, people like airline pilots. Also for that very reason, at my job and also with those who really don’t know me very well, I have tried to present myself as a calm problem solver. In fact, over the years, I’ve had people at my job and outside of my family tell me that I actually have a reputation as a peacemaker. I had one who jokingly asked me if “I had a pulse” because I didn’t react strongly to conflicts. Little did they know that inside, my pulse was flying. In reality, I am making great efforts to act out the part of being calm even as I get angry.

At any rate, I’ve tried to work on the calming thing as often as it occurs to me. I try to shift wherever I am into the slow drifting visualization combined with with the breaths. I also am helped by one other piece that the instructor pointed out: slight pauses at either end of the breath. A couple of time—four now—it has been useful on my job. I am in a lot of heated meetings. And as people start to get loud and emotional, my natural inclination is to respond in kind. So as they get emotional, even if I am forcing myself to remain quiet as I listen, I feel my own heart rate go up. On these occasions, I have reminded myself that this meeting right now is an opportunity to practice the breathing and calming thing. On four occasions, now I have been able to do this. The thought of it being a chance to practice calming has actually diverted me and taken me out of the motional rise of the meeting. In two of the four instances, my ability to be more analytical has been noticeably improved. I believe that the technique contributed to getting things resolved.

Notes on the First Months of Baguazhang Training

2008-05-09T18:58:00.000-07:00

Looking back over the past few months, I wanted to note some impressions I had of B training and how I have reacted.

On the first night, the instructor spent much of the time looking at our gait, and other body positioning type things, and in me it was my feet pointing outward and also a skating motion to my walk.

The most useful to me was visualizing that we are being pulled by our belt buckle. This idea immediately pulled my hips in, and there was a definite noticeable difference with the walk. I felt taller and other subtle bits, that I could not pin down but definitely a feeling of being taller. I found myself each morning, night--especially when I was walking the dog in the dark practicing.

We had a lot of snow in February and March. As I walked the dog--who I noticed moves straight and with great ease, usually following his nose-- I made a real effort to walk with the leading belt and correcting the toes. On the way out for the walk, I was very deliberate. On the way back, I continued, but took note of my footprints in the snow and where they were aligned.

Here's the most memorable thing from the first session though, and the one that really peaked my interest. He had all of us stand next a post in the center of the room and push against the post. Of course as pushing made my body tilt backward, as I was pushing horizontally. Next he had us push the pole a second time, but this time upward at a 5% angle. While very slight, it made all the difference, as the force of pushing kept aligned with the feet on the ground and there was no rocking backward.

This tiny detail clicked with me. When I first started teaching--about my first 10 years--I was a middle school and then a high school wrestling coach. I had wrestled when I was a kid, and through high school, and then I continued to wrestle AAU freestyle, as a hobby of sorts while in college. When I first started wrestling, I lost all of my matches--maybe for the first two years. Then we worked under a coach who really understood the sport, and he pointed out tiny details to us in practice--often things like a slight adjustment of the hips or perhaps in controlling an arm or a shoulder, a slight adjustment . But this small positioning things made all of the difference, in the physics in the leverage or in the body's center of gravity. Anyway, the bottom line was these details--with practice-- made the moves work in a match. And all of a sudden, we stated winning matches.

Similarly, with my high school wrestlers , at some point, with corrections of important details and with practice, they would suddenly put it together and be able to execute moves in a match and score points. And, just an aside, this was always one of the joys I remember about coaching, seeing something click, seeing them change, progress and be so please with themselves. I recall one in particular. This kid was my 98 pounder for all of his years of high school. He actually had some growth problem that he stayed so small. His doctor was talking about growth hormones for him. But even as a senior, he'd weigh in with his boats and coat on an still never move the scale. Anyway, he was one that one day it clicked. And when he was a senior I recall he won 11 matches. Now he also lost 11 matches. But it was a real joy to see him find a measure of success. That was a lot of years ago. Just an aside: The last time I saw him, he was a paratrooper who was training people to jump, and ripped with muscles. Not real tall, but very macho. I remember telling him that I wished that 98 pounder who never weighed 98, could have seen just a glimpse of his future.

So for these reasons, this small detail of 5% made a lot of sense, and made me believe that there was something to learn here.

Chingachgook