When I’m teaching my instructors, I always extol the virtue of telling their new students about all of the wonderful research that is proving Tai Chi is incredibly effective. Unfortunately, we live in a world which is constantly bombarding us with sales messages. After a while you can’t tell what is true and what is false, which is why I always refer to research which is been done by authoritive third parties, like universities and research centres who have no axe to grind. It is hard to dismiss their findings.
It is very in import at the beginning of Tai Chi training that everyone is aware just how effective Tai Chi is. If you keep that in mind every day then you will carry on training. It is all too easy to backslide with all things that are good for you and end up worse off. Unfortunately, one of the side-effects of our modern culture is to have a very short attention span. We have all been brought up to believe that we can have it instantly, easily and that we do not have to work very hard to achieve it, whatever “it” actually is. However, we all know that anything worth having takes time and a little hard work; otherwise it’s not really worth having.
Let me tell you about one of our students called Anne, who was bursting with enthusiasm when she first started to learn Tai Chi. She was making rapid progress in training every day. She would tell us just how much more energy she had and how deep and satisfying her sleep and become. Her occasional pains in the knees and back had long disappeared and she was doing great. Six months into her training she had cause take a couple of weeks off to deal with family matters. We did not see her for a while until she appeared quite unexpectedly one-day. The smiley Anne was gone and a rather haggard Anne appeared before me. She wasn’t sleeping so well anymore and her knees were starting to hurt again. I asked her what went wrong and she told me that things had gotten hectic and she hadn’t trained for a while. I asked innocently if she couldn’t spare just 20 minutes herself, she looked angry, apparently I didn’t understand. But of course I did. It happens to all of us when a crisis pops up and we have to throw yourself into it you can get too wrapped up in the battle at hand and forget about your own well-being.
You really cannot help other people unless you look after yourself first. The airlines know this when they say if the oxygen masks are released you must get yours on first before you can help the people who cannot. The same is true in life; a bit of enlightened self-interest will not only benefit you but everyone around you.
Anne, eventually did understand that love for her family had to be balanced with love for herself too. The next time I saw Anne she was back to her old self, her face had colour in it and the dark circles around her eyes had gone. Best of all her knees didn’t hurt anymore.
Perseverance was one of the main virtues in the ancient Chinese martial arts. Without perseverance no great task can ever be accomplished. But we have to persevere in the things which benefit us and those around us.
Ok that’s all from me have a good week and look after yourselves.
