Wu Wei — Teaching moments with Sifu Adam Mizner

[windwalker]

Here is the start of that bit.

Use your mind to move energy. You must get the energy to sink. It is then able to gather into your spine.

The quote you are talking about is about constant change. More or less everyone on RSF likely understands that with or without getting the first bit (probably the most important part). But I don't see any connection to triangles, equilibrium, equal and opposite force.

are you sure ? If the "energy" sinks as you say what happens to equal and opposite force. What if its wrong, how would
one know

Keep in mind, I cannot do what Ben demonstrated. But I can I'm just working on that first part. If someone can do this, why not just use normal taijiquan explanations? If they have to go into physics, they seem to have missed it all in my experience.

Seems back wards..if one can do it, then one should be able to correlate what they talked about in the taiji explanations to using modern physics expressions.

The question would be better put to as why? why would one do that....The many post here talking about dantain, qi, ect is one and a big reason why.
Evan among native chinese its not always so clear....using physics takes it out of the realm of the intangible to the tangible.

[Trick]

They may spend a lifetime refining their push-hands skill, but never be able to translate it to fighting.

That's a good thing isn't it? to never have had the need to adhere to violence ...

[Trick]

I do think that Tai Chi can teach some of this, but maybe more in an indirect way. The “no mind” needs to be addressed more directly though, and should be put more directly into practical practice. But I remember when I was as young as 15 and got into trouble. When someone quarreled with me or looked for a fight back then, I didn’t look at aggression as a threat, but instead I would calmly examine the person’s balance and posture and try to figure out how I could take him down easily or how I should position myself if he came closer. I had only practiced Tai Chi for 4 years and I was not a good player at all, but I had still gained some advantages from my practice. Maybe mostly in terms of a physical and mental security that gave me a psychological advantage. So what you actually can gain from tai chi practice, and even in a quite early stage, is very different from what people normally believe.

Did it escalate into a fight? Since you had a lot on your mind in that situation as in how to do this and that, that could maybe trigger an attack. I've been in a couple of situations that also involved knifes and sticks, in where as I reflected on afterward had gone in a state of relaxed omnipresent awareness(the best I can explain it)that made me feel very calm and comfortable on a focused way and the aggressors just seemingly came to think of others things and left... I have often thought about those instances,

[wayne hansen]

If someone can't convert pushing into combat it's not being taught right
If someone can't achieve Wu Wei through pushing its not being taught right

[Interloper]

They may spend a lifetime refining their push-hands skill, but never be able to translate it to fighting.

That's a good thing isn't it? to never have had the need to adhere to violence ...

Absolutely! There are other legitimate reasons to practice taichi besides for combat/defense purposes. The only concern is that practitioners are aware of their own motives and not misled into thinking their practice will provide certain skills for which they have not specifically trained.

[Interloper]

Then we agree.

I do think that Tai Chi can teach some of this, but maybe more in an indirect way. The “no mind” needs to be addressed more directly though, and should be put more directly into practical practice. But I remember when I was as young as 15 and got into trouble. When someone quarreled with me or looked for a fight back then, I didn’t look at aggression as a threat, but instead I would calmly examine the person’s balance and posture and try to figure out how I could take him down easily or how I should position myself if he came closer. I had only practiced Tai Chi for 4 years and I was not a good player at all, but I had still gained some advantages from my practice. Maybe mostly in terms of a physical and mental security that gave me a psychological advantage. So what you actually can gain from tai chi practice, and even in a quite early stage, is very different from what people normally believe.

I believe just about any discipline can teach "no mind"... Athletes, artists of all kinds... when they are "in the zone," they are expressing this concept. In Japanese budo/bugei, the closest equivalent of wu wei ("no action") is mushin ("no mind"). They lead pretty much to the same thing: being able to act instantaneously, in the present and without preparatory thought. IMO, practices such as push-hands do develop this, but they seem to do so for a limited set of circumstances.

That is, they do not put the chaos factor of fighting into the equation, so the brain-body does not have an opportunity to upgrade its wiring to handle a wider range of conditions. It's like training for a marathon on flat land, only to find that the marathon one will be running in, has lots of hills. (That's why East Africans kept winning the Boston Marathon, year after year. They trained on hilly terrain, at high altitudes. This year for the first time in decades, non-Africans won due to wet, chilly weather that their African co-runners did not train for). You fight the way you train.

That said, of course you can't train for every possible condition, but perhaps you can amp up the fear factor and physical duress to more closely resemble a real-life defense situation. Not saying to take on an aggressive silverback gorilla as a training partner, but...

[charles]

My take: ...it seems to me that Adam Mizner's explanation of wu wei is expressed in the first minute.

" More generally in conservative systems, equilibrium is established at a point in configuration space where the gradient of the potential energy with respect to the generalized coordinates is zero."

As a technical writing teacher I once had liked to say, "Eschew obfuscation."

If it is one's purpose to teach, explain, communicate, to do so effectively, which is not an easy task, requires that one do so in a way that is readily accessible to one's intended audience and is done in such as way as to eliminate multiple interpretations, some of which are incorrect.

[willie]

My take: ...it seems to me that Adam Mizner's explanation of wu wei is expressed in the first minute.

" More generally in conservative systems, equilibrium is established at a point in configuration space where the gradient of the potential energy with respect to the generalized coordinates is zero."

As a technical writing teacher I once had liked to say, "Eschew obfuscation."

If it is one's purpose to teach, explain, communicate, to do so effectively, which is not an easy task, requires that one do so in a way that is readily accessible to one's intended audience and is done in such as way as to eliminate multiple interpretations, some of which are incorrect.

Hey Charles. Do you think you can translate what Windwalker posted into something that would be considered technical writing?

[willie]

The question would be better put to as why? why would one do that....The many post here talking about dantain, qi, ect is one and a big reason why.
Evan among native chinese its not always so clear....using physics takes it out of the realm of the intangible to the tangible.

Maybe you should have followed someone like Wang hai Jun, then you would have a crystal clear understanding.
Perhaps it's not too late for you to start all over again?

[windwalker]

The question would be better put to as why? why would one do that....The many post here talking about dantain, qi, ect is one and a big reason why.
Evan among native chinese its not always so clear....using physics takes it out of the realm of the intangible to the tangible.

Maybe you should have followed someone like Wang hai Jun, then you would have a crystal clear understanding.
Perhaps it's not too late for you to start all over again?

maybe you should stick to what you feel you know about....
you keep making assumptions about what others know or not...

[windwalker]

My take: ...it seems to me that Adam Mizner's explanation of wu wei is expressed in the first minute.

" More generally in conservative systems, equilibrium is established at a point in configuration space where the gradient of the potential energy with respect to the generalized coordinates is zero."

As a technical writing teacher I once had liked to say, "Eschew obfuscation."

I was a tech writer at one time in semiconductor industry... kinda surprised or maybe not the quote I used was a gen statement about equilibrium

If it is one's purpose to teach, explain, communicate, to do so effectively, which is not an easy task, requires that one do so in a way that is readily accessible to one's intended audience and is done in such as way as to eliminate multiple interpretations, some of which are incorrect.

Most of the demos questioned can be explained providing one has a back ground enabling one to do it.

lets try something

Fig. 8. The above figure shows a spherical shape with its center outside the body. Note that the defender’s body is inside the extension of the spherical surface at the contact point P.6

http://www.chuckrowtaichi.com/ChengCh.7.html

do agree with it, is it something you use in your work...

[willie]

The question would be better put to as why? why would one do that....The many post here talking about dantain, qi, ect is one and a big reason why.
Evan among native chinese its not always so clear....using physics takes it out of the realm of the intangible to the tangible.

Maybe you should have followed someone like Wang hai Jun, then you would have a crystal clear understanding.
Perhaps it's not too late for you to start all over again?

maybe you should stick to what you feel you know about....
you keep making assumptions about what others know or not...

Windwalker, I don't operate on assumptions. You called me out and all I am doing is answering the call. You can go back to sleep now, thank you

[Bao]

I believe just about any discipline can teach "no mind"... Athletes, artists of all kinds... when they are "in the zone," they are expressing this concept. In Japanese budo/bugei, the closest equivalent of wu wei ("no action") is mushin ("no mind"). They lead pretty much to the same thing: being able to act instantaneously, in the present and without preparatory thought. IMO, practices such as push-hands do develop this, but they seem to do so for a limited set of circumstances.

Agreed.

Chinese have the same equivalent to mushin - wu xin. Though wuji (no differentiation) later became more used as it’s the opposite of tai chi (which means that the things comes into the world by the fluctuations between opposites). Wuwei is something different, it doesn’t really mean emptiness as a state of mind. But it’s still good to start from there to understand Wuwei in action.

Did it escalate into a fight? Since you had a lot on your mind in that situation as in how to do this and that, that could maybe trigger an attack. I've been in a couple of situations that also involved knifes and sticks, in where as I reflected on afterward had gone in a state of relaxed omnipresent awareness(the best I can explain it)that made me feel very calm and comfortable on a focused way and the aggressors just seemingly came to think of others things and left... I have often thought about those instances,

As I didn’t show any aggression or fear I didn’t add more fuel to the fire, and some people I met indeed just cooled down and the situation didn’t escalate. That’s true.

[charles]

" More generally in conservative systems, equilibrium is established at a point in configuration space where the gradient of the potential energy with respect to the generalized coordinates is zero."

Hey Charles. Do you think you can translate what Windwalker posted into something that would be considered technical writing?

Wikipedia states, simply, "Equilibrium, in several sciences, is the condition of a system in which all competing influences are balanced." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equilibrium

[Interloper]

Agreed.

Chinese have the same equivalent to mushin - wu xin. Though wuji (no differentiation) later became more used as it’s the opposite of tai chi (which means that the things comes into the world by the fluctuations between opposites). Wuwei is something different, it doesn’t really mean emptiness as a state of mind. But it’s still good to start from there to understand Wuwei in action.

Thanks, Bao. That is helpful to know. I think I understand that wu wei is more that an "action happens by itself," not by conscious intention. In that regard, it is considered to be "no action." That is how I took Adam Mizner's explanation. Is that correct? In the Japanese internal arts, as far as I know, that concept is not articulated, but IME it is tied to mushin, in that person in a state of mushin will flow with an attacker's energy, and "things will just happen" as a result, without willfully making it happen. While I can see that wu wei and wu xin are different concepts, there is a relationship. They both seem to be a conditioning of the intuitive part of the brain, but wu xin/mushin also requires a high degree of body sensitivity to respond instantaneously with any pressure put upon it.