MYSTERY OF THE SECRETS
EVERYONE who embarks on the study of Tai Chi Chuan has ample opportunity to buy into the many “secrets” to Tai Chi mastery. The secret can take the form of an esoteric knowledge passed down only to the select student of famous masters. It can be the secret form previously known only to a handful of monks in the remotest monastery. The operative word is the opportunity to “buy” the secret, which implies that for spending $29.95 for the book or $395 for the weekend, you will be imbued with a secret piece of magic that will change your life forever. If the books hits home for you, if the weekend sounds like it might he fun, then by all means, go for it. Just don’t expect a Panacea—and be a smart enough shopper to buy services that don’t oversell themselves. Such restraint is gaining ground in the Tai Chi world as younger, better educated masters make their way from China to the United States, bringing with them university degrees and the attendant intellectual rigor.
Modern master like Daniel Y.Wang, who has an Engineering degree from a Beijing. University, notes that the path to Tai Chi mastery must be a journey of the intellect, of the body, and of the spirt. Successful practice is a time to “be yourself with yourself, for
your whole life.”
While not a religion, per se, by delving into matters of the spirit, Tai Chi takes on religious trappings. As with any other great philosophy or religion, the magic creeps in. As Penn and Teller will, confirm magic depends on secrets. And it’s these magical secrets that offer fast solutions to acolytes who want easy answers. The magicians become high priests with high status, who are more interested in their own advancement than in guiding students on a true path.
According to Deng Ming-Dao in 365 Tao Daily Meditations this talk of magic belongs only to the superstitious. “Superiority is simply a matter of using the best of one’s abilities and being in the right position…” It’s. a matter of awareness and preparation, a rare enough talent among humans to seem like magic.
It’s up you, the student to see through the magic of the secrets, to recognize these secrets as the lesser element found in all the great phi1osophies and religions. Like all the others, Tai Chi endures because of the self-evident truths. It’s not any “secret” that makes the ultimate truth difficult to comprehend—it’s the elusiveness of clear insight into that truth, amidst the swirl of our hectic lives.
No secret worth knowing can ever truly be kept, if only because of the 100th monkey rule. If you thought of it, so did 100 other people at the exact
same time. Look at “atomic secrets”. Whenever scientists in the United States came up with a great advance, the Soviets, who were doing similar
research, would come up with a comparable advance. For all the effort expended by East and West, it was no secret that made the difference, it was the weight of very public economics that that brought about massive social change.
While marketing obviously plays a role in the free and easy use of
2 the word “secrets”, linguistics has a lot to do with it as well. “Secret” embodies eight distinct definitions according to Webster’s Ninth. It’s a complex word with
many English meanings. Multiply that with the vagaries of translation from the original Chinese and the potential for confusion is boundless.
Much Tai Chi knowledge was closely guarded for a variety of reasons. The Chen and Yang families relied on their martial skill to perform escort service to merchants, to train soldiers, in short, to conduct the family business. In keeping with the family business nature of Chinese Martial Arts knowledge, certain elements important to the family business were kept “secret” in the sense of—”a method, formula or process used in an art and divulged only to those of one’s own company or craft.” But those are trade secrets, not essential truths. Those secrets are more likely to involve a particular defensive move than any aid to enlightenment.
A secret Tai Chi ingredient may very well exist in the same way a family tomato sauce recipe has a secret combination of spices. That recipe can’t be copied by the uninitiated. But it’s hardly, the only recipe that works. Often as not, a cherished family recipe can taste downright foul to someone with different expectations.
A good cook with a different sensibility can make a sauce that’s better according to his or her own ideal. Its ingredients may or may not be secret. But in both cases, the cooks have created a sauce to their liking. That’s always been the secret—that you must find what works for you. Others may direct you by
Explaining what worked for them, but it is only your secret when you’ve made it your own.
When viewing Tai Chi as a Masonic Temple of the east, a social club with particular rituals, then secret may mean “the practice of knowledge making up the shared discipline or culture of an esoteric society.” That’s the secrecy of a cult, say Scientology, which won’t reveal the truth until disciples have gone through expensive “training”. Again those kinds of secrets only help define acceptance into a particular group, shared knowledge separating the few from the many. That isn’t a Tai Chi secret.
It’s a club secret and the exact opposite of the Tai Chi goal of universality.
Alternatively, if used descriptively, secret may be “something taken to be a specific key to a desired end (the secret of longevity).” It’s this definition of “secret” that can aptly be applied to many of the Tai Chi secrets. The word is not used to imply anything hidden or concealed. Rather it’s a “secret” as a synonym for “key” or or “plan” or “method”.
For instance, Li I- Yu wrote the Five Character Secret as a guide to Tai Chi practice. Li I-Yu speaks to Calm, Breath, Agility, Internal Force, and Spirit. He elucidates strong principles but they’re not secrets in the sense that they’re hidden. They’re embellishments of legendary Chang San-Feng’s classic text, T’ai Chi Ch’uan Ch’ing.
All the essential truths of Tai Chi are clearly laid out in the books of the Tai Chi Chuan Classics as published in the Essence of Tai Chi Chuan. There is no hidden secret greater than these self-evident truths. Everything beyond that is explanation, elucidation, and elaboration. Teachers, books, videos, the flight of a bird, the wail of a child, all can help achieve greater- understanding of the essence of Tai Chi, but it’s always understanding of the fundamental principles. This doesn’t diminish the value of I-Yu’s teaching. It just points out that the most likely meaning of the word “secret” is key or principle. Some students consider the classics too cryptic, too poetic, or too esoteric. They prefer a more concrete read, and such books are certainly available. It’s just important to understand that they don’t reveal any “secrets”. Elaboration of the essential principles do help. Just as there are many body types that make the physical form look different, so may different people more easily absorb the core meaning of the classics through different explanations. It’s always important to realize that these explanations don’t offer different information than what is found the classics – merely different views of the same organic principles.
There are no secrets as the course. As with anything venerable, many versions of the truth find their way into the popular lexicon. All the analogies contain a kernel of the truth – none are complete. The only real secret is the combination of knowledge and practice that bring you the peace and unity you seek.
Problems and confusion arise because too often the meaning of “secret” isn’t clear even to the people using it. The significance is often less clear. This is hardly unique to Tai Chi or even to Eastern philosophy. Take an example from the prototypically western world of golf. Ben Hogan, who recovered from a crippling car crash to enjoy the ost esteemed career in the history of professional golf, was rumored to have a “secret” move. Even after publishing a virtual sacred text known as the Five Lessons, insiders insisted that Ben held something back. The inscrutable golfer kept his own counsel, occasionally revealing his secret to a confidante. Tellingly, a February 1994 Golf Magazine article catalogued the litany of secrets Hogan revealed to his pee rs-and every golfer told of a different secret. What they all agreed upon is that Hogan’s secret was a method for overcoming a horrible hook, an uncontrolled left to right ball flight pattern that used to plague his game. Hogan’s secret is useless to 90% of golfers because they suffer from slices, uncontrolled right to left ball flight patterns. Hogan’s secret did wonders for his game and his career. But it’s his secret not because he hid the truth, even as he may have done that out of a sense of competitive mischief, but because it only works for him. Everyone else w ill have to find his own secret.
Invoking the mantra of “secret” has its positive side as well. The idea of secret can be used as a method of highlighting important information, of punctuating its importance. If it’s considered a. secret, it’s more valuable, more cherished, given more attention and significance. It’s often not a way to obscure truth, but a strategy to help the truth achieve a pinnacle. In the world of advertising, this is called “breaking through the noise.”
Given our complex culture, there’s real value in just getting heard. The multiple meanings of words coincides with the multiple influences in our lives, a veritable cacophony of distractions warring for our attention, scattering our focus and sapping our energy. With so much information bombarding our senses from advertising, traffic, harassed schedules, and relentless jobs, the most difficult task is often just retaining focus – a gathering of Chi in the dan tien and in the mind. I-Yu speaks to the need for focus: “If Chi is dispersed, then it is not stored or accumulated and it is easy to scatter.” While hermits may enjoy a life without distractions, the rest of us must seek Tai Chi Chuan wisdom by learning to cope with and filter the influences of society.
The key, or secret, is in focus. It’s in being secure enough to resist the allure of a “secret”, a magic pill to make everything clear. Just like the search for the Fountain of Youth or for the legendary buried treasure, the search for the “secret” of enlightenment is a natural human fantasy. It’s this very urge that students must overcome to take the first step on the road toward Tai Chi mastery. The lure of secrets as panacea is yet another distraction, a needless diversion on a road that already has too many dead ends. If a student can stay in the form, performing it for its own sake, it is itself a great accomplishment.
While Tai Chi students are predisposed to work for advancement, it’s important to keep in mind that the work will always be the best road to the ultimate goal. Li I-Yu wrote: “practicing the form every day is the kung fun (way of practicing) of knowing yourself.” Fang Sa Chang began studying with Chen Fa Kai in 1951 and became Chen’s most revered student. This was not because of any esoteric secret, but because he worked hard every day. He held the horse stance every morning for 2 hours. He followed this with 15 repetitions of the form. With dedication like that, he built a strong base of knowledge that gave his mind the roots from which to spread out and gather back impressive amounts of energy. Such a time consuming routine may not be practical for the Tai Chi enthusiast with a demanding job in our busy society. But the point remains that it’s the discipline that created mastery. That discipline might only involve practice for an hour a day, but it must be a discipline. It must be done with attention, focus and patience. Like food, knowledge must be served in digestible quantities. Gorging just makes a mess of confused vomit. The wise student knows when the paus and absorb the nutrients.
The best antidote for the allure of magical secrets is a solid foundation of knowledge. That’s knowledge that must be built up step by step. A good math teacher starts with adding and subtraction. He won’t broach calculus until students know geometry. The same foundations must be built in understanding Tai Chi Chuan. Know the history. Know the form. Know the principles. Unify the form of your body with the principles of your mind. Fuse body and mind into one whole, which is spirit.
Know the history – know only what can be known. The exact origin is shrouded in legend. Who created Tai Chi? When? Who cares? We can never know for sure, so don’t waste time thinking about it. Take only the essentials from the history – the essentials being that Tai Chi grew from martial roots Know Tai Chis martial roots and express those martial roots in your practice.
Know the form. Know the balance of every step, the angle of every knee position, the twist of every waist turn, the contour of every arm movement, the curve of every knuckle. Knowing is a process of discovery. It involves dissecting the totality, getting to the minutia, feeling every nostril hair move in every breath. The search demands mental awareness of every physical action.
Attend to your hands. Attend to your eyes. Attend to your body. Attend to your technique. Attend to your footwork. – Hand, eye, body, method, stance.
Know the Principles as easily understood from such readily available book as as The Essence of Tai Chi Chuan. Determine what is correct according to the principles. Daniel Wang offers this synthesis: “Body straight; footwork correct; whole body balanced; eyes follow the movements. It’s like any art. What’s correct comes from feel…movements natural, very balanced, in harmony, breath matched with the movements. Your eyes show your spirit. Your body is balanced. Motional emanates from your waist. Energy flows, expressing stability and beauty.”
Through diligent self-study you can synthesize knowledge of the history, of the form, and of the principles. In that way you create a unified system to live, by, a way of knowing where you stand. The sense of unity flows back and forth from the large to the small—from feeling at one with the universe, to enjoying the perfect balance of hands and feet in a well-placed ward off movement. When you do the movements right and really enjoy them, you get the happy feeling of unifying with your spirit. Daniel Y. Wang says, “Build a strong foundation in Tai Chi mastery in this one area then spreads throughout Your life.”
The lesson learned from the many meanings of the word ‘secret” is an object lesson in the Tao of Tai Chi. Any good Taoist knows that knowledge is subjective, that there is no absolute truth. Deng Ming-Pao in 365 Tao Daily Meditations says “we cannot escape our point of view. Know that words are imperfect and therefore give them limited importance. The symbol is not the same as the reality.” Tai Chi can be like the English language. There are only certain things that are correct, but many different ways to say the same thing. The movements are the same, but the energy is individual. Through practice, it’s up to the student to experience meaning beyond the limits of what any word can describe.
This is not just about semantics. Analysis of “secrets” is also about perception and awareness. It’s about recognizing the shifting nature of everything, everything from the meaning of words to the importance of a section of the Tai Chi form, to your understanding of the essence of Tai Chuan.
When all is said and done, the mystery of the secrets is that there are no secrets. While there is most certainly knowledge held only by very few people, it’s not knowledge essential to anyone’s achievement, of Tai Chi mastery. Any diligent student, who combines focused study under a knowledgeable teacher with organized reading of readily available published books, has all the source material necessary to achieve Tai Chuan’s goal of unifying body, mind and spirit. The truth of this can be found in the Tai Chi Classics, in the Song of the, 13 postures.
…To enter the door and be shown the way,
you must be orally taught.
The practice is uninterrupted,
and the technique (achieved) by self-study.
By Tom Forsythe on the eve of the release of his first instructional video, Tai Chi Chuan For Life.
First published the the Winter 1994-1995 issue of Qi – The Journal of Traditional Eastern Health & Fitness.