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Tai Chi Chuan as a Warrior Way
In common with practitioners of other martial arts, the tai chi chuan exponent is following a warrior way. Inevitably, the serious student will find himself becoming more and more immersed in this aspect of the art until it becomes a way of life.
One of the first signs that this process of immersion is taking place appears when the student notices that not an hour of the day goes by when he doesn't spend some time thinking about his art. He then goes on to try to take every opportunity to practice. Have you ever used a crowded tube train as an opportun¬ity to practice rooting skills or. standing waiting for a bus, have practiced keeping single-weighted (unobtrusively, I might add!)? If these are familiar experiences to you, then you are well on your way down the warrior path.
With increased awareness of how the physical skills of the art may be practiced on an hourly basis comes the realisation that mental skills must simi¬larly be cultivated. Striving to keep the mind focused on the Dantian as you go about your daily routine is one such mental exercise. The student might also try to use his peripheral vision more or to concentrate on developing constant alertness and awareness.
• Warrior awareness
The next step along the warrior way. which is a natural progression from practic¬ing the mental skills described above, is to develop 'warrior awareness'. To the non-martial artist this awareness closely resembles a state of paranoia, but to the warrior it is an essential part of daily life. Indeed, in crisis situations it is the way to stay alive!
Such awareness means always being mindful of possible sources of danger horn moment to moment. The martial arts warrior constantly plays the game of, What if.. ,?'(What if there were someone waiting around that corner; what if that man were suddenly to attack me?) But to him. it is not a game. Approached in the wrong way. however, this kind of speculation could lead to the practitioner living perpetually on his nerves. Instead, the warrior must always start from a balanced, centred mental state so that the moment the speculative message is delivered by the brain he is already calmly moving to negate the threat without going into overdrive. The negation of the threat might simply be to cross the road to avoid walking through a crowd of boisterous youths, or turning wide around a corner.
What this attitude ensures is that should an actual threat materialise, the warrior docs not have to pass through a 'ready, steady, go' process. He is already at 'steady', and so has a much quicker reaction time than the untrained person on the street. Some martial arts warriors urge those who wish to take the warrior path to train themselves constantly to make a mental assessment of the situation they are in by thinking in terms of green, amber and red 'states'. A non-threatening situation, such as being at home watching the television, would qualify as 'condition green', while turning a blind corner in an unknown area would be 'condition amber'. Walking down a street full of drunken football fans, on the other hand, might well be a 'condition red' situation.
What cannot be stressed enough, though, is that these mental states must be accompanied by the appropriate physical responses. The tai chi chuan warrior strives always to remain relaxed and centred. The greater the threat, the more relaxation and detachment is required. By this stage, keeping the mind in the Dantian, remaining rooted and ensuring that the body complies with all of the requirements of the art should be second nature to the warrior. As he goes through conditions green to red all of these essential physical states will be maintained with confidence.
• The warrior way and respect for others
When explaining the concept of warrior awareness to non-martial artists, the most common reaction is one of horror and outrage. Often you will be met with the assertion that it is an unhealthy mental state and must surely lead to increased violence. This, however, is not the case, for the warrior realises the potentially lethal nature of the skills he possesses and so does everything in his power to avoid conflict. It is for this reason that Chinese masters always stress to outsiders that their art is for the development of health. In this way they are not in danger of being 'a nail that, sticking up, must be knocked down'. Practitioners of martial arts are also urged always to be polite, as politeness is a protection against conflict.
One fact that a warrior very quickly learns is that it is impossible to judge a person's martial ability by his appearance, and so he is always careful to treat everyone with equal respect. This is just a matter of commonsense. In ancient China where many people carried weapons and, more importantly, knew how to use them, it was important to avoid confrontation unless there was absolutely no alternative. The approach still has validity in many areas of oriental thought. For example, compare a Chinese nightclub bouncer with his western counterpart. When a problem arises in a Chinese nightclub the bouncer, who is almost always a member of a local organised crime group, will intervene and talk to the troublemaker or troublemakers. Usually, this is an end to the matter, as no party wishes to get involved in a situation they cannot win. But should they wish to take things further, any actual fighting will take place at a later date and at a venue outside the nightclub that is decided upon by mutual arrangement. The fact that any trouble arising inside the nightclub is unlikely to be in the form of an actual fight is again a result of neither party wishing to become involved, unless it is absolutely necessary, in a situation in which they might lose face.
In a western nightclub, on the other hand, the fight has usually started by the time the bouncers arrive, and they are left with no recourse but to stop the incident as quickly and effectively as possible. The main difference between the eastern and the western scenario is that the rate of escalation is much quicker amongst occidentals whose considerations of reputation are not all-important; in fact, 'face' might be judged by one's willingness to fight. When the fight actually takes place in the oriental world the consequences and ramifications are likely to be severe.
• The modern day warrior
An example of a modern tai chi chuan warrior is Master Tan Ching Ngee of Singapore. His warrior awareness extends even to the clothes he wears, as he makes a point of always wearing the kind of garments that he could comfortably fight in. Thus, whenever he teaches a class he wears his street clothes. The art, he stresses, must not be separated from daily life. His watch, his belt and even his jewellery, such as gold chains, can all be used as weapons. On one occasion, when invited to dinner by a fellow martial artist of whose intentions he was not sure, despite his host's attempts to sit him in a place of the host's choosing, Master Tan chose to sit right next to him. He therefore provided himself with the opportunity of using his potential enemy either as a shield or as a guarantee of his own safety.
Another aspect of the warrior state of mind as it relates to Chinese martial arts is that the practitioner should never choose to fight empty-handed when a weapon is available. In matters of life or death, a martial artist uses whatever tools are close by.
One tai chi chuan martial artist was attacked by a man wielding a broken bottle. Without conscious thought he picked up a piece of wood lying on the ground and, using skills developed by practice of the tai chi broadsword, he disarmed his opponent and dissuaded him from continuing the attack. This mar¬tial artist, you might say, was lucky that there was a convenient weapon on the ground; but it was his cultivation of warrior awareness that enabled him to identify his need, find a weapon and end the situation as quickly and as decisively as possible. The man is still alive to follow the warrior path precisely because he had chosen to lead this way of life in the first place. This, then, is the warrior path: a lifetime's journey to the ever-elusive destination - perfection.