The Way Of The TAO
When I was a child, and for many, many years that followed, I had a terrible stutter: I couldn’t speak at all in front of strangers or in unfamiliar environments. Sometimes even in front of family and friends I couldn’t either. I was immensely shy in general, and needed to know the names of all the restaurant staff before entering (true story).
I also had a lisp, and so couldn’t pronounce R’s or S’s properly. Thammy the Thnake etc etc.
I share with you this brief story because Movement (and Learning!), at least how the Tao appreciates it, is little about becoming a superstar sexy mover, building a six pac, doing a one-arm handstand or being able to swim naked and proud in front of jealous onlookers. It is about the tiny miracles; the absolute impossibility of some previously unexplored skill, experience or habit becoming somehow possible…
It is a miracle that I can speak in public. That I can teach. That I can even perform in front of a paying audience (sort of).
It is also a miracle that I swim in canals and rivers daily after a childhood of hilariously tragic (and near fatal) experiences in water.
We all have been touched by the magic of our own potential, and continue to discover new frontiers within ourselves, whether we consciously choose for it or not. And yet there are so many infinite areas still unexplored…
I’ve always been fascinated by the sea. I’d sit and watch it whilst writing poetry but always struggled to feel comfortable in the water. Water is a popular muse for many writers / Taoists however, perhaps because it is so terrifyingly authentic and honest…
Research Mindset
I am actually quite a cowardly ‘mover’. I’m much more of an engineer, or a ‘researcher’, than a daredevil. I don’t like to pursue something, anything, until I know it’s a safe, secure (and interesting enough) investment. It has taken me many years to get used to the idea of dancing with others (through Contact Improvisation for example), because I didn’t have much of a safe, trusting passage to do so.
Nothing makes me happier than seeing my friends conquer distances (when running) in half of the time it took me to do so; to carefully introduce and teach others to move in contact with another body in just 1 hour, as appose to my 2 years of unguided experiments; to show people, gently, that actually ANYONE can perform, and here are a few simple ways you can already start…
After all, intelligence is making a difficult thing easy, and doing a complex thing simply.
There is a structure and a process to EVERYTHING… even to those experiences we speak of as miracles. As conscious beings, we needn’t be feathers in the wind, and can instead choose for a deliberate practice, based on evolution, growth and progress towards our most inspiring goals, and towards those challenges that scare or confuse us the most!
Juggling is a great example of how (almost) anything can be broken down into bitesize chunks! We needn’t throw balls helplessly into the air and hope that we somehow miraculously stumble upon the perfect technique. The same goes for everything in life (metaphorically speaking).
Being A Generalist
At the Tao, we strive to be fantastic generalists. “Jack of all trades, and masters of none” (as they say in English).
A specialist’s body is fixed, identified, decided; and a specialist’s mind is one-dimensional, narrow, stubborn. Whereas a generalist is curious, open and evolving constantly like water. He/she treats all things the same: with a wild thirst for understanding, awareness and change.
A generalist tries to prove himself/herself wrong; to find more contradictions within themselves, and to see the truth and necessity in all things. In pain, in death, in vaccines, in murder, in trees, in flowers, in ugly abandoned buildings.
A specialist is a story, an ideal, a stone statue. A generalist is an (extra)ordinary human being!
The Tao, in this way, targets our so-called weaknesses, and shows them instead to be the natural and sincere difficulties inherent in practicing any new skill. And then it gives you the basic building blocks necessary to become stronger in that area; allowing for gradual progression in a fun and inventive way.
The Tao invites you to see a handstand or locomotion pattern (for example) ALSO as a fundamental spiritual practice, and one that is superior in some ways to tantra, chanting, meditation etc etc. Equally, playing games, catching tennis balls, dodging sticks, being blindfolded or walking like a lizard is as profound and absolutely necessary as eating, sleeping and sh**ing.
PLAY is not only fun and invigorating, but essential to the human spirit, to relationships and to learning! When we stop playing, we stop learning to the best of our ability. It’s as simple as that.
Embracing Paradox
There is no rest without work. No cotton without steel. No yin without yang. No self without other.
Relating to oneself means to relate to space, to objects within that space, to greater forces above and below, and to other humans as essential mirrors for our daily practice. It means to relate to EVERYTHING in fact. And that one exercise with the tennis ball or the mirror that you found utterly frustrating (or even plain boring)… is probably exactly where you need to go… for there is the resistance, and therefore the transcendence of oneself.
You thought you were a dancer, a martial artist, a singer, a masseuse, or a football player. But actually you are all of those things and more; we just haven’t quite fully seen it yet.
In this respect, at the Tao we don’t take our emotions too seriously because we know they are fleeting, where as our practice isn’t. The Tao practice is persistent, endless, infinite, in every moment. And yet, at other times, we absolutely DO behave emotionally, completely emotionally!… Because one cannot move without emotion actually. Every physical act is emotional. And every emotional act is physical.
It is a paradox. Nobody understands it. And yet it is not supposed to be understood; it’s supposed to be practiced only. Daily, weekly, monthly...
That is all.
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