Coconut Grove in the 1960's

 When I was a college student in the 1960s, I fell in with a Bohemian crowd. I had a four year Scholarship to the University of Miami, and began my freshman year in the fall of 1965 as a commuter living with my family in North Miami Beach, about 20 miles North of the school. 

The next year I moved to Coral Gables and shared an apartment with a friend near the school. During that year I wound up with a room-mate that knew much of the Coconut Grove community, and I connected with something special that was happening then and there.

The following year I moved into a low rent apartment in  Coconut Grove, parked my car in the yard, and rode my bicycle to school at the UM and to work at Burdines department store in the Dadeland Mall, before it was enclosed and air conditioned. I had the downstairs apartment behind the Easy-Quick at 27th Avenue and Bird Rd. It had broken windows, a wall AC, and the rent was $35. a month. On the other side was a laundromat.

You could buy two bags of groceries for about three dollars, a new Volkswagen bug was $1,200., and an MGB sports car cost $2,600. The tuition at UM was $600. a semester, and my scholarship paid $500. of that.

In the upstairs Apartment lived Pete and Ann, old Grove Bohemians, where the musician Fred Neil often hung out when he sometimes retreated from the world. (Later the upstairs apartment was rented by some friends who were part of putting together the Doors concert at Dinner Key Auditorium March first, 1969, along with Timothy Leary, but that’s another story.) 

I was the quiet, sometimes stoned kid who occupied a corner and didn’t talk a lot.  I was younger than most. Freddie befriended me and sometimes we’d chat. 

I didn’t know a lot. I was a sponge, that absorbed much from the bohemian folk music and intellectual environment. 

Dinner Key and the ‘Safe harbor’ anchorage designation off the marina, on the other side of Sand Island, on the nautical charts that allowed free anchorage to all sailors, also added to the community of free spirits and added something special to the mix.

 People that lived in the anchorage would sometimes gather around a campfire on Sand Island, and I sometimes found myself a part of some memorable times there.

My dedication to my schooling and college education saved me from falling into the self-destructive drug behaviors to which I was sometimes exposed. (My Scholarship required me to maintain a minimum ‘B’ grade average, and, as I was an Honor student, my classes were sometimes somewhat challenging). 

Coconut Grove, in those days harbored a community that was an outpost, or extension of the culture found in Greenwich Village in New York City. It was a part of the Folk and intellectual community found there, perhaps reminiscent of Paris in the 30’s…, and I was lucky enough to find myself there. 

In those years, when many went to school to get a career, I was trying to find myself, and looking for meaning in life.  The people in that environment, mostly older than me, seemed to exhibit a sureness that promised the understanding that I sought.

 There were people there who knew Ken Kesey, Lenny Bruce, Allen Ginsberg, Alan Watts, amongst others. I would sometimes hear stories and anecdotes of their lives and antics, that couldn’t be read in any book.

I sought to become a Renaissance man, and took lab courses in chemistry and biology rather than the survey courses taken by most liberal arts majors. Besides a major in Psychology and Philosophy, I completed the requirements for a minor in English. 

Inspiration

T’ai Chi is so much more than the physical movements, which are just one way to look at something much larger and all encompassing! 

The principles of T’ai Chi, the connectedness and cooperation/integration of all the parts of not only the body, but of any closed or open system, (including feelings and insights as well as thoughts), can foster an extremely useful and practical path toward generating a more encompassing world view or consciousness.

This opens the door to including such topics as these above musings in this blog.

 They have helped me to grow and integrate a world view that might encompass much within a framework based upon the principles of T’ai Chi. For this I feel Blessed.

Blessings to All,

Daniel

Focus/Teaching Skills

 Paying attention involves both deciding what to focus on, and the actual set of skills used in focusing. 

Before I can focus my eyes or my mind on anything, I must pick that which I will attend to. It is only after this happens that actual focusing, or selection, may take place. 

For example, my general take on teaching has been to be task oriented. 

With this starting point I might think of the (or a) best way to learn T’ai Chi. 

I have tended to teach the way my teachers, the Chows, taught me. This was perhaps an excellent way, for them in their time and place, and in their culture, assuming a mature population in which the student takes responsibility for their own commitment, they focused on the form. 

In a large population, this was sufficient to keep motivated students. However many students today in our culture may benefit from something more. 

As Mary Poppins would say, “A little bit of sugar helps the medicine go down.” 

Many successful teachers know this and take this into account. 

This entails focusing on the big picture, not just the teaching task but also the teaching situation.

 I had excellent teachers, but perhaps I didn’t acquire some of their more subtle techniques that aided their students through the more tedious parts of the learning process. 

For me, this might just be some of the wisdom that accrues through age. 

For others, this entails looking at what might engage the student, and other such details that might fall under the category of being not only an instructor but also serving as an entertainer, or roll modeling healthy interactions. 

After these concerns are attended to and the student is helped through any pitfalls encountered, then the focusing or selection process may be applied more appropriately to the T’ai Chi content.

As I begin Teaching T’ai Chi again perhaps I might improve my teaching skills by paying more attention to the student’s needs as a student, and include this in the curriculum design. 

“A successful musician is not only a musician, but also an entertainer.”

- Marshall Tucker

Best Wishes to All,

Daniel 

An Ounce of Laughter

 "Drive all blames into one."  

                                    - Jamgon Kongtrul

What if we stop trying to assign blame for the situations that plague our search for peace of mind? 

“Transcendence restores humor. Spirit restores humor. Suddenly, smiling returns. Too many representatives of too many movements, even very good movements, such as feminism, environmentalism, meditation, spiritual studies, seem to lack humor altogether. In other words, they lack lightness, they lack a distance from themselves, a distance from the ego and it’s grim game of forcing others to conform to it’s contours. 

There is self transcending humor, or there is the game of ego power…

 

(We) should all trade the pounds of ego for one ounce of laughter.”

                                      -Ken Wilber (The essential Ken Wilber,1998,p.185)

In Jamgon Kongtrul’s The direct path to Enlightenment, a list of useful aphorisms, “Drive all blames into one” is followed by “Be grateful to everyone.”.

It’s good to stand up for things that we believe in, but, just maybe, not so beneficial to get lost in them. 

This is because herein we risk creating more polarization and division, and defeat our goal of making things better.

Earthlings are known throughout the inner Solar System for two things; their creativity and their resourcefulness. 

When some Earthling astronauts were scheduling their next mission, they decided that since some of them had already visited their moon, and they wanted to visit someplace that had not been visited before, they would go to the Sun. 

Their engineers protested that this was impossible. It was too hot! 

They replied “Don’t worry! We’ll go at night!”

Namaste, Daniel

Again,

"Namaste" translates as: “May the Light within me honor the Light within You!”

New Year's Resolution

 Recent events in my own life have caused me to look at and ponder upon what direction I might like to take, moving forward.

Although I am blessed with many skills and many options, I am finding out that I also have a lot of baggage and a long way to go. 

As I get older I find that this is good. It suggests that perhaps I am not done yet.

 

It feels good to be needed and as long as I have something to give, there is still a place for me here. There is always more to be done.

This might require that I keep an open mind and that I take good care of myself. 

I should not forget to always try to make things better and to work for the common good.

I should not expect perfection in myself or others. I hope to always foster Good Intentions in myself and by example, in others. 

I also see the importance of Joy, Humor and Compassion in order to foster thoughts, feelings, and actions that create an all encompassing ‘Us’ instead of ‘Us versus Them’.

Sometimes even a little bit can do a lot!

We have the power to make a better future and this thought can sustain Hope!

Namaste,

(May the Light within me honor the Light within You),

Daniel

Cleaning House

 I periodically try to go through the various spaces that I use, and clear out much of left over and no longer used residue and clutter that seems to accumulate over time.

 This includes many items that might detract from the efficient use of living, teaching and work spaces, as well as kitchen, yard, and the many storage areas that might be put to better use. This includes much that has become storage, although not originally planned as storage areas.

As I clean I believe that I am creating habits that might hopefully generalize into other, non-material areas of endeavor, and foster my “Cleaning up my act”, of no longer functional or useful thoughts, behaviors, and beliefs. 

This, in T’ai Chi terms can be seen as a process of eliminating the extra movements that disturb our balance and relaxation in so many subtle ways.

When I clean, whether it is going through the mail or clearing out a room or closet, the process is similar. 

The first division is to keep or to throw away, including taking out the trash. Next, the ‘keep’ pile might either be dealt with or condensed to deal with later. 

These easy first steps immediately shrink the size of the problem. 

On the surface these steps might seem obvious and not worth listing, but their application to our junk habits, thoughts and behaviors might not be so obvious.

It is of utmost importance to not just think or philosophize about this, but to practice and through this practice to change our habitual thoughts and behaviors, that may have led us to hold limiting beliefs as well. 

This is the real T’ai Chi. 

Practicing the form influences our everyday life and our everyday life influences our form. 

It’s a two way street!

Free Will

Meditation is traditionally used here to create a space between a thought and an automatic habitual re-action, and allows us the space to consciously decide what we might want to do. 

This is so important because this is where we have the option to exercise free will, instead of behaving in a predetermined, habitual manner. 

A meditation here is defined as anything that helps us to pay attention to what we are doing, and doesn’t necessarily require a particular posture or chant. 

T’ai Chi can be a meditation, or making music or exercising. 

A meditation can be anything that brings us more fully into the present moment.

Without our being present, how can we have choice, or Free Will?

Happy New Year to All,

Daniel

Economy of Movement

 Movement that doesn’t affect one’s state of balance does not require additional rebalancing movements, and immensely simplifies that which remains.

As this becomes evident through practice of the form, this simple principle may provide a greater understanding of how all the various and seemingly disparate parts of the form all work together to create a more advantageous path for our lives.

These various and disparate interwoven threads may then become parts of a tapestry or cloth that may extend far beyond our own lives. 

When we effect positive change that extends beyond the limits of our own reach, this may bring us a new strength, adding meaning and significance to our lives.

There is something special about having the ability to make the world even a little bit better. 

This might be as simple as being a little more relaxed and in balance, a little less polarized, or less up-tight.

Maybe some of that will rub off and help others. 

Again, we don’t have to be perfect. 

Sometimes just the attempt can be enough to be a powerful reminder, both for ourselves and for others.

For me, it’s. A kind of New Year’s Resolution!

Namaste,

Daniel

Learning/Teaching the Form

 In the beginning we demonstrate the form and explain the necessary precepts (Balance, shifting the weight, relaxation, moving from the center, etc.), and then have the students follow the instructor through the beginning of the form, including individual instruction, adding new parts as the student progresses. 

This is a lot for most beginners, and adding more to this regimen may risk driving some students away. 

Adding one somewhat challenging activity, which the Chows included almost from the beginning, greatly facilitates this learning process. 

This activity, although somewhat challenging, should not be overlooked by the serious student or instructor. 

In addition to presenting the precepts and the form and practicing the form, both by following it and by individual work with each student, having each student perform what they can of the form without help during the individual part of each student’s lesson greatly enhances this learning process. 

(“Now I want you to do as much of the form as you can on your own, without help.”)

If this part is left out, the student is sent home without practicing doing the form on their own, and then is expected to do this homework without having practiced it! 

This learning/ teaching technique makes the difference between storing the practice in short term memory or storing it in one’s long term memory. 

Without it, the lessons take much longer to be absorbed and internalized.

Accomplished musicians know this. When practicing a new piece, at some point they begin to play it without having a copy of it to follow. 

They then acquire the ability to play the piece without having a copy in front of them. 

Practicing the piece without using this aid is challenging, and might often require multiple attempts. 

I often remind students at this point that one doesn’t have to do the form perfectly in order to accrue benefits. 

No one (except perhaps Mr Data from Star Trek) achieves excellence without first making beginners’ mistakes. 

Einstein

No effort is ever wasted. This is known as Einstein’s law of the conservation of matter and energy, and means that our every effort can have a positive effect, even if it takes a while to manifest in our lives.

It just takes a little time.. With just a little patience much can be achieved. 

Changing Old Habits Takes Time

We are changing a lifetime of habits. 

These habits worked well for us.

They kept us from falling as far back as when we first learned to walk, so they may require a little time to change. 

It’s not surprising that it takes time to learn a better way to move. It’s amazing that we can do this at all! 

We learned some of these habits since before we learned to talk. 

We can’t easily access them or change them with words. But we can reach and work with them by changing the way we move. 

It just takes a little bit longer!

It just takes a little time. And the benefits of moving without un-necessarily tensing up are immense! 

We have much better balance now than we did when we first learned to walk. 

We waste so much energy when we aren’t in balance!

Namaste, Daniel