Doing And Not-Doing
A young man approached a sword master and asked: “How long would it take me to master your art?”
“Ten years,” the master said.
“What if I work harder than anyone else?” the young man asked. “What if I work day and night and do nothing but practice?”
“Twenty years,” the master said.
That story highlights a paradox for those who train in martial arts, especially internal martial arts. It is this: You need a strong desire to propel you through inevitable periods of self-doubt and stalled progress, but the wrong kind of desire will impede your progress rather than accelerate it.
As the legendary Taoist Lao Tzu noted in the Tao Te Ching, “He who rushes ahead doesn’t go far.”
Some students learn martial arts as an acquisition. They see it as something they can possess that will adorn and embellish their egos, like a luxury car or an exotic vacation. But sincere training is more a process of stripping away than of adding to, more one of not-doing than of doing.
Not-doing, or wu-wei, is a core concept of Taoism, the philosophical and spiritual root of Tai Chi. It does not mean doing nothing. Rather, it means following the way of nature and the cosmos instead of striving for personal gain or glory, which is regarded as vain and counterproductive.
It could take a lifetime or two of contemplation a mountaintop to fully grasp the meaning of wu-wei, but one clear example of how it applies to Tai Chi can be found in the concept of “song.”
English has no equivalent word, so “song” typically is translated as “relaxation,” which for some means flopping down on the couch and ripping open a beer. True “song,” however, requires not only a deep relaxation of the muscles, sinews, tissues, vessels and organs, but also a quieting of the mind that results in a keen awareness undisturbed by thought.
Achieving “song” is a long and difficult process for most Tai Chi students, but one essential to their progress because the more “song” you are, the more power you can express.
That’s because powerful movement requires that the mind connect all parts of the body – feet, legs, hips, waist, torso, arms and hands – to contribute to the outcome. Only when the body and mind are relaxed can those connections be felt and orchestrated. Wherever there is tension or distraction, the movement and flow of energy is broken.
So “song” is big deal. And it is achieved by not-doing rather than by doing.
If told to tense up, you tighten your muscles and sinews, which is “doing” something. But if instructed to relax, you are not being told to “do” something. You are being told to stop tensing and to return to a state of not-doing.
That’s difficult for most people because of a strong cultural bias toward doing. Society measures us by our accomplishments, and we associate achievement with effort and exertion, especially in the realm of physical activity. But if you step back and examine your own life, how much of the “doing” contributes to your wellbeing and contentment, and how much is simply mindless and frenetic activity in the service of your needy ego or someone else’s?
In Tai Chi, those who progress most quickly are those come to understand that not-doing works better than tensing up and trying harder.
“Tao abides in non-action,” says the Tao Te Ching. “Yet nothing is left undone.”