Today we have a guess post from Tai Chi Nomad, who studies and practices Taijiquan in Singapore. Please click on the link and pay his blog a visit.What is The Way? I'm certainly no expert on this. I don't read much classics on Taoism, but I encounter enough of it as it is so ingrained in the Chinese culture. But I digress. What exactly is The Way?> if you think you know The Way, you don't. That is as elusive as it can get. I personally do Tai Chi. I understand the paradox that Tai Chi teaches. For example:> if you use too much strength, you're not doing Tai Chi. It sounds very much like my relationship with The Way. My goal ultimately is to understand the world, and Tai Chi is one way, or rather one tool that I use to understand this world. Understanding Tai Chi is hard enough, without even going into the realms of The Way. If we can't talk about The Way, can we touch it? Can we feel it? Can we smell it? What good is The Way if the premise of its existence is purely theoretical?This is why I normally don't talk about The Way, just like how I normally don't talk about Qi either. I was once so hung up about feeling The Qi that every sensation I feel in my body is deemed to be Qi! I realized that I'm just going about it the wrong way. I'll hazard an explanation of The Way via my understanding of Qi. Qi again is another concept of the energy in this universe. The most common understanding of it is the warmth in your palm and the tingling sensation that courses through your body. As much as I would like to say that is Qi, it is not the point. The point about Qi is knowing that you've done something right for your body such that the body rewards you with a kind of connectedness that you won't get otherwise. You can't really explain this "connectedness" but you will know it when it's there. That is the point when everything seems to flow. Your actions are swifter than before. You are able to keep calm. Your senses are heightened. You can sense your surroundings more acutely. You are able to feel the movements within you and within others. It can maybe go as far as being able to have almost a pre-cognitive ability - the ability to know what's going to happen before it happens. In Tai Chi classics, this is often known as:> if the enemy moves, I move first. I believe The Way works in a similar fashion. You don't try to walk The Way. You don't cut down the trees so that you can be on The Way. As long as you try something to get to The Way, you will fail. However, if you focus on what's right for you, then you're on the path to The Way. In The Way, there is no right or wrong. There is however a right path for you, if you so choose it. So forget about The Way. If you follow your heart, you will certainly find The Way. That's a long about way to come to such a simple explanation. :)

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