Tai Chi & Letting Go

"Letting go", "Let go" – what do these expressions mean?

And why do they seem so hard to do?

When asked, the answer I always give is that you can’t think about letting go in order to let go. In other words, you have to just do it. Of course this is an unsatisfactory explanation, so here I’ll try to elaborate. Just a little.

But first, a disclaimer: the more I analyse the process of letting go - the more I explain - the further away from really letting go we will find ourselves. But maybe – just maybe – in attempting to explain it all, we will find ourselves back where we started, with just a little more understanding of the challenge. The challenge remains the same, but we may be more ready for it.

Tai Chi Ch’uan might be referred to as Yin-Yang boxing or dancing with Yin and Yang. Yang is hard and penetrating, the principle of fullness or form. Yin is soft and yielding, the principle of emptiness or formlessness. Yin and Yang always seek to balance and harmonise with each other, this is the natural way of things. It is only when we interfere with their process in some way that things get out of harmony. When matters are out of harmony Yin and Yang reveal their negative qualities rather than their positive ones, they become poisonous factors rather than beneficial ones. It is important to recognise that there are two meanings to the terms "positive" and "negative" in Tai Chi. One is "full" and "empty", the other is "creative" and "destructive". It is important to be sure which one we are talking about.

When we are born and for a short time as young children we are, generally speaking, perfectly balanced in terms of Yin and Yang. We are full of energy for growth and activity (Yang) but soft and pliant, receptive to new input (Yin). Children are like sponges; they soak up and absorb every experience – positive and negative – and store all of it, as memories, learning etc. and in more abstract forms; physical features, posture, phobias etc. This initially is a function of their Yin energy (receptivity) interacting with Yang (input). If a person learns about balance and harmony early in life and receives good guidance and support, this process can be regulated and they will remain in harmony. However, our modern world is completely out of balance with the natural way of Yin and Yang, it is far too Yang; constantly striving to go faster and further, filling everything with more and more content. (This of course produces huge amounts of negative Yin energy in terms of depression, apathy and devitalised food and air. But that’s another story…). The end result is that we become stuffed with too much input and become ill, tired, stressed-out, distorted and unhappy. Overloaded by Yang (negative) we naturally become Yin (negative).

"Letting go" is a positive function of Yin energy, a bit like releasing the pressure on a pressure cooker. We just let the pressure flow out and do nothing to stop it. We stop "holding on". This is called Wu Wei in Chinese, or "action in non-action". It means actively yielding or choosing non-resistance as a positive choice. It is sometimes described as "investing in loss". We use the negative (Yin) to achieve something positive (harmony), we let go. We learn to trust our Tao or "nature". We trust that it will balance us; we let go of our fear and relax.

So if you feel you have understood this and now know how to let go… do yourself a favour. Let your first act of letting go be to screw up this piece of paper and throw it in the bin. You have enough stuff to let go of, without me cluttering up your life.

Then… just do it!!

Nigel Adams © J 28^th January 2001