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Tai Chi Wednesday With Winston Price

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Tai Chi Wednesday With Winston Price

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Making Your Life Easier on Yourself: Positive Framing

Sometimes the only thing needed to remove stress is a change of perspective.  Many times great mental and emotional stress is placed on a situation because of the mindset of the parties involved.  In my training of students in Tai Chi Chuan, I have come to find the lesson of “What is Winning?” as one of the hardest for people to grasp.  When training students there seems to be a grand necessity to win; however, when I ask my students what it means to them to win and I then ask them to match-up the ideas of winning they have with the ideals I have told them are held in the practice and study of Tai Chi Chuan, the students have a great inability to soundly match their ideas with the ideals that are being taught to them.  In that instant, the instant they realize that there is a major discrepancy of realities, I have come to find that students either end up leaving class shortly their after or they redirect their energies to better understanding what it actually means to win in the context of the Tai Chi Chuan.  Normally this paradigm shift happens in two situations: during practice of the solo- form and during practice with a partner or partners.

While training the solo-form some novice students get bored with repeating patterned sequences.  While training, many novices become progressively less attentive to the form of each posture and the transitions in the progression, and in many other cases they simply stop doing the exercise all together and they either start to do something else or do nothing at all.  I approach each situation differently depending on the student; however, the message is always the same: “You seem bored”.  I ask them to not think of the process as doing work to get to the next point.  I ask them to focus directly on what it is they are doing without worry or stress over what it is they do not know and/or have not been presented.   I tell the students once they are completely comfortable with what they are currently doing they open up the opportunity to progress to the next point without strain or stress.  I point out they never get comfortable with where they are because they are so strenuously focusing on the next point that it causes unnecessary mental and emotional stress.  Worrying over the unknown ruins the progress of the known and the present.  So even if they can do the postures shown, their unease, their worry and stress over the unknown, causes negative effects on their current situation and closes any opportunity for efficient progress.  If they change the way they perceive their current situation; if they focus directly on the positive growth that can be gained from where they are and what they are currently attempting to accomplish, they will naturally progress to the next level with ease and not stress.

To the point of working with people doing partner work, and seeing students having negative issues with their progressions, I have noticed many points as an instructor where I see the opportunity to help students gain a better understanding of changing their outlook to evoke positive growth.  When monitoring partner work, one way I have come to find, with those that allow me the opportunity to engage them, for a change in perspective is when I see someone who comes to the state function of a drill shown; however, their actions are completely inefficient.  What I have gleaned is that many students inefficiently force an issue to get to the state function of a drill given. What has a tendency to happen in these situations is one of the participants, or multiple participants, begins a battle to struggle overly muscularly to gain advantages of position.  This is never the point of any of the partner drills in Tai Chi Chuan. What I have come to find through instructing is that participant(s) get more involved in the idea of competing to win as oppose to studying and practicing to gain proper skill.  What happens is the will to defeat and compete overrides the nature of the teachings Tai Chi Chuan provides, of which include minimal effort to produce the maximum product to a total positive gain throughout all point of a situation.  The participants that decide to progress a negative framework as their base to produce the state function frame the encounter as a battle with a definite winner and loser.  This mindset has the tendency to breed inefficient skill and inefficient technique with high occurrence.   Giving tactile examples in these circumstances to the participants who are struggling through the drill progressions is one of the most efficient ways I have come to find to start the change of their paradigm.  I allow each participant to do what they did during the drill; however, I allow them to do it with me so they can feel the difference, so they can feel the different types of energies put forth to reach the desired state function.  I tell the participants that I do not frame the encounter as a battle; I do not see the situation as something I have to conquer.  I do not believe that there is a point of winning or a point of losing.  Everything that is done is a point from which I can efficiently study and properly learn.  So in essence I am always gaining.

Having the mindset of not caring of winning or losing throughout my training, not focusing on defeating someone as a point of victory versus shame, opens the opportunity for me to gain the skill of gaining advantages without the product of stress or strain.  Freeing myself from the confines of portraying those around me as combatants, as negative beings, allows me the opportunity to see and focus on multiple and more efficient ways of dealing with situations.

To me life should never be about winning or losing.  When properly done, living should always produce positive gains.  To me life is about taking every opportunity and framing it as such that there is never a stress or a strain on my physical, emotional, mental and spiritual self; so that no matter what I do I allow for the positive and natural occurrence of the opportunity of prospering efficiently to always produce itself and always to take efficient advantage when efficient opportunities present themselves.  In my training, study and instructing of the Tai Chi Chuan, I have come to find that removing the need to defeat to win, removing the worry and stress of the unknown, and replacing it with the positive mindset of efficiently taking advantage of situations leads to one having greater opportunities for positive natures and opportunities to occur.  It is up to us to always take efficient advantage of positive natures and opportunities. It is up to us to remove ourselves from our habits that affect us negatively.   It is up to us to place ourselves in positive frameworks we produce so that we are able to take efficient advantages of conditions when they present themselves.

For more information Winston’s his martial arts academy please visit Internal Magnification.  

Winston Price, Executive Producer, has over a decade and a half of marketing, advertising and public relations experience. He began his business career in 1995 and is a graduate of Indiana University Bloomington. Winston also is a master martial artist and personal trainer with over 2 decades of knowledge and experience. Winston runs his own school, Internal Magnification Martial Arts, where he focuses on helping people reach their personal goals of health and fitness via At-Home personal training with martial foci of Taekwondo, Tai Chi Ch’uan, Hapkido and Ba Gua Zhang. As an executive producer for VoiceAmerica, Winston utilizes his skills in business and personal training to help new and existing hosts maximize their opportunity with the VoiceAmerica Talk Radio Network by supporting his hosts with the business and personal aspects of creating and developing their show. Winston believes that each host brings their own flavor to the Network. By properly coaching and motivating his hosts, they are able to produce THEIR show with THEIR style and THEIR passion being at the forefront of every broadcast.

 

Tai Chi Wednesday with Winston Price

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Tai Chi Wednesday with Winston Price

#21 Tai Chi Wednesday Pic

“Well, It’s Better Than Nothing.” – Training Yourself to Fail

What sparked this post is the saying, “Well, it’s better than nothing”.  This saying is an excuse used to make one feel better about failing.  This is one of the worst things to actually believe.  The meaning of this phrase is that one did something to the positive affect of the actions completed.  But does that really even make good sense?  Think about it this way; is taking out the trash halfway to the proper spot of placement better than nothing?  Is turning in unfinished, below minimum work better than nothing?  Doing a below minimum job is never better than doing nothing.  When an action is completed ask yourself if what you did is something that if you consistently did things in that manner would raise you to your goals efficiently?  The answer to that is always “no”.  The reason I assert this is that when you look at the phrase, “Well, it’s better than nothing”, from a mental health point-of-view, what one does when they believe in this ideology is they minimize their failure to properly prepare and execute the necessary/wanted action.  This minimization accesses one’s ability to believe a non-truth that can lead to the understanding that what they did was good, causing them to allow this happening to reoccur without fault or negative consequence.  People fail to realize that this form of thinking lends itself to producing less than mediocre results.  They fail to realize that it is okay to harshly criticize one’s self for failing if it leads to a healthy realization that their lack of preparation is what they need to focus on in the future.  Telling yourself that you did a passable job when you fail is harmful for your overall health and development.  Rationally and critically managing and maintaining your well-being, thought processes and preparation tactics is healthy; it leads to positive and efficient growth.

Don’t believe lies that allow you to take failure lightly.  When training in Tai Chi Chuan, an instance that I encounter when studying, training and teaching is that people believe that because Tai Chi Chuan, in general, is practiced slowly, relative to other martial arts, there is very little necessity to diligently train and study.  Many practitioners go to class thinking that if they can just follow along with the instructor that they will efficiently grow and develop proper skill.  They believe that going to class is just enough and that is all that is necessary.  To them, showing up to class is good enough and being able to follow along without properly focused thought is better than nothing.  To them, they believe that if they can mimic the movements it is the same as them mastering the movement.  Something that I tell them is, just because you can read the words on a page it does not denote that you understand what you just read.  Proper study needs to take place.  There is a respect for what it is you are doing that has to be present.  There must be a standard you place on yourself, that if you fall below that standard you discipline yourself appropriately.  Do not train with the idea of just coming in is good enough.  Make sure you are always challenging yourself.  Make sure you always hold yourself to appropriate standards that allow you to develop efficiently.  If it is not challenging, it is not changing.  And to me, that is one of the grandest pieces of evidence that the message of “Well, it’s better than nothing” is a false message of progress.

People do not state, “Well, it’s better than nothing” if what they did was something that actually challenged them.  This is something that is stated when there was no challenge because of a lack of preparation and due diligence.  I do believe that doing something that betters yourself is better than doing nothing to better yourself; however, rationalizing failure as success is never better than doing nothing.  In the stead of saying and thinking that something that brought no productive challenge and no productive growth actually begat positive change, what one should do is face the fact that they failed due to  their own inadequacies and challenge their self to execute more effectively in the future.

There are times that I set aside to practice my Tai Chi Chuan forms, and there are times that I do not properly prepare and spend less time on the forms than I had planned.  In these cases I have self-disciplinary actions that I take.  One thing that I do is note that what I just did was a failure.  I recognize the fact that I did do something; however, I note that even though I did many good things it was not enough to call what I did a success.  I liken it to taking a quiz or an exam.  If one gets 4 out of 10 questions correct, and each question is worth one point, they still failed.  No pats on the back for failure.  Another thing that I do in my self-disciplinary action is remove time from things, that for the most part, are leisure activities and add that time to the time that I schedule for future training; making even more time for training in the future.  Doing so, adding time to future training/ studying sessions, allows me to do the repetitions that I missed during my failure.  Once again, likening this to taking a test or quiz, make time for more study in the future to be able to sufficiently review what was missed.  Too often the miscued message of “Well it’s better than nothing” leads to the idea of, “Well now that I know that I missed it, I’ll get it right the next time”, and then people don’t study what they missed.  They just move on to the next time, not adding extra time to study what it was they missed.  When they fail again they are surprised that they missed the same question again. 

Just showing up is not good enough.  Doing something is not always better than doing nothing.  When you fail, when you falter, you have to do even more work than what you previously planned to catch-up, and then even more work to properly and positivity progress.  If you rationalize failure as success you will train yourself to fail.   Don’t train yourself to fail.          

For more information Winston’s his martial arts academy please visit Internal Magnification.  

Winston Price, Executive Producer, has over a decade and a half of marketing, advertising and public relations experience. He began his business career in 1995 and is a graduate of Indiana University Bloomington. Winston also is a master martial artist and personal trainer with over 2 decades of knowledge and experience. Winston runs his own school, Internal Magnification Martial Arts, where he focuses on helping people reach their personal goals of health and fitness via At-Home personal training with martial foci of Taekwondo, Tai Chi Ch’uan, Hapkido and Ba Gua Zhang. As an executive producer for VoiceAmerica, Winston utilizes his skills in business and personal training to help new and existing hosts maximize their opportunity with the VoiceAmerica Talk Radio Network by supporting his hosts with the business and personal aspects of creating and developing their show. Winston believes that each host brings their own flavor to the Network. By properly coaching and motivating his hosts, they are able to produce THEIR show with THEIR style and THEIR passion being at the forefront of every broadcast.  

 

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