reprinted from Internal Wushu Arts May 1995 Newsletter
Anxiety During Partner Work
by Cedar Acosta
Anxiety during partner work is common. It may not appear to be so when watching a roomful of people practicing, but in conversations I have had over the years it has become clear to me that though the subject matter may differ from person to person, the emotions occur in most of us. As a beginner it may be difficult to see it in those who have been practicing for long enough to either move through their particular vulnerabilities or who find their own way of dancing with them or who have created a way to control them, but don't let appearances give you a chance to feel you are alone in the experience.
I think most of us who find ourselves practicing tai chi over a period of time have experienced some kind of violence in our lives. Whether it be from surviving situations where your life has been threatened, living in an emotionally or physically abusive home, experiencing being 'left out' or rejected as a child or being painfully aware at an early age that you see the world differently than many people around you; all these experiences have lasting effect. On a gentler level we all have fear of getting hurt somehow, maybe even more so if we have not had more extreme situations in our lives. Regardless, how do we keep doing partner work when we have difficult emotions rising during practice?
My basic rule when I feel fear/anger/frustration/anxiety begin to rise is to keep the energy moving, continuing to breathe and grounding through my feet or otherwise dispersing the sensation. In order to do this effectively I need to honor the sensation by acknowledging it, recognizing it and then letting it go. I then refocus on the exercise or the principle I am working on. If the emotion persists I acknowledge the sensation again and do my best to ride with it -- there may be something useful informationally that I am not getting at the moment -- and often the sensation disperses as I continue to practice. If the emotion persists and begins to strengthen and I am doing my best to keep practicing mindfully, it may just be time to take a break. I know that when I am fatigued (not just tired, but stressed and overworked) it may be more significant to my practice to rest rather than continuing to overwork myself. I know also that there are times when negative emotions are a sign that there is something in me trying to show itself. It may be strong enough occasionally that to continue practicing is too forceful and it makes more sense to rest and give myself some time to let the information emerge by feeling into the experience. Most of the time I have gotten the information quickly so I could go back into practice. There are occasions though that it is more appropriate to stop and rest or get some outside help from friends, elder sisters/brothers in the art or even from a professional counselor or healer depending on the situation.
One of the dangers of attending to a sensation is in making it stronger and/or beginning to indulge in it. It is also too easy to give the sensation more meaning than it truthfully has (blaming others for your emotional state or re-wounding yourself with the pain are two examples of this). It is best to stay in 'observing mind' if you work with yourself this way, practicing as a kind of meditation. There is also, I believe, a danger in being too quick to release a negative emotion, in that you can use too much emotional muscle and end up denying something that will just come up again and sometimes in a perverse or more intense way. Balance is called for and appropriate technique for the situation at hand.
For me, practicing tai chi in a group or with a partner reflects the microcosm of the social situations I have around me everywhere. I get a good challenge with the same issues I have where ever I go. What I have in class is an opportunity to work with those issues while directly applying tai chi principles without so many other distractions. To compound my own personal situation I know I also pick up on the energy of a room that may be mucky or the state of the person I am practicing with or near. This is real life. I go back to the basic rule to keep the energy moving. One way to play out our own fears is to hold judgment about the others around us. Judging a partner for being too hard, crazy, angry, etc. can stagnate the energy and distract from the present, here and now practice. Observing is useful, but investing emotional meaning and attitude in the observation is distracting. It helps me to remember that often what I dislike in another is present in me to some degree or I wouldn't be experiencing it so well. What I feel is, after all, my own emotion from my own life experience and it is my own responsibility to choose an appropriate action accordingly. If I need a partner to not talk to me quite so much, I need to say so. If I am a bit overwhelmed by the strength or speed of my partner, maybe I need to ask them to slow down for now as I am still learning what I am doing. If I am in a good state of mind I can play with the understanding that the 'attack is never wrong' and I can ask myself what can I do differently to partner it well, but there are times when to ask for a change is very appropriate.
In mindful practice awareness of the emotional body is as important as the awareness of the physical and mental bodies. Just as we can overwork a joint or think too much, we can also indulge our emotional body by trapping the particular state in which we find ourselves. Chest, neck, stomach and head are great places to trap emotional pain. The intellectual mind can play out its role in stagnating fear states by running loops about what we think is happening in a partnership or in the room. I do my best when I feel pain in a particular area to remember to breathe into the stuck area in order to release it. When I feel healthy I breathe and lighten the energy around me as well.
Part of the process of knowing self is recognizing my particular fears and vulnerabilities. I may not be able to rid myself of them, but in honoring them I can take the power out of them. Just as in recognizing a knee problem, or a tendency to judge people who are different than me can help me change my behavior, recognizing a fear of being rejected allows me to function with the information rather than being ruled by the state. At one point in my practice, accepting the reality that I have a kind of violence in me that plays itself out occasionally was a major breakthrough in my practice with others. Understanding that about myself helped take the charge out of some of my fear of others hurting me as well as changing the quality of my practice. It is easier for me now to stay present when practicing rather than reacting or blanking out as I have in the past.
I believe that the greatest changes we make come with continuing to practice mindfully. It is not something we can think out or manipulate into being, it is instead a gradual process of coming to know ourselves and others in relationship. In solo practice we gain knowledge of ourselves and build our basics. In partner practice as we begin to touch hands, our talents develop and we begin to serve others. We continue to learn about ourselves and how we are intimate with other humans. We also have a great opportunity to help each other get better at working with each other physically, emotionally, mentally. Listening to those with greater experience, playing with our peers and supporting those who have just begun all have their challenges and their fun. Practicing has its own power of transformation that is beyond us. May we all learn from our difficulties and keep practicing!