‘The journey of a thousand miles begins with one step’.
“The journey of a thousand miles begins with one step.”
Now there is a thing, in my first blog, to quote the old master Lao Tzu. It fits in perfectly, as this is my first blog, my first foray into my own business and quite literally my first step.
Whether I will reach a thousand miles, that is for the future to decide.
For the time being I live in the now trying to start a business which has been surrounding my brain for the past few years.
I was talking to some friends earlier and we were talking about my change in circumstances and how long it has been since I was not earning a living. It has been 36 years. Something, which on reflection, I am quite proud of.
Looking at in a different way, it also means I have become institutionalised with that pay cheque at the end of each month.
I have been with the same company for 17 years, albeit in several different roles. This is a huge chunk of my working life. It would be easy to think, what on earth am I doing? I am taking a huge leap.
Here I am, 54 years of age starting my own business in a field running counter to the luxury arena of my previous role. This is a profound change.
So, for this first blog, I would really like to examine a bit why, I have done such a thing.
I had always wanted to try tai chi. I liked the thought of it, even before I actually knew what it was.
Being of an indolent inclination, the thought of doing slow movements appealed to me. Martial arts like Judo, Karate, Tae Kwan do, Wing Chun etc, all seemed to demand a huge amount of work and dedication. With tai chi, you just turned up and move slowly, right?
As you have probably realised, those were the imaginings of a callow and foolhardy youth.
I lived in Manchester for a while during my early 20’s and enrolled on a tai chi course at a local college. My hope was this course was going to give me the thing, I was seeking. Of course, I did not know what that was, then.
As it turned out, this course did not give me what I didn’t know I was seeking or craving. I left disappointed, knowing how to move slowly, but not understanding why I was moving at all. It was like a watch without a movement, a human without a nervous system….it was soulless.
A decade passed, before tai chi crossed my thoughts once more. It was suggested by a physio who was treating a sciatic nerve issue I had developed. I asked her what I should do to keep my legs strong, so the sciatica would hopefully not flare up again.
Her reply was tai chi.
I was back down in London by this stage with my partner and a just about to be born first child. Finding a class proved quite elusive, purely from a travel and timing perspective.
It took six months. And then, just like in films, when you want to move the story along something happens to do just that.
Serendipitously a flyer came through the door of my place of work announcing a class 5 minutes’ walk from work. What are the chances? Force of nature, force of my mind, or these two universes aligning? I couldn’t say and nor did I speculate, I just went with it.
This was the class I didn’t know I was looking for. We were taught the movements, but more importantly, we were taught why we made these movements. Not only that, but midway through the 2-hour session, we made tea and read from a book called the Tao te Ching (The Book of the Way), by some old fellow called Lao Tzu. This was of course a translation, by Ray Grigg, none of us in the class spoke Mandarin.
It was this philosophy and the understanding of WHY I was doing what I was doing which sent the fireworks off in my head. Did I understand what was being said? I had no clue; they may well have been reading it in Chinese for all the inkling I got.
However, the discussions we had about the chapters did give me an intuitive grasp over what the phrases meant. If you have read the Ray Grigg version, you will, I am sure have found it quite esoteric.
For me, the translation I turn to the most is by Stephen Mitchell. There are many things I can understand, but still have difficulty articulating. But I take this as a good thing. I am a fool who knows nothing, which means I am always open to learning.
After a few months, the class and its teachings had quite a profound effect on me.
I began to find it difficult mentally to go to the class. There was something which was stopping me. Quite often, I would turn up at the bottom of the steps to the entrance and realise I could not go in.
This happened every Tuesday for two months. It took me this amount of time to begin to comprehend my reticence. There had been a nagging doubt in my head for several weeks beforehand, but now that doubt was clouding everything.
I began to realise what it was and I didn’t like it.
To this day, I still do not know how this happens, it remains one of the many mysteries of the Tao.
I did not want to go to my class because tai chi, the philosophy, the Tao, whatever it was, began to force me to look at myself and re-examine who I was. This was a little frightening.
For years, I had become a template of a character, that had all the elements of me, but was just a projection. Now, this ‘thing’ was asking me to peel away the artifice and to gaze at the true me.
Naturally enough, this was more than a little disconcerting. It meant I had to change and I was not ready to do so…..!!