oral traditions vs. written traditions

[Guest guest]

Ken Rose wrote on 7/24/03:

 

My sense of obligation emerged more

or less in full bloom one afternoon in

1971 or 72 at Cal Arts in a push hands practice

with Martin Inn. He was talking about

a line from the taiji classics that

says, to enter the door and be shown

the way you must be orally taught.

 

He explained that the notion of " orally

taught " here includes being tactilely

taught. He pointed out that in taiji,

the gift that the teacher gives the

student comes in many forms and that

of paramount importance is the sensory

impression or, in other words, the

correct touch.

 

He didn't say much more than that,

and then we spent an hour or more

just doing push hands.

 

Later I was mulling over the day's

lesson, and it dawned on me that

one of the implications of what

Martin had been saying and doing

was that a lineage in taiji consists

of generations of teachers and students

who had all been in touch with each

other. This is the part that I'm not

sure I can adequately describe, because

it was a sensation more than anything

else.

 

Ken

 

Ken,

 

Since you so genuinely and deliberately express oral traditions here, I wanted

to " punctuate " your thread on yin and yang with this bit of notation.

 

Holger asked why you were asking the question. You answered. Implicit in your

answer, I believe, was the above sensibility. As we exercise our keyboards

here, we also may have to join up for some taiji or walks on the beach to have a

more complete interaction.

 

In gratitude for beach walks,

Emmanuel Segmen