Nitsan, how did you start doing Tai Chi?

In the late seventies, when I was living in India, I was crossing a small bridge one day and saw somebody by the stream doing some strange movements. I didn't know what he was doing, but I was fascinated. I watched him until he finished and then I approached him and asked him to teach me. He taught me very intensively for about two years.

Did you only learn the form (the solo exercise) or did you also learn push-hands (the two-person exercise)?

I learned both of them .... but I was always attracted to the push-hands, the two-person work in Tai Chi. This is what interested me the most. And naturally all the other teachers I studied with focused on push-hands too.

I liken Tai Chi and especially two-person work in Tai Chi to relationships at work, or in the family with one’s partner and children. That’s why the principles of Tai Chi can be applied to life. For example not to tense up, to stay open and rooted – everything we learn in class. I often use these principles in life situations. So if you don’t lose your center, you won’t be attracted to a partner who isn't right for you, or work in a job that doesn't suit you. That’s how I perceive the relationship between Tai Chi and life.

It's not as simple as it sounds. It’s true that there’s a dialogue between life and Tai Chi. But it definitely doesn’t mean that someone who practices Tai Chi will be able to live better. And on the other hand, one can know nothing about Tai Chi and lead a wonderful, satisfying life. So perhaps it would be more accurate to say that Tai Chi serves as a mirror for the way we communicate.
    For example, doing push-hands with people can show you the patterns that you repeat over and over again in your life. But the question, of course, is whether you’ll be able to see them or not. 

Usually a person doesn’t see himself.

Practicing push-hands will easily enable you to see. Because when you resist or tense up, it’s very clear. And if you're intelligent enough to see that, maybe you’ll be able to apply it in your life. But mostly, people don’t make these connections. And even if they do, the connections tend to be mental or conceptual – not real.
    It has happened quite often that someone who studies Tai Chi with me disappears from class and returns a year or two later, and when I do push-hands with him, he is much softer than he used to be.
    How can that be?
    I tell him "You’ve improved" and he replies, "I haven’t done anything during this time." But he did. He went through all sorts of things, and something changed in him. Maybe he broke up with a girlfriend, found a mate, or someone dear to him passed away. You cannot lock it down into a formula. It’s not math – it isn’t one plus one is two. 

Sometimes when people ask me about Tai Chi, I give the example of a bullfighter who holds a red rag in front of a bull. The bull attacks the rag, and the rag doesn't break because it’s soft. 
    I explain to people that if a massive force comes at you, for example the boss wants to fire you, or an important client has left you, or there’s a conflict in your marriage, you can’t oppose force with force – that will only create more friction, cause more problems.

These are things that we learn from experience.

This is my idea or image, not to oppose force. Let go, relax, be like a soft rag, and you won’t get hurt.

When you say "be like" it doesn't really help people. Conceptually it’s true, but in the moment of truth, when something happens, people react emotionally and return to their usual patterns. That’s why it’s important to demonstrate in real time and not afterwards.
    This is what I do in class. I push someone with the amount of pressure that he can bear, and when he reacts by stiffening up or collapsing (which is actually an emotional response), I stop in order to enable him to see his reaction – and also see how ineffective it is. It’s a physical reflection of an emotional state. And that’s the time to show him that if he doesn’t stiffen up, he will remain stable. This is how you gradually learn that there is another way.
    But that’s the problem of our civilization; life has lost its reality and has become conceptual. "Listen to this amazing idea. Just be soft and everything will work out for you." But how do we transfer this idea from the conceptual/mental world to the physical body?
    And even if that person returns to his center, to his body. Will it affect his life circumstances? There’s no way of knowing. Maybe yes, maybe no.
    Again, it’s not math – the number of factors involved is so huge that no one has control over it. But it’s possible to give some direction.

These opposing forces, which are constantly fighting each other, don’t only exist at the level of the individual. We see them worldwide: wars between the strong and the weak, the rich and the poor. Riots and struggles everywhere, power struggles such as Brexit in England, or the Republicans and Democrats in the United States, and the political chaos in our own country. 
    Yesterday you told me in class "don’t oppose my push, relax into it as if I am supporting you and you’ll see that you will remain stable". This is how harmony is created and we both stop making such an effort. So maybe Tai Chi makes it possible to find equilibrium in this complex world?

Maybe. But what is Tai Chi? It's just a word that means different things to different people. For me, it’s a set of natural laws, like gravity: a physical law that works everywhere in the same way. And the question is whether we understand how it works.

That’s why it’s important to spread these ideas. That people will be exposed to these laws and live in greater harmony.

It's not a matter of exposure. You can expose a lot of people to it and they’ll say that it's nonsense – or that it doesn’t interest them – or they’ll say that it’s interesting, but they won’t devote time and energy to it. So you have to find the people who really want it, and it’s not a matter of exposure.

But if you expose it to many, you’ll find the few who will want it.

I don’t think it works that way. From my point of view it's the other way around. If I have something to offer, then whoever finds it resonates for him will be attracted to it. He’s the one who has to make an effort, to take the first step, not me. When I try hard to expose or advertise an idea, I’m going against this basic law.

I don't understand. A tree has seeds that it disperses with the wind. Then more of the same trees will grow.

Yes, but that happens naturally. The tree doesn’t advertise, or use public relations and web promoters.

Even so, it’s important to reach the many in order to attract those interested. I remember how I was before I started. At 40 I was much more aggressive, tough, combative. I would fight about everything and wouldn’t give up. And Tai Chi had a good effect on me, it taught me to let go, to yield, to give more to others, to stop trying so hard the whole time. This is why I chose to be a consultant. Because before that I was a businessman. And in business you have to confront other businesses, suppliers, employees, clients who don’t pay on time. I didn’t have such good interactions with the world. Being a consultant gives me freedom. Those who want to hear what I have to say work with me, and those who do not, do not. For me it's great because I have no friction with anyone. So Tai Chi influenced me in that respect. And the back pain I had has gone – probably because the tensions disappeared.

Yes, it can certainly be said that Tai Chi improves health, both physically and psychologically. Physically, due to the proper functioning of the body. Psychologically, through exploring relationships. During each session, I conduct at least four or five mini-relationships lasting a few minutes. I learn more about myself from these sessions than I would from any psychological treatment. I get irritated, annoyed, collapsed, my mind flies off to other places. I avoid, I’m present, I’m not present – the possibilities are endless. And with each person the interaction is different, and because the interaction is so demanding, I can’t escape. And that’s very clear.

Yes, when you are soft, relaxed and centered, you act more efficiently and your vitality increases. I once read that every extra kilogram in a car makes it consume more fuel. And if we were to take out the unnecessary stuff from the boot (boxes of stuff for the beach, etc.) the engine wouldn’t have to work so hard. Everyone can feel it when the car is loaded with people or the boot is full. You need to step hard on the gas just to get it moving. The idea here is to get the unnecessary stresses out of the body. We’ll then naturally consume less energy and the body’s systems will require less effort to function. 
    I see how people drive with raised shoulders and tight arms, and then the whole body is in stress. If they would just relax their elbows a bit, they will not have to make such an effort. I once told my lawyer how Tai Chi has affected me over the years. So he said that it had nothing to do with Tai Chi, I had simply grown up.

These are wise words. That’s what I mean when I say that Tai Chi (or anything else I do) is part of one ecosystem. I can’t isolate one factor from the system and say “that’s it, that’s the decisive factor”.

And how does Tai Chi affect you as a teacher?

I see how I move upwards over the years in a kind of spiral, constantly going back to the same places and seeing them in a more deep and subtle way. Working with the students nourishes me – In order to explain things I must understand them myself. I check whether it works or not. I check myself as I work, and discover new things all the time. You see me in class, during the lesson ideas occur to me that I couldn’t have thought of before.

That’s creativity.

Yes, the dialogue with the students brings out my creativity.

There is such a thing that an expert who achieves a high level of expertise, can break the rules and create something new. Take Picasso, for example. In the past I thought he could only draw fractured, inverted figures: parts of faces and bodies. But when I visited the Picasso Museum, I saw that he painted pictures with the precision of photographs, paying attention to every minute detail. Only after reaching a very high level of realism and precision in his painting could he take the images, break them into pieces, and set new rules.

Yes, that has something to do with it.

You said you move in a learning spiral and that 20 years ago you were not as you are today.

It’s the creative spirit, the ability to act freely. People like to repeat patterns and think that the pattern is all there is. But a good teacher or master does not work like that. Take Moshe Feldenkrais for example. He did not specialize in the Feldenkrais method. He was curious, he worked with the body creatively and the method evolved. And then all his students studied the 'Feldenkrais method' from him.
    I don’t want my students to practice the 'Michaeli Method'. I want them to be creative, to have the ability to take something and test it, to examine it and discover something new in it. I do not want to be bound by some pattern: this is how it must be done, and if I move a centimeter to the side it's no good. I see this a lot in the world of Tai Chi – there are things that are commonly accepted: "that’s how it’s done in Tai Chi!" And when you examine it more deeply, it's not exactly true. I believe that the great masters who built the forms examined things in the same way. Then they taught the students and the students taught their students. Each generation passes the form on to the next, and eventually the essence disappears and only form remains.

It disappears because they pass on the same thing.

They pass on the form, not the essence. Every person has an original core, and whenever he delves deeply into something, he will do what he does with some kind of twist, a change. He’ll have the ingenious ability to add something of his own.

Tai Chi will go through his personal filter.

Not exactly a filter. He will express himself in his own unique way. Just as every musical instrument has a unique sound even though the music is the same music. That's why I emphasize this again and again: Don’t copy, discover what is right through your own individual experience.

Is that why you don’t insist that everyone makes exactly the same movements in the form?

You will not see two people doing Tai Chi the same way unless they are robots. My body is not your body. For me the important thing is whether you’re following the principles – whether you’re soft, centered, expressing the movement from the root without effort. If you practice the form according to these principles, that’s excellent. You are not supposed to do the form exactly like I do.

I have seen different forms done by other practitioners, some teach precision in movements and some don’t.

I want to be precise with the principles! I have no problem with precision. But first of all I want to be precise with the principles, and the outcome will be the correct way to do the form.
    It’s easier to copy the movements, but harder to discover the principles. And this is not being taught a lot.
    It’s not that people do not teach it out of bad intentions. There are teachers who themselves do not know the principles and only teach the form. And then there are those who know the principles, but don’t know how to teach them. They just can’t see what’s right for the student at that moment, so it’s difficult for them to pass on the teachings. Just because you are a Tai Chi master doesn’t mean you’re a good teacher.

Right, just because you are a good engineer doesn’t mean that you know how to teach engineering.

Of course! And there are those who focus only on the combative aspect of Tai Chi, and the will to overpower the opponent outweighs the will to connect. The will to prove that I am stronger, expresses itself in the interaction somehow – and it doesn’t matter how precise I am. This is what Chang Man-Ching meant when he said, "invest in loss": invest in loss, not in victory.

Why are there no sparring competitions in Tai Chi like they have in Karate?

Of course there are.

I haven’t seen anything like that.

It usually looks like a bullfight. This is another example of confusion between conceptions and reality. You can see it on Youtube: Tai Chi vs. Karate video clips.

What do you mean? What’s the connection?

Someone who does Tai Chi fights against someone who does Karate. These clips only show us something about these particular people. They don’t show us anything about Tai Chi or Karate.

It doesn't show anything about these arts?

Absolutely nothing. No matter who wins, it doesn’t prove anything about Tai Chi or Karate.

Have you ever had a confrontation with someone?

We all have confrontations all the time. Do you mean physically? When I go to the Jordan Valley I get into conflicts here and there.

You once told me about a motorcyclist who rode at speed into the herd and how you stood in his way.

Yes, but that was a real situation. Fights in the arena aren’t a real situation, unless they are 'free style' fights, without rules – which is something I don’t understand. Why should I fight against someone? To prove I'm stronger? It's insane! Or maybe it's just a show for others to watch and enjoy? What's so enjoyable about watching people hit each other? Either way, anything you do there won’t help you in the moment of truth. And the moment of truth can be an argument with a bank clerk.

What do you do in an argument with a bank clerk?

I don’t know, there’s no 'blueprint'. At that moment, you feel the person, listen to him. And I check myself too. Maybe I'm wrong and he's right? The very question “what to do in such a situation” is a search for a pattern – instead of listening to what is happening and knowing what’s right. It’s a question that asks for instructions.

Let's return for a moment to the physical aspect of Tai Chi. Practicing Tai Chi opens up blockages, works on meridians, moves and lubricates the joints and the body. Therefore, practicing Tai Chi, unlike running or other strenuous sports, does not wear the body out.

And yet, people who are new to our classes will work very hard.

What’s the difficulty?

Even physically, the legs start to shake. Even people who are bodybuilders start sweating and their legs tremble. When someone like this comes to class, I let him work with a girl half his size. And in a second he is trembling and having a hard time standing up. This surprises them because they think they’re very strong. But their strength is not connected – it’s not rooted, floating in the air. Or in other words, they're top heavy.

In the gym each exercise activates a different muscle.

Gyms are a punishment – I’ve no idea who came up with the idea. And it’s worst when adolescents train there, because their bodies are still developing, and they are blocking the development of the body by developing certain muscles separately from other muscles. You can see this immediately in their bodies.
    It’s important to use the body as a whole, and not as parts that each operate separately. That comes with practice and especially from push-hands. For example, when an engineer builds a car, he builds it as a whole. The wheels or the steering wheel alone won’t get you anywhere without the rest. But when we use our body, a machine that’s a million times more miraculous than a car, we operate each part separately.

And what's wrong with that, why isn’t it a good thing?

Because it creates overload in some parts and weakness in others.

But I write with my right hand. I can’t use my left hand in the same way. I use my right hand for the mouse.

I also write with my right hand, but I operate the mouse with my left. I forced my left hand to learn. Whenever the kids want to work on my computer, they get annoyed that they can’t find the mouse. And yet each hand has a different role. The left hand is more attentive and receptive, while the right hand is active and projective. But nonetheless, it’s important to coordinate between the hands. The coordination between right and left – not just in the hands but in the whole body – was the main work I had to do on myself. (And it’s different from person to person).

Give me an example...

My right side worked very hard and strong while my left side was weak.

And what has improved now?

I integrated the two sides. Integration doesn’t mean that both sides can do the same thing, but that each side fulfills its role, and together they make a whole.

Hard martial arts, like kung fu or karate, are far more popular than soft martial arts.

I don’t like this division. Some people do soft kung fu and others do hard Tai Chi. But generally, the world is built on that idea. They promise to teach you to be strong. You will learn a method that will protect you and you’ll know how to fight and defeat others. It's something that attracts people. But, for me, Tai Chi is not an art of self-defense but an art of connection. That’s the difference between force and power.

Explain...

Force: we were taught that if we can’t destroy a wall with a hammer, we should use a sledgehammer to force our way through. Power works completely differently. Why break the wall if you can enter through the door? Those who come to study with me feel there is something different going on here, and for me, these are the right people. They will be able to absorb what I teach. Because only if the student is attentive and open and really wants to learn, can I convey the important things to him. This is the substance, the raw material I work with. And if the practitioner doesn’t have it, there’s nothing I can do to make that happen.
    But let's go a little deeper. The body is made up of layers – physical, emotional, energetic. And as one delves deeper into each layer, it becomes more and more subtle and more possibilities are revealed. There is no end to what can be discovered. But many of those who watch what I do in the classes say it's not Tai Chi.

This is the Tai Chi you practice.

Tai Chi or not Tai Chi – it doesn’t matter. That's why I say Tai Chi is just a word.

It’s a definition for this type of activity. It isn’t like Chi Kung with its breathing and energy exercises, or like yoga with its emphasis on stretching and flexibility.

The world of yoga is very similar to that of Tai Chi, they both have countless schools and styles. But what makes Tai Chi unique for me is the 'push-hands’ – the two-person exercise. Training over the years, enables you to develop a sensitivity to what is right and what is not. If after a year of practicing you do 'push-hands’ with a beginner, a whole new world, which you never noticed before, will reveal itself.

That's right, that’s what happened to me.

Because you have learned to feel the person you are touching. And as your sensitivity grows, what was mechanical and rigid, becomes more and more refined and subtle, and gradually, you also learn to use that sensitivity.
This is the process: at first you don’t understand what is required of you. Then you learn slowly to open up, to sense your body and that of the person in front of you. But at this stage you still don’t know what to do with it. And the next step is a natural action – an action that just happens by itself. Some people get it very quickly.

Have you ever considered giving treatments with Tai Chi?

Indirectly I treat everyone I work with. But I am more interested in exploring the abilities and functions of the body. I’m often asked why I don’t give treatment. It’s more interesting for me to explore the possibilities of physical and energetic connection in the interaction between people. In the Tai Chi world, there are always arguments about energetic interaction.

What do you mean?

You see teachers who move their bodies or hands slightly and throw their students.

I once saw a drawing of energy pathways in the body, a kind of explosive qi.

I’m not talking about that, but about teachers who touch someone and move him easily, or even move him without touching him. And there are always arguments about whether these students are cooperating with the teacher or not.

Have you ever seen someone like that?

Of course, my teacher in England .

And he threw you like this?

Many times!

Did you help him?

That’s an interesting point... you work on a certain level – not on the external outer layer, but on a much deeper level. And at this level, if you want to learn, you have to move according to its rules – otherwise you won’t be able to learn it. Do you understand what I mean?

No.

Let’s take a simple physical interaction as an example. I push you and you resist or hold on. So I help you find your root, tell you to loosen your hips, put your foot here and so on. I push again and this time you are more stable, but still stiff. I help you release a little more, and push you again, and gradually you feel more relaxed and stable. But you can also refuse to listen. You can remain stiff and say "why should I cooperate with you?" So okay, stay the way you want, but what did you come here for?
    So what are we doing here? We want to go deeper into the body. To find out how this machine works more efficiently. And it's exactly the same on the energetic level. I can’t know and understand it if I don’t experience it. And to experience it – I have to open up, to respond. As in love. And the surprising thing is that once I experience it, I can’t go back and stop responding because it will feel like I am freezing myself. So is that cooperation – or not? That’s how my teacher would move me without touching me.

You moved just from his intention.

Yes, in a state of energetic connection it just happens.

Didn’t you ever try to resist and say "I’m not moving"?

Of course I tried to resist, because I love exploring. But it makes you feel deflated, because something is moving in the deep energetic layer, while you’re resisting in the outer shallow layer. And that splits you into two. It punctures you in a way.

The energy he sends gets stuck in you.

It's like bouncing a ball. If it has a puncture it won’t bounce. So what I do is to tune the student into the energetic layer, and that’s where our interaction will take place.
    There are endless debates about this in the world of Tai Chi. People say it's a performance and that the students are cooperating with the teacher – which is both true and not true. It’s true that they can resist; but it’s also not true, because the interaction is taking place on another plane. It's like trying to fix a computer with a hammer and chisel. It won’t work. A computer should be repaired with tools that are suitable for computer repair and not with tools for fixing a table.
     So if I want to delve deeper into these layers, I need to tune in to a frequency that is applicable for such work. You could of course say that this only applies to the deeper layers, and can’t be used in physical interaction. But that isn’t true either. Because as soon as I start to be sensitive to energy, I start to 'read' the person in front of me. To see things that he himself is unaware of.

It’s a bit like scanning, or like an MRI.

For example, I touch a person and feel his rising resistance before he himself is aware of it. And then I can yield to his resistance, allow him to go where he wants to go.
    I move towards you, I feel that you are hardening even before I touch you. And this wave of resistance moving towards me, takes you out of your center. So I reverse direction, yield to your resistance, and of course you lose your balance, because you're already outside yourself. In the Tai Chi Classics it's called “attract to emptiness”.
    It’s an energetic interaction. As a spacecraft enters Earth, it passes through the atmosphere until it touches down on the ground. But just because you don’t see the atmosphere doesn’t mean that it isn’t there. So I want to learn to be sensitive to the atmosphere of the person in front of me. Simply to feel his atmosphere.

Do you feel it without touching him?

Of course, any good therapist can feel without touching. But there are also 'as if' situations. Sometimes, when you start working on the energetic plane, people turn it into a pattern in their minds, and start 'performing'. But if you’re attentive and sensitive, there is no way you won’t feel that it’s a performance – that the action comes from thinking – the mind is giving commands to the body. Because there is a delay between the action and the reaction. And that's completely obvious.

I have not experienced such a thing but I understand.

If you are attentive enough you will feel immediately that the movement is not spontaneous. Because a show is built on preconception, on a pattern that comes from the mind, and not on reality – on what is happening now.

That’s very clear, but I don’t understand how one achieves this sensitivity. Many years of practice, investigation, listening?

Not really – because you're assuming right now that you’re not there. I'll give you an example: You get home, you look at your wife's face and ask, “what happened?' How do you sense that something has happened? Or you call your wife on the phone and you can hear when she says “hey” that something has happened.

According to the face, the voice, the position of the body. I’ve collected patterns of sounds over the years.

It's still external. You feel the energy. To call it "patterns of sounds" is a rationalization. When you’re with the same person for a long time you can sense him, just like you can feel if the person you are talking to is stressed, angry or offended. You simply feel it.
    And also if someone is in a good mood we can feel that immediately, right? We don’t have to be Tai Chi Grand Masters. Any one of us with a bit of attunement and sensitivity will be able to feel it. 
   
But why did we lose this ability?

Because we don’t care about others, we are too busy with ourselves.
We are constantly busy with ourselves. We revolve around ourselves. We think about millions of things and don’t pay attention to what’s happening around us.This is what we learn in Tai Chi – listening – and the more I learn to listen the less self-centered I become.

That’s a very important insight.

You asked me before how many years it takes to achieve this kind of sensitivity. It's not a matter of time. Because each one of us already has this ability right now. But you can’t access it as long as you’re busy with yourself. It is, in fact, a natural ability. But we prefer to look for supernatural things and admire them. It’s too simple for us.

It is said that prehistoric man did not communicate verbally, only through sensing.

Prehistoric man lived during the 'gestation' period of humanity – before he became self-conscious and began to look at himself from the outside. Often, when I correct someone's posture in order to ground him, he looks down to see what I'm doing. And with this very action he disconnects himself from the ground again. And I say, "feel from inside, don’t look from the outside." (The need to 'look from the outside' has become so extreme today that you can’t even enjoy your plate of hummus without taking pictures of yourself with the plate and uploading it to Instagram.)
    At the dawn of humanity, communication was completely different, it was more psychic/energetic and less mental/verbal. And in energetic communication it’s impossible to cheat, because it’s totally obvious if I’m imposing my ideas on reality.
    How long does it take for a child to learn to lie?
    You know that lying is an acquired ability. It’s unnatural. And what is a lie? A split. We present a front, a facade that is not us; and that's already a conflict – tensing or tightening up.
    It's so interesting, really amazing. Whole worlds are here right under our noses and we don’t notice them at all. That is why I’m so interested in exploring, feeling, listening. Every human being is a kind of riddle – there is no one else quite like you.

So you sense the students through the body?

Completely. Just as there are fingerprints, there are bodyprints. Let’s say a student who studied with me many years ago suddenly appears again. Maybe I won’t remember his name or what he looks like, but as soon as I touch him, I’ll remember his energetic imprint immediately. And this particular touch is impossible to define. You can’t describe it with words like 'strong' or 'weak', but when you feel it, you remember.

So you remember the process your students went through?

Yes, of course I remember. I always wish I would have photographed them first, and then a year or two later.

So you 'photograph' the feeling? The sensation?

Yes, it’s stored on my 'hard drive' and never erased. 

That’s really interesting.

It fascinates me, much more than fighting someone to prove I'm stronger than him.

Can you teach that kind of listening and understanding of the other?

This is what we do in class. We delve deep into the body.

What do you mean by "delve deep into the body"?

The body is our anchor to reality. We move out of ourselves when we react emotionally, or when we impose our ideas on reality, act according to how things should be – instead of being with what is. Whenever we are busy with something that is not now, we are out of the body. When I raise my hand, I can only raise it now, in this very moment. I can’t raise it later and I can’t raise it earlier.
    Look: I'm raising my hand.
    If I'm acting according to a mental or emotional pattern I'm not here – and you can see that if you are attentive enough. So I want to bring the students back from their mental or emotional bubble, back into the body. This is why our body tenses up. Because we have left it. So I remove the layers that have accumulated so that the student touches – even for a split second – his core or his center, and in that place the possibilities are endless.

Fascinating! This is a really interesting field. Have you ever written about it? Explained it to others?

How can you explain a direct experience? You can only experience it – that’s it. Explanations are always about something, and not the thing itself.




These conversations were held in 2019.