Why Go to the Source?

I’ve asked myself an interesting question as I prepare to travel to China:

Why go?

Not why travel. I love experiencing new places and, like most people who wear many hats, I welcome a break from the day-to-day grind.

I mean something more specific.

Why travel halfway around the world to study something I can practice--and do practice-- at home?

I can experience Tai Chi in Virginia.

I can practice Qi Gong and meditate in my own backyard.

I can study Chinese philosophy from the many books I've accumulated, listen to online podcasts, watch demonstrations on YouTube and spend countless hours practicing forms without ever stepping onto an airplane.

Wisdom, after all, does not belong to a particular mountain.

So why does going to the Wudang Mountains feel important to me?

I think the answer has something to do with context.

You see, there is a difference between learning about something and stepping, however briefly, into the world from which it emerged.

Tai Chi didn’t develop in a vacuum. Neither did Taoism. They were inspired by a language, landscape, history and culture very different from my own.

And while I don’t believe traveling to China will suddenly unlock some hidden understanding unavailable anywhere else, I do believe that a change of scenery can offer a new perspective.

Think about it like this:

A Chinese word can be translated into English, but sometimes the translation doesn’t contain the richness of the meaning.

A martial arts movement can be taught correctly, but its meaning deepens when we begin to understand how to apply it.

A philosophy can be read in a book, but something clicks when we encounter the landscape that shaped many of its metaphors.

Mountains. Water. Mist. Stillness.

These images appear again and again in Taoist thought, and soon I will have the opportunity to experience some of that imagery for myself.

Don't misunderstand--I don’t expect the mountains to explain Taoism to me.

But I wonder...

How will Tai Chi will feel when my normal routines disappear and my practice has my full attention?

What will I hear when most of the language around me isn’t my own?

How will it feel like to train in a place where I am very clearly the visitor and the student, for a change?!

Travel removes some of our reference points.

At home, we know how things work. We know where we’re going. We understand the language. We recognize the food. We know the social rules. We move through familiar environments on autopilot.

Take those things away and suddenly we have to be aware again. We have to be fully present.

Therefore, we watch and listen more intently. We make mistakes and ask for help without ego (hopefully).

We become beginners, and beginners . Pay. Attention.

There is yet another reason this journey matters to me...

It's Respect.

Tai Chi has become an important part of my life. I practice it. I teach it. I write about it. Taoist philosophy has influenced the way I think about nature, effort, stillness and even ordinary moments in my life.

Those traditions are not mine simply because I have studied them.

They come from somewhere.

Learning even a little Mandarin before I arrive, understanding customs, learning about the history and spending time training in China are small ways of acknowledging that.

Not because I expect to become an expert on Chinese culture after one trip.

In fact, I'm sure it will be totally the opposite. Being there will make me more aware of how much I don’t know, and I welcome that!

I’m not traveling to China because I believe wisdom lives somewhere else. I’m going because sometimes changing where we stand changes what we’re able to see.

So, maybe I will...

...return with new techniques.

...understand certain movements differently.

...hear a phrase from a teacher that stays with me for years.

Then again, the most meaningful moments might be much smaller than that.

I don’t know yet. And for once, I don’t particularly want to know.

I’ll go. Practice. Listen. Pay attention.

Be a student.

And I’ll see what the mountain has to teach me.

--Rhiannon