Review: Lou Reed's Art of the Straight Line

 

The Art of the Straight Line: My Tai Chi
by Lou Reed and Laurie Anderson
Faber, 2023 

 Lou Reed was the singer-songwriter of The Velvet Underground before launching a solo career that lasted from the 1970’s to the 2000’s. A Grammy-winning Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee, he influenced musicians such as David Bowie, Iggy Pop, and Patti Smith. 

In addition to his artistic endeavors, Reed was a dedicated practitioner of Chen style t’ai chi. He began studying t’ai chi as he struggled to stop his drug use, which he described as ‘reckless excess.’ T’ai chi became a constant in his life. He practiced daily, whether at home or on tour and encouraged friends and acquaintances to take up t’ai chi. He studied with Ren Guangyi, a mainland Chinese master living in New York. Working with Ren, Lou Reed took t’ai chi performance art on tour in the 2000’s. He wanted to publish a t’ai chi book but struggled to get it started.

A team of friends (Scott Richman, Bob Currie, Stephan Berwick) and Laurie Anderson (his wife of 21 years) curated the book’s content and published it in 2023, ten years after his death. The book’s title page correctly describes its contents -- “A collection of Lou’ writings on t’ai chi and conversations with friends, teachers, and fellow practitioners.” While the book includes various writings, emails, and conversations with Reed, it is primarily interviews with and reminiscences of people in Reed’s circle. This included well-known fellow musicians such as Iggy Pop and Metallica guitarist Kirk Hammett, as well as friends, fellow t’ai chi practitioners and teachers. Not everyone was engaged in t’ai chi, though all share stories of finding Reed practicing t’ai chi whether on his apartment rooftop or while on tour. Those with knowledge of the Rock and Roll music scene will find sections from Lou’s fellow musicians of interest.

While t’ai chi practitioners may find the discussions of t’ai chi, push-hands, practice and a visit to Chen Village interesting, it is not a ‘sink your teeth into it’ tome on t’ai chi. Rather, the audience for this book is primarily musicians, artists and others who want to discover Lou Reed, the person.

            —Cheryl Powers

Ed Young, Children's Book Artist and T'ai Chi Teacher Passes Away

Ed Young (left) and Tam Gibbs

 Ed Young, one of Great River T'ai Chi's mentors and frequent workshop teacher, has passed away at the age of 91. Ed was a senior student in Professor Cheng Man-ch'ing's Shr Jung school in New York City, and served as Professor's translator and instructor for over ten years. 

Ed's main career was as a children's picture book artist and author, for which he received great recognition, winning the Caldecott Award and many other honors. He illustrated over 100 books, many of which he also wrote. Many of the books touch on human nature and virtues, environmentalism, and Chinese culture.

Caldecott Award-winning Lon Po Po

Review: The Yijing: A Guide

The Yijing: A Guide
Joseph Adler
Oxford University Press, 2021
paper, 206 pp.

A certain talent is required to render complex ideas understandable for novices. Joseph Adler, who has written extensively about the Yijing, has accomplished this in a masterful guide to the Chinese Book of Changes. The Yijing: A Guide is an excellent introduction for anyone interested in the worlds of Chinese philosophy, history, and literature. It clearly and succinctly summarizes China’s vast intellectual traditions in a very understandable manner.

In seven chapters, Adler describes the Yijing and its layers. He places the book in the context of divination from around the world, and then turns to the specifics of China’s historical and cultural context, covering early, early modern, and modern China, and Western uses of the Yijing, ending with a chapter that asks “Why the Yijing?”

Adler explains specialized Yijing terminology while keeping jargon to a minimum. He succinctly describes the parts of the Yijing, from its hexagram components to the Ten Wings. In his coverage of the Great Treatise, for example, he shows the development of important philosophical ideas and terms. Adler surveys the Yijing’s major schools (Image and Number, Meaning and Principle) and thinkers such as Shao Yong and Cheng Yi. Chapters include:

1. What is the Yijing?
2. Layers of Change
3. Yijing Divination
4. The Early History of Yijing Interpretation
5. Early Modern Views of the Yi
6. The Yijing in Modern China and the West
7. Why the Yijing?
Bibliography

Adler’s prior works include studies and translations of the great Song dynasty philosopher Zhu Xi (1130–1200), including his philosophy and his Yijing commentaries. Zhu was a pivotal figure in the Song era’s revamping of classical education.

The Yijing: A Guide is part of an affordable series that Oxford University Press produces of “Guides to Sacred Texts.” Another book in the series of interest of particular interest to Yijing readers is Livia Kohn’s The Daode Jing.

This book overlaps some in content with Richard Smith’s I Ching: A Biography and with Tze-ki Hon and Geoffrey Redmond’s Teaching the I Ching, however, Adler’s work is squarely aimed at those who are not necessarily familiar with the complexities of the Yijing or with Chinese culture. This makes it an invaluable book for college classes related to Chinese studies, as well as comparative religion, anthropology, philosophy, and literature. Students of allied arts such as Chinese medicine and martial arts will appreciate Adler’s treating theory and practice as being equally important; the Yijingis not just an academic pursuit.

 

Yang Family Founder Yang Luchan

 

Yang Luchan, Taijiquan Patriarch

 ‘The Many Lives of Yang Luchan: Mythopoesis, Media, and the Martial Imagination.’

In Martial Arts Studies

By Douglas Wile, 2022

ABSTRACT:
The life of Yang Luchan, patriarch of the Yang lineage and founder
of taijiquan’s most popular style, is a biographical blank slate upon
which conservative, progressive, orientalist, and just plain rice bowl
interests have inscribed wildly divergent narratives. Conservative
scholar-disciples sought to link him with the invented Wudang-Daoist
lineage, while progressives emphasized his humble origins and health
benefits of the practice. His life (c.1799-1872) straddled the height of
the Manchu empire and decline into semi-colonial spheres of foreign
influence, while successive generations of Yang descendants propagated
his ‘intangible cultural heritage’ through Republican, Communist,
‘open’, and global eras. Practiced world-wide by hundreds of millions,
taijiquan’s name recognition made it ripe for media appropriation, and
Yang Luchan has been remythologized in countless novels, cartoons,
television series, and full-length feature films. The case of Yang Luchan
offers an unusual opportunity to witness an ongoing process of mytho-
poesis and to compare these narratives with traditional Chinese warrior
heroes and Western models of mythology and heroology. If the lack of
facts has not constrained the proliferation of invented biographies, nei-
ther should it discourage the quest for historical context as we sift and
winnow truth from trope in the many reconstructions of Yang’s life.
 

Tai Chi Extolled for Balance

 z

 
Balance Exercises to Improve Your Strength -Read the whole article in The New York Times
Aug. 12, 2022, 10:53 a.m. ET

Can You Pass the 10-Second Balance Test?

This simple, often neglected skill can pay huge dividends later in life.
Sarah Karlan for The New York Times

Len Kaplan began having difficulty walking in a straight line when he was in his 50s. Scoliosis combined with compressed discs in his back were causing his balance to deteriorate.

“Physical therapy, regular exercises, just wasn’t getting the job done. I needed something different,” Len, now 80, said.

Around that time Len and his wife, Ginny, took a cruise with twice-daily Tai Chi classes. Ginny, 77, said they loved Tai Chi — which consists of slow, controlled movements and deep breathing — so much they found a class in nearby Yorba Linda, Calif., when they returned home. The habit stuck.

Len and Ginny have now been taking Tai Chi and balance classes regularly for more than 15 years. Len is able to easily walk in a straight line and his balance has improved. Last September while visiting Greece, Len and Ginny decided to hike the nearly 100 steps to the top of the Acropolis. Up they went, over slippery, uneven steps with no hand rails. They made it to the top and were rewarded with ancient ruins and sweeping views of Athens below.

“At my age I know people who would go, ‘Oh no, I’ll stand at the bottom in the parking lot and take pictures, thank you,’” Ginny said, “but how fun is that?”

Balance training is an important but often-neglected skill, one that impacts both our longevity and our quality of life, beginning around age 40. A study in June by a Brazilian team found that 20 percent of the 1,700 older adults tested couldn’t balance on one leg for 10 seconds or more. And that inability to balance was associated with a twofold risk of death from any cause within 10 years.

If you have tried out the one-legged test (with a wall or chair nearby for safety) and didn’t pass, don’t panic. It’s never too late to start working on balance training, even if you can pass the 10 second test, especially if you’re over age 50. This doesn’t have to mean handstands and acrobatics. In fact, you can start at home without any equipment.
What the 10-Second Test Can (and Can’t) Tell Us

Falls are the second leading cause of unintentional injury deaths worldwide, yet doctors don’t have an easy way to check balance, like they do blood pressure or pulse. In this test, which can be done in less than a minute, the patient gets three attempts to do a 10-second one-legged stand on either leg.

“The idea here was just to come up with a really simple test that might be an indication of a person’s ability to balance,” said Dr. Jonathan Myers, a professor at Stanford University, researcher at the Palo Alto VA Health Care System and an author of the balance study. He said the inability to perform this task was powerfully predictive of mortality. In the study, one in five people could not manage it.

“With age, strength and balance tend to decrease and that can result in frailty. Frailty is a really big thing now that the population is aging,” Dr. Myers said.

Balance problems can be caused by a variety of factors, many of them age-related, said Dr. Lewis Lipsitz, a professor of medicine at Harvard University and the director of the Marcus Institute for Aging Research at Hebrew SeniorLife.

When your vision is affected by cataracts, or the nerve signals from your feet to your brain slow down, this makes it more difficult to balance. While it’s impossible to prevent all types of age-related decline, you can counteract the impact on your balance through specialized training and building strength.

“There’s a downward spiral of the people who don’t go out, who don’t walk, who don’t exercise, who don’t do balance training, and they become weaker and weaker. And muscle weakness is another important risk factor for falls,” he said.

Researchers have previously connected balance and strength with mortality, finding that the ability to rise from the floor to a standing position, balance on one leg for 30 seconds with one eye closed and even walk at a brisk pace are all tied to longevity.

But no test is perfect. Dan Layne, who runs the Center for Balance, where Len and Ginny study Tai Chi, said the Brazilian paper caused a stir in his classes, which include balance and fall prevention. Many of his students, whose ages range from 30 to 105, tried it and failed. They approached him, worried.

“I’ve got a lot of people that can’t balance for 10 seconds, but their balance control is fine. They’re not falling and they’re living long lives,” Mr. Layne said. Even if your vision is impaired, or your coordination is affected by arthritis, you can improve your balance — at any age.

“The body is very adaptive. And if one pathway doesn’t work to maintain your balance, by training other pathways in the body and the brain you can overcome some disabilities,” Dr. Lipsitz said.
Balance-Enhancing Activities

Balance training goes hand-in-hand with strength training. The stronger the muscles in your legs, glutes, feet and core, the better your balance. You can improve your balance by taking Tai Chi or yoga classes, but weight training, dancing, rock climbing or aerobics classes are also excellent ways to work on your balance skills.

“Really any type of exercise seems to help with balance and fall risk,” said Dr. Avril Mansfield, a senior scientist at KITE-Toronto Rehabilitation Institute, who specializes in movement science.

But some forms of exercise are better than others. If your only movement is walking on a smooth surface, with no side-to-side movement, it’s not going to significantly improve your balance, said Dr. Rachael Seidler, a professor in the Department of Applied Physiology and Kinesiology at the University of Florida.

If you really want to improve your balance, Dr. Seidler said, you’ll get the most benefit focusing on several specific exercises.
Training Your Balance at Home

So how do you get started? Fortunately, most balance training doesn’t have to require any special equipment, and you can start at home. As with any new exercise program, be sure to talk to your physician first, and have a chair nearby to grab onto if you feel unsteady.

Try these five balance exercises two to three times a week, gradually increasing the difficulty as you feel comfortable and start to improve your strength.
Sarah Karlan for The New York Times

Stand behind a chair, holding on with both hands. Lift one leg off the ground, bending the lifted knee toward your chest and stand on one leg for five seconds. Repeat five times, then do the same with your other leg. Too easy? Hold onto the chair with one hand, release both hands or try closing your eyes.
Body-weight squats
Sarah Karlan for The New York Times

Stand with feet hip distance apart, toes forward. Bend your knees and lower yourself until your thighs are parallel to the floor, keeping your weight in your heels. Extend your arms in front of you if you need help with balance, or squat lower if it’s too easy. Repeat 10 times. Hold a dumbbell to add to the difficulty.
Bird dog
Sarah Karlan for The New York Times

Start on your hands and knees, back flat. Lift one leg straight behind you and lift the opposite arm straight in front, so you are balancing on one knee and one hand. Hold for five to 10 seconds, then repeat on the other side.
Sarah Karlan for The New York Times

Stand behind a chair, holding on with both hands. Lift one leg to the side, trying to keep your body as still as possible. Repeat with the other leg, five times per side. Increase the intensity by holding the leg up longer or letting go of the chair
Tandem stance
Sarah Karlan for The New York Times

Stand up straight and put one foot directly in front of the other, with your heel touching your toe. Keep equal weight on both feet, knees slightly bent. Hold for 30 seconds, then switch feet, repeating three times. Close your eyes to make it more difficult.

Hilary Achauer is a freelance writer focused on fitness, health, wellness, and parenting.

 

Read the complete article here.

 https://www.nytimes.com/2022/08/12/well/move/balance-exercises.html