Thought, learning, creativity, emotion, movement and intelligence function to coordinate mind, body and environment into a coherent web. Martial artistic expression, the product of integration of body, mind and emotion, develops skills or intelligences that are available for other purposes as general intelligence, or holographic mentality, accessible from many different places including many that are unconscious. Aikitaiji systematically warms up the intelligences, beginning with the oldest parts of the brain, alerting all learning systems; making them attentive to (and ready for) new learning. This workout systematically tracks the evolution of movement, warming up each level or type of sensing and knowing, from the ancient reptilian life- function (floor work), to the social mammalian in relationship here and now (bi- pedal work), to future high level spiritual consciousness (chi work).

The history of martial art follows an analogous evolutionary path. Chinese martial art came from India with a yogi who wanted to help some poor monks who were victims of bad health and crime. First he taught them floor work symbolic of the stage of infancy- static postures from Hatha Yoga which built their bodies' core strength necessary to get up, stand and walk. They progressed to standing and moving between fixed postures or asanas (tai chi originally was 13 postures), which were later linked as in Yoga's "sun salutation," training them to move. The movements were fighting techniques infused with meditative psychological discipline for a boost into the higher stages of spirit.

The teaching/ learning categories that I use as a curricular guide inspires and develops different but overlapping, interconnected intelligences which add up to holo intelligence. Without the systematic warm- up you may or may not reach all of the strands in the web of knowing. An Aikitaiji class is composed of mini- lessons of five to twenty minute length. You can learn many, different lessons in a class period if they involve different skills, stored in the memory in different but connected, coordinated and cross- referenced parts of the brain. In order to learn martial art, lessons must be encoded throughout the brain, tying the learner intimately to ever- wider panoramas of reality. In a class period, I teach a lesson from each of the categories outlined below, and review some that I previously taught.

1. Floor work- Tracing the evolution of movement, begin lying flat on your back, warming up from the ground. When the weight is off of your feet, a different nervous system funcions that preps the neuro- muscular- skeletal basis of upright standing. Inventory and relax the tension in the postural muscles used for standing so that you only have to use the right ones for movement. This stretching sequence will make you taller by relaxing chronic spinal tension.

2. Crawling on hands and knees, then hands and feet together like a spider, and knuckle- walking like an ape warms up good upright posture, waking an entirely different system. This is important for the core torso muscles and nerves which are relied on for coordination, standing, walking, and feeling comfortable and naturally selected for your body.

3. Bi- pedal movement

4. Standing meditation with ki tests for verification. This should be done in all postures of form and function.

5. Moving forms. Aikido staff form is a good preparation for the basic Tai Chi form and Tai Chi sword form. I also do the forms mirror- image backward which more than doubles their neural impact. When you learn a new piece of form, and before you can learn the next piece, your brain takes six hours to encode the lesson into the permanent storage area of the brain. If you learn a new piece of form, and then try to learn another new piece within 6 hours, the first piece will be lost or erased when you learn the newer one. Since you can learn only one form lesson at a time, it doesn't make sense to keep teaching form all class long.

6. Push hands- switch partners every ten minutes.

7. Tai Chi fencing involves the same skills as push hands as well as focusing chi outside your physical body.

8. Techniques with prescribed attacks and counters and specific applications from the form.

9. Chi or Ki development. There are exercises that develop the unconscious intelligence, such as the many ki exercises developed by Koichi Tohei.

10. Philosophy lessons from the classics.

Copyright 2004 by Jack Livingston