Wuji (pronounced “woo-zhee”) is an important concept in Taoism and Chinese culture. It is a state of absolute balance: perfect peace and harmony. It is limitless and infinite.
When everything starts to move and you lose your balance, you also lose wuji.
In the Taoist view of the universe, if we were to look at it from a modern scientific point of view, the universe was in a state of wuji just before the Big Bang. There was a state of perfect peace and then all hell broke loose. Things separated into yin and yang. Cats and dogs living together — MASS HYSTERIA! (Sorry, I watched a lot of Ghostbusters when my daughters were little)
When you see someone doing Tai Chi, start in a relaxed posture, standing with your feet together. This represents wuji. They step with their left foot and stand with their feet shoulder-width apart, then relax again. I have done this with Grandmaster Chen Xiaowang, whose ancestor created Tai Chi. When he is leading a group of students in a form, and has moved into this first position with his feet shoulder-width apart, he says very slowly, “Calm down.” This is also wuji. Once the form begins, things move up and down, open and close, empty and fill: the body follows yin and yang and seeks to return, at the end of the movements, to wuji.
Many people don’t realize that Tai Chi is a powerful martial art. When using Tai Chi for self defense, the goal is to maintain wuji: balance and harmony; to stay focused. When someone attacks and you must adapt and change to deal with the force, your goal is to return to wuji, the state of balance you were in before the attack.
The goal is to receive the force by relaxing, adapting, neutralizing the force, and throwing your opponent off balance, making them vulnerable to a counterattack.
I enjoy working with people who have never studied Tai Chi. Almost every time a novice is working on a self-defense technique, his body twists, twists, bends, and loses balance so badly that there’s no way he can hold his own in a violent real-life encounter.
One of the reasons Chen Tai Chi (the original form of Tai Chi, the style I practice) is so strict with the mechanics and structure of the body is this pursuit of wuji. If you train yourself to recognize when you are in a balanced state, then practice the techniques that allow you to maintain your balance while throwing your opponent off balance, you will eventually achieve the skill. In a balanced state, you can defend yourself from all directions.
One of the things I’ve been working on with my students lately is the ability to relax when attacked. Our first reaction when the force comes towards us is to tense up. That is something natural, we have done it all our lives. It is a very difficult habit to break. We become rigid and inflexible (too “yang”), when the best course of action is almost always to relax, give in, and then win, a combination of yin and yang.
One day in Chicago, I did push hands with Master Chen Bing, one of the best young Tai Chi masters in the world (he is 30 years old). Every time he pushed him, he would relax and couldn’t find a target. He would slip out of my hand. Before I knew it, I would make a small movement that would throw me off balance.
This also applies to verbal and emotional attacks. At work, at home, even on the street or in traffic, some people will try to attack you with words or actions. Often they will intentionally try to push your buttons or throw you off balance, either due to their own imbalance or for their own benefit. Your goal, then, is to retrieve the wuji as quickly as possible and be at peace. Don’t give your attacker a target. They allow their verbal and emotional attacks to find a place to land.
How do you do this? An effective method is to detach from the emotion that normally happens in this type of situation. Instead of allowing yourself to get angry, relax, calm down, and feel sorry for the person. Think how unhappy his life must be for them to lash out like this. This is the best way to deal with people acting crazy on the roads. Instead of reacting in anger, try to relax and calm your mind and body.
It’s not always easy to react calmly when someone at work behaves in a way that could threaten your income and safety. In such cases, you often need to take action, just as you would against a physical attack, but focus only on the person’s behavior, with a calm and clear explanation of how damaging it is to you and the company. Explain it to him, letting him know you won’t accept it, and if necessary, take it to your supervisor.
I was the news director at a television station when a selfish reporter misbehaved and treated the assigned editor with disrespect in front of the staff. I sat her down, witnessed by the task editor (he was her supervisor), and explained why such rude behavior was not acceptable. Her reaction was not pleasant: he exploded with anger. I gave him 30 days to behave more professionally or leave.
After the meeting, the task editor said, “That was classic! Every time she blew up, you calmly steered the conversation back to her behavior. You didn’t let her control the situation.” He failed in her efforts to throw me off balance. She was baffled, because in the past, before I was her manager, she had gotten away with bad behavior.
This isn’t always possible when the person misbehaving is your boss. I once had a senior vice president call me up and yell at me, “His job is to SERVE!”
No one in upper management wanted to deal with this person, so I decided to start looking for another job, and within a few months, I found one. I returned to a balanced state of wuji.
This is also an important concept in the home. Spouses can sometimes get angry; It can’t be helped whenever people live together. Your reaction to that anger is crucial. I have learned by following the principles of Tai Chi to react calmly instead of tensely, and to remain centered while my wife vents.
It is when you react with anger that the tension increases. However, with practice, you can learn to remain calm and centered, react by returning to balance, and become the safety valve that lets the steam out. Inevitably, the person who is angry calms down and even apologizes for their behavior.
If you have a spouse who enjoys pushing your buttons in a destructive way, that’s a different story. You still need to stay centered, but you may never find real balance unless the spouse changes or until the relationship changes.
Whether it is a physical or emotional attack, your life and health will improve when you use the principles of Tai Chi to maintain a state of balance and harmony, and when you do not give way to attacks. In this way, you can maintain or return to a state of wuji.
