One Step at a Time

by Richard Farmer

Sitting drinking a cup of tea in Costa’s tea shop, it was a cloudy day, I had read the paper and was....just sitting. I looked to my left and watched a rather rounded man walk by. I was observing how someone who is that round walks, kind of heavy and rolling, and I wondered whether it was because of his weight and shape or something else.

I often spend time just receiving people as they move, it is part of my training. It is one of the ways I have of feeling into how people are in themselves. I see the outer mirroring of an inner condition or state. Just as other people might need to talk to someone or to ask questions to find out how someone is, I listen to their bodies. I look.

It wasn't until the man had gone past me that I realised that he had a double, for there, walking slightly behind him, was a smaller version. His son. And whilst he was not quite as round as his dad, he walked just like him. Same rolling and heavy tread. There was so much there to ponder.

There have been times when I look down and see my father's hands instead of my own. Times when I catch myself sitting in a certain way, just like him. I see it in a facial expression of my brother sometimes, a certain lifting of the top lip, curled upward ever so slightly.

We all have looked at our parents, in some way, to see how things are, how to respond, how to be with life. When we are young we are so receptive, like a sponge, we just soak it all up. So this young boy, from love and a wish to know, walks like he walks. Like his father. It is not his walk, it is his father's. As I sat, I pondered on how did the father get his gait? Perhaps there he was, as a young boy, walking with his father, rolling along. And then I saw a whole line of fathers and sons all rolling along, each one looking at the other, passing on this trend and yet each one, yes walking their own walk, yet not.

Since that time I have watched and looked for this in many countries and places. And I see them, walking along, a mother and her daughter or son, a father and son or a daughter, learning how it is. But that is not how it is. What they are taking on is not theirs. But it becomes theirs.

So when we come to move in a Soul Moves class or an RDTC class, who is moving? Is it your ancestors? In some way I think it is.

I remember when my father died, that night, late into the night, as he was dying and as I sat with him, something passed to me. Something of my line that I must now carry and heal I have seen this in others. Something gets passed on.

There have been times, when I am really in my movement, when the Principles are truly, naturally present, and when I seem to emerge, physically, in a new way. I find an expression or way of moving which is subtle, hardly noticeable if you were watching, and yet what emerges in me is my true movement. Not my ancestors’, but mine. It would be like that small boy suddenly being without the influence of his father's walk and finding his own walk. It would be different.

Of course not everything that is passed down is a distortion or "out", but some things are.

And more than that, there is also a “National" version. I was once hiking far up in the mountains of the Yosemite National Park with a group of American men. It was a weeklong trip into the wilderness and it was truly a remarkable experience. They went all “mountain man” on me, didn't wash, didn't shave etc. I, on the other hand, washed my clothes, shaved and washed in mountain streams. At the end, when the cowboys and their mules met us further down the trail to take the tents back, they remarked to me, " Geeeeze - you really been up there boy, or you just preeentendin!" It was then that I realised, that whilst the Americans had been channeling their mountain men, I had been following in a long line of Victorian explorers who dressed for dinner in the jungles and plains of Africa! Being a good old colonial boy, somewhere, this trait was buried deep in me.

So if we consider these things, in you and in me are many patterns, physical patterns from our ancestors. When we move, they move. This is part of our journey. And yet I have come here to be awake, to awaken from the sleep of unconscious-ness and shine my true light. How would Richard walk? How would Richard sit? What would Richard do if he could really just be himself?

How? Well, when I become present - I am not in my history. Because I am not in history it is possible to relax the tension, I release the hold of the pattern of history if you like. Because I am present and released from history, in that moment, I can choose a quality of being which is more "me". More of my essence. More the heart of me. Because I am more in me, my true self or essence, you could say, there is a possibility that sooner or later I will make a move that is mine, not my ancestors’.

My personal feeling is that when this happens, when I free myself of this conditioning, I also free my line of the conditioning. It's like a long line of those men and boys walking, and finally someone frees themselves and allows all those who come after to be free as well. So a simple movement like "Open to the Day" can potentially have massive consequences. When we move, especially when it is a formal moment, like when we practise, if we just do it unconsciously, then realistically the old patterns carry the movement. I have said before that in Tai Chi, it is not about us adapting Tai Chi to suit us, but rather, we let go enough to let Tai Chi change us. So when we practise consciously, and sometimes we do, we can, through the Principles, bring the possibility of something new and true into us. Not just new but truly ours. When we do this, we heal not only ourselves but a long line of history too.

What a gift to give your family. What a gift to give the world. What a gift to give yourself.

Have a Great New Year!

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