Slow Time Power (Taoist Hacks for Living A Slow & Happy Life)

PRACTICAL ENLIGHTENMENT | MARCH FEATURE II

1992, Melbourne University: A first year student, I attended a demonstration of Chinese martial arts and culture at the sports center hall. There were exciting displays of fast kung fu sets, even a master of the sheng biao, a long rope with a heavy weighted dart fastened to its end. The master could use the pendulum swing of the dart to wind the rope about his body and then release it in sudden and unexpected directions. Having been a martial arts practitioner since my childhood, this was exactly the kind of thing that should have captured my interest. 

Instead, I was drawn to a different demonstration: a Chinese man in silk robes performing a slow, flowing series of movements. I had no idea what I was watching—a dance? a martial art? It should have been boring compared the more exciting performances taking place that day but I was transfixed. So were the rest of the audience—the tai chi master had slowed down time and somehow brought his audience along into slow time with him.  I started lessons the following week. 

More than thirty years later I’m still practicing. In that time I have run a tai chi school in Australia and America and taught workshops and classes in Europe. 

One thing tai chi has taught me is that slow time is a relationship between a person and their environment. The mind stops, the body relaxes, there’s no thought, just an experience of the present moment in time. Light falling on objects becomes more noticeable, the heart becomes calm, the world becomes more beautiful.

A slow time experience like this is not exclusive to tai chi or meditation. It can be had fishing, leisurely swimming, reading, gardening, cooking or just sitting in an armchair resting. If you have a dog or a cat you’ll see they naturally go through periods of stillness and contemplation throughout the day. If you stop and spend time with them you might catch their slow-time energy. Slow time is natural but increasingly under threat by fast time and distraction.