The Story of Mu-I Tai Chi
By Michael Kangen
April 4, 2020
Right now, those of us living at Chozen-ji are effectively quarantined—doing our part to help flatten the curve of the Coronavirus. Though the regular sitting schedule continues, nobody is coming up for classes. Chozen-ji has a quiet feeling conducive to our own training and work.
The rapid spread of the Coronavirus has had me thinking about patient zeros and what it takes for something to spread quickly throughout the world. This doesn’t only apply to viruses and pathogens, of course. Like the tide of volunteerism and altruism we are seeing in response to the pandemic, positive trends can spread quickly and powerfully, as well.
Kow Roshi teaching Tai Chi at the first Chozen-ji dojo on Kokea Street
Stephen Kow Roshi’s Mu-I Tai Chi (sometimes referred to as 10-step Tai Chi or Mu-I Taiji Zen) is one example of something good that has made its way quickly around the world. Kow Roshi created Mu-I Tai Chi at Daihonzan Chozen-ji, in the late 2000s and early 2010s. It is now practiced widely around the world, reaching much farther than other aspects of the rigorous, deep Zen training done at our monastery in Hawaii. As student #1 who watched the originator and master, Kow Roshi, develop Mu-I Tai Chi over several years, I wanted to take this moment to write about its origins.
Mu-I Tai Chi was first developed in 2006. For several years prior, we had held an introductory Zen class at the University of Hawaii. While the class was held in a university building it was not limited to students and ended up including a motley crew of young folks from around Honolulu and a few older teachers from Chozen-ji. I think our dues were $20 to keep the room reserved for the semester. The class always began with some fairly brutal zazen on a hard linoleum floor, followed by an hour of martial arts. We had been doing Japanese swordwork, Hojo, and basic hara exercises previously, but when Kow Roshi took over the class he introduced us to Tai Chi.
Kow Roshi and Tai Chi master Ben Lo at Chozen-ji in the 1970s
Kow Roshi was ethnically Chinese but more importantly he was local. (For those readers who do not live in Hawaii, this meant, in part, that he grew up in the mashup of local cultures— encompassing elements of Hawaiian, Japanese, Chinese, Filipino, Korean, Portuguese, and other backgrounds—that is distinct to Hawaii.) Kow Roshi once told me about how Chozen-ji founder Tanouye Tenshin Roshi sent him to China to better understand Chinese language and culture. After getting more proficient, meeting his wife, and returning to Hawaii, Tanouye Roshi at some point told him, “Stop being so Chinese.” This kind of deep connection to one’s ancestry, existing alongside a no-BS non-attachment to identity is a pretty local, Hawaii thing.
As a middle schooler, Kow Roshi also began training with Tanouye Roshi in Japanese martial arts and Zen. Along with this, he trained in Chinese martial arts, including in Tai Chi with master Ben Lo. This gave him a truly unique and singularly Hawaii approach to training in Zen and martial arts.
Kow Roshi first introduced the 10 movements to our class in the Fall of 2006. He gave it the name “Mu-I” Tai Chi Zen. Mu-I came from the name of the class and translates from Japanese to “fearlessness” and comes from a Zen story about Yamaoka Tesshu retold by Omori Sogen, the other founder, along with Tanouye Roshi, of Chozen-ji:
A person once asked Tesshu, “What is the secret of swordsmanship?” Tesshu answered, “It is entrusted to the Asakusa Kannon.” The student at once went to Asakusa, searched everywhere in the temple and came to realize that the sign with the phrase “Se Mu I” (Se--give alms, carry out, conduct; Mu--void; I--fear) must be it. When he repeated this to Tesshu it is said that Tesshu answered “Kekko,” (very good) and laughed.
Se Mu I comes from the sutra of the Bodhisattva of Great Compassion (Jpn. Kannon, Chin. Kwan Yin). In the sutra the Boddhisattva Kannon (Kanzeon Bosatsu Makasatsu) gives fearlessness in the midst of calamity of any kind. Consequently people call this boddhisattva Se Mu I Sha--the “Giver of Fearlessness.”
The gift of fearlessness is the removal of fear or anxiety from the kokoro (mind, hearts) of people. To say it in another way, to give fearlessness is to give absolute peace of mind. If the highest stage of swordsmanship is to give fearlessness, then without doubt it is identical to Zen.
Kow Roshi was adamant that what we were doing was not “Zen Tai Chi” with Zen as an adjective describing the Tai Chi. We were primarily training in Zen, using Tai Chi as the method—i.e., “Tai Chi Zen.” In addition to being a form for Zen training, Mu-I Tai Chi was meant, true to its name, to embody the spirit of taking away others’ fear and anxiety.
As a master of traditional Tai Chi, Kow Roshi had trained in the many long forms of Tai Chi. But he was frustrated that they took so long for many of his students to learn. He described to me the long form that could take a couple years of serious training and even the shortened 38 forms that were still overwhelming for most students. Mu-I Tai Chi, in contrast, was a distillation of these longer Tai Chi forms. He believed that through 10 simple movements, someone could begin to embody the principles without getting too caught up with and stuck on the form itself.
Chozen-ji
Kow Roshi showing Tai Chi to Chozen-ji founder Omori Sogen Rotaishi
Mu-I Tai Chi must be understood in the context of Chozen-ji’s unique approach to Zen training. The defining characteristic of Chozen-ji training is that it is rooted in the body—through the breath and posture. Zen concepts are useless on their own, especially under the most difficult circumstances, which is when you need them most. But if one’s realization is rooted in the body, tested endlessly under fire, then you’ve got a chance to draw on this training when circumstances are truly life and death. And the amazing side benefit of this is that a person who has done this kind of training and lives this kind of way has the ability to put others at ease and take away their fear and anxiety.
A key principle at Chozen-ji is, “Kiai first, then ma-ai.” This means that energy, sincerity, and fighting spirit come first. Refining the form comes later. This helps explain Kow Roshi’s desire to develop a form of Tai Chi that would get students training immediately, rather than letting them get stuck on the aesthetics or memorization of the movements.
The Form
The Mu-I Tai Chi form was developed over several years, and is based on the longer Tai Chi forms with some of the movements directly lifted from there. The principles are the same:
The feet are always shoulder width apart,
One’s weight transfers first to the opposite direction of where you want to move,
The upper body stays completely relaxed and upright,
Movement of the hips is critical, and
Energy in the body flows freely all the way through the fingers and into the ground.
What is great is that the form is very versatile. You can do the form hard and fast, where it looks almost like a Karate Kata (video above). And you can cycle through it slow and long, going in all four directions (video below).
When we started practicing the form, we would only do it going forward, like in the first video. Scott Kiel, who had an Aikido background, was living at Chozen-ji along with Zak Opaskar and told Kow Roshi about Aikido drills where the practitioner does the same drill in four or eight directions (happo-undo). Kow Roshi then developed the four directions form that you see in this additional video and the three of us were the first ones to try it out with him. This circular form also had the benefit of the student being able to stay essentially in the same spot and go through cycles endlessly. It also forces the student to really pay attention, moment by moment, because they are changing direction continuously.
“P”s, “T”s, and “K”s
1 一 Yut
2 二 NI
3 三 Sahm
4 四 Say
5 五 Mmng
6 六 Look
7 七 Chut
8 八 Baht
9 九 Gao
10 十 Sup
Each of the 10 movements of Mu-I Tai Chi are accompanied by a number. More importantly, they are each accompanied by a sound. One aspect of Kow Roshi’s genius in developing the Mu-I Tai Chi was to have practitioners yell the numbers 1 through 10 in Cantonese with each movement, as loud as possible. This is not because Tai Chi is a Chinese form or for some historical reason. He explained that Cantonese was the best language because of the way that many of the numbers actually sounded. The sharpness at the end of every number requires one to use the hara/dantien to yell. It is one of the easiest ways to experience the “setting” of the hara.
You can experience this right now. Put both hands palm down on either side of your lower abdomen, slightly below your belly button. If you yell the word “Yut!” (“One” in Cantonese) you should feel your lower abdomen slightly tense and your pelvis rotate slightly at the moment of the yell. This is your hara “setting.”
Kow Roshi said that we all do this automatically and the sound we make matters when it comes to setting our hara. This, he said, is why most of our curse words end in “P”s, “T”s, and “K”s—because of how those sounds feel and impact us physically.
I always challenge people to think of WHY we say curse words. What is the point? Why do we feel better when we say them? What is actually happening in our bodies to create that feeling? The actual sound of the curse word, accompanied by fully exhaling our breath, is a natural way to get rid of tension, get out of our heads and into our bodies, and reset. We do it all the time without knowing it. Kow Roshi used to always joke that it would be great for us to be able to yell curse words at the top of our lungs when we did the Tai Chi. But out of deference to the neighbors he opted for Cantonese numbers—the closest thing he could come up with that had the same effect.
Minimum Effort, Maximum Effect
Kow Roshi sitting zazen in the Budo Dojo at Chozen
The Tai Chi really comes alive when you do it for long hours. We used to end every class cycling through the form for about half an hour. The really great sessions were when we would stay up all night the last night of sesshin and do Tai Chi for hours on top of the hill at Chozen-ji. Any sense of time disappeared. And at some point the body would just do the Tai Chi on its own, no matter how tired you were or how fried your mind was. It was true samadhi. The resulting body would be full of energy, alert, and flexible yet totally relaxed. When the body is tired enough, there’s no energy to add anything extraneous or get tensed up. This reflects one of Kow Roshi’s mantras: “Minimum effort, maximum effect.”
Taking the Show on the Road
Calligraphy by Kow Roshi reads “When (the leader) is upright and centered they rule through benevolence and harmony prevails.”
正中仁和 (Straight/Upright - Center - Benevolence - Harmony)
Once the form was refined we started teaching a wide range of folks. We continued the class at the University and began a Sunday evening class at the Dojo. The class at the Dojo would range from us doing swordcuts, Sumo, sometimes holding postures from the Tai Chi for upwards of half an hour, and sometimes just doing a low squat and talking story. Other times we would show up for class and Kow Roshi would announce, “movie night!” The last movie night we had, we watched “Kung Fu Panda” and Kow Roshi gave a short lecture on how ingenious the filmmakers had been in getting some fairly deep principles out to a global audience. We even taught a class at the University of Hawaii School of Architecture where we digitally modelled the entire Tai Chi sequence, both the physical movements and the flow of energy. Students then used the forms to analyze space and built structures, finding which one of the ten movements would match a particular environment.
We also began teaching larger seminars in the continental US, as well as some smaller group trainings in California, Wisconsin, and China. The attendees from some of these seminars have gone on to incorporate the Tai Chi into their own training groups and workplaces. At one of the larger seminars in Oakland, California we had around 70-80 people over two days. People had signed up not knowing what the training would be like except for Zen and Tai Chi. After the first day, full of hours of yelling, vigorous movement, meditation and swordcuts, Kow Roshi and I talked about the next day. We both agreed that probably only about half the people would come back for the second day. We were fine with this, happy to prioritize the quality of the training over making sure folks were comfortable. To our surprise every single person showed up for the second day.
Michael Kangen and Stephen Kow Roshi doing calligraphy at a seminar in Oakland, California in 2008.
I had lost my voice from so much yelling so I could not give verbal instructions. I just had people follow my movements. Despite having no talking voice, I was able to still yell quite loudly and clearly, so we did a lot of that the second day. At one point, Kow Roshi had me lead the group in two hours of continuous Tai Chi. Every couple minutes someone would ring a bell and, one by one, people would cycle through going to have a one-on-one conversation with Kow Roshi, a kind of sanzen. Afterwards, Kow Roshi told me that about half the people were in tears, having had some kind of release. He said he had never seen anything like it. He once told me, describing our respective roles in helping people experience a breakthrough, “Your job is to push everyone right up to the edge of the cliff. And then I’ll push them off with one finger.”
Kow Roshi’s Legacy
One of the last things that Kow Roshi said to me before he passed away was to make sure that the Tai Chi was practiced in the right way. And that folks knew parts of this story and the collaboration that went into developing the form as most people now practice it.
Stephen Kow Roshi in 2015.
Kow Roshi was a quiet, humble man. His presence put people at ease. He would be a strange fit in the online Zen world today where there are cults of personality around certain teachers, and their written bios and photos try to show what great teachers they are. Kow Roshi would always just be content to sit zazen and connect with students over the course of years. Depth over breadth. The only evidence of him online is a short piece in the Honolulu Midweek about carving seals for calligraphy and a student page about the Green Teen sustainability program he started during a period when Hawaii public schools were furloughed on every other Friday and kids had nothing to do. As evidenced in these pieces, you would definitely never hear him talking publicly about being a Zen Master.
He once told me how he felt like he had gone through a big part of his life holding back. That if his life was analogous to a six shooter he had only ever fired five bullets. He said he was never sure what he had been saving that sixth bullet for. It wasn’t until his teacher, Tanouye Roshi, became ill that he said he really went for it. I remember Kow Roshi saying, “Climb to the top of a hundred foot pole. And then jump!’
In an interview with Chozen-ji’s abbot, Sayama Daian Roshi, for the book Ten Shin Myo, Kow Roshi described his heroes in our 2500-year unbroken Zen lineage. He said his heroes were really the mediocre teachers, the ones whom we only know through their names and their places in the lineage, and not much else. There are countless stories about Omori Sogen, Hakuin, Bodhidharma, Rinzai, and Shakamuni. But Kow Roshi said all those other teachers kept the lineage alive just the same so the training would be ready when one of these great teachers showed up.
He said this gave him hope that the line would continue, the implication being that he was a mediocre teacher. Speaking as one of his students who feels the heavy responsibility of carrying on his teachings, I can say that Kow Roshi was a great man and an even greater teacher. How lucky we are that he left us such a masterpiece as Mu-I Tai Chi.