Paper short abstract:

This ethnography of Taijiquan presents an appreciation of the new pedagogies and transformations of the sensory experience of the human mind and body. It is necessary to think about these transformations in non-essentialist, procedural, and rhythmic approaches to grasp such changes.

Paper long abstract:

Taijiquan is a Chinese martial art passed on in its various forms throughout the world. The following paper draws a map of bodies, places, and entities that compose the act of becoming a Taijiquan practitioner and aims to understand their transformations of sensuous modes of mind and body. How does the touch of Taijiquan practitioners change? In what new ways can they feel their bodies and their sparring partners/opponents? What changes are taking place in their daily rhythms? How are they connecting to their environment? To explore that, we need to think of a processual and rhythmic model for the understanding of human transformation itself. The cosmology of Deleuze and Guattari inspires the theoretical framework that allows for this discussion. Their conceptions of the arborescent and rhizomatic provide a tool to illustrate body and mind as an ever-changing map, never stabilized in a normal conserved state. It outlines how the dissolution of borders of body and mind (deterritorialization) should always be observed complementarily with their tightening (reterritorialization). Another key concept for observing changes in sensory modes is temporality - which we examine by looking at lived rhythms using the tools of rhythmanalysis of Henri Lefebvre. The text aims to provide an insight into "how" are the Taijiquan mind-body techniques learned and transmitted, and at the same time (inseparably), it goes beyond with a question of what lived forms these techniques can take: "what their bodies are capable of".