UNDERDOG - JON KATZ, Criminal Defense in and beyond the Capital Beltway.

After fifteen years of t'ai chi practice, a fellow t'ai chi practitioner recommended that I re-learn the t'ai chi form through our mutual amazing teacher Julian Chu, who became my teacher just this past summer. So as not to start completely from square one, I attend Julian's beginner's class at 10:00 a.m. on Sunday mornings, and then join the 11:00 a.m. advanced class, at a middle school under a mile from my home.  

Last week, one of the most powerful things I learned was about connecting each body movement to the movement of a ball in one's tan t'ien, located in the abdominal area. I previously learned that in t'ai chi, one turns from the waist, but my teacher said that when one turns from the waist, the coordination must come from the tan t'ien ball.

My teacher does not know the English word for this tan t'ien ball. I am still looking. Jon Katz

Numerous times I have written about my friend and teacher Jun Yasuda (see all articles here).

My fateful 1991 meeting with her as she fasted across from the White House, for peace during Persian Gulf War I, was a critical turning point. It came near the time that Ram Dass came more fully to my attention, a few months before t'ai chi came more fully to my attention, a few years before I started getting more of a sense of the meaning of Tao, and just months before I left a corporate law firm job to become a public defender lawyer. Jun-san was the main catalyst for me to move in the direction of powerful, peaceful, and effective harmony.

Before meeting Jun-san, I was obsessed and angry over all the rampant human rights violations throughout human history. Jun-san -- and, later, t'ai chi, the Dalai Lama and Gandhi -- showed me not to be any more angry at injustice than I would get angry at a devastating hurricane, tornado, or earthquake.

Jun-san seemingly imparted with me the lessons she has needed to impart and then left me on my own to pursue them as I wish, and since then we have crossed paths once in awhile, which for me recharges my batteries with her teachings. Just around four miles down the street from my office is Jun-san's fellow Nipponzan Myohoji Buddhist nun Takako Ichikawa, who arrived several years after I first met Jun-san, and who also is a wonderful inspiration.

Through @BuffaloPost on Twitter, I learned of one of Jun-san's latest peaceful efforts for justice. Recently, Jun-san fasted and prayed for a week at the University of California-Berkeley for the return of the remains of Native Americans to their tribes; the university apparently holds thousands of remains not only of Native Americans but of many other people from various parts of the world, as well. Joined by other demonstrators, Jun-san said: "The Native American spirituality and prayer are the center of this land," said Yasuda during a pause in her drumming. "What has happened in this country to Native Americans from the beginning has not been peaceful. So this is a reminder that there is a limit to all the taking we are doing on this planet."

I have long known about Jun-san's close connection with Native Americans, and now learned her view that "[t]he Native American spirituality and prayer are the center of this land." Jun-san's temple and peace pagoda grounds in Grafton, New York, include testaments to her close connection with Native Americans.

This Nipponzan Myohoji page says: "[Jun] Yasuda had been close to Native Americans, and her stupa was dedicated to their survival. Before building the pagoda, Yasuda had walked across the country four times in support of peace and Native Americans, beating her hand drum as she chanted the Odaimoku. In 1983, she was fasting and praying in New York [apparently at the Albany statehouse on behalf of Dennis Banks], when she met Hank Hazelton, a long time activist for Native Americans. Hazelton offered her a parcel of land. In October of 1985, work began on the structure soon to be called the Grafton Peace Pagoda. The pagoda was dedicated in 1993. Native American symbols ring the pagoda, while other images inlaid into the dome depict various aspects of the Buddha's life and teachings."

The martial art of t'ai chi, of course, is an essential part of my personal and professional life.

It turns out that some lawyers brand themselves as martial arts lawyers.

Practicing in the nearby city of Fairfax, David Kaufman runs the Karate Law blog. I look forward to meeting him sometime.

David Nelmark of Des Moines presents the Mixed Martial Arts blog.

In Kentucky is Carl Brown, who wrote The Law and Martial Arts.

It appears that martial arts law practice areas include personal injury, criminal defense concerning weapons, and general contract and business work.

 

Some amazing teachers are amazingly selfless. Ben Lo is one of them http://katzjustice.com/underdog/archives/1402-Learning-one-cookie-at-a-time..html.

At 82, ten years after a liver transplant, flying from his home in San Francisco, and -- as always --tremendously powerful physically, mentally and spiritually, Master Lo continues to come to the Washington, D.C., area each year to share his teachings and to give pointers to each attendee doing the t'ai chi form.

Yesterday, I attended my fifth training session with Master Lo. In the morning, he talked and took questions and answers about the t'ai chi classics, as covered in "The Essence of T'ai Chi," which was arranged by him and three colleagues many years ago. In the afternoon, we got thru not even the first third of the t'ai chi ch'uan Yang style short form, as he highlighted even to highly accomplished teachers and practitioners how to take their t'ai chi to the next higher plane.

By divine coincidence, a seat remained at Master Lo's table for lunch, even though I was one of the last to arrive. There, I asked Master Lo whether he saw a connection between non-duality in Buddhism and non-chasing in t'ai chi. http://bit.ly/10TlEP. He did, but that is about as far as I got with him on that topic as he was engaged in talk with those sitting closer to him. My three-year-old son so much enjoyed meeting Master Lo that he gazed for a long time at the picture we took together, which I do not post here based on Master Lo's preferences.

Master Lo came to t'ai chi around sixty years ago so weak that his body could not even absorb medicine to make him better. His teacher Cheng Man Ch'ing came to t'ai chi sick from tuberculosis. They both experienced rapid returns to health after heavy t'ai chi study and practice.

Master Lo's most basic teachings are to relax and to correctly practice t'ai chi morning and night, even if for as little as ten minutes. However, more time than that is needed to make one's body strong enough to take the essential t'ai chi approach of bending at the hips and knees to be in sitting postures as if on only one leg that moves from substantial to insubstantial as the insubstantial leg transitions to substantial. Master Lo and the other t'ai chi masters teach of the need to strengthen our bodies at such a level in order to have a lifetime of physical, mental and spiritual strength, including being relaxed.

T'ai chi focuses heavily on relaxation and softness, but still requires enduring the discomfort of strengthening the legs. As Master Lo says, no burn nor earn, no pain, no gain. At the same time, he says that the burn means the practitioner needs to develop more strength.

Master Lo physically helped align several of the approximately seventy attendees' bodies to stand relaxed in the wardoff posture and to not be moved off balance by substantial force. However, each time he asked them to stand up and resume the posture themselves, with little force he was able to push them over. This highlights the great importance of having a quality t'ai chi teacher.

Here are some other highlights from the session with Master Lo:

- How does one reach the necessary level of t'ai chi relaxation and softness if one also lifts weights? (Perhaps the same answer applies to those who do external martial arts and who do heavy lifting at their jobs).

Answer:

Doing t'ai chi and lifting weights is like having two significant others. You cannot marry both of them.

- If the practitioner has substantial knee pain or back pain, alter the physically demanding  t'ai chi practice accordingly.

- The whole body must be connected in doing t'ai chi.

- One day Master Lo was doing t'ai chi meditation, and started feeling his body parts disappear. He got concerned, and the sensation went away. This might be  similar to my several experiences doing t'ai chi in a mirrored dance hall or a yoga practice room and seeing my body parts start to become transparent or disappear, and in feeling some of them disappear when practicing in my backyard. Even if the mirror experience was an optical illusion resulting from looking at the same point in the mirror for a long time, it was a great experience that went away when I let my fear take hold of disappearing for good.

- Doing the initial raising hands move as shown by Master Lo, I felt the ch’i or else bloodflow in my fingertips more than ever before.

- To prevent an opponent from moving your extended arm, it is necessary to actively relax the arm while putting the mind in the arm.

- Cheng Man Ch'ing's teacher Yang Cheng-fu could push people by barely touching them. Jon Katz

ADDENDUM: Taichicenterofmadison.com quotes Cheng Man Ch'ng's student Wolfe Lowenthl as saying that Ben Lo "has probably gone deeper into ‘the fearlessness of taking pain’ than any of Professor’s students in this country.” Master Lo's instructional DVD can be purchased here.

 Bill of Rights. (From the public domain.)

Nearly a decade ago, I added adult entertainment to my law practice. Such representation is a great way to defend the First Amendment, and can include criminal defense, as well.

Litigating against adult entertainment zoning and licensing laws can be like a cat-and-mouse game, pitting businesses against censorious municipalities, seeing which businesses will cave rather than financing expensive litigation and, sometimes, expert witness fees, getting significantly different outcomes depending on the prevailing appellate circuit, and witnessing often sharply-divided Supreme Court opinions.

As with criminal defense, even after a battle defeat against adult entertainment laws, I keep persevering, knowing that critical victories are on the horizon. In that regard, congratulations to the legal team that obtained good First Amendment headway in the Seventh Circuit last month in Annex Books v. City of Indianapolis, __ F.3d _ (7th Cir., Sept. 3, 2009).

Annex Books rejects the tired efforts of so many municipalities to rely on old, junk science "studies" connecting adult entertainment with everything from reduced property values to crime to the bubonic plague. Interpreting Los Angeles v. Alameda Books, 535 U.S. 425 (2002), Annex Books says in relevant part:

Over the years, I have been deeply inspired by the teachings and positive example of the Dalai Lama, including his approach to talking to everyone the same, regardless of their "socioeconomic" background; his book The Art of Happiness at Work and another, whose title I forget, about transcending fear of death to making one's last breath a good one; and Roger Kamenetz's account of him.

Yesterday, I finally got a chance to experience the man live, at American University's Bender auditorium. I was only able to stay for less than the first hour of his two-hour talk, because my three-year-old boy had lasted as long as he could. However, faced with the choice of going without him to experience the Dalai Lama's full talk, or to experience it with my boy, I chose the latter.

The Dalai Lama is seventy, and I had images whether factual or not of his having grown up as a child in rarefied surroundings. Yet, from the point he opens his mouth, he is down to earth and likeable. Early on in his talk, he sneezed, and enjoyed telling the sellout crowd that when he sneezes it can help keep the crowd awake.

The main points I got from the Dalai Lama's talk were the importance of harmony, compassion, and non-attachment.

Non-attachment and wu/mu have become positive aspects of my life. They are very related to my t'ai chi practice and learnings from the Tao Teh Ch'ing. (See more here.)

Through mere or divine coincidence, conflicting with the Dalai Lama's local appearance was a weekend seminar in Washington, D.C., by Ihaleakala Hew Len. I am just starting to learn beyond the basics about Dr. Hew Len, who is a proponent of ho'oponopono, which focuses in large part on taking personal responsibility for problems, rather than blaming others; cleaning ourselves concerning others' problems and our own; and ultimately reaching a zero limit that would appear to provide no opportunity to have problems to harm us.

Regardless about whether one agrees with the extent of Dr. Hew Len's deep belief in ho'oponopono, certainly his focus on reaching zero limits can be an important component of making its practitioners better people. Ho'oponopono seems to embrace non-attachment and wu/mu, as well.

My wife learned about Dr. Hew Len and ho'oponopono earlier this year, and attended Dr. Hew Len's weekend seminar while I went with my boy and a friend who is a Nipponzan Myohoji Buddhist nun, to experience the Dalai Lama on Saturday. Later in the day on Saturday, my son and I went near the Washington Monument to the annual Prayer Vigil for the Earth, whose 2009 organizer I have known for several years. This was quite the spritual weekend.

Today, my son and I visited the last half hour of Dr. Hew Len's talk, and we were both positively affected by him and by our brief meeing with him at the end of the program, as we were positively affected by the Dalai Lama. Jon Katz

ADDENDUM: See more of Dr. Hew Len on Youtube.

Two days ago, I learned the following at the weekly t'ai chi practice east of the Capitol:

- Allow no more pressure on your body than you would allow on your eyeball. To avoid such pressure, yield powerfully, and push substantially with the ch'i, using no more than 4 ounces.

- Be soft. Do not brace against a push. Do not stiffen. Create substantial space between you and your opponent. Sometimes leaning is needed. One can lean back and still have a straight line from the head to spine.

The foregoing lessons apply to non-physical conflict, too.

Each Sunday morning t'ai chi/sensing hands practice reinvigorates me for another week of fighting for justice for my clients, and doing so without anger, with continued zest for the battles and wars, with powerful calmness, and with no fear.

As I sometimes say to my particularly skilled push hands/sensing hands partners: "I want no mercy from you, just as I usually do not get it from prosecutors or opposing witnesses, and sometimes not from judges, either." Some t'ai chi partners take those words particularly literally, and keep finding my stiffness to push successfully against, smiling and sometimes chuckling all the way, without giving me much opportunity to regroup from the last successful push against me. This teaches me where the stiffness remains, how it comes about, and how to soften it. The goal is to become as soft as air or water, giving the opponent nothing to push against, and being as powerful as a tornado or tidalwave.

I keep learning not to resist any pushing, but to yield as best I can to it; to resist any push harder than the push itself is to make the push all the more powerful. Of course, when the opponent pushes, the opponent may reveal some of his or her own stiffness, imbalance or weakness. The moment must be seized to take advantage of such weaknesses, and to turn each received push attempt into a strategic advantage. To miss being in the moment can be fatal.

To reach powerful t'ai chi softness, it is critical to erase thoughts and words of "Prosecutor S____ is an a**hole," "Judge F___ is a tyrant," or "police officer P_____" is a lying sack of sh*t." Instead, it is important to actively and openly sense and listen to what is going on with each of them on the path to harmonizing the client's situation as best as possible. To do otherwise is to stiffen up, to prevent important sensing and information from entering into my own strength, and to be preoccupied with what MIGHT happen as opposed to what is happening right this moment. To do otherwise helps assure they will not try to rise above my own negative expectations of them. We are all connected, so we are all able to reach great heights and pathetic depths. The key is to try to bring others to heights helpful to us, and to harmonize away from the depths.

Of course one must prepare for battle, have the necessary tools and weapons for battle, and know how to do battle. The goal is to be so prepared for battle that one is fully rehearsed, and, therefore, powerfully relaxed at all stages of the battle, through perpetual practice, perpetual application of the relaxation principles of t'ai chi or whatever other relaxation methods that work for the litigation fighter, and success in a good balance of diet, rest, exercise, and harmonious living. Jon Katz.

At this past Sunday morning t'ai chi practice, one of my push hands partners talked of the need for a push hands player to engage the opponent and to connect with the opponent's tan t'ien, which generally is the point near the navel where t'ai ch practitioners are taught to sink their ch'i, their minds, and their very centers, with one of the many benefits being that an opponent has more trouble finding any center against which to push.

The more I practice t'ai chi  open hand and push hands/sensing hands, the more I fully accept t'ai chi's teachings to be simultaneously alert, calm, relaxed, soft and substantial at all times; and to quiet the mind of unnecessary noise. In t'ai chi and all other physical fighting situations, in court, and in the world in general, we do not always know where, how, and from whom the next attack on us will come, whether it be a vicious attack -- or even ambush -- from an opposing lawyer or opposing witnesses; a seeming attack from a judge who might instead be getting cranky, impatient, or incredulous; or an attack from a non-human source that therefore has no ill will, including disease, hurricanes and other natural disasters, and attacks from non-human animals. Only by my being alert, calm, relaxed, soft and substantial at all times can I best neutralize any such attack. It is one thing to deflect or neutralize a fist coming at one's nose, but quite another thing to do the same with a rock being thrown to the back of one's head. It appears to be beyond lore that many of the most advanced t'ai chi practitioners have repeatedly neutralized attacks from behind and even while sleeping, through exercising such a high state of alertness, calmness, relaxation, softness, and substantiality.

Additional lessons I learned in this past Sunday's t'ai chi practice include:

- Because attacks from opponents should be neutralized, do not withdraw too quickly nor too slowly from an attack. Too withdraw too quickly opens a new avenue for strong attack from the opponent. The hands and arms can best be used to neutralize an attack by not moving them separately from the rest of the body.

- Follow through when pushing or pressing an opponent. One does not need to move quickly in pushing or neutralizing, although one needs to be quick enough not to miss an opportunity to neutralize or to effectively attack.

- Some t'ai chi push hands moves create particularly high risks of severe physical injury. The roll back can be used to break an opponent's arm, for instance, with little force by the aggressor. The attackee can neutralize this by relaxing and, sometimes, attacking with the attackee's shoulder, which apparently can cause substantial damage to the attacker's chest.

- As I proceed deeper and deeper into t'ai chi practice and leading a t'ai chi lifestyle twenty-four hours daily, I get more skeptical about the way that soldiers and police are trained to use force in the United States. From what I can tell, soldiers and police for the most part are trained to apply brute force when force is to be used, and not enough about reserving higher levels of force for later. This is a reflection on American society in general, from where soldiers and police come. The brute force approach leads to excessive violence, excessive military atrocities and police abuse, and lack of enough efficient effectiveness by soldiers and police, and this spreads to the rest of society, with civilian assaults, child abuse, and spousal/significant other abuse. Beyond that, our society exposes people to severely emotionally traumatic experiences -- including my own emotional turmoil, for instance, at seeing the now-famous photograph of an injured naked girl, Kim Phuc (her webpage, including the disturbing photograph is here) running away from a napalm attack in Vietnam -- with too many people not getting sufficient, if any, emotional, psychological, and educational support to get back towards harmony. These same people are being armed as police and soldiers; the whole situation is extremely disharmonious and dangerous.

All of the above t'ai chi considerations apply to the practice of trial law, particularly about engaging not just the opponent, but the jury, the judge, one's clients and witnesses, and opposing witnesses and opposing lawyers . The concepts of being substantially soft, relaxed and calm at all times might seem counterintuitive to society's many lessons about shooting first and asking questions later, finding strength through adrenaline, and seeming outwardly strong at the expense of being in touch with one's emotions. For me, applying the lessons of t'ai chi yields more personal and professional strength and other benefits than I have ever known. Jon Katz.

Because battle in court as well as everywhere else calls for being calm and powerful in the eye of the storm, I continue practicing t'ai chi daily, and joining many highly-skilled t'ai chi practitioners each Sunday morning at Carderock Park along C&O Canal in Maryland.

For me to advance in t'ai chi open hand and push hands/sensing hands practice -- and hopefully advancing to learning the practice of t'ai chi sword, saber, and spear, where the weapon becomes an extension of one's body -- I must practice relaxation, among other things, twenty-four hours a day, in part because there is no better way to sense what is happening around a person and also because nobody can push a person who is as relaxed as water while being as powerful as a tidalwave. If total relaxation is all t'ai chi teaches me, that will be great for my physical, spiritual, and mental health, and will be appreciated by those around me. T'ai chi teaches more than that, though.

Legend has it that Chang San-Feng developed t'ai chi at least seven centuries ago after seeing a bird and snake valiantly fighting each other into exhaustion. Consequently, t'ai chi is not about limpness, which is of no help. Nor is it about stiffness, because anybody can push and even break a stiff, whether the stiff is alive or dead. The key is to be actively relaxed.

Last Sunday, as usual, each of us practiced push hands with several fellow t'ai chi practitioners. At one point, I was pushing with the main teacher, and he helped me focus on doing relaxed pushing, rather than limp or stiff pushing. He demonstrated the same on me, asking if I felt threatened by any of the pushes, and I only felt threatened by the relaxed push. The limp push does nothing, and the stiff push can easily be pushed back with little force.

When practiced correctly, t'ai chi also teaches patience, deep attention to what is happening and being said and to what is not visible or audible, and acting quickly to changing circumstances, because doing otherwise can be fatal.

Another highly skilled practitioner told me that any resistance to a push is the resister's own responsibility. By resisting less, by learning to root into the ground, by relaxing and sinking, one makes it harder to be pushed successfully.

Curiously, before I even started practicing t'ai chi nearly fifteen years ago, I considered myself a modified pacifist. I felt, and still do, that self defense can be legitimately and reasonably exercised, but believe that too many people abuse weapons, fists, armies, and police power. T'ai chi helps make a fighter calm, and, therefore, hopefully more likely to use weapons as a last resort, not to abuse them, and to stop once the weapon is no longer necessary.

In court, many times I feel that opposing prosecutors and opposing witnesses are not fighting fair -- whether intentionally or not -- and that the judge is deviating too much from the clear dictates of appellate courts and the Constitution. T'ai chi helps me not to get upset at the situation, but instead to focus on harmonizing any imbalanced situation, whether it be putting in storm windows to protect against storms, not carrying a raw steak by a pack of wolves, or calmly, efficiently and persuasively arguing a point of law or fact to a trial judge who might not like my point, but who is stuck with the reality of the case or the appellate case decisions that are on my side. Jon Katz.

Lately, I have gotten many new weekly ideas for persuasion and trial combat, through weekend t'ai chi push hands gatherings, daily solo practice, and ongoing viewing of videos and reading of books by today's and yesterday's t'ai chi masters. Here are some recent ideas:

- Learned at Sunday t'ai chi push hands practice today: Do not be too late in yielding nor attacking.

- Also learned at t'ai chi- Several efforts may be needed to find the opponent's stiffness or gravity center to push against, sometimes including through pushing and yielding a few times on the same part of the opponent's body.

- T'ai chi push hands, the Art of War, and trial practice are about moving when the opponent starts to move, and arriving before the opponent.

- Chinese speakers are advantaged to read the t'ai chi texts untranslated. At the park with my son Friday night, I asked a Chinese-speaking woman what the three Chinese characters in T.T. Liang's classic said, and she exclaimed "T'ai chi ch'uan". In reply to my doing CMC's t'ai chi form, she proceeded to demonstrate the form she knows. She speaks little English. We spoke through t'ai chi.

- We are all connected, and should not see life via us v. them, leftist v. reactionary, and cops v. good people. Then, we will be more self-aware, self-fulfilled, intuitive, empathetic, persuasive, grounded, and non-alienating.

- T'ai chi keeps me straying less from the latter path, and coming closer to more effective trial battle, better personal health, and harmony.

- T'ai chi teaches that we are weaker in battle when we fear our opponents, which causes us to tense up. We must see our connection to them. This concept runs counter to the common efforts of soldiers and others to dehumanize opponents.

- When we humanize opponents, we must be all the more committed to our cause to inflict injury on our opponents.

- The goal of battle -- whether political, in court, or physical -- should be to harmonize the situation to one's advantage.

- A trial lawyer has no business taking a case if s/he will avoid harming the opponent where such harm is necessary for serving the client.

- T'ai chi rejects absolute pacifism, it would seem. In the hands of masters, t'ai chi can inflict severe injury and death, with little physical force. For good reason, late t'ai chi master T.T. Liang -- who left the planet in 2002 at the age of 102 - believed that t'ai chi promotes less violence, though.

- We inflict damage daily, including on the environment with our cars, on laborers living in misery for Wal-Mart prices, and on eaten animals.

- T'ai chi, of course, is not about the ends justifying the means. We must be aware of the damage we inflict, knowingly and unknowingly. Jon Katz.

Last July, my decade-long former law partner Jay Marks and I opened our separate law firms. The good karma with which we made this transition -- including sending out a joint news release -- has continued to this day, and dates back to our first meeting at a six-year-old birthday party in Connecticut in 1969. His immigration law firm and my criminal defense firm -- three blocks apart -- continue to thrive and to keep great joint relations. 

In these days of so many acrimonious law firm splits, I thank Jay, his staff, and my staff for making the transition as seamless and friendly as signing a new lease; installing phone lines, paint and new carpet; printing up new stationery; updating my website; buying some new furniture; and loading up the moving truck. T'ai chi master T.T. Liang, who lived to 102 and never a pushover in any way -- which is an understatement -- had ten guiding principles, including to make a thousand friend and not one enemy.

I also thank my staff for being my dream team, all with excellent previous law firm experience, keeping me on top of my game, taking good care of clients when I am in and out of court, and arriving on time like a Swiss watch. David has been with my law firm from the day we moved in, and begins law school next month. Letam joined us last December as our part-time assistant, while attending the University of Maryland, where she will graduate next May. Shannon joined us last month as a full-time legal assistant, having graduated in May from the University of Maryland. It is a great feeling to know that when I am in court, everything is being taken care of well at the office, and I thank my staff every day for the wonderful work they do and the great karma they bring with them.  

Also new to my current law firm, since last fall, is my Virginia branch office in Tysons Corner, Virginia. Through the northern Virginia office suite company that rents to me, I have meeting space available in both Tysons Corner and in Arlington, across from the courthouse. A map of the greater Washington, D.C., metropolitan area shows how close northern Virginia is to Washington, D.C., and the Maryland counties bordering thereon, and I am thankful that the last law firm I worked for required me to take the Virginia bar exam, after having already been a member of the Maryland and D.C. bars.

Thanks, Jay, and thanks to my staff for a great first year. Jon Katz

- One day I was speaking with a law school professor, and asked if he knew a particular person from his home town. Know him? The professor exclaimed: "What a pr*ck."

- With difficult judges, trial master Steve Rench applies the basic and effective lesson of the magic mirror. If a judge knows s/he has a poor reputation with lawyers, that presents all the more reason for the lawyer to empty the mind of any such thoughts, and to give the judge a clean slate that day. Oversimplistically, it is like trying to find the thorn in the lion's sole and to pull it out, rather than trying to slay the lion.

- A person arrives home one evening, looking forward to be greeted by her dog, and instead the dog starts angrily attacking her, and never changes from thereon in. How does the person avoid feeling devastated?

In the foregoing three scenarios, the person being affected by the challenging situation has an opportunity to attach to the image of a reprehensible person, an impossible judge, and a dog turned bad. Similarly, the affected person has the opportunity to empty the mind, the feelings, and the vessel, in order to acknowledge that we are all connected in one way or another, that it is difficult to compartmentalize a single person or non-human animal as awful or great, and that true happiness is not found by searching for it externally. How else can one win in the courtroom, in the battlefield, and in life by doing anything other than working towards such non-attachment?

T'ai chi teaches non-attachment in terms of harmonizing an imbalanced situation rather than about vilifying and trying to decimate the opponent. Buddhism covers non-attachment through non-dualism, including the concepts of no birth/no death, no coming/no going, and no increase/no decrease. The more we give up our desires and the more we give up our expectations of others, the more we can successfully practice non-attachment. And therein lies the rub. How can one deeply love another without feeling attachment? How powerful can people be if they feel no love? How can one immerse himself or herself into years of academic study, years of a work project, and years of investing one's assets and still feel no attachment when the heart is shattered, the academic study bears no diploma, and the investing collapses? That may be easy for someone content to live in a cave without possessions and ready to do a good deed for parentless lion cubs by donating his or her flesh to them so they may eat another meal. But what does everyone else do?

It is hard to live without attachment to anything. On the other hand, too many people are too attached to their bodies, to the point that many will rush to plastic surgeons to fight ageing, let alone fighting against their own ultimate mortality. Too many people are attached to the fear of a roller coaster even when it is clear that the roller coaster at worst might turn the stomach. Too many people are attached to their comfort zone. Too many people are attached to anger. Non-attachment to youth, the illusion of immortality, comfort, fear, fear of death, and anger are very achievable levels of non-attachment, but certainly far from easy to reach.

When I began practicing criminal defense eighteen years ago, I was angry at the criminal justice system that inflicted so much injustice. I was dumbfounded that even a lawyer for animal rights causes had no interest in hearing my deep reservations about prosecuting after he recommended that one could not beat being an assistant United States attorney if I wanted to get on the path of criminal defense. I was jolted to reality when I learned how many criminal defense lawyers do not see themselves as crusaders for any cause rather than as advocating as best they can for each client. All of this was attachment.

Practicing t'ai chi in the courtroom reminds me of a scene from a World War II movie where an American soldier, hidden from view of his opponents, guns down opposing soldier after opposing soldier, calmly chomping on his unlit cigar at every step of the way. As much as we must be sensitive about any violence, had this soldier lost his calm to anger, fear or yelling, he would have been a dead duck. His calmness, together with his shooting skill, gave him strength. So much for anti-tobacco crusades. This fictitious character's cigar holds deep meaning for me.

In Cheng Hsin: Principles of Effortless Power Peter Ralston makes total sense in declaring that problems between people "are really a parallel to what occurs in martial interaction and in fighting." If this is so, how can a trial lawyer afford not to learn, study, practice and apply martial arts in court? Choose the martial art you want, but forego martial arts in court at your own peril. 

Early on in his martial arts life, Ralston  discovered -- whether he is speaking hyperbolically or not --that when he lost the fear of getting hit while sparring, and stopped focusing on whether he would win or lose, he stopped getting hit. Cheng Hsin: Principles of Effortless Power. Ralston writes that he ultimately reached even greater martial heights, already in the 1970's, by visualizing his opponents' next moves before those moves were even made, and then advancing further to moving without knowing why he had moved in that particular way, but then realizing that the particular move gave him a sparring advantage over a martial arts opponent. Ralston also speaks of realizing by the 1970's about the level of nothingness, connectedness and oneness in which we all live. 

Two weeks ago, I mentioned the foregoing passage about fearlessness of getting hit, to a much more advanced t'ai chi practitioner who had recommended the book to me, after we had been doing sensing/pushing hands. He responded by asking me why, then, was I tensing up so much that morning against being pushed. For the next six days, I focused more of my t'ai chi practice on applying the t'ai chi lessons of fearlessness, yielding, neutralizing, using no more than four ounces to push a thousand pounds, and not deviating from the t'ai chi principles in fighting (e.g., not grabbing with the fingers, and not moving in all sorts of non-t'ai chi directions to avoid being pushed). When sensing/pushing hands the following Saturday with this same fellow practitioner, I was getting pushed less, yielding and relaxing and sinking more, and better understanding the long and never-ending road of learning t'ai chi.

T'ai chi master Cheng Man Ch'ing -- whether speaking literally or figuratively -- said that a baby laying in the wilderness cannot be harmed by a person's spear or a tiger's claw, because the baby knows no fearlessness. Certainly, one finds greater strength by maintaining the fearlessness, joy, and wonder of a child; to do otherwise can be fatal.

In T'ai Chi Dynamics, Robert Chuckrow -- one of Cheng Man Ch'ing's more junior students -- theorizes that had Professor Ch'ing lived beyond his seventy-five years (passing away in 1975), he might have taught his most senior students to achieve even higher levels of martial accomplishment, to the point that more force than four ounces would be needed to move an opponent who uses hard energy. Similarly, at the last push hands gathering that I attended two Saturdays ago, another fellow practitioner advised that I follow through more when pushing and pressing against my opponent, in that this extra physical follow-through can be necessary to put the opponent off balance. I imagine all this can be done while still applying all the t'ai chi basics, including being as soft as a water, wind, or cotton, but as devastatingly powerful as a tidal wave, hurricane, or needle hidden within the cotton.

In Cheng Hsin: Principles of Effortless Power, Peter Ralston talks of the power of the muscular softness involved in internal martial arts to being akin to the softness of an electrical wire through which the powerful electricity runs through.

Clearly, a judge will be more willing to tolerate a lawyer doing cross examination, for instance, that appears to use respectful words and a respectful tone of voice, that still packs a wallop. How can a judge, under such circumstances, tell a lawyer to "stop badgering the witness"?

How can clients and witnesses be taught a crash course in using the benefits of the internal martial arts when being cross examined by the opposing lawyer? One of the most important principles for such witnesses to apply is to relax and sink any tension into the tan t'ien, "located approximately two inches below the navel and in the center of the pelvic area." Let tension roll off the back as does water off a duck's back. Be no worse than centering one's gravity so that the person is no more likely to fall down from a push than a weeble, which at worst wobbles but does not fall down.

Relaxing and sinking is one of the five t'ai chi principles, with the other ones being keeping the body upright, turning from the waist, separating the weight into yin and yang, and keeping the wrists softly unbent.

Thanks to Lee Scheele for posting the following on relaxing and sinking:

"Attributed to T'an Meng-hsien, 

as researched by Lee N. Scheele

'The Song of Peng

What is the meaning of Peng energy?

It is like the water supporting a moving boat.

First sink the ch'i to the tan-t'ien,

then hold the head as if suspended from above.

The entire body is filled with springlike energy,

opening and closing in a very quick moment.

Even if the opponent uses a thousand pounds of force,

he can be uprooted and made to float without difficulty.'"