This morning, as promised on facebook, I woke up and played the second “side” of the White Album, because it opens with the song … Birthday! Take a chan-, chan-, chan- chance! I always sing some crusty version of the song into my friends’ voicemails on their birthday, so why not the real thing on mine?

I have been having a bit of Beatles resurgence of late. This is thanks to my friend Cameron Afzal, who is a professor of religion at Sarah Lawrence College. Last I visited him and his family, he turned me on to the recently recently re-mastered and re-released original mono versions of the Beatles’ earlier CDs. I highly recommend checking these recordings out, because, though subtly so, they are different than the stereo recordings with which we all grew up. Apparently, when the Beatles were first recording, there was no stereo yet in Great Britain, so they mixed in mono. Then, because the US was switching over to stereo, these recordings had to be converted almost immediately to stereo.

But here’s the catch: The mono recordings represent the sessions where the Beatles themselves were in the studio providing their artistic input. The stereo mixes were then turned over to the “pros,” who had to remix them. In the course of doing so, they made some changes. For example, there are instances where, say, John wanted a truck to drive right through the recording loud and clear. The professional engineers, hearing this (and needing to mix and pan the sounds), must have thought: ”Why is that truck so loud there? Let’s move it back.” So, the truck is still in the recording, but it no longer reflects the intentions of John and the others who did the original mono mix.

Those of you who have worked in the studio know how important things like this can be. I’ll share with you what was absolutely the toughest moment in the recording of the most recent Kirtan Rabbi CD, Achat Sha’alti (one thing I seek). It had been tough going getting some good vocal takes to make a lead track for one of the tunes. During one of the best takes I felt I had done, Frank went out to have a cigarette. I heard the door sliding sound as I was singing. Quite clearly. We got in an argument. I was saying we needed to do this or that or the other thing, and, by the way, right in the middle of my best take, you went and slid the door and ruined the whole thing! He literally responded by saying: “This is my house. This is my studio. When we are in this room, we do it my way!” Obviously, the toughest moment in a nine month process. By the end of the day, we were chummy again as usual. I eventually realized that I was being a bit uptight and — not used to the studio process —I was getting too attached. I had calmed down. Frank, smiling reassuringly, said, “Listen. You need to relax more about this.” (This was my first time ever in the studio.) “You need to know that if there is a sound in the recording which we don’t want, I will fix it.” And then he said the thing which is the main point of this digression: “Besides. You never know. When we’re mixing, we might hear that door sliding sound and say, ‘Wow! That was cool.’ We might decide to isolate the door sliding sound and loop it through the track and it’ll become the distinguishing feature of the tune.” He paused. “In this process, you just never know. So you have to let go and trust.”

My point here is that the professional engineers who converted the Beatles mono recording to stereo also didn’t trust. They couldn’t believe that John wanted a truck sound so prominent and upfront. They couldn’t believe that there should be this scratching sound or that siren so dominant. So they moved all of that back. Check out the mono recordings. They are a new experience.

Recently, a new friend of mine asked me what I thought of the Beatles. She felt she had detected some Beatles influence on Achat Sha’alti. It was sychronistic that she said that, because I had also been thinking about the Beatles and just how up their music was. I, too, felt that my new CD — precisely because it is such an uplifting album — was influenced by the magic four. So, when she asked me that, a bell went off. I remembered a moment, not too long before, when I had asked my percussionist, Shoshana Jedwab, why she thought people were flocking to Kirtan Rabbi events. I was a bit mystified. Shoshana’s answer came without hesitation, and it was quite simple: “It’s because we make people feel happy. These are hard times, and people want to have the opportunity simply to feel happy.”

Precisely what the Beatles did — and still — do. My thought for the day, then? Kirtan which is not as uplifting as the Beatles’ music is not good kirtan. They say it’s your birthday? Gonna have a good time!

For, The 70% Rule is the most important lesson I have learned in my many years of studying Tai Ch’i and related martial and healing arts. It is the principle upon which I base all of my meditation; it closely guides how I lead Hebrew Kirtans; and it generally serves as an aspirational outlook for anything I seek to “accomplish.” So, it’s fitting that I make my first Blog entry ever on the 70% Rule. In coming Blogs, I expect that I will return often to this fundamental principle — applying it to breathing exercises (for singing and chi gung meditation), on how to teach what you have assimilated, to leading prayer services, on psycho-spiritual development through life, to skiing… you name it!

So, what is Tai Ch’i's 70% Rule?

Simply put, it states: Never do more than 70% of what you can do. [Ikka d'amrei (there are those who say): 80%] In other words, the 70% rule implies that you should always keep at least 30% of your ability and power close to you. Always hold something back; never, ever show it all. This is one of the main tenets of Taoist practice: Even at maximal Yang expression, the tai ch’i artist always maintains some Yin containment.

That’s it. Simple, no?

Yet, just such a principle is very difficult for many of us to live by today. We are high achievers. We want to do well, to excel at everything we put our minds and hands to. How can we allow someone to say to us, hold something back? Don’t give your all?! Weren’t many of us told growing up — throughout our education — something along the lines of: “You must give 110% to everything you do. 110%!”

Fortunately, that 110% imperative now makes me chuckle every time I hear it thanks to an early Simpsons episode. In it, Mr. Burns has pulled together a company softball team featuring Darryl Strawberry as the nuclear power plant’s ringer. At one point, Burns decides to bring in a hypnotist to spur the group on to greater accomplishments and assured victory. The hypnotist intones mantras along the lines of, “we are all one team,” and the players repeat them back. This goes on for several statements (a kind of hypno-Kirtan, I suppose), none of which can I remember. All goes well until the hypnotist drones to the team: “We must give a 120% effort, we must give 120%!” Instead of just repeating what he says, as they have done up to this point, the team replies, in similar droney fashion — and, in unison: “That is logically impossible. No one can give 120%. It is impossible to give 120%….”

All jokes aside, the idea of doing less — of intentionally doing less — is something which many of us find difficult. It is decidedly Type-B. I mean, according to this Rule, we’re not even supposed to give 100% (which is logically possible).

But the truth is, I have learned, and often the hard way, that doing less is in truth doing more (another Taoist principle); that by not expressing all ability, all “talent,” all power — you are really more powerful, “talented” and effective in your actions. I will definitely draw this out in more detail in future blogs. So, I hope it will become more clear.

There is nothing more humorous (and embarrassing) than watching someone try to become “highly accomplished” in Tai Ch’i. I suppose it is possible — if your tai ch’i goals are to win tournaments or to shove people around, but it is not true tai ch’i. Nor is it true meditation. Nor can it be true Kirtan. In a sense, if you set out to do Kirtan “well,” you are doomed to “failure.”

Finally, this topic inspires me to think of Jerry Garcia, surely one of the biggest influences on my music and on my life in general. (As one friend of mine put it, “my first rebbe.”) I once heard someone express something so beautiful: Jerry Garcia displayed the highest level of achievement that a “type-B personality” could attain. His playing was really very yin; yet think how powerfully he moved people in live appearances. As in a good kirtan, even at the most ecstatic moments, one felt safe with Jerry: You knew that he was holding the space in a way that nothing could spiral out of control. Part of this may have attributable to the fact that Jerry, took himself out of the way (as did the Grateful Dead as a band); it was never about him, rather always about the music. (By the way, Garcia was a huge reader of Martin Buber and saw his playing as a conscious I-Thou engagement with his audience.)

Being a decidedly Type-B lead guitarist, Bart Simpon underachiever: This might be another way to look at the 70% rule.

To many of us, this might seem outrageous. Especially to those parents with children whom they want to see succeed, or to busy adults with to-do lists whose unattainable completion makes them lose sleep at night.

So, let’s just relax. Like all rules, this Rule, too, is meant to be broken. For now, let’s just sit with the idea of it. Let’s not try to apply it right away. Let’s turn it over and over for awhile. Continue to do things the way we have. And…by all means, let’s not try to give 120% at doing less!

As I said, I shall return to this idea often. There will be time.