Perhaps the most valuable aspect of my neurological difference, from the perspective of preserving and transmitting these arts, is my capacity to perceive patterns across seemingly unrelated techniques.
"I tend to notice mathematical relationships in these arts," I've explained to my students. "The spiral energy pathway in Taiji's 'Single Whip' follows the same geometric progression as the weight transfer in Bagua's 'Phoenix Spreads Wings'—a connection that becomes visible when you track the detailed mechanics rather than overall appearance."
This pattern recognition extends beyond individual techniques to entire systems. I perceive martial arts lineages not as collections of separate forms but as mathematical expressions of underlying principles—variations on themes that repeat across weapons, empty-hand techniques, and even between different arts. The relationship between a sword's arc and footwork follows proportional rules similar to hand position and stance width in empty-hand forms.
"These aren't coincidences," I observe. "They're expressions of unified principles that become visible when tracking mechanical relationships."
Here I encounter a profound truth about the nature of Dao itself. The ancient sages spoke of patterns that repeat at every scale of existence—the same principles governing the movement of stars and the falling of leaves. What I perceive through my neurodivergent lens is precisely this: the unity underlying apparent diversity, the single source from which ten thousand expressions arise.
My neurological tendency toward pattern recognition has made these connections particularly accessible to me, allowing me to develop teaching methods that reveal relationships others might not notice. This is my particular De—my virtue, my power, the way the Dao expresses itself through my specific nature.
My sensory processing differs from typical experience in ways that prove especially relevant to internal martial arts. What many describe as subtle energy sensations register for me as clear, distinct physical experiences.
"When I practice silk-reeling exercises, I don't just imagine energy pathways—I feel specific temperature changes traveling along meridian lines, tension patterns forming and dissolving, and minute vibrations that signal energy transitions."
This heightened perception is not mystical but neurological. Research suggests that many autistic individuals process sensory information with unusual intensity and detail. In the context of internal martial arts, this creates a different relationship with internal sensations. What most describe as "qi flowing through the arm" registers for me as mapped temperature differentials moving at specific speeds through tissue. I can track these sensations with clarity.
The ancient Daoists developed elaborate maps of energy channels, pressure points, and internal cultivation practices. They spoke of feeling qi move through the body, of directing intention to cultivate internal power. Were some of these pioneers themselves perceiving through neurodivergent sensory systems? I cannot know. But my experience suggests that different types of sensory processing may reveal different aspects of these internal practices.
This sensory clarity allows me to provide different kinds of corrections when teaching—addressing not just external positioning but the internal states that generate authentic movement. Not because I'm more advanced, but because my sensory processing makes certain aspects more immediately accessible. The question arises: How much of what we call "internal martial arts" was discovered by those whose sensory processing allowed them to feel what others could not?
My neurological makeup makes it difficult for me to engage in social pretense, creating a teaching approach characterized by directness:
"I struggle to say a movement is correct when it isn't. My brain doesn't easily participate in the social convention of encouraging approximation. This has sometimes made me seem harsh, but it has also ensured technical precision in transmission."
This commitment to literal truth has maintained standards that might otherwise erode through generations. Not because I'm more committed to tradition than others, but because my neurology makes certain kinds of compromise difficult for me to enact. If a movement requires specific elements to function correctly, I find it nearly impossible to pretend fewer elements are sufficient—even when that would be more encouraging to a student.
Here we touch upon a paradox in the transmission of traditional arts. Kindness and encouragement are necessary for learning; yet precision and honesty are necessary for authentic transmission. Too much accommodation dilutes the art; too little compassion discourages the student. I have had to consciously cultivate balance—learning to pair my natural precision with deliberately practiced kindness and patience, skills that don't come as naturally to me as technical accuracy.
This reflects a deep Daoist principle: authenticity to one's nature must be balanced with responsiveness to circumstance. The sage is genuine but not rigid, truthful but not cruel. My directness serves the preservation of these arts, but only when tempered with the patience I have learned to cultivate.
My need for clarity led me to develop systematic teaching methods through what I describe as reverse-engineering these traditions—identifying the precise sequence in which components must be mastered. This emerged not from pedagogical brilliance but from personal necessity: I needed to organize information in ways my mind could process.
"I found myself reverse-engineering these traditions," I explain. "This wasn't from pedagogical brilliance but from personal necessity—I needed to organize information in ways my mind could process."
Traditional teaching often relies on intuitive absorption through imitation—a process that works wonderfully for certain neurotypes but creates obstacles for others. My methods evolved from my own learning challenges, making explicit what traditional teaching often leaves implicit.
This restructuring does not dilute the traditions but rather reveals their internal architecture—frameworks that have always been present but rarely articulated explicitly. By creating systematic approaches, I have made these arts more accessible to diverse minds without sacrificing their depth.
The Daoist principle of naturalness does not mean leaving things unexamined or unstructured. Nature itself contains profound order—the patterns in a leaf, the spiral of a shell, the orbit of planets. To make internal structure explicit is not to impose something foreign but to reveal what was always there. My systematic methods honor both the traditions and the diversity of minds attempting to learn them.
For me, the Wudang arts became something beyond martial systems—they developed into a language for expressing emotions that words often fail to convey.
"When emotions become complex—when words tangle and fail me—these movements become my voice. Through the forms, I can articulate feelings with a clarity that speech doesn't always allow me."
This dimension transcends technical execution, transforming martial movement into meaningful non-verbal communication. What began as physical discipline evolved into emotional fluency—a pathway to express what had previously remained trapped within. In moments of overwhelming emotion, I don't need to struggle for words that won't come. Instead, I can move through specific forms with an intention that communicates what I'm feeling.
This reveals something essential about these ancient systems—they were never merely combat methods but comprehensive languages for human expression. The Daoist sages understood that human beings contain multitudes of experience that exceed the capacity of words. Movement, meditation, art, and martial practice all serve as additional languages through which the inner world can be expressed.
For someone whose verbal communication sometimes falters, whose social interactions often confuse, the discovery of movement as language has been profound liberation. My body becomes voice; the form becomes poetry; the martial technique becomes emotional truth.
My journey has led me to appreciate how neurological differences contribute to the preservation of complex knowledge:
"Throughout history, different minds have contributed to these traditions in different ways. Some aspects likely emerged from minds with intense focus on detail and pattern recognition. Others came from those gifted in intuitive synthesis or social transmission."
This perspective reframes neurodivergence not as deficiency but as valuable cognitive variation—minds that process information differently offer complementary perspectives on complex traditions. What we now label as autism might once have been recognized simply as a different kind of mind—one with particular strengths in preserving technical precision and systematic relationships.
The monastic traditions that developed these arts benefited from cognitive diversity even if they lacked modern terminology for it. Consider the mountain monastery: here gathered individuals drawn to solitude, structure, intense focus, systematic practice. Some perhaps fled the overwhelming complexity of social life in towns and cities. Others sought the freedom to pursue singular passions without distraction. Still others found in ritual and form the clarity that the unstructured world denied them.
Were these ancient communities—dedicated to preserving and refining complex knowledge through generations—havens for neurodivergent minds? Did the structure of monastic life, the emphasis on discipline over social performance, the value placed on pattern recognition and technical precision, create environments where different cognitive styles could thrive and contribute?
From a Daoist perspective, this diversity is not accidental but essential. The Dao expresses itself through infinite variation. A forest contains ten thousand species, each occupying its particular ecological niche, each contributing to the health of the whole. Similarly, human cognitive diversity—including what we now call neurodivergence—represents the natural variation through which human knowledge is created, preserved, and transmitted.
"My experience doesn't make me a better practitioner or teacher," I recognize with what I hope is characteristic directness. "It simply offers a window into these arts through a different neurological lens. What I perceive through my autistic perspective isn't a special insight but a different angle on elements that have always been present yet sometimes overlooked."
This humility itself embodies a profound Daoist wisdom. The sage does not claim to possess the complete truth but recognizes their perspective as one view among many. No single way of perceiving can capture the full depth of these systems—they were created and transmitted through generations by minds with varying cognitive styles, each contributing unique insights.
The Daodejing teaches: "The Dao that can be spoken is not the eternal Dao." Why? Because language, perception, and conceptualization are all limited instruments attempting to capture something that exceeds any single frame of reference. If this is true of the ultimate Dao, how much more true is it of complex human practices that contain within themselves countless layers of meaning, application, and experience?
The practitioner who perceives holistically grasps dimensions that I might miss. I preserve relationships that the intuitive practitioner might overlook. Each perspective illuminates; none is complete. Together—the fractured mirror and the seamless mirror, the systematic mind and the intuitive mind, the detail-focused perception and the whole-grasping perception—a more complete picture emerges than any single perspective could provide.
This suggests that the preservation and transmission of these arts requires cognitive diversity. A tradition transmitted only through one type of mind loses dimensions that other minds might have preserved. The technical precision that my autism allows me to maintain is valuable; so too is the intuitive wisdom of those who grasp movement as unified whole; so too is the social intelligence of those who can read students' unspoken needs; so too is the philosophical depth of those who connect these practices to broader wisdom traditions.
Zhuangzi tells the story of a gnarled tree, so twisted and strange that carpenters pass it by. Yet because it is useless for timber, it lives to a great age, providing shade and shelter. Its apparent deficiency becomes its virtue. Its difference ensures its survival and contribution.
I have come to understand: "My autism isn't something I've succeeded despite—it's part of how I perceive and understand these arts, offering one perspective among many, each valuable in its own way."
This acceptance—this recognition that neurological difference is not obstacle but opportunity, not deficit but distinctive perspective—embodies the Daoist principle of embracing one's nature rather than warring against it. The phrase "uncarved block" (pu) in Daoist philosophy refers to the original nature of things, unaltered by artificial shaping. To honor the uncarved block is to recognize and work with inherent qualities rather than forcing conformity to external standards.
For 38 years, I lived without knowing why my perception differed, why I struggled with aspects of practice and teaching that seemed effortless for others, why my attention worked as it did. The diagnosis didn't change who I was—it simply provided language for what had always been true. This naming allowed recognition, and recognition allowed acceptance.
Yet acceptance does not mean passive resignation. I have learned to cultivate qualities that don't come naturally—balancing my directness with kindness, my focus with awareness of others, my systematic thinking with openness to intuitive moments. This is the Daoist practice of harmonizing yin and yang, balancing inherent strengths with deliberately developed capacities.
The journey involves neither rejecting one's nature nor being limited by it. The tree cannot become straight, but it can grow toward sunlight. The stone cannot become soft, but water running over it can create channels. My autism shapes my relationship with these arts in particular ways; my conscious practice shapes how that relationship develops and expresses itself.
As I continue sharing these traditions, I hope to honor both their technical precision and the cognitive diversity that has always sustained them. This dual commitment reflects the Daoist understanding that apparent opposites are complementary—precision and flexibility, tradition and innovation, structure and spontaneity, unity and diversity.
Technical precision matters. The effectiveness of these martial arts, the health benefits of the internal practices, the meditative depth of the forms—all depend on accurate transmission of principles, mechanics, and methods. Without precision, these arts dissolve into vague approximations that lose their power.
Yet rigid adherence to a single transmission method limits who can access these traditions and what aspects of them survive. If only those with neurotypical cognitive processing can learn, valuable perspectives are lost. If teaching adapts only to intuitive learners, systematic dimensions may fade. If only the socially skilled transmit these arts, technical precision may erode.
The solution is not choosing between precision and diversity but recognizing them as complementary. Precise technical knowledge can be transmitted through diverse methods to diverse minds. The essence of these arts can be preserved while the paths to that essence multiply.
My systematic teaching methods make the implicit explicit, revealing internal structure without imposing foreign frameworks. My pattern recognition connects techniques that might otherwise be learned as isolated forms. My sensory clarity describes internal experiences that others can then work to cultivate. My directness maintains standards while my developed patience creates space for learning.
Each of these contributions emerges from my particular cognitive style—not despite my autism but through it, because of it, as an expression of it. This is my De, my virtue, the specific way the Dao flows through my particular nature into benefit for others.
The Wudang Mountains have been a spiritual sanctuary for Daoist practitioners for centuries. Countless paths wind through those peaks—some direct and steep, others gradual and meandering. Some follow ridgelines with expansive views; others traverse shaded valleys. Each path has its character, its challenges, its particular beauty. Yet all paths, followed with sincerity and persistence, can reach the heights.
Similarly, the internal martial arts contain multiple paths suited to different practitioners. The journey I have walked—from detail to wholeness, from constructed coherence to fluid expression, from struggle with verbal communication to eloquence through movement—is one valid path. Others will walk different ways, suited to their nature, available to their particular minds.
What matters is not the uniformity of the path but the authenticity of the walking. What matters is not processing information the "correct" way but engaging deeply with whatever processing is available. What matters is not achieving prescribed experiences but cultivating genuine understanding through whatever doorway is open.
The Daoist tradition has always recognized that forcing conformity to external standards violates the principle of naturalness. A pine tree should grow as a pine; an oak as an oak. A mind that perceives wholes should practice through wholes; a mind that perceives parts should build from parts. A sensory-sensitive practitioner has access to internal dimensions that sensory-normal practitioners must work to develop. A hyperfocused mind can achieve states of absorption that others reach only through years of meditation training.
None of these differences makes one practitioner superior to another. They simply represent the natural diversity through which the Dao expresses itself in human form. The art itself—vast, deep, multi-dimensional—contains enough richness to accommodate and benefit from every type of cognitive processing.
There is a poignant progression in my journey. I began with perception fractured into components, unable to grasp the unified whole that others see naturally. Through years of practice, I constructed bridges between fragments, building "constructed coherence" through deliberate effort. Eventually, this constructed coherence becomes increasingly natural, the bridges themselves fading into spontaneous integration.
This is not becoming neurotypical—my neurology remains unchanged. But through practice, new neural pathways form, new patterns establish themselves, and what required intense conscious effort gradually becomes more accessible. The components I once had to laboriously connect begin linking themselves. The wholeness I had to construct piece by piece starts appearing with less construction.
This mirrors the Daoist understanding of cultivation. We cannot force the lotus to bloom, but we can create conditions that allow blooming. We cannot make water flow upward, but we can clear channels that allow natural flow. Practice doesn't change fundamental nature, but it refines how that nature expresses itself.
After years of training, I still perceive with autistic processing—but that processing has itself evolved through engagement with these arts. The fractured mirror hasn't become seamless, but the fragments have learned to reflect a more integrated image. The river of my attention still flows in its particular channel, but that channel has deepened and smoothed through use.
This suggests something important about neurodivergent engagement with contemplative and martial practices: they offer not normalization but transformation. Not the elimination of difference but the refinement of difference. Not conformity to neurotypical processing but the development of neurodivergent processing to its highest expression.
It would be easy to frame my story as triumph over adversity—the autistic practitioner who succeeds despite neurological obstacles. But this frame misses something essential. My autism hasn't been an obstacle to overcome but a lens through which these arts reveal certain dimensions.
My inability to perceive intuitive wholeness required me to map precise mechanical relationships—preserving technical knowledge that might otherwise fade into vague approximation. My hyperfocus allowed practice intensity that deepened my relationship with these forms. My pattern recognition revealed connections across systems that inform my teaching. My sensory sensitivity gives me access to internal processes that I can then describe for others. My difficulty with social pretense maintains transmission standards.
Each of these contributions arises from neurodivergent traits, not in spite of them. If my neurology had been different, my contributions would be different—perhaps equally valuable but certainly distinct. The tradition as I transmit it carries the imprint of my particular mind, just as every teacher throughout history has transmitted through their particular cognitive lens.
This raises a question: What might be lost if only neurotypical minds transmitted these traditions? What aspects of technical precision, what patterns of connection, what internal experiences might fade without diverse cognitive perspectives to preserve them?
The Daoist answer would be: diversity strengthens any living tradition. Monoculture creates vulnerability; diversity creates resilience. A teaching lineage that includes intuitive synthesizers, systematic analyzers, sensory sensitives, verbal communicators, and movement embodiers preserves more dimensions than one dominated by any single cognitive style.
From this perspective, neurodivergent practitioners don't need accommodation out of mere fairness (though fairness matters). These traditions need neurodivergent perspectives because those perspectives reveal and preserve dimensions that might otherwise remain hidden or fade away. The fractured mirror sees what the seamless mirror might miss.
One of the deep paradoxes in my journey is how rigorous structure eventually enables spontaneity. My need to systematically map every component, to construct explicit frameworks, to build coherence piece by piece—this intense structuring eventually creates the foundation for fluid expression.
This paradox appears throughout Daoist thought. Wu Wei (effortless action) doesn't mean absence of effort but action so aligned with nature that effort becomes invisible. The spontaneity of the sage doesn't come from lack of cultivation but from cultivation so thorough that technique becomes transparent.
For me, the systematic construction of connections between isolated elements gradually creates the possibility of flowing movement. The deliberate architecture of form eventually allows authentic expression. The conscious mapping of internal experiences develops into refined sensitivity. Structure doesn't oppose spontaneity—it creates the ground from which spontaneity can arise.
This suggests that different practitioners may need different paths to the same destination. Some reach spontaneous flow through surrendering to intuition from the beginning. Others reach it by building such complete structure that structure itself dissolves into flow. Neither path is superior; both are valid; the tradition benefits from preserving both.
I developed systematic teaching methods initially for myself—creating the explicit frameworks my mind required to process these arts. Only later did I discover that these methods also helped students with diverse learning styles.
This transformation—from personal challenge to pedagogical contribution—reflects a deep principle. Our obstacles, fully engaged with, become our gifts. Our struggles, thoroughly investigated, reveal insights that ease the path for others. What begins as individual necessity evolves into collective benefit.
This is the Daoist alchemy of transformation: lead into gold, limitation into strength, confusion into clarity. Not through denial or transcendence of difficulty but through complete engagement with what is. I didn't overcome my autism to become a teacher; I taught through my autism, because of it, as an expression of how my particular mind engages with these traditions.
Every teacher throughout history has done the same—taught through their particular lens, because of their unique perspective, as expression of their individual nature. The tradition grows richer when it includes many such perspectives, when multiple types of minds contribute their particular insights, when diverse cognitive styles reveal different dimensions of the same underlying principles.
As I continue sharing these traditions, I hope to honor both their technical precision and the cognitive diversity that has always sustained them.
The use of "hope" is significant in my own words to myself. Not "I will" but "I hope"—acknowledging that this remains work in progress, a journey not complete, an aspiration still being realized. At 38, with decades of practice behind me, I position myself not as one who has arrived but as one still walking the path.
This ongoing quality embodies the Daoist recognition that the way itself is endless. There is no final attainment, no ultimate mastery, no point at which learning ceases. Each level of understanding reveals new depths to be explored. Each answer generates new questions. Each clarity discovers new mystery.
My diagnosis came at 38—more than halfway through an average life, after years of practice and teaching. Yet this late recognition didn't invalidate what came before but recontextualized it, offering new understanding of experiences that had shaped me throughout my life. The journey continues, now with different language for the same reality, new frameworks for familiar experiences, fresh appreciation for patterns that were always present.
This is the nature of any authentic path: we walk it throughout our lives, and it continues revealing itself throughout our walking. The Dao that could be fully grasped would not be the eternal Dao. The tradition that could be completely mastered would not be a living tradition. The self that could be finally understood would not be a dynamic self.
My story doesn't end with understanding or acceptance or contribution—it continues through them, into whatever comes next, walking a pathless path that somehow leads forward.
The image I offer—the fractured mirror—contains within it the resolution of its own fragmentation. A fractured mirror still reflects reality, just differently than a seamless one. Multiple fragments offer multiple angles, multiple perspectives on what is reflected. In some sense, the fractured mirror reveals more precisely because it shows from many viewpoints simultaneously.
Perhaps this is the deepest teaching of my journey: wholeness does not require uniformity. The universe is whole precisely because it contains infinite diversity. The Dao is complete precisely because it manifests through endless variation. These traditions are robust precisely because different minds perceive and transmit them differently.
My autism gives me a particular view into these arts—seeing with unusual clarity certain technical relationships, tracking specific internal sensations, preserving precise details, recognizing underlying patterns. This view doesn't contradict other views but complements them. The intuitive practitioner sees what I might miss; I preserve what the intuitive practitioner might overlook.
Together—the fractured mirror and the seamless mirror, the systematic mind and the intuitive mind, the detail-focused perception and the whole-grasping perception—a more complete picture emerges than any single perspective could provide. Not because any perspective is wrong but because reality itself exceeds any single angle of viewing.
In the Wudang Mountains, mist rises and falls, sometimes revealing peaks clearly, sometimes obscuring them. On clear days, one sees far; on misty days, one sees near. Both types of seeing are valid. Both types of days are necessary. The mountain remains the mountain, revealed differently through different conditions.
So too with these ancient arts: they remain themselves while revealing different aspects to different minds. My task as a practitioner is not to force my perception into prescribed patterns but to explore these traditions through whatever perception is mine, trusting that my particular view reveals something true, something valuable, something worth preserving and sharing.
This is the way of Dao: not one path but countless paths, not one truth but truth manifesting through infinite variation, not uniformity but wholeness that contains all difference within itself. My journey through autism and Wudang arts exemplifies this principle, offering one fragment of the fractured mirror—clear, precise, valuable—reflecting the whole from its particular angle, contributing its unique light to the complete image that no single fragment could ever capture alone.
The mountain remains. The path continues. The arts endure. And I, like each practitioner in their own way, with their own nature, through their own lens, walk forward into mystery—honoring both the traditions that came before and the unique perception through which I encounter those traditions, adding my particular voice to the ten thousand voices through which the Dao has always spoken.
"My autism isn't something I've succeeded despite—it's part of how I perceive and understand these arts, offering one perspective among many, each valuable in its own way."
In this recognition lies wisdom that transcends any single tradition, any particular practice, any individual journey: the wisdom that diversity itself is sacred, that variation itself is valuable, that each different mind—including and especially those we call neurodivergent—offers the world perspectives without which the complete picture remains incomplete.
The fractured mirror doesn't need to become seamless to reflect truth. It already does, in its own way, from its own angles, with its own clarity. This too is Dao.
