Last year, I attended a weekend workshop with a well-known teacher and author. It was partly an intensive review of the standardized Yang 24 form, which I had only recently learned. I was a beginner in effect, practicing with other beginners and seasoned practitioners. I was reminded that every time I stand in wuji I…
The forever task in tai chi
The task is the same wherever you are—to find silence amidst the rumbling of the world. That noise generated by thoughts and actions. To bring life to the senses and to calm them from reacting to the noise and to not feed it. To draw sustenance from the life force itself. To not rush too…
Insights into the struggle…
...of learning and doing in a sea of distractions. The distractions waylay us from the task. Maybe we let them. Maybe we feel we can do little. We collapse into our places of retreat. Often they are our weaknesses, the very ones we wish we could hold off long enough to overcome them.
A key to tai chi: Don’t move like that
One key to tai chi as simple as it sounds is to move differently than you are accustomed. I am convinced that most if not all have almost no concept of what I refer to. The opportunity that tai chi offers to learn the depth of how differently you can move to your benefit is…
Funny how we can do something our whole lives and not be much good at it
Funny how we can do something our whole lives and not be much good at it. Breathing is one of those things. So is moving—walking, for example. Breathing is movement, too. A kind of movement. It is powerful, or can be if you were to improve upon it. Real powerful combining breathing movement with other…
