I am in my junior year (my term) of Tai Chi. Two years ago
when I was a beginner I was at wits end because it felt like I would never
learn the 24-form Yang sequence. I told
myself I will come for the meditation and stretching elements, and if I learned
something or anything about the 24 Yang, that would be fine. It was a good
strategy. Today I can routinely do it, except there is something
counter-intuitive about “brush knee, step forward” that occasionally catches me
with the wrong hand out front.
Tai Chi is a useful discipline for me in terms of exercise,
and spiritual and emotional centering. My teacher is a fellow churchman and he
talks a lot about the spiritual aspects of this practice that is thousands of
years older than Jesus (counting from Jesus’ time on earth).
Being a bit of a show off, I practiced Tai Chi on a few
occasions last summer when we took our German friends on a 4000 mile wonder
tour of the western US. When I used to be a jogger I would try to run in
landmark places and have jogged in NY’s Central Park, on the Capitol Mall,
Grant Park in Chicago and on one early morning in Hong Kong, Kowloon Park where
I saw Tai Chi practitioners by the dozens (not knowing what they were doing or
that I would one day do it too).
I have three detractors for this new discipline. During the
meditation time, my “monkey brain” shows up and prevents me from the deep
concentration I would like to experience and have been promised will be
profoundly satisfying. This is much like what often happens when I pray.
During the stretching the cynical-critic in me mocks the
instructor who says we’ll do 8, and on number 10 he announces, “Two more.” I
also find myself saying mentally that his explanation is too wordy, and he’s
said it before, and please quit talking so long while our arms are extended; he
must have lighter arms than me.
Muscle memory from decades of moving my limbs and body my
own way, stubbornly objects to the graceful movements of “wave hands like
clouds” and “snake creeps down”.
Yin and yang combine for interesting growth and struggles
three days a week at 11AM; but worth it, I believe.
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