Tai Chi Y2D71: Early Start

I knew I had an early morning meeting this morning, so I  tried to push back the start of my at-home day by getting up earlier.  No dice.  I woke at my regular time to the blaring alarm, and had to rush my tai chi routine, my morning routine, to get to my meeting on time.

Once routines are set, it’s awfully hard to adjust them, particularly when it comes to daily practice.  I imagine it would take me almost as long to re-adjust my schedule, as it took to adjust it in the first place.

 

Tai Chi Y2D70: working

I worked through the three forms this morning, as usual. They’re not getting easier, nor harder. Plateau, I guess. How does one move on from here? Keep working at it, I guess.

I started another painting, having finished “Black Pillar” and”White Pillar” last night. Scott and I were chat ting via Facebook occasionally, as I put some layers of shiny satin glaze over parts of both paintings. They look pretty cool, if I say so myself. Maybe I should have an art exhibit? Perhaps not yet.

Tai Chi Y2D69: running late

Had a lot of trouble getting up this morning, though I had few excuses for it. I spent a lot of Sunday in bed, resting and taking care of a sore throat, which appears to have quit overnight. Thank goodness. Bed rest and liquids matter!

But it meant that tai chi seemed like a luxury I could not afford this morning. I woke, and hit the snooze button on the alarm clock far too many times. When I finally did get up to do tai chi, it was rushed, rather than leisurely. And yet, now that it’s done, I realize (for today) that it’s not a luxury but a necessity.

In Progress: “Black Pillar”

I’m almost done with this second painting in the “black pillar” and “white pillar” series. I’ve put a coat of varnish on the inside/right side of the painting, so it will have a bit of a sheen or glimmer to it. I plan to do the same to the “White Pillar” too. I still haven’t decided if either painting needs any texts around time. My original thought was no, now I’m leaning toward “yes”, which means picking those texts and a contrasting color to paint them in.

Tai Chi y2d68: Unknowing

I was up late working on this painting, titled “Black Pillar”, and I think it’s coming along nicely. My morning tai chi routine was lackadaisical as a result: one qigong form done, then a bit of a walk around the apartment, then the other qigong form, then a bit of cleanup in the kitchen, then the tai chi form. There may have been some cleanup of the art supplies and drafting desk, too, although more remains to be done to clean up this house after the last few weeks of crazy. A lot of it will get done this week… Probably once the painting is finished.

I’m conscious that in the two months since my tai chi practice passed the year mark, that it’s been less and less interesting to me. Don’t get me wrong: it’s still hard to get up and do the work; it’s still hard to convince myself that I should do it. The Dweller on the Threshold still gets me front time to time, and I delay getting up and getting started. But sooner or later, I get up and out of bed, and I go do the tai chi.

But the actual tai chi is less interesting. There are fewer complications, and fewer barriers to success. There are times when I forget my place in the form, or I have to do a sequence over again — but I find that there are few parts of the work that cause strain or physical challenge. Which is sort of the point. I want to experience fewer physical challenges as I get older, and I want to remain flexible and mentally alert. And I’m getting those benefits. But there’s less to say about the work itself. And I wonder if that will continue to be the case, or if I’m only on a current plateau in my practice. Or if there’s a third option? Again, I don’t know.

Tai Chi Y2D67: on the grass

This morning I was teaching an hour-long workshop, and I was hugely sleep-deprived. I’d had coffee too late in the day, so that I could work on a poster for today’s session…. But then I was up until 3:30am, tossing & turning.

So, when I awoke officially, I didn’t dare go back to sleep. I might have missed my workshop. I drove down early (so I wouldn’t get lost) and did my tai chi at the workshop site.

I’ve been badly affected the last few days by the pollen counts. I never get seasonal allergies — or at least, not until now. Argh. The last few days I’ve been a snot machine. And it’s not been pleasant. Nothing has really worked to keep my breathing passages open.

Today though was finally better. Things eased up a bit as I did tai chi in the garden at the workshop site. And now that I’ve had a nap and some food, post-workshop, I think that maybe my allergenic reaction is finally slowing down. Thank goodness.

Tree of Life Geometry, Revisited

I’m not entirely sure this will work. But here goes.  Thanks to Gordon’s recommendation to try out VINE, I was able to produce a trio of short videos today, including this one on the traditional geometry of the Tree of Life.  It’s fast, because Vine only allows six-second videos.  But it’s kinda cool, and if you watch it a few times, you can probably figure out how the geometry of the Tree fits together.  Enjoy!

Vine: Video of the Tree of Life

Update: Apparently you have to go to Vine’s website to view it, because I can’t embed it on a WordPress site.  Alas.  Enjoy anyway.

Tai chi Y2D66: teeth and bones

What with one thing and another,I haven’t gone to e dentist in a while. Over two years. I went yesterday. The curious thing is, my teeth were in pretty not-good shape back then. They weren’t bad — i wasn’t experiencing bone loss or about to lose teeth, but was experiencing some gum infections, and I had some incipient cavities forming. Bad stuff… But I ignored it for a year, and then another year more. And in the meantime, I took up tai chi daily for a year.

Correlation is not causality. Not scientifically anyway. But there have been studies over the decades that tai chi can help older people mitigate the effects of osteoporosis, and that it can improve bone density. So keep that in mind.

Yesterday, the dentist noted the presence of the broken facial plate on one of my teeth, something installed on my tooth 20 years ago, and decided that needed replacing… But otherwise my teeth were fine. Bone density, great. No cavities, either incipient or formed. Nothing requiring significant work at all.

Part of me goes, huh.. Part of me thinks, tai chi. And truly, I’ll never know one way or another.

Tai Chi Y2D65: unfolding

I’m working on this pair of paintings called, appropriately enough, “Black Pillar” and “White Pillar”. They’re pretty much meditations on geometry, with the White Pillar holding three mandalas or roundels (I like roundel better, actually. It’s a more western word.) The three roundels on White Pillar are they in-yang symbol at the top, a square turned on its point in the middle, and two nested seven-pointed stars at the bottom. White Pillar, as a painting, is about 80% finished.

Last night I began laying out the detailed painting guides on “Black Pillar”. This is the bottom roundel on that pillar, a meditation on the number 8, and as you can see, it’s a pair of nested eight pointed stars (one is actually composed of two inter-locking squares) inside an octagon. It’s a considerable change in geometry from 2, and 3, deceptively simple and yet relying on what one learned from the earlier shapes and geometries. It’s an unfolding, of sorts, as larger numbers reveal much more complex patterns and allow greater interactions and relationships.

What does this have to do with tai chi?

Well, daily practice is an unfolding, of sorts. The natural habit of our minds and bodies is to ossify and tighten up, to reject new things, and to limit the adoption of new concepts or new technologies. I’m neither a painter nor a math teacher, nor a martial artist (once upon a time, I wouldn’t have said I was a magician either, but that title is growing on me).

In any case, what’s going on here is an unfolding. The creaks in my body rarely trouble me past the first two or three movements — I’m not reversing the aging of my body, but I’m slowing it down. Many of the creaks and pops that were ever present when I started, are gone.

Unfolding, in this instance, means breaking out of the shell. Letting the egg hatch. Pinocchio becoming a real, live boy. It’s growing up, in a sense. It’s growing out, in another sense. It’s delving deep, or reaching high… Some Christians use the prayer of Jabez, “O God, increase my territory.” And others remember the prophet Isaiah (I think it’s Isaiah), “enlarge the place of your tents, strengthen your cords, lengthen the stakes in the ground.”

A tent is useful only in potential when it’s stored in the bag. A human too tight in his skin is only partially useful. Or strong. Or happy. Or healthy.

I feel that I’m unfolding, these days.

Tai Chi Y2D64: Slowing down

The last few days, I feel like I’ve written everything useful that there is to say about tai chi practice. Slow Down. Remember to breathe. Hold horse stance. And so on. I could just recycle those three or four pieces of advice, ad infinitum. And it’s getting boring for me, and apparently for my readers. The deep insights are rarer, and spaced farther apart.

And frankly, I want to give up. By chance, I was reading something about sobriety the other day, and the author said, “the thing about choosing to be sober is that it’s a constant choice. You make it once, but then you have to keep making it, again and again. You have to make it even when you don’t want to, or when the stakes are very high, in sickness and in health. You have to make the choice even when you don’t much feel like staying sober, and the choice to stay sober is more painful than the choice to break down.” that’s not the exact quotation, but it’s the sentiment: the need to keep choosing.

And so it is with tai chi, or any martial practice, or any practice at all. There was a quotation by Dave Grohl of the Foo Fighters floating around on Facebook a week or so ago, and here I’m not going to use quotation marks because I’m not going to get it right: All these kids show up for American Idol or the Voice, and they get judged and critiqued so hard, and the ones that get turned down think that’s it, they’ve blown their shot. But the best bands of the next decade aren’t going to come out of the American Idol auditions. They’re the ones that are practicing now, in their garages, making a mess, making music… And they suck, right now, they’re terrible. But they’ll get better, and they’ll get a few breaks, and tour a bit. But that’s where great musicians come from: practice, and sucking for a while. Again, not an exact quote, but approximate. And the right sentiment: go practice, don’t worry about the Idol and the Voice, go suck at music in a garage somewhere. I haven’t got time to look it up: find it for yourself on Facebook. It’s floating around somewhere, and if you missed it the first time, don’t worry. It’ll be back. Eventually.

And the challenge is that practice is hard. And lonely at times. And you suck. Ten years ago I was in Washington DC for ISTE’s big conference, and I saw an African-American man doing tai chi in a park on the walk between my hotel and the conference center, every morning. Slow, graceful, fully in control of himself. Amazing. As good as my teacher,I’d say, at least in presentation.

But you don’t become that overnight, nor even after a year or more of practice. Keep going. Slow down. This isn’t a marathon. It isn’t even a sprint. It’s life. It’s practice. Keep it up.