|
July 2006
'Ten Feet' © 2006 New Moon
01: Saturday
It's a beautiful day. Cool, but feels as if it'll heat up.
Stepping wiht my tea, thinking about how and what I'm teaching Matt...
Some Chen... up to the beginning of bao tou tui shan...
I watched the DVDs again. My dyslexia makes things very difficult. *sigh*
Reading in the Taiji Classics today about balance got me thinking about training and remembering a game we used to play: statues. Everyone has to run around and gyrate wildly until whoever is "it" hollers, "Freeze!" Then you have to freeze immediately in whatever position you happen to be in. First person to lose balance becomes "it." The person who can stay balanced longest wins. I was wondering if I'd be better at the game now.
02: Sunday
Summer. Hazy and breezy. The coolness of the moving air is only an illusion...
Stepping with my tea... my knees ache.... why? I certainly haven't been practicing too much... could it be the leap from deng yi gen into yan shou hong quan? Or fan shen er qi jiao? I have been working at getting that off the ground. Hmmmmm... no matter. The ache isn't an injury, and practice will "cure" it.
I think we will have thundershowers today.
03: Monday
Summer. I have a tiger lily blooming on the back porch.
Chang dao... I find myself second-guessing on all the "acrobatics" — even in the forms. Guess that comes from not being able to figure out how the centipede walks. Maybe when I forget to think about it I'll get it...
Some Chen... up to xiao qin da...
I wonder what my class is doing now...
Matt II is interestd in practicing push hands, says he has some experience of it, but I'm not sure exactly what kind of push hands he does or what he wants to practice. He's going to stop by the green on Wednesday so we can compare notes.
On the green at Brown... very warm, but tolerable.
Some 24 Form, some Chen, some silk reeling...
Truth is, I don't feel like practicing. I've felt distracted all afternoon— perhaps it's that Mercury is turning retrograde. Or perhaps I just want some company.
The breeze is cool, and it looks as if we may get a thunderstorm...
Tango tonight... time to go.
No tango tonight. It seems all lessons are off for this week...
I'm sure no one mentioned it at last week's class. *sigh*
04: Tuesday
Very warm. Summer overcast...
Am I uncovering the truth of myself or am I creating a personal myth? How's that for a question! I believe myself to be truthful... but how do I know I'm not fooling myself? How does anyone know?
It's too dang hot to practice, I know that. And I have a cook-out to go to. 'Later.
05: Wednesday
Rain... thunder?
I can't seem to concentrate...
Stepping. I'll do some stepping...
...
Stepping helped, but... I wish I could begin stepping and just keep on going, off the porch and into the wild, stepping and stepping and stepping until I felt like stopping.
Later:
It cleared and became less humid by late afternoon. Matt-2 showed up on the green and we compared notes. He has a neat Phillipino stick form and some Southern Preying Mantis, as well as a Yang form that looks a lot like Chen-- maybe that same Yang form Jonas has. Very interesting.
We compared versions of push hands. His was the free-form kind of "listening, following, and sticking until you find an opening" thing Jonas used to have us try from time to time, that I was abysmally bad at. I showed Matt-2 the peng-lu-ji-an exercise. Seems to me we may be able to learn something from each other. He says he'll stop by on Friday, if he can.
Lili stopped by for a minute. She says she'll be there on Friday. We'll see what happens.
06: Thursday
Overcast and muggy. From the time I got up, I felt as if I'd been drugged. I felt so enervated that I didn't feel like practicing at all— so much so that I didn't even feel guilty about not practicing!
07: Friday
A nice change: sunny, cool and dry. But you can see by the sky that the humid air isn't far off...
Some 24 Form... the pinning of the elbows I learned from Chen has made this form make more sense— or it may be I've got 24 Form totally screwed up now. How would I know? All I can say is, now, this way, 24 Form feels really good— it seems to work.
Lili and I practiced tonight, and she's got me through to section five. I complete the circle!
I don't have the sequence clearly in my head, nor do I understand the moves— yet!— but the "sketch" of it is there for me to work on now.
I showed Lili the new frame interpretation of the moves she recently taught me, but... I think she understood the differences, but I don't think she's interested in exploring them. Maybe she doesn't have that martial inclination I have. Or maybe she's just working to get back what she knows first. Like me, she probably doesn't want to lose what she already has. She did say it has been a while since she practiced her form...
We each try do well what we've been taught, and so we get along.
I had hoped Matt-2 would drop by, but no. Lili and I practiced until seven when she had to leave. I didn't stay to practice weapons.
08: Saturday
Summer. You can see from the white sky that the heat and humidity will return soon...
09: Sunday
Summer. A gorgeous day. Warm, but not too humid, so the breeze is cooling...
Some 24 Form, thinking about what I'll tell my student... What things are most important at the beginning...? That's a good question to think about.
I notice that my coordination is constantly improving (a really good thing, that!)...
Wave hands has morphed into something peculiar. I'm going to have to analyze it before I teach it to Matt-1...
Some Chen...
Some you/zou ca jiao practice— especially zou. I couldn't do left side the other night practicing with Lili. But I've got it now...
I'm almost ready to go back to the DVD for a little more.
10: Monday
Beautiful day.
Some 24 Form... qi stirred by each move, like moving through light water...
No one joined me on the green, but practice was good. Some 24 Form, some kicking, some Chen, some silk reeling...
I wish I'd had my weapons with me, but I left 'em home because I knew I couldn't afford to get all sweaty before tango class.
We've begun close contact training in tango. Now we have to learn to hold our partner close, or rather, we will hold them close after we learn to stay in close contact without using our hands. It's quite difficult. We lean into each other, chest to chest, trying to maintain contact/communication as we move around the floor...
The posture required feels very awkward. You're upright, but leaning, and you have to keep your head turned, of course... The main principle is like taiji: you move the body as a single unit, but here you lead with the upper tantien... this is going to take a lot of practice.
Bright, pale orange full moon tonight. I wish I could stay awake to practice.
11: Tuesday
Yintien this morning, but breezy and comfortable...
Some 24 Form to warm up...
Some Chen, some work on bao tou tui shan...
It's coming along. I went back to the DVD and ran the moves in slow motion a few times... I'm curious to know how much the moves on the DVD differ from Jonas's. The DVD is a few years old. Moves could have continued to evolve. Jonas mentioned differences a time or two. Maybe I'll be able to figure that out when I've had a chance to watch the instructions for the moves I learned from him.
Emailed Joe today. Haven't heard from him in a while. Ended up telling him about all the emotional turmoil that descended on me this past winter and took so long for me to resolve... It's been a heckuva year. But things are getting better now. Maybe I'll have time to get the journal entries up now.
It's humid as the dickens tonight, but the moon and sky are gorgeous: pale orangey gold disc of a moon, and a lucid blue sky. If the air weren't so sodden, I'd be out there practicing. As it is, I have the house buttoned up to cool it down.
I keep meeting people who used to play taiji, or whose mother used to do taiji; and I meet people who think it's cool, but never have or never can find the time to learn. Why is it that some of us have only to see taiji or try it once to be hooked by it forever, and others feel no interest in it? That's a puzzle to me.
12: Wednesday
Yintien. Warm and humid...
Stepping with my tea... stepping backwards my toes grip, my feet roll down onto the boards and stick, and it feels so good...
A set of 24 Form...
It was raining very, very lightly after work, so I stayed to practice. It was slippery, so I stuck with slow sets of 24 Form...
When I got home, there was a message from Matt-2 asking if we might get together Friday or this weekend to train. It's okay by me...
I wonder what happened to Matt-1. He was supposed to be back Monday.
13: Thursday
Rain. Warm. The breeze is cool, but the humidity is so high you stay soaked...
Stepping with my tea...
Three sets of 24 Form... it feels so good I must be doing something wrong— and yet, as I go, I note places where I could improve timing, or balance, or coordination... now I can consciously work on fixing things...
Some Chen...
Someday this will feel as good as the 24 Form. But not today.
Joe e-mailed back. He's doing good. Got a new job. We're going to try to get together and pracitce. Yay!
Later.
The temperature is down to 60º, but the air is so humid it's turned to mist. There's white moonlight in the meadow making long shadows...
One set of 24 Form in the dim light... I lose my balance. How many times have I said I should practice blindfolded? When I have the side yard set up and don't have to worry about falling off the porch, I'll do it.
Matt-2 and I are going to get together to practice at his house on Sunday. At last! I have folks to practice with!
14: Friday
Gorgeous day. Sunny, cool and dry...
I worked up quite a sweat with my Chen. Today I wonder if I will ever find the "line" in this routine... I seem to remember thinking I had it— once upon a time!— but did I?
Lots of rubbing practice, you and zou. Kicks are easier now, but are they correct? The coordination is the thing... now I've got to work on the jump in bao tou tui shan besides...
Later.
Alone on the green. It was very warm.
I spent time trying to work out the sequence of moves from bao tou tui shan to section five. I'm not sure of the orientation, and the transitions are a mystery, and I haven't the foggiest about the forward and backward tricks, but, outside of that, I do okay. (Ha!)
I tried doing Chen very lightly, looking for the qi and the line. I'm afraid I wasn't very successful. Some days are like that.
15: Saturday
Yintien and humid, but really quite bearable...
But I didn't practice. Too much else on my mind and the noise of neighbors, I guess. I feel I'm getting soft.
I remember how hard it was to make myself practice at the beginning. but now 24 Form is easy. So easy I'd rather do it than the chen or anything else. I feel guilty doing 24 Form now. Because I may be using it to avoid practicing the hard stuff...
But I know the hard stuff can only get easy if I practice. Still, I avoid it...
I need to begin practicing blindfolded. Wish the apple storage was still there: all that huge space and pitch dark inside. Being shut in there used to make me feel I was being smothered. I don't like that kind of darkness; total darkness where eyes are useless scares me. Even though I knew I could find the storage room door and work the release and get out, being in that total darkness made me think that even if I got out, the darkness would remain in my eyes. Maybe that's why I want to train myself to be comfortable in the dark...
I've put a few of my hachimakis out to put in the truck so I can practice at Jo's when I get the chance. There's plenty of space in the paddock and I won't have to worry about running into anything.
16: Sunday
Very warm. It's going to be hot.
Back to the DVD, taking it up to the tricks...
Change palms three times is a little different: Master Zhang's version brings the left hand back to the abdomen to circle...
The transitions are tricky here because the moves I know are combining differently... It's very, very difficult for me to sort out the circular moves on the DVD. Very. *sigh*
Later>
Went over to Matt-2's house to practice push hands. We continued learning "my" style, the routine Jonas taught, and we also did some pushing in Matt's style...
We talked a lot about... stuff. Philosophy of the various forms, samenesses, differences...
We did some standing...
Matt-2 lent me a video fo Chen 38— sansiba— by Guang Yi Ren. That should be interesting.
Matt also told me he admires George Xu, and that Xu's articles often appear in T'ai Chi Magazine. When I got home, I looked and found an article in Volume 27, Number 4 on the "Art of the Predator in Taiji." I'll have to read it a few times to understand what he's trying to say, I guess.
We're going to get together again next Sunday. Yay!
17: Monday
Sunny and warm... 80º... a sound like cicadas— surely not! (But what could it be?)
Ma was cleaning and uncovered the list of forms and sequences David gave us at our first taiji class. "Tai Chi Chuan, Yang Style 24 Form." Five sequences are listed with the associated forms. To the right of the forms of seequences one and two (forms from opening through grasp peacock) there are my cryptic notes on the transitions:
- Commencing Form: "Step to left/wind blows/hold ball"
- Parting the Horses's Mane (both sides 3x): "Half step in/compress ball"
... and so on.
I wonder if I didn't write the rest in because I didn't need to, or if I continued my notes on another list that I've lost track of and don't remember... I do remember that the transitions were the most difficult thing about taiji.
That's still true— perhaps even more so now. And yet, they don't seem to mysterious now, and...
I can't find the correct transitions on my own, but I often feel I could if I pushed myself a little harder.
I've been reading about the importance of silk reeling exercises this morning and trying to remember all the ones Master Zhang taught us at that workshop in Willimantic...
I think I'll go try to work them out...
Very interesting. Try it. Try it as many different ways as you can, coordinating the circling of your hands (elbows pinned!) with your stepping feet... see what I mean?
18: Tuesday
Sunny and hot...
This time of day (mid-morning) the practice yard (to be) is shaded, so I took the scythe to it. It takes a lot of discipline to make each whack precise and correct in form. I don't have that much discipline yet.
I was alone on the green last night afater work. At the north end they were filming a movie, so they'd stopped traffic on George Street. It was very quiet. And very warm. I did a couple of sets of 24 Form, then I did some rubbing. This I did very slowly so to get the coordination right. After that, silk reeling. And then it was time to leave for tango.
Tango tonight was very difficult. Partner work is always difficult when you have no one to work with outside of class. And for me leading is particularly difficult. Because I have no idea what I'm doing.
In tango I'm at the point where I want to quit because it's so hard, and everyone I have to work with (the other beginners) are as bad (or worse!) than I am at it.
It's just like taiji. So the question is, Do you want to learn this? *sigh* At least the taiji form is supposed to be done solo. Dancing the tango alone isn't dancing the tango— like taiji without the apps! So. You learn it anyway, and hope you can find someone to play with.
In the end, it seems everything is like that.
19: Wednesday
20: Thursday
21: Friday
22: Saturday
23: Sunday
24: Monday
25: Tuesday
26: Wednesday
27: Thursday
28: Friday
29: Saturday
30: Sunday
31: Monday
Copyright © 2006 New Moon
|
