Beloved, at this moment let mind, knowing, breath, form be included.

Here is a sphere of change, change, change. Through change consume change.

Just as you have the impulse to do something, stop.

At the edge of a deep well, look steadily into its depths until - the wondrousness.

As waves come with water and flames with fire, so the universal waves with us.

(From Zen Flesh Zen Bones compiled by Paul Reps)

Leaping Cat

This is a picture which has been up on my cork board for over 5 years, the only picture to make the journey from the London board to the Scotland board! When my husband was ill a few years ago, I cut this picture out of The Guardian's Notes and Queries page and stuck it on some card for him, with the note 'I hope you soon feel like this'. It's all there, relaxed alertness, body as one unit, lightness, purpose... This morning as I was teaching Michael, Maximus the cat came into the room, spiral walked around our legs, then between Michael's legs and then he sat meowing and purring behind us for quite some time. We took this to mean our push hands was getting somewhere, so we continued for an extra half an hour. Cat T'ai Chi masters are very good and they only require payment by regular stroking and food.

Inside

Doing Five Elements Chi Gung to end the beginner's class

Questions

If you are one of my students, and you need to ask a T'ai Chi question, email me at the address in my profile. I will try to respond quickly and put something up on this blog for everyone to benefit from. If I can't help, and nothing jumps out at me from the T'ai Chi Classics or elsewhere, I will ask Mark. The answer to nearly every technical question I had for an entire year could well have been: "turn the waist" or "tuck the bum in".

Fireside

This evening, after a session of T'ai Chi in the front room with Chiara, I was trying to show her some things on Steven's blog that would help when she went back to France and had periods of practising alone. The computer was playing up for some reason when in walked Richard, my dear friend and first 'T'ai Chi brother', dropping in for a flying visit. He had studied T'ai Chi with me for a year and was already an experienced martial artist in other disciplines. He now lives in England and studies with Mark. It's always brilliant to do T'ai Chi with him: fun, challenging, friendly, serious, connected, wholehearted. We pushed hands a little in the front room until dinner was called, a barbecue by the fireside... Then we continued pushing hands until the sausages went cold... Then we continued pushing hands til it started to get dark and Richard had to get back.

Partner Work

Fire Hands

Move Like A Cat

Mark demonstrating the sword form posture 'agile cat catches the rat', (a difficult one to adjust, this, unless the teacher has a pause button for the students, and use of a jet pack...)

The Tender Heart

My teachers often used to teach about the heart being raw, open and tender, so that nothing could could be experienced or met without some effect being felt internally. This is not to say we fall apart at the sight or sound of any distressing thing, but it is to say that we do not block out the world. T'ai Chi (and by now you know that when I say or write 'T'ai Chi' that I do not mean simply a series of graceful physical movements...) helps me cultivate this tender heart, even as my partner touches me and sets my body in motion. Just now I was just marking some art work for the college that I teach for, and read a quote in the course book that reminds me of this tender, open connection that we can create:
"You pass the spot each day. You know and love every brick and tree. Suddenly, in a moment, everything is changed." - Carel Weight (painter)
Whether through art, music, T'ai Chi, or some other path of wisdom, we could seek to develop this joining with the world. It is only through this, I would say, that you can experience the incredible moments of oneness or newness, which for me are not accompanied by choirs of angels or flashes of light, but are sometimes just the sparkling knowledge of being identical with the forest floor on which I am squatting, or the sudden, unexpected, momentary union with the partner with whom I have pushed hands a hundred times, as they again push, enter, yield with/as me. Doing the practice, regularly, deeply, clears out all the debris and allows what is actually always present in life to flow.

Hand-on-Sacrum

Sometimes just stop what you are doing and stand up. You are typing, you are reaching over for the kettle switch, maybe you are drinking tea reading the paper, maybe you are doing short form. Put your hand on your sacrum and feel how it is. Is your tail bone sticking out? Is your sacrum lengthened and tucked in? Remember how it feels when your teacher comes round and corrects your posture in class. When the teacher allows puts your hand on their back they show you how it could feel externally, to move toward alignment, this is an opportunity to learn by feeling, like a child does. We are sharing understanding here, there should be nothing awkward or embarrassing in learning directly like this despite our negative cultural conditioning about touch. Let your body-memory return you to your right alignment, it will always be minutely different for everyone, but the coccyx will be tucked under, the muscles of the lumbar will be relaxed, the imaginary tail drops to the floor, perhaps, or comes forwards between the legs. Be still for a moment and connect with the ground, notice your root. We live in our heads far too much already, and sometimes just remembering the 'suspended crown' can be the wrong instruction for the moment... So, put your hand on your sacrum and readjust yourself, you already know how.

Mark teaching Ta Lu form in London. Similarly, at the July workshop in Aberdeenshire, we will first learn the basic movements as a group. We will progress to fitting the movements together with a partner, over the course of the weekend.

More beginning sticking...

Beginner's class at the house this evening: sticking.

Spiralling...

Sticking

If you are ever in the position of showing someone totally new to T'ai Chi how to do 'sticking' or 'listening hands', remember that the main objective is to have the person relax. Corrections, posture, technique, etc. can all come later. Be friendly, open and wholehearted, join lightly with the partner and relax yourself. The most important communication will be taking place without words via touch, heart and all the subconscious transmission that we humans are capable of. We don't need to get it 'right'.

Fire in the hearth of the T'ai Chi room.

Right Effort

When we went down to study last week, Mark was talking to Paolo, Davina and myself about becoming what we practice and also about lightness. If we practice being anxious and full of worry, we become an anxious person who worries a lot, habitually. If we practice connecting with our hearts to whatever arises, and letting go of fear, we become people full of more courage and heart. If you practice your T'ai Chi always heavily and full of worry that the next move will be wrong, this will drag you down and dishearten you. Train enough, each day if possible, so that you remember and progress: the Buddhists would call this 'right effort'. It is neither too much nor too little, but just enough. Then; when you have done your 'training' for the session, (correcting yourself, checking your posture, technique, or making adjustments) put it all down for a moment and just do the form, or the exercise you were engaged in l i g h t l y. I've mentioned this a few times in classes this week in classes, and it seems to be in the air.