I got a private email from a Traditional Chinese Medicine specialist (doctor?) yesterday, enquiring about my practice, and making a few observations. Thank you so much!
One of his comments reminded me that the form is supposed to be fluid and easy…not hard and not forced, and that there’s benefit to the flow of chi if neither the breath nor the posture is held for any length of time. It’s the opposite in some ways, of what I’ve been doing — no, not the opposite, but divergent, at least. So I tried that today — because stagnation in one’s practice is frustrating. Part of the goal into wake the mind, and not cause it to sleep.
Well, let me tell you: oxygen is a wonderful thing. I feel better from maintaining a constant breath cycle through the two qi gong forms and the tai chi form. I’m a little sweaty, not a lot; my skin has opened up a bit, and my resting breath pattern has settled into my belly rather than my chest. More relaxing, less stress.
Yeah, breathing is good.
Yes, Andrew, I’ve been thinking about flow as I’ve read your recent posts, since you started commenting on making them hard. After 15 months I’m learning the last few moves in the short form, and our instructor stresses flow. That’s different than “slow,” and I notice that I practice a lot slower at home than we do in class. Which is fine, because we can practice it more times in class when we do it faster, but we never do it “hard.”
Yeah… I’ve found that doesn’t work very well. It’s putting too much stress on my body and on me to try to do that; slower and flow-ier seems to work better.