Yesterday was a hugely complicated day, and my poem didn’t get finished for a long time.  I’m adopting a slightly different strategy as of today: whatever part of the poem I have done in the morning, I’ll post; and then I’ll finish it later in the day, if I can.  I don’t want to wind up in a situation as I did a week or so ago, when I didn’t write an entry at all.  Although, on the whole, I find that I’m falling behind on my writing because the tai chi is taking longer than usual these days.  Mostly this is not me dilly-dallying: instead, it’s the forms taking the right amount of time.  Good.

Today’s movement is called Spread Hands Like Fan.  Because it’s a very simple movement, I’m going to try incorporating the last few bits of Brush Knee With A Twist Step to the start of this new move.  Normally, I don’t think I’ll be able to do that.

End Brush Knee with left palm face out to block
and right hand punching; force comes from the twist,
joining right hand to left foot like a rock —
transfer the chi from the earth to the fist.
Then unbind the hand, and loosen fingers.
Step with the left foot, sideways to the left,
as left elbow swings. The movement lingers;
Let the widened stance be both smooth and deft.
And swing right elbow to the right as much,
(x) for leftward step demands a shift in weight.
(x) Tilt the pelvis to lengthen spine, for such
(x) maneuvers help the abdomen keep tight:
(x) for when you take the time to build the core,
(x) you build your body up to do much more.

Ok, this is sort of how these poems look, usually, partway through the program of writing them.  As you can see, I have five lines left to write, and I haven’t decided on the rhyme scheme or anything.  I’ll be returning to this effort a little later today.  As I updated, I left my (x) mark in the poem to show which lines had to wait until a later revision to correct.

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