One of the things I notice after a rather intense (for me) morning taiji session, is that there are internal changes going on long after I’ve stopped doing Snake Creeps Down and Bend the Bow. Today I did Eight Pieces of Silk first, followed by the taiji form, followed by Five Golden Coins. When I was done, there were sounds and sensations rather like gurgling in the belly… but not in places where the belly is. There were tremors in my flanks, as muscles I’d just worked out tried to figure out what their new positions should be. Or this tremor started up in my left bicep that didn’t stop right away.
Part of me doesn’t know whether to worry or be pleased by these sensations. They’re sort of loud, they’re accompanied by feelings like an earthquake set off inside of me. But. But… when they settle down, when the sensation passes, I feel better than I did before the change. These events don’t happen at other times, other than just after taiji of some kind, and they’re never so localized that I can point to this place or that place, and say, “it happened right here.” Nor have I noticed that they leave any sort of permanent mark.
In that sense, it’s like a controlled demolition of a building in a great city: a lot of work goes into bringing down a building, most of it done in a state of high activity. But the building itself is brought down in the calm moment that follows, with a sudden burst of energy and a shock wave, and then — with the arrival of dump trucks and bulldozers — ultimately leaves no sign that the building was ever there.
All I can say is that these events happen, and I feel as though some sort of a shift is going on inside me, as parts of the old me are demolished, and the new me emerges. Old buildings are getting demolished, and new buildings are going up.
I guess that means I’m undergoing gentrification.
