I did tai chi outside this morning. I almost didn’t. All through my Druidic work this morning, I was besieged by tiny flying insects. If it were May, I’d call them mayflies — about that big, about that annoying, all over my face and arms and bare feet. Augh! Maybe I called down the three rays of light, but it felt like I was performing the Sign of St. Stephen instead.
From Druidry, I moved on to qi gong. And something curious happened. As I finished the cycle of Five Golden Coins, the cloud of insects lessened. By the time I finished Eight Pieces of Brocade, they were gone. And I did the tai chi routine in peace.
The last few days, and today, I’ve really been concentrating on my flanks. I realized that all the bending over was strengthening my legs, but it was also really harming my abdominal wall, which was bulging a bit from the extra work. So on the twisting motions, of which there are quite a lot, I tried to be conscious of them muscle groups between my waist and armpit today. I think it was rewarding. As with all things, don’t overdo it.
Next Thursday marks the halfway point of my second year, and three-quarters of the way through two years. I don’t know if I should count it as a milestone or not, but I plan on doing something to celebrate at that point. Not sure quite what I’ll do, but something will turn up, I’m sure. What would you do?
Well, your Teacher’s lineage is an obvious place to mine for Ancestors, and your Teacher if you venerate your teacher as a Teacher. Also, the ideas in this post http://seethingamongthesuits.wordpress.com/2013/08/21/offering-the-little-things/ might be worth thinking about when looking for Spirits and Ancestors of a Practice or Path that includes Martial Arts. I highly recommend the book Path Notes of an American Ninja Master, by the late Glenn Morris, PhD for ideas about such things too.
You say: “I realized that all the bending over was strengthening my legs, but it was also really harming my abdominal wall, which was bulging a bit from the extra work. So on the twisting motions, of which there are quite a lot, I tried to be conscious of them muscle groups between my waist and armpit today.”
Can you expound on this a bit?
How was it harming?
How did you suspect it was harmful?
What exactly do you mean by “bulging” (improper muscle growth? something that happened only during the action?) and was that part of the harm you feel your previous practice was causing?
How did your conscious attention change things? Just your attention? Or more attention to proper form that then corrected the harm?
This is really interesting and I appreciate your attention to detail.
I vote for celebration! Of course it’s a milestone! Yea! How… well, that’s up to your personality, I guess… for me, I’d probably buy myself a new homeopathy book (see, it’s all about your own oddities, LOL!) although I would also make an offering to whatever spiritual entities or ancestors you venerate as a part of your Tai Qi Path.
Have you ever seen diagrams of the three basic body types of humans, I think they’re called endomorphs, mesomorphs, and ectomorphs? I’m definitely an endomorph: big, heavy body; thickly built; excellent fat storage.
I was finding that the 64 repetitions of the waist-bending & toe-touching exercises in the two qi gong routines were really building up my abdominal wall… But the flank exercises, the twists, were only getting a 32-count… And of that 32, 16 repetitions did both sides on each repetition, while the other set did only one side. And what I’ve been feeling in my abdomen suggests that muscles who normally do the up-and-down work in toe-touching are also too engaged in the side-to-side. So those muscles are getting around four times the workout of other muscle groups.
So, I’m trying to make my work a little more well-rounded.
As far as tai qi ancestors and spirits, I just realized that I don’t really have any… So I think maybe that will be part of my path the next few days… Is beginning to think about who they might be, and making contact with them.