The pain in my leg from yesterday has dissipated thanks to a little acupressure.  Nice.  I was able to do a longer session this morning, due to a lack of immediate plans in my morning (although later will be very busy indeed!).  I find that I can still slap the floor with my hands during the bending over exercises: it’s usually the case that I do a thing in tai chi once, and then it’s a week or ten days before I can do it again, and then the talent fades, and then it returns… and only then can I do it all the time.  This time, I was able to do it a couple of days ago, and then not yesterday, and then today it’s back.  This is good.

Last night was the first middle school dance. Thanks to a contest winner’s choice, I was chosen to learn how to “dougie”.  I guess I didn’t do too badly.  Afterwards, one of the other teachers told me, “you did that really well. I’m surprised. I didn’t know you could move like that.”  I said, “If  I hadn’t been doing tai chi every day for almost two years, I couldn’t.”  And that’s truth.

Hey, Quin — if you’re still reading from time to time — there’s part of the reason I keep at this.  At first, it was hard to do every day, whether I wanted to or not.  But then it became the truth that other parts of my life got a whole lot easier.  Like dancing.  Like moving.  Like going up and down stairs.  Like walking. Like running.  I started in order to improve my capacity for self-discipline.  I continue because I continue to enjoy the fruits of my labors, and the increases in my capacity for beautiful, easy movement.  It’s irreplaceable by anything else.