I timed the two qi gong forms this morning, and the tai chi form. The two qi gong forms took a total of 15 minutes; the tai chi form took nine minutes. Not a great record. I’ve slipped a bit; I’m going to have to work a little harder in the next few weeks (once school ends) to slow down my forms again and get back into the right speed loop.
In terms of the actual quality of the movements, I think that the first half of the tai chi form as I do it is really good. Rigorously good. It may not survive contact with an enemy, or even joining a regular tai chi group, but it’s still quite beautiful. The second half, though, is sloppy. I don’t know why I didn’t notice it before. My movements are still very choppy, and there’s no fluidity between movements. Not only that, but there’s hesitation (rather than fluid movement) which is usually followed by a swift change to the end of the next position… hesitation, oh right, Snake Creeps Down is next. followed by quick movement, followed by wait, what’s next? Awful. This is something to fix this summer — the second half of the tai chi form.
I got to make ricotta cheese last night (for real, officially, as opposed to accidentally), and hung it up in a bag to drain it. This will be part of Saturday’s feast, I think. My friend Matt pointed out that butter and cream cheese can be part of my cheese curriculum, though, so we’ve solved that problem. I need to finish up these cheese-experiments though — I think my waistline is expanding.
I didn’t assemble the yearbook this year, but my painting, Timeless Square, was chosen as the back cover of the yearbook.
