It was a pretty good day for tai chi. I did ten push-ups in the kitchen. I have to say, the quality of my push-ups is still really uneven. Some days they’re good and I can crank out 15 no problem, like yesterday. Some days, like today, I get ten really cruddy ones. Building strength is hard, especially when you have to start out moving three hundred pounds this way.
Then I went outside to do Eight Pieces of Silk, the druidry exercises, and Five Pieces of Silk. And then the tai chi form. I did the first five or six postures, and then slipped from there to the last sequence that begins with “fair lady works shuttles.” Ooops. I had to start over again, slower and with more deliberateness, to get on the right track.
And I had it in mind to write some poetry about each of the named steps in my practice:
At the opening, breathe in deep three times,
and soften the eyes to see land and sky —
Begin at once, at the day’s dawning chimes,
before the pigeons have a chance to cry
or the wren has chittered in the branches.
Begin with bent knees, but so your toes show;
tuck your buttocks in and tense your haunches;
begin to move, and turn from the waist slow.
Lift the left foot, and widen out your stance—
lift both hands, and then push down and away.
Move, as in syrup, in water, or trance,
with muscles in tension and mind at play.
Be all curves, and relaxed in this rebirth,
suspended from heaven, anchored in earth.
[…] and evening; the deliberate effort to improve some portion of the practice (as I did with the sonnets earlier this year, or when I was making an effort to slow down deliberately); or the effort to add […]
[…] not written much about my tai chi practice since the poetry ended. Part of me wonders if I’m done writing about it. It’s integrated […]
[…] to. And I really, really, didn’t want to write this entry for you today. Writing that whole sequence of poems was hard work, and it didn’t feel like it mattered so much to my readers. Did it […]
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[…] form, the square is orthogonal to the line created extending directly behind the practitioner from opening position. Fair Lady Works Shuttles 1 points southeast (if the practitioner faces east at […]
[…] Opening, circled hands, ward off left, ward off right, […]
[…] Opening, circled hands, ward off left, ward off right, […]
[…] Opening, circled hands, ward off left, ward off right, […]
[…] Opening, circled hands, ward off left, ward off right, […]
[…] see… Opening, circled hands, ward off left, ward off right, roll back, press, push, single whip, stand […]
[…] so the evidence is that I’ll be writing sonnets daily until … Let’s see… Opening, circled hands, ward off left, ward off right, roll back, press, push, single whip, stand like […]
[…] over and over throughout the form. Push is the seventh movement from the beginning, after opening, circling hands, ward-off left, ward-off right, roll-back, and press. Overall, it’s also […]
[…] that means that so far we’ve got four movements in this poetic scheme, namely Opening, Circling Hands, Ward-Off Left, and Ward-Off Right today. Tomorrow, in theory, we’ll have […]
[…] here. Not a good combination, really. But I got the work done. Yesterday I wrote a poem about the opening posture; today I’m writing about posture two: circling the […]