Tai chi today this morning was nice.  It felt like getting back into practice after a day of wasting away.  Yesterday’s tai chi was terrible — performed hurriedly in front of numerous onlookers in a highway rest area.  Gah.  Today was in relative privacy, and it was at the right pace, not too fast and not too slow.  Although I’m exhausted and stiff from yesterday’s eight-hour travel marathon.  And due to day commitments, I haven’t been able to turn my attention to the poetic work until this evening.

Today’s movement is called Golden Pheasant Stands on Left Leg.  From Snake Creeps Down, one stands up, and the right leg springs up into the air so that the body and the thigh of the right leg are at right angles to one another and the right thigh is parallel to the floor.  The calf of the right leg hangs straight down, parallel to the body. The ankle and foot hang down from there.  Additionally, the right arm comes up so that the upper arm and the body are perpendicular to one another; and the forearm is straight up and down, too, parallel to the body and in line with the right calf.

So that’s the movement we’re trying to achieve.  Let’s see if I can describe it poetically.

Shift weight again, right to left, and prepare
the right arm to lift in sync with the leg;
then lift the right leg up into the air —
and permit the arm to follow the leg,
or perhaps the leg follows where arm leads.
Both movements happen, together as one:
arm and leg both defending the core’s needs.
The pheasant defends when the strike has come
far from one side, against the body’s core.
The leg and arm become a fence or wall,
a swift-rising block or a slamming door.
which shields the groin and abs. Beware a fall
and plant right foot on earth as you give ground,
while the left side readies another round.

Definite MEH on this one.  I don’t like it at all, and it took most of the day to write and think about.

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