Today I give my first lesson in tai chi.  I’ve had thirteen hundred forty days of continuous practice.  I’ve done the tai chi form close to 1500 times, when you add up all the two-times-today, and eight-times-today that I’ve done.  Crazy to think that all those doubles and singles and multiples in general add up to nearly 250, but they do.  I’ve done each of the qi gong forms at least 500 times each.  I’ve gone from not being able to do a push-up or a squat to being able to do thirty at a time.

I’m not ready.

Today I talked myself through the tai chi form as I did it.  I spoke aloud what I was doing with my left and right arms, my feet, my breathing.  It was difficult, nay, impossible.  Wow, how did my own teachers do this?  So much to keep organized? Which is the most important piece of information to transmit about each movement?  If you only have 30 seconds to transmit each movement, what’s the most important piece of information to transmit?

It doesn’t matter.  I won’t succeed in transmitting the teaching in thirty seconds a move. That’s the reason it’s a 6-week class, forty-five minutes at a time. That’s the reason that the first six-week class is followed by a second, and a third, and a fourth.  I’m going to be doing this for a while.

Today’s tai chi practice consisted of two times through the tai chi form, the two qi gong forms (Five Golden Coins and Eight Pieces of Silk), twenty-five push-ups and twenty-five squats.  Felt like it was enough.   Before all that came druidry, too. I have to stop at the hardware store before I go to school today — time to get a move on.

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