Today marks the last day of 2015. A few days ago, in December, the temperature in the Arctic Ocean climbed to 1C, fifty degrees above the average temperature. The polar ice, and the Greenland glaciers, are both likely to melt in the next three to five years. At home, local temperatures are such that the snow is already showing through the snow of the last few days. That doesn’t normally happen this time of year. My dad blames it on El Niño, because that’s what the business papers tell him. It feels different than that. Apparently it’s a changed world. We’ll see if anything happens to respond to that change.
Me, I did tai chi. Just one form for today. I knocked something in my ankle yesterday and the sons and stand-on-left-foot bits were uncomfortable. Not painful, just a little weird. If I was actually in combat, I’m sure it would be much more painful. For now, it’s just odd.
I’ve decided to participate in the Strategic Sorcery blog go-around that has emerged from the community of students around Jason Miller’s course of the same name. I also collated the top posts of 2015 for your reading pleasure. None f them were tai chi posts, though; weird, right? Would you like a list of the best tai chi writing of 2015?
Hi Andrew. I don’t need a list of your top Tai Chi posts. I get this via email and forward the meaningful ones to my friends, and save them that way. I do continue to enjoy reading about your practice. Even when you don’t have much to report! But, I completely understand if you decide to cut back on the Tai Chi blog. Since I receive it via email, it’s totally passive on my part, not like I need to click on something to check for your daily missive.
I think I wrote to you at the time about your comment one day about teaching the kids, … you were slightly alarmed about how they looked, and wondered if what they are doing is what they see you do. That made the four of us smile and kind of discuss the same thing. Which has led to us deciding to meet now and then in a dance studio where we will have mirrors. Lots and lots of mirrors. Large mirrors. So, they can watch themselves. We have been meeting in a park in good weather and a free community room in the local food coop the rest of the time. Beautiful settings, but mirrors could be helpful to us. In the meantime, one of us just got a new phone and one day she took a video of us, just very impromptu, and it was wonderful! I’ve mentioned to you before how meaningful it is for me to practice in a group at least twice a week. Mondays, “teaching.” And Thursdays with just my three friends who have been practicing together for beginning four years now.
Send me a PM if you’d like me to send you (privately) the link to the google doc of the video… 🙂
I don’t think I’ll be cutting back on tai chi reportage. I think it’s an important part of who I am these days. But I don’t plan to revisit that until day 366, at least.
I definitely agree with you about the importance of practice with a group. Even doing it with my five or six students has been a real game-changer for me although it also leaves me anxious. We’ll have to see about getting some mirrors, though.