Sunday, January 16, 2011

Second Tai Chi Class of the Semester

Matching Another Person’s Pace.

Again this week our Tai Chi instructor, Bob, had us pay attention to our bodies as we did the Tai Chi form: the small movements our hands made, the alignment of our backs, the twisting of our bodies, the micro-movements within the major movements of the form.

Somehow I managed to find a spot on the far right hand side of the group. There are a couple of people who are bit rusty, so they had me to watch when they forgot sections. The only problem was that I tend to rush through the form when I practice at home. When we turned to the right, I couldn’t see Bob and could only see a few other people out of the corner of my eye when I needed to check how far along we were in the sequence. My mind tried to problem-solve. Shouldn’t I be able to gauge myself with my breath? Was I out of cadence with the group? With Bob? On a number of occasions in the past, he has said that some of the issues we encounter in Tai Chi apply to other aspects of our lives. I thought about how in Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP),  pacing is an important factor in developing rapport with another person. Is the universe nudging me to pay more attention to my pacing in relationships? Or, do I just tend to rush through the form?

I again have plenty of ideas to work on when I practice this week and beyond. Unless the weather changes from the current reports, I am not going to wait for the bus in the frigid cold and turn into a studentcicle next week. I instead plan to be under an electric blanket, reading Isaac Asimov’s Foundation Series—oh, and practicing at home later in the day.

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