A sticky note with the words Our Imperfections Make Us Unique was on the mirror of the ladies’ restroom when I arrived at the school where I take Tai Chi. At first, I found it inspirational and affirming. Later I found it slightly negative. Would it be more affirming to say that Our Uniqueness Makes Us Valuable or Out Of Our Imperfections Can Come Our Greatest Gifts?
A fitness boot camp was in the gym before our class. It was loud and all the lights were on, making the chi a bit too stimulating for Tai Chi. One of my classmates turned off most of the lights before our class, allowing only the natural light from outside. The gym is very old and evidently one of the switches did not take kindly to being flipped. Besides turning off the lights, we lost power to half the outlets, including the ones our Tai Chi instructor, Bob, planned to use to plug in his CD player. So, he used the outlet on the opposite side of the gym, causing us to have to face opposite from how we have faced for over a decade. Fun ensued. When we got around to doing the form, some people were extremely disoriented. Others were periodically disoriented. Many were occasionally thrown off because they saw the people who were disoriented. I was only thrown off a couple of times, so I was thrilled.
Bob actually began the class with breathing Chi Gong. Bless him; I really needed that. The exercises help a person breathe slower and deeper. The deeper breathes makes a person calmer, more in tune with life, and potentially healthier.
Other than facing backward, we didn’t experience anything particularly exciting. I missed last week, and evidently Bob had talked about making sure everything was stacked on one another: for example, head, neck, shoulders, spine; or thigh, knee, ankle, foot. He also had talked about working with gravity. This week focused on moving from our center, the lower dantian. This is always a good idea to remember.
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