At the park

Well, I walked over to Alameda Park for taiji today and found a nice shady spot. While I was practicing triangular/fire breathing (Inhale for 7, hold for 7, exhale for 7), I heard footsteps nearby and opened my eyes. Someone said "Hi, Amy!" I looked up and recognized Travis. He's a fellow taiji player. He was one of Melissa's helpers in the class where I first learned taiji. Fairly tall, muscular, curly black hair, round button nose, and nearly always has a sparkle in his eye. Anyway, he sat down and we talked for a bit. I haven's seen him for several months, since he stopped coming to intermediate taiji last spring. He liked the mat that I use for warm-ups. It's made of sweet grass, woven together on a nylon frame, and rolls up into a fairly compact package for easy carry. "Ten bucks. Pier 1 Imports," I told him. He nodded and said he might have to get one. Then he stood and headed off for wherever he'd been going in the first place.

So I continued with warmups. One of the warmups I do is a series of downward dog and upward dog (yoga back stretches). In upward dog, there's a muscle in my back that is almost always tense. Today I brought my attention to it and imagined that it was a literal knot, like a shoelace, and imagined gently pulling one of the strings to undo the knot. There was another knot under it, so I mentally undid that as well...and the muscle actually relaxed! That's a visualization I need to remember! I did another repeat (down dog to upward dog) and it had tensed up again, but not as bad as before, and the same visualization got it to relax again. I was pleased.

After working through the three forms that I know, I sat to read some of Mantak Chia's "Chi Massage" book. So far, I've only worked on massaging the hands, but it feels surprisingly good. In the middle, my cell phone rang. My mom said "There you are!" and invited me to lunch, which is probably where I'm headed next.