Taji Matrix of Food

I had an odd thought on the way back from Idaho Falls today. Presumably, everyone knows the premise of the Matrix: human beings trapped in cocoons and used as a power source, experiencing an artificial reality in their minds. Okay, find, but what about food and weight gain?

See, the bodies of the people in the Matrix never consume food. Presumably their cocoon provides nutrients. So far so good, but is there a feedback system with how much they eat/exercise in the Matrix? It seems unlikely. Most likely, the machines calculate the ideal amount of nutrients to provide to keep the person's body at maximum energy production. So the person's real body never gains weight. What about their virtual body? If they eat a lot of virtual food and don't exercise, will the virtual body get fat, or is the virtual body a direct reflection of the real body and thus never changing? The movie suggests that the virtual body is identical to the real one.
With that in mind, the current obesity epidemic would indicate that we are definitely NOT in the Matrix. :-)

And on the way to Idaho Falls, Melissa and I saw a UFO. That is, we saw something flying around in the air, but weren't sure what it was. Most likely, it was a helicopter. It swooped around rather erratically and seemed capable of hovering in one place. Then it disappeared into a cloud. All we really saw was a shiny speck moving around in the clouds until it disappeared. Hence, it was a UFO. :-)

I seem to be going in random order, but I met Don's new taiji student this morning. He came last week (when I stayed home to sleep), and I heard about him later from Mark. His form needs quite a bit of work, but his push hands is surprisingly good. He has a very, very, stable stance. He said he'd been doing taiji for 10 years, but for the last 5 he hasn't had any instruction. For the non-taiji players, most people fall into weird/bad habits and errors when they don't get correction for a while. That's not to say that everyone's form is the same, but there are 10 fundamental principles we follow (from the Yang family) plus five more that Cheng man Ching added on for his version of the form. Without correction, people tend to lose one or more of the principles. (I might post them at some point, but not now)

Now, in general, they say you should practice taiji twice a day. That is, at minimum, do the form once in the morning and once in the evening. As lousy as I was feeling last week, I didn't do that. Not even close. My body was telling me "no" and I tend to listen when my body says that, especially since most of the time, taiji makes my body feel better. The funny thing is that this morning, I did not feel like I had done myself any damage by not practicing much this week. In fact, I found myself approaching it with a better center. I have found that an occasional, short break sometimes helps me advance, and I'm not sure why. *shrugs*