Taiji Stuff

It was just Mark and I in Don's taiji class this morning. Which was quite good, actually, as it meant that Don focused on some more advanced stuff that he wouldn't have even mentioned if Joe or James had been there (Mark and I are his most advanced students at the moment). Also, I got him to use the marrow-washing/qi-pouring qigong as a warm-up. That's a favorite of mine.

Anyway, the advanced stuff. The first exercise was a "simple" one, in that we weren't trying to do anything specifically, just trying to maintain attention on the feet and the hands throughout the form. I'd done this paying attention to both hands before, but never with the feet at the same time. It was quite instructive. When I actually maintain attention on all of them, it's like being in stereo vs. mono. I can "hear" information coming in from all four places. Then Don added an extra piece on, and had us concentrate on filling the hands with qi as we got to a posture, then allowing them to empty again during the transitions. Whether you acknowledge the existence of qi or not, you can't fight effectively if you're attention is not in what you are doing, and where attention goes, qi goes. That was a good exercise.

Oh, and in push hands, I actually pushed Don out once. Once. Since this is a very rare occurence, I was quite pleased.