The Morning Fog

23 May 2015 Leave a comment

by TheRestlessRaven in Uncategorized Tags: , , ,

I woke up this morning thinking I was starting to get a cold. I didn’t want to get out of bed, I had that foggy barely conscious feeling of a sore throat, and my brain was just…well moosh.

I got up two hours later than I normally do with an awareness of soreness all over my body and a lingering of sweat from last night’s sleep still on my skin. Something is definitely afoot.

A thought occurred to me as I zombied around the house trying to figure out what was up. I realized that I had spent an unusual amount of energy the other day being fierce and full. An amazing amount of focus and drive was pushing through each move… And I had done nothing to recoup that energy since then.

My head drifted to our Sunday morning primordial(Hunyuan) qigong exercises. This practice is mostly focused on energy gathering, and cleansing the energy body… So I thought… Ok, let’s give this a shot and see if this woo woo stuff kicks in.

So after I enjoyed a smoothie with banana, spinach, blueberries, almond milk….. Aaaaaannnddd that last mint chocolate ghiradelli square… You know… For good measure. (Absolutely Heavenly BTW….highly recommend) I decided to mix up my morning routine a bit.

I started with some meditation. I chose a different pose today than the one I normally do. I chose a t-pose with my palms pointing towards the ceiling. In my head I imagined energy being absorbed through my arms like a radar dish and sinking in to my Dantian. I stayed like this for about 10 minutes. It was surprising how easy it was to hold the position. I could feel my arms relax in to it and was vaguely aware of a sensation of energy ACTUALLY flowing through me. Imagined or not… It felt really good and was making me feel considerably more charged up.

After that, I did 20 minutes of some of the energy gathering Hunyuan sequences. I don’t know the names of them yet… But I kept my intention light and my awareness gently on gathering external energy and bringing it to my center.

After that I was charged up. Not fully but considerably more than I was! I felt like doing the form again! So …. I did! Man it felt really good, this time I was just trying to be “full” and focused on each movement instead of fierce. It was different than a couple days ago, instead of feeling like energy was being pushed out…it was more like I was just filled up like a balloon… But I still started to break a sweat. I was less acutely focused, but there was a feeling of my body being full. I only did it once this morning I did want to risk losing energy.

This experience made me kind of start to understand how all these different practices and energy cultivation can play off each other. I am going to start to think about and pay attention to my energy levels and start utilizing some of these new tools to redirect… And even invigorate my energy levels… I will need to talk with my teacher more about how to mix these up properly so that I can try to achieve some balance.

Very exciting stuff over all though. I love discovering these new applications and awareness of my body….

Ok, woo woo land… I think there may be something to you worth exploring more.

Today’s Today’s practice

took it pretty easy today. Need to recoup my energy.

10 min meditation
20 min Hunyuan Qigong
1 24 form easy intent

The Excuse Machine

21 May 2015 Leave a comment

by TheRestlessRaven in Uncategorized Tags: , , ,

It’s amazing to me how even though I know I want to do Tai chi for the rest of my life,  and I know I want to practice everyday…. I still wake up and don’t feel like practicing some times.

The excuse machine was on full this morning. Today was… Oh,  I used up all my intensity yesterday …. I should practice if I don’t feel like it yeah? Maybe I should just go to work early since I need to leave early… My legs feel a little tired… Maybe I’ll just give them a rest today…..Well I had a big break through yesterday… I should rest…  Oh my head just isn’t in it today.

Well… Obviously it wasn’t in it today.

I haven’t been able to pin down what the differences are between motivated days and unmotivated days… But regardless,  I was able to get myself to do some meditation. Even that was a little difficult to focus,  but I managed about 25 min.

In lieu of Qigong this morning,  I continued to read the “The Root of Chinese Qigong”  book by Dr. Yang that I found on my roommates bookshelf a bit ago.  I may not be training my body,  but I am going to further improve my practice in one way or the other.

I am not about to force my body to do something, I have been trying to listen to it more and just be more in tune with it. It wants what it wants I suppose.  I am not going to be able to force myself in to learning everything I was meant to know. That just doesn’t sound very fun :)… And I just don’t think it works like that.

I just decided not to argue with myself in the end. I went the path that had the least “noise”  when I thought about it.  That path was,  breakfast,  read,  meditate,  bus surf.

I’m not sure if I’m on to something,  or if I am letting my laziness get the best of me.  But all I can do is follow the day as it presents itself and just try to be fully aware of which direction is feels the best…. Or is that just another excuse.

Todays practice:

  • 60 minutes of train surfing (I think its time to mix this up. It’s so easy it is turning in to meditation)
  • 25 minutes of stand meditation (Middle position)
  • 2 hour seminar on a new health program. Possibly more details to come.

Fierce and Full

20 May 2015 Leave a comment

by TheRestlessRaven in Uncategorized Tags: , , , ,

In the private lesson yesterday, my teacher pointed out to me that it looked like my lower and upper body were holding back.

This really struck a chord with me, as its is something I have been acutely aware of in other aspects of my life.

I have always felt like I was holding something back. Holding back ideas, holding back my passion, holding back interest…just holding back something. Never pushing myself to that extra limit, always pulling up before reaching my potential.

People that know me would say…

“If that’s holding back, I don’t want to see your at full throttle.”

And they are right, I get intense when I am really in to something and yet despite that, I still always feel I am holding back…. 3 years of intense obstacle races, years of drunken out of control parties, crazy hours working on school projects, intense singular focus on work projects…. Yet, still always had the feeling that lingering feeling. Almost like I am waiting for something worthy of my full attention and intensity.

My mind can be a highly focused whirlwind. When it gets pointed at something everything else disappears and I live and breath that thing until I take it to the edge its capacity. More often then not though, I learn it doesn’t have the promise I originally thought and move on without looking back.

In the past, it has led to bad decisions, bad relationships, and tricky situations in general.

I never wanted Tai Chi to be that way. I started slow… For me :)… I went to class 4 times a week and practiced every morning for 2 hours. I learned the first form pretty quick…. At least the over all choreography (I hope to never stop learning corrections to the form). It took over my exercise routine time. So to me, it was just exercise and nothing more. I of course was really in to it, but it was kind of a probing cursory interest for about a year.

Well, I turned a corner one could say. I find myself wanting to take Tai Chi to that place I have never been. The place where I take it past my comfort zone, right past the point of passive interest, and straight past the point of no return.

I have amped up to next level and as a result I had yet another breakthrough in my form this morning:

Fierce and full.

Those were the concepts I was left with after my private lesson to kind of start exploring.

Fierce.. Not in a vicious way. Fierce like…. This is all of me to my limit. Not angry, not vicious, fierce just completely taking up the space my body and presence require. Fierce like, I am here, in the present and you have my full undivided attention.

Full, very similar to fierce. Full like my body is completely extended, my legs and arms released from inhibition. Completely involved and focused in each move, expression of intention from ever limb and every part of the body with a purpose.

With that in mind, My form completely changed. Half way through the first run through, beads of sweat started forming on my forehead. By the end, my arms had a layer of sweat on them as well. The speed did not differ from my usual (still too fast), yet my body and mind were fully engaged in each moment. This was a completely new feeling, allowing myself no distracted thought. Fully in the moment of what and how my body was moving. I think this was a taste of what Tai Chi is supposed to be. At least its a glimpse of a new level of practice
Three more times I did the form just like that. I have gained a new respect for the form and each movement.

Going forward I will be fierce and full. No more holding back and no more excuses. World of tai chi, here I come.

Todays Practice:

After the intensity of that form practice I got pretty tired later in the day. Took it kind of easy in the evening Dynamic Qigong class.

  • 24 form 4 times intensely
  • 120 pushups throughout the day
  • 14 pullups
  • 30 squats
  • 1.5 hours Dynamic Qigong

Stealing Practice

17 May 2015 Leave a comment

by TheRestlessRaven in Uncategorized

One of the things I enjoy the most about Tai Chi is that its teachings can be applied to almost every situation in daily life. Not only philosophically, but in physicality as well. I have been adapting it and stealing practice in almost every action during the day;

While on the bus, I practice redistributing the inertia from the starts, stops and turns through my root structure (IE, I bus surf). I have gotten really good at standing sideways (facing the side, the usual power stance) and can almost go the full 30 min without moving my feet at all. I am slowly easing myself in the standing in a forward horse stance (Facing toward the front of the bus) but I have found that it requires a lot more effort and it wears me out a lot quicker. Soon though!

While at work, I am fortunate enough to have a standing desk. So I focus on rooting and keeping my attention on my dantian. I am now standing most of the day and the moments I do sit I almost immediately start to get restless. Makes the days I am exhausted really hard :).

While walking, I am always focusing on extending through my spine and relaxing my shoulders. Letting them float down, and keeping my lower back flat and full while relaxing the hips. The shoulders are the most tense spot of my body, all of my stress goes straight there and pulls them up to my ears.

There are a million little ways to incorporate practice\exercise in to daily life. I have always held the belief that exercise should be a continuous thing, not something you cram in to a really intense 30 minutes of the day. Bodies are meant to move, its how they find their greatest vitality.

Been a couple days since I have posted. So, a quick catch-up on the last couple!

Friday Practice:

Met at the rec center with a couple of students this morning, still working out the kinks of how best to utilize this time. Things are settling in to form practice\discussion and next week we will start doing regular push-hands. Short day today as I had to get to work to utilize the few hours we had before we had our company outing.

  • 24 Form x2
  • 20 minutes of silk reeling

Saturday Practice:

Alcohol is rough…add a splash of hot tub in the mix and it multiplies it 10 fold. Only got a couple hours of sleep, but managed to drag myself out of bed for our early morning cleaning of the studio before all of the classes started. The senior\certificate students will be showing up early Saturdays to take care of that from now on to ease some of the responsibilities of our teacher. Both of the new students received keys to the studio today. Now him and I can enter the studio when ever we want. Quite a great honor bestowed upon us.

There are now 4 senior students at the studio who have committed themselves to the practice and a great community so far! I am really excited to see how things progress for all of us and the studio!

  • 1 hr Studio Cleaning
  • 1.5 hr dynamic Qigong
  • 1.5 hour 24 Form Review
  • 2 hours push hands class

Sunday Practice:

Oh….Thats today!

Got to bed rather late again, and still some lingering after effects from the hangover. Mostly just sluggish and antisocial :). Towards the end of classes attention was starting to wander, which was disappointing as we had our first disciple\certificate student class. We started going over the form in extreme depth, one of the steps in getting us to the point where we can feel confident in the form to be able to evaluate and correct it while teaching early students.

  • 1.5 hours primordial qigong (ending in 15 min standing mediation)
  • 1.5 hours beginning form (24) practice
  • 1 hour 24 from breakdown

Dividing The Day

13 May 2015 Leave a comment

by TheRestlessRaven in Uncategorized Tags: , ,

I woke up today with last nights thoughts still in my head, “I am going to take a couple of days to absorb the knowledge I have gotten over the last few days.”

I woke up a little later than normal, just tying to take it a little easier and set out immediately to go have a half hour mediation session. I was practicing the “Holding the Ball” pose that my teacher and I run through and was able to achieve close to the level of relaxation in the shoulders of when my teacher was guiding me. I felt fairly accomplished and greatly relaxed, but at about the 19 minute mark I got hungry and got pulled out of it. That was fine, as my teacher said go with it, so I was off to make breakfast.

With breakfast in tow, I just sat in the front room in the quiet. It was absolutely wonderful, nice and peaceful and no input, nothing commanding my attention…Well apart from my dog who was trying to lick my face…as always. The phone was off for the day, and I had nothing that needed done at the moment. It was exactly how I wanted to start the day.

At the end of my smoothie, I had a revelation. I have the capacity to learn all the things I want to, I just need to cut the crap out and dedicate focused time towards my interests. There have been too many times in my life that I have made excuses to “Let it settle”, then end up going on a 4 day netflix binge where no conscious thoughts pass through my brain at all.

So that time is over, I would much rather cut the excess noise than to allow my brain to stagnate. The capacity is in me to be able to learn everything I want, but only if I make the smart cuts to my daily routine. Basically stop using the extra bandwidth with facebook…or random memes.

So, going forward I will be making a conscious effort to divide up more day and approach it a little less haphazardly. Starting with these general concepts:

  1. When I’m at work, I work. No phone, no facebook.
  2. When I’m not at work, I’m not at work :). No dwelling on the day.
  3. When I feel like reading something, read it. Don’t try to limit exposure for fear of burn out. Just follow my interests.
  4. When I feel like practicing something, practice it. Don’t wait for the perfect time. If you are on the bus, be the weird guy.

Todays Practice:

With a much clearer head today I was able to pick up both my tai chi magazine, and my qigong book. When I clear my head and just sit to read with me agenda everything just kind of gets absorbed without stress. So good 🙂

  • 19 minutes standing mediation
  • 1.5 hours Dynamic Qigong class
  • 40 minutes bus surfing

Burning the Candle

12 May 2015 Leave a comment

by TheRestlessRaven in motivation, tai chi, tired

I have been pretty exhausted lately. I think I may be burning the candle from both ends a bit….seems like every spare moment I have I am reading or practicing something Tai Chi related, couple that with a brain intensive job and a tired person I be.

It’s tough when there is so much I want to do! Hard to kind of remember to sit back and relax and let it all happen in its own time. There is just so much knowledge out there I want to absorb and incorporate in to my practice. For instance, I just started reading the Tai Chi classics today in my spare moments at work. I am only a couple of pages in and there is already so much that I wanted to start practicing it immediately. II was mentally practice where I stood and quickly realized that wasn’t the best type of practice I could be doing, I was only partly present in the practice and had several other things on my mind.

I will try to include a little bit of it in tomorrow mornings practice however. It is hard to keep myself in check as I read more about the art but, There is a natural progression and process that needs to happen in my body, as my teacher keep reminding me, that I need to respect and allow to occur. Forcing these things could cause injury which could end up taking me out for days or weeks.

So with that in mind I think the next couple days I will allow the new knowledge to soak in and incorporate itself. No more new knowledge for a spell.

It is also about time for a phone cutoff. Been slipping a bit on keeping facebook and instagram in check :). Its all a process, I have been checking it less, but it is definitely creeping back up on me.

I got my first edition of tai chi magazine today!! That is part of the reason I have been so stoked and been cramming information in. If you haven’t heard of it here is the address. Its super cheap for a year subscription and has TONS of good info in there.

Anyway, keeping this post short tonight so I can get to sleep early. Going to get up at 6 again to start my full routine. There has been several interruptions the last couple days that has prevented me from doing the full routine as I would prefer. Back to the routine!!

Todays Practice:

I had another dental appointment today so I didnt get a full morning session in again.

  • 20 minutes silk reeling
  • 15 minutes Zuan Zhuang meditation x2 (one before class at night)
  • 1.5 hours advanced tai chi (83 practice form)

Follow Your Path

11 May 2015 Leave a comment

by TheRestlessRaven in Uncategorized Tags: , ,

i was talking with my teacher about Zuan Zhuang meditation today. Mainly about the different postures I should be trying out and the mental intention I should maintain as I am practicing. it led to a great discussion about the many different forms of mediation and all the different possible combinations that have been attempted. The best thing about this particular private lesson was something he said as we were closing up the studio.

He was about to lock up the door and he stopped, turned to me and said:

“If you are ever meditating and you get bored. Stop.

Meditation should never be boring.

You should stop and try to figure out why you are bored. More often than not you will find that your mind is somewhere else, which is fine. Sometimes that happens, so, figure out WHY your mind is there.

Never force yourself in to meditation because you THINK its something that must be done. Listen to yourself and follow where your practice will naturally lead you.”

I think that is true of everything.

it’s so ingrained in us to force things to happen that we think should. Whether we saw someone else do it a certain way, or we have an idea of what we want for ourselves. That’s not what its about to me.

It’s about learning where you are naturally driven, finding that sweet spot you are pulled to. That spot you find when you aren’t working, you are playing. The place you can live for hours on hours and when you look up, the day has past and you didn’t even notice. The skill or practice you can sit to read about and your attention never wanders. Instead you sit there like a sponge, absorbing every ounce of wisdom you can until you are so tired you fall asleep on the spot. Only to wake up the next day to continue exactly where you left off.

Once you get the taste of that knowledge, you cant help but have a thirst for it. The tricky part is to keep feeding it. Because it can go away, it can stagnate if you let it. DON’T LET IT. That is you. It’s a part of you and if you let it, it will push you to achieve your highest potential. Just allow it its natural course.

Learn to listen to it, learn to feed it, to cultivate it and it will bring you vitality you never thought possible.

Whelp… Thats all I got for today :).

Todays Practice:

Met with a couple of other students in the park this morning. It led me through kind of a rushed day that ended up utterly wiping me out by the end of the day. But it was good to practice in the park in the morning. It was bitter cold from the wind, and next time I will bring pants that are a little thicker. They meet Monday and Friday. It will be rough for a couple weeks as I adjust to the new routine, but will be good to interact more with other students and be able to do push hand drills as well.

  • 15 Minutes of warmups
  • 24 Beginner form 2X
  • 83 Form up to elbow to heart
  • 1 hour private lesson. Discussions and practice standing meditation and theory

The Perfect Pushup

11 May 2015 Leave a comment

by TheRestlessRaven in Uncategorized Tags: , , ,

I have never been able to do more than 20 push-ups a set,despite having spent several years training for various obstacle course races. Tough Mudder, Spartan Race, Go Ruck (to name a few of the bigger ones). My training routines were always high intensity interval workups always involving push-ups of some sort. I was in really good shape needless to say and yet the push-up eluded me still. At the higher numbers I start to focus on the muscles “I think” are needed to achieve the exercise; My back arches, my head tucks under and it begins to seem physically impossible to do more.

Now that I have been doing Tai Chi, I realized that it isn’t a physical limitation that I was running in to but a mental one. This whole time I have been losing focus and the whole body. As the strain comes, my mind goes immediately to the areas that burn, which then takes focus off of the entire rest of the body destroying any form I may have.

There is a concept when practicing that my teacher constantly reminds us of; extending up through the spine. The common description for how it should feel is “The top of your head should feel suspended by a string”. My teacher does not like this description and I tend to agree with him. It implies that the force is “pulling” your spine straight (IE coming from somewhere external), when in fact your spine should be “Extending up and out” from your center.

The imagery I have is that there is a form of energy going up my spine like a spike. It is almost “pushing” up my spine and head until it feels like there is a solid steel beam that my entire spine is being supported by. I’m not sure if this is correct or not, but that is what tends to help me practice. My imagery may change over time :).

This concept is what has helped me destroy my mental push-up limit. I am now up to 30 push-ups per set and I am on my way to going right past that.

The cool thing about the concept is that it doesn’t matter what orientation your body is, is still applies. So when I set up to do push-ups now I go through the following routine;

  1. Get in position (basically the plank position)
  2. Relax in to my Dantian (or center if you prefer)
  3. Visualize my spine extending out and forward horizontal to the ground
    1. I can my spine straighten at this point
  4. Tighten my core
  5. Profit – repeat

As I progress through the set my intention stays relaxed and loosely focused only on the above steps. As the muscles start to burn, my breath deepens but I still hold those concepts. Having those in mind help me, not ignore the burning, but incorporate it in to the exercise almost absorbing it in my body until its just a dim feeling.

This has been working so well for me, that I have started to apply them to pullups (another killer for me). I have increased the amount of pull-ups I can do considerably in only 2 weeks!! They are still quite the challenge for me (only can do 8 ATM). But all progress happens slowly, eventually I will have one more aspect of my mind tamed.

Today’s Practice:

We recorded our 24 form today for personal critiques. I am learning the camera angles allowed inside the practice space and have already come up with some new directions I want to setup to allow for better capture. I will be editing my video here soon, I did the other students first. I will be posting it on here just to document my progress on the form.

  • 1.5 hours Primordial Qigong (Hunyuan Qigong)
  • 45 minutes Silk Reeling
  • 25 Minutes 24 Form

Getting Rid of the static

09 May 2015 1 Comment

by TheRestlessRaven in Uncategorized Tags: , , ,

We have so much static coming at us every day. Static is the stuff that keeps you occupied but doesn’t actually fill any sort of need, the information and energy coming at you every day, every minute of your life these days. So many more ways to advertise to you, to keep you in the loop, to keep you informed with what your friend of a friend had for dinner tonight. All that energy coming at you, the TV, the computer monitors, the phones. “They are overloading your radar dish, making it hard to find the real signal through the noise”,  as my teacher would say.

I have personally started to become acutely aware of this static. I have begun to notice the place it lives inside my head, kind of constantly buzzing there.

“Wonder what Facebook has on it.”

“Oh, I should check instagram.”

“Oh, who can I send a snapchat to.”

Once I started doing standing meditation more, it started to become louder and louder inside my head. It has been getting in the way of my free thought, distracting me from the things I actually want to think about. The more time I spend on a device, or checking out these websites, the farther away my practice seems to get. Its like it starts to consume my every intention until there is nothing left but updates. GOTTA GET THOSE UPDATES!! I started to wonder, all of that thought spent tuning in to those sites, just wasting away on useless things. What if i started to expend that towards the things I love in life?

So I decided to do a test. Last Thursday I turned my phone completely off for the entire day. It only took and hour before I realized I had was fully engulfed in another addiction in my life. Now… As a little background, I have spent most of my adult life battling one addiction or another. Some are big, some are small but all of them have had some negative impact on my life that I have wanted  to stomp out of existence. A lot of them I still battle and more often then not I end up just replacing them with a more positive one. The REALLY bad ones though…they just turn in to something…you know… “less bad” :). Maybe one day I will get in to that a little deeper, but for now….just an brief intro.

Anyway, after the first hour of having my phone off I had tried to check my phone about every five minutes. I knew the phone was off, I knew I would get nothing from it, yet still, I picked it right up and checked it. I had been doing it so long and so regularly, that it had literally become part of my daily habits. Needless to say by the end of the day, I was going a little nuts. I couldn’t figure out what to do with all of that free time and free headspace! So I gave it another day.

Now lets back up a little bit, about 3 weeks or so.

I was in a private lesson with my teacher and as always we were going through the 24, picking it apart one painstaking move at a time. My teacher looks at me and says “You know, you could possibly show promise at this….”

I am Utterly ecstatic with pride at this sentence. So excited that my hard work was noticed….But trying to keep it completely under wraps…

He then says “But you better start getting in a little better shape.” (Or something of the sort. What I heard was “Ok, your fat and lazy now. Do something about it”)

This is a totally valid evaluation of me BTW. I’m not over weight by any means, but I am also not anywhere near top physical condition. Since I started Tai Chi, I stopped doing any other form of exercise. Given that I have been doing it about a year and a half now…. lets just say any definition or bulk I may have had in my arms\chest has been redistributed to my belly. Turbo gut. mmmhmm

So with that in mind, I had started doing random push-ups through the day. Any time it popped in my mind, at work or at home, I would go to the corner and do a set of 20 push-ups. I have been increasing every week for the set number and have now gotten up to 30 a set. Some days I get on or over 200 a day :D….but, anyway I am devolving. Lets get back to the point.

Now that my phone was shutoff I had some extra time to do…literally anything else. So I started to throw in some pull-ups in as well. There happens to be a pull-up bar near my desk at work that makes it really easy for me to jump over and crank out some out. Not only that, but with my phone off, my mind stayed completely clear that day. I didn’t care what was going on in facebook land, any text messages that came in I could get to later, phone calls….who does that anymore?? I was free!! and I was getting in shape to boot!!

It felt absolutely liberating!

So decided to do that everyday now. I shut my phone off during work hours and dont let anything distract me from my work tasks. Not only does it help me during the day and make my day 1000% times less stressful, but when I get home at night I don’t feel like I have been pulled in a million different directions, like I normally am!!

I have come to realize that I only have a limited amount of attention during the day and I now have a drive to fill that attention with the things that give me feeling of true vitality. Tai Chi has become one of the major providers of this feeling.

Allowing myself to be distracted by all the noise has honestly led me to nothing but a stressful incomplete day. This new approach has left me feeling fulfilled each day, I spend the time and energy learning, doing or acting on something that fills me with a vitality I haven’t experienced since after Highschool. When I had no cares in the world, all that was required of me was to work and party.

Now the spare moments I have I am focusing on one of two things; How can I spend this spare moment practicing\learning an element of Tai Chi or, how long has it been since I have done a push-up\pull-up set. The simplicity is the most freeing experience of a lifetime and its something I am actively trying to get more of in my life.

Today’s Practice:

30 minutes standing meditation

1.5 Hours of Dynamic Qigong (Silk Reeling)

1.5 Hours of studying the 24

Dantian Opening

08 May 2015 Leave a comment

by TheRestlessRaven in Uncategorized Tags: , , , ,

One of the hardest things for me to do is meditate in public. I can’t help but think “Who is watching me,  what do they think. Am I being too weird? Are they Making fun of me? ” I just cant help it. I mean, I do it anyway, but sometimes it does get the better of me and I stop sooner than I would normally. I tell myself I don’t care what people think, but it is a feeling that is pretty deeply ingrained in me. But hey, fake it till you make it right? Maybe one day I wont care.

This week I was rewarded with some bizarre and amazing results during an outside mediation session.

Tuesday morning was the first instance; I was practicing the 24 form and I suddenly felt as if a new muscle had suddenly appeared in my abdomen. Movements were almost expanding or extending from my center,  or my dantian.  I didn’t know what to think of it,  and the second I started to think about it the feeling disappeared. I immediately knew that this was the feeling my teacher has been talking about this whole time.  “Move from the dantian”   he says over and over again. That was what he meant, awaken the dantian and move from it.

I held that idea as just a concept until this week,  just kind of blindly holding it in my head half wondering if it was all bullshit,  but trudging on anyway. Well now I know it’s not.

After two days of dwelling on that feeling,  focusing on only that as I meditated trying to get the feeling back, I gave up. My teacher always tells me not to obsess about those kinds of things.  To listen to them,  but don’t pay any heed because “It will go away soon”.  So finally I conceded to forget it.  Telling myself “That was probably the only time I will feel that. Time to move on to my practice.” With that thought I was able to clear my mind and relax in to meditation. Later that day though,  my Dantian had another surprise for me.

As I was waiting outside for class,  I was meditating on a bench outside the studio. As always my mind was resting on my Dantian, but only just as a subtle awareness.  Not long after my mind settled and I began to relax,  I felt a very very real pop right at my Dantian. It was as if a tire tube had just pop it’s seal and air was instantly rushing out, filling up my body.  My spine extended, inflating up, and my arms started to lift themselves. Resisting the urge to hold the movement back, my arms kept going up until they hit the table in front of me. Then, it was gone.

For the rest of the night, however, my body felt…. Strange. It was as if the energy in my body had a new pathway opened up and it wasn’t quite sure how to use it. My Dantian felt… Not empty… Not full… But open. My body was, and still is,  trying to figure out what to do with this new feeling. Though, as my teacher reminds me,  I am trying to forget about it so it incorporates naturally in to my practice. Nothing but gentle awareness of it and I will see where it goes.

I now know what the energy body is not just an idea to hold in one’s head. It’s as much a part of me as my leg or arm muscles. I look forward to farther discovering and exercising this system that has freshly showed itself to me.

Today’s practice:

20 min meditation (Inside the dental Chair).

– Forgot about an early morning dentist appointment. From now on will be meeting some of my Tai Chi family early Mondays and Fridays to practice.

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