Student's Viewpoint

I reflect that in three months (June) it will be two years from when I first started Tai Chi.

When I began I had a curious lack of expectation. I had done a few 'Tai Chi' classes at a health retreat I went to in May 2010, and although what I had experienced was a very simple style of Tai Chi, it somehow pointed me in the right direction. What I had liked about the Tai Chi at the health retreat was the feeling of flowing physical movement accompanied by a sense of peace and balance. (It helped that the classes were on the top of a hill and started just before dawn, with all of us oriented to see the sunrise.) However I knew that what I had been doing there was only very initial, so I went to Yuan-Chi Tai-Chi to learn.

It look almost a year of learning, typically twice-weekly lessons with one or two brief additional practices at home, to be able - although still with many uncertainties and hesitations - to finish the full 108 sequence. Even now that I am nearly two years into my practice, I am still not yet entirely confident in my ability to complete the movements of the full form, and I expect it will still take me one or two years to become much more confident about the overall flow. However I am now aware that this 'gross motor skill' aspect of Tai Chi is only a very initial level of learning. And still on a physical level, there are many minor nuances of position and balance which I expect it will take many years to learn.

However it is from an internal or mental/emotional/spiritual dimension that I feel I am only just beginning my journey.

Tyrone O'Neill
7/04/2012

On 7/04/2012 7:51 AM, Tyrone O'Neill wrote:

Here are initial observations I have made:
- for some time I have found myself feeling unusual 'pulsing' feelings in me when practising tai chi
- when I practise at home (which I used to do a lot but have done very little lately) I find much more quickly that I move into what's recognizable as a meditative state: a certain sense of stillness, peace, and quiet, almost an other-worldliness, as if I have become mentally slightly detached from my physical surroundings; this is something which I find difficult to attain when in a group


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