Wellbeing & Performance - the Tai Chi way
Just back from a four day holiday and it felt great to have time away from running workshops.
The week before the holiday began I ran 9 Chair Chi sessions for various aged care centre besides working on our BJ Seminars International business. It was so good to get away and relax.
Somedays I just don’t feel like doing my Tai Chi training.
I’ll wake up early in the morning on week days to do the first of three 30 minute sessions for the day and that little voice in my head sometimes says, ‘I”ll do it later’. But the morning sessions are important because that’s when I practice my Tai Chi standing posture – a vital training component of Tai Chi.
When I need extra practice for my weapons forms I need a reminder to practice.
For example, the other day when I was practicing my sword form in the garden I felt I had drifted away from some of the postures into incorrect shapes.
So I checked my notes and yes, there were a couple of spots where I had been incorrectly performing the postures. And to get back on track I decided to add more practice time for the sword form.
I grabbed my wooden sword and placed it in my living room where I could see it and every now and again I’d pick it up and briefly run through the form.
Even while watching television, laying on the couch, I could see the sword and would occassional get up and practice the form.
I train six days a week and I usually find many ideas appear during, and after most sessions.
As I work on specific areas I still gain insights and a better understanding of the skills I’m working on.
Because of my basketball coaching background and experience as a Tai Chi teacher I’m constantly analysing and reviewing skills. And also thinking of how can I teach this skill so a beginner can understand.
Sometimes I’d be practicing the Tai Chi form and an incoming idea pops into my head and I’m tempted to dash off and write it down. But I always wait until I finish practice before I note things down.
It’s not only thinking about skills that triggers ideas. I also tap into feelings while practicing which often produces ideas.
For example, the other day while practicing the spear, I felt my my tan tien initiate a movement rather than the muscles in my arms and shoulders. So that’s what I wrote about.
Occasionally the incoming idea is an old one but that is okay because it reinforces something I’ve forgotten.
Reading articles and books, watching vidoes on YouTube also sparks ideas so I rarely run out of ideas to write about Tai Chi.
And after all these yeares in learning and teaching Tai Chi it still is exciting when incoming ideas appear.
Tap. Tap. Tap.
Oh, excuse me. There’s another incoming idea knocking on the door.
I better go and open the door and let it in.
I was cleaning up and discovered my old clip board which had a Tai Chi training plan written in permanent texta.
The training plan was created about twenty years ago when I was training with two friends of mine on a Sunday morning. I decided to write the plan because we were spending too much time on analysis and not enough time on training.
Here’s the plan;
10.00am – Sabre
10.25 – Break
10.30 – Refresher
10.45 – 9 castle, Da Lu
10.55 – break
11.00 – Push Hands
11.25 – Break
11.30 – Application: Drills
12.00 – Optional
12.15 – Push Hands
12.45 – Free
1.00pm – End
And on the bottom of the clipboard are the following words – ‘Get On With It!!!