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Sept.- Dec. 2016 Schedule
Date: Wednesday, Sept. 21st
Location: Silver Spring
- Beginner 1 (Postures 1-12) 6:30 - 7:30 pm
- Beginner 3 (Postures 25-37) 7:30 8:30 pm
- Corrections (all 37 Postures) 8:30 - 9:30 pm
Date: Thursday, Sept. 22nd
Location: Washington DC
- Beginner 1 (Postures 1-12) 6:30 - 7:30 pm
- Beginner 3 (Postures 25-37) 7:30 - 8:30 pm
- Corrections (all 37 Postures) 8:30 - 9:30 pm
Date: Sunday, Sept. 18th
Location: CityDance at Strathmore
- Corrections (all 37 postures) 9:00 - 10:00 am
- Sensing Hands (Corrections students only) 10:00 - 11:00 am
- Beginner 3 (Postures 25-37) 11:00 -12:00 pm
- Beginner 1 (Postures 1-12) 12:00 pm - 1:00 pm
- Correction Sword (Permission required) 7:00 pm - 8:30 pm
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follow Cloud Hands Tai Chi
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Turning towards winter
We are currently in the midst of the fifth season, what the Chinese call late summer. It is the time of the harvest, the brief period of "suspension", when the work of summer has been completed, but the fall and winter are not yet upon us. It is a brief, but resplendent time, nestled between the activity of summer and the beginning the journey inward toward the stillness of winter. It is a time to take account and reap the bounty of summer, even as we are aware of the dying light. Yes, even as we are aware of the inexorable turning of the planetary wheel, we are invited to step into the present, into the magical moment where all other time is "suspended"; We are invited to take one last deep breath, one last look around, to embrace and fully appreciate the passing of yet another of the limited number of summers we will witness during our time on this earth. After this brief time in the fifth season, enjoying the bounty of our summer harvest, we will bid it adieux and turn our attention toward the coming cold, the increasing darkness, and the beautiful, quiet, stillness we call winter.
Until very recently our lives as humans closely reflected both the daily and seasonal cycles of nature. It has only been in the last 150 years, or so that we have emancipated ourselves from those cycles through central heating and electric lights. Yet, our bodies for thousands and thousands of years evolved in harmony with these natural cycles and cannot always be re-wired to adjust as quickly and easily as the flipping of a switch to create daylight, or warmth.
Being aware is very much a part of practicing Tai Chi. That awareness includes experiencing the "connectedness" ("one thing moves, everything moves") within our bodies as we do the Tai Chi form. It also extends to being aware of the world around us and how we are connected to it. In the coming weeks and months take time to notice the changing of the seasons; from summer to late summer, from late summer to fall, and fall to winter. Be aware of how your body experiences to these changes, as well as possible shifts in emotions. As the external world begins its withdrawal from activity toward quiet, we are also invited to turn inward and reflect on our lives. As the light fades, and the cold emerges, you may find that getting more sleep, and having less activity leaves you feeling more grounded and at ease in your day to day life. You may find that your body wants different kinds of foods with salads and fruits giving way to soups and cooked vegetables. Going with the energy of the season puts us in harmony with nature, both our own and that of the world around us.
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Eddy-lines: Being Open to Change, and
the Courage to Find Joy in Breathing
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“I was able to relax and I found joy in breathing”. - T’ai Chi student
“Relax is who you are, tense is who you think you are”. - Robert W. Smith
We all have limitations. For the more experienced T’ai Chi student the awareness of these limitations often centers on the legs and waist. In the T’ai Chi Classics, some of the oldest writings on T’ai Chi, we are told that if the body does not move as an integrated whole, “Look for the defect in the legs and waist.” It makes sense that, as a diligent T’ai Chi student, one would be aware of limitations related to how far to turn the hips, or how low to sink into the legs. Lately, I have been wondering, what other limitations we experience, yet, to which we remain blissfully unaware.
Being Open to Change
I was at a T’ai Chi camp/retreat a few years ago, being taught by Maggie Newman, one of Professor Cheng Man-ch’ing’s senior students in New York. Maggie was listening in on the conversation of two students immersed in their discussion of the T’ai Chi form. They were talking about the finer points of turning the waist, but were doing so as if they were competing at the US Open Tennis Tournament. They were both blasting baseline shots back and forth, trying to make their point about the turning of the waist be the decisive word on the matter. After one exceptionally long volley, Maggie interjected the following comment, “Hopefully, T’ai Chi will open up more than your hips”. While these students were ostensibly talking about opening one thing (the hips), Maggie was gently alluding to another opening which their discussion was ignoring (opening their minds). The students were being closed to new ideas, while discussing the best way to be open in their hips.
I was reminded of Maggie’s comment, while working with a T’ai Chi student for the first time. Working with this individual awakened in me a deeper appreciation for the variety of ways through which we can experience this thing called being “open”. Certainly, we can open our mind, as well as our hips. Beyond that, though, we can also open our hearts. I am speaking of our physical heart, which can be further opened to the flow of blood through it, by reducing stress and tension, but also of the emotional heart; The one that the Tin Man in the Wizard of Oz discovered could be broken when Dorothy was preparing to leave him and return to Kansas.
That’s the rub, isn’t it? If we open our hearts, we risk getting hurt. It can be a little hurt, like the point about opening the hips, not being the "forehand winner" for the "match" that someone had hoped it would be. Or, it can be big hurts, like the loss of someone to whom we have opened our heart; the loss of someone we love. I read once that the Latin word for heart, “cor”, is the root word for “courage”. Like openness, courage comes in many forms. Courage in battle is certainly one form, but the courage of living each day with an open heart is another.
Eddy-lines
I was a social worker directing a youth service bureau for many years. There were two mothers on my advisory board. Each had a son involved in our therapeutic adventure program (rock-climbing, caving and white-water boating). Prior to joining the board each had lost a son, one to drowning and one in a car accident. Their sons’ friends were still in the program. I know that staying involved with the program was painful for them. Seeing their sons’ friends was a reminder of what was missing from their own lives. The dictionary defines courage as knowing something will be painful, or dangerous and facing it anyway. When I think of courage, I always think of the courage those two women displayed every day by opening their hearts to the pain of losing their sons, so they might help another mother’s son.
What allows someone to do that, to transform pain and loss that threatens to destroy life into something that nourishes and enriches it? I do not have an answer to that question, but I do believe that art and beauty are born in that mysterious swirling eddy line between the currents of life and death. My new T’ai Chi student lived every day immersed to the point of drowning in that eddy line.
In working with any new student trying to learn T’ai Chi, beyond the physical movements of the T’ai Chi form itself, I try to help the student develop “awareness”. I realize, standing alone, the word, “awareness”, is a very broad term, and deliberately so in this case. Awareness in Tai Chi often moves from the specific (being aware of relaxation versus tension in specific parts of the body – shoulders, hips, back, etc.) to a broader awareness of whether those various body parts feel connected and integrated as one moves. This awareness of the connectedness within the body, moves to an awareness of my body feeling connected, both above and below, to something larger (like a plant reaching toward the light of the sun, while still remaining firmly rooted to the earth). In Chinese numerology the movement connecting what is below to what is above is represented by the number three. This movement, the exchange involved in an unending cycle of balancing and rebalancing Yin and Yang is called, chi. It is interesting that the number three, in addition to representing chi as the movement between Yin and Yang also represents humanity as the connecting link in the movement between heaven (Yang) and earth (Yin).
The Courage to Breathe
T’ai Chi is often described as a “Mind-Body” form of movement, though, "Heart/Mind" is a better representation of what is meant by "Mind" in Tai Chi. I am continually amazed at the potential that is unleashed when the Heart/Mind and the Body are working as one. Such was the case with my new student. The tension he was experiencing resided a little bit deeper than the tightness in the shoulders most new students bring to their first lesson. His was more of a tug-of-war between life and death. His limitation was in the chest and lungs. Each breath was a struggle even when assisted by supplemental oxygen. A simple conversation could degenerate into a coughing fit as the breath needed to sustain it waned.
We worked from a seated position after attempting the opening movement of raising the arms proved too strenuous from a standing position. With rests of several minutes between attempts, he was finally able to repeat raising his arms and “dropping them as if through water” from this seated position.
I grew up in the Midwest in a seemingly very practical world. I was not from Missouri, but the philosophy of “show-me” was a basic part of life in Indiana, too. My limited knowledge of how the body worked was straight out of Grey’s Anatomy. This practical streak has helped me to accept the benefits of T’ai Chi, while not fully understanding how those benefits were being derived. One thing I have come to understand over the years is that by using imagination, the Heart/Mind can occasionally woo the Body into letting go of a perceived “limitation” and instead do something that has been imagined as possible by the Heart/Mind. I am not talking about magical powers like flying, or jumping over buildings with a single bound. It is really just quieting the internal chatter, then "listening", trusting what we “hear”, and "following" instead of "controlling and leading".
As limitations go, having the physical limitation of not being able to draw a full breath has to be among the most terrifying, tension inducing experiences that I can imagine.
To reach beyond a limitation, it is sometimes necessary to fully experience, or be aware of it. Whether it is how far I turn my hips, or how deeply I can take air into my lungs. I want to experience that eddy line, to become aware of the point of restriction, and the resulting dynamic tension between ease and effort. It is the transformation (relaxing) of that tension, of that resistance, into softness that allows for further movement. By imagining the limitation in the lungs to be a sand castle and the breath to be the waves at the ocean, each breath was invited to gently seep a little further between the grains of sand, to reach a little further into the lungs. Each imaginary wave, embodying each real breath, gently penetrated and opened the space a little further. Tension wastes precious resources unnecessarily. My new student had none to spare. He needed to relax to breathe more deeply, yet the act of breathing constantly brought confrontation with the suffocating, tension-filled limitation of not getting enough air.
Breathing Joyfully
To tell you the truth, by the end of our time together, I was not sure if what we did was helpful, or if I had just taken his last ounce of energy and spent it on uselessly waving his hands through imaginary water. When I asked him if he liked what we had done, he replied with a beautiful smile, “I found joy in breathing”.
Life can get pretty complicated. Breathing is pretty simple, at least for most of us. Sometimes life is relentless in what it demands from us. But, how long does it take to draw a breath, to drink slowly and deeply from the one breath we get in this life? According to Professor Cheng, when we are born, we inhale. When we die, we exhale. Everything in between is simply keeping that one breath moving, by keeping the "chi", or "life-energy" flowing.
The next time you are outside look to the sky. Unlike the landscape we have altered, visually, the sky stands virtually unchanged since the dinosaurs. Look to the sky and take a breath, consciously bringing that world which is outside of you, into you. There it will be transformed, enter your blood and become a part of you. Exhaling, give it back to the world. Recognize, in this act of breathing, that we are not separate from this planet. It is our mother. We are made of the same elements as the earth, and it was here first. My mother comes from her mother on back to the beginning. Since the earth was here first, its mother role meets the Missouri/Indiana standard in my book.
The pain of those mothers on my youth service bureau board was a pain of separation. In recognizing the bond of love as what was beneath their pain, it was transformed. It no longer separated them. Instead, that pain reaffirmed that their heart’s commitment to remain open to all they loved was still intact and present.
Another opening, coming soon to a neighborhood near you, will be the doors of Cloud Hands Tai Chi classes. They will be opening Sunday September 18th; Wednesday, September 21st; and Thursday, September 22nd. Registration can be done through the web-site www.CloudHandsTaiChi.net
With any luck, (and a lot of practice) we will be opening more than the doors this session.
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Saturday Morning Practice
A great way to start the day! There is nothing like a few rounds of Tai Chi to get the body up and moving. We meet every Saturday morning from 8:30 – 9:30 am. No experience is necessary. It is a great way to be introduced to Tai Chi, brush up after the summer break, or just get outside and enjoy doing some Tai Chi with a nice group of friendly people.
Saturday morning practice
8:30 - 9:30 am
Location: Veterans Plaza (under the pavilion in front of the Civic Building)
At the corner of Fenton Street and Ellsworth Avenue
Silver Spring, Md 20910
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