Today school starts again in our area. We don’t follow a strict school schedule and are very eclectic in our homeschooling but…it’s time to think of something new to do around here.
Like Tai Chi and Qigong!
Won’t this be like the blind leading the blind.
Not having funds for classes, around twelve years ago I got a Tai Chi video, which wasn’t a very good one, but I applied myself to trying to learn it. Then before I became pregnant with H.o.p. I started taking Tai Chi classes. Which I loved. Not just for the training but I liked how the class was low key. There was no sense of competition and our teacher was thoughtful and more than genial, not a trace of condescending spirit to her, and she combined in some of the meditative practices so that it wasn’t just a matter of exercise. I don’t know whether I should have taken it to heart, but she said I was a natural. Of course, you know I liked hearing that but she may have said it to all her students, right?
Then one day she began with some Qigong exercises (new to me), and as I stood there meditating on my ball of Chi at the Lower Dantian I suddenly sensed in that glowing golden ball of Chi there was something extra glowy there and it came to me, “Hey, you’re pregnant.”
And I was. Just barely. Unexpectedly pregnant.
So my ball of Chi felt very personal and real but I felt silly playing with it in front of everyone else and never really got into doing Qigong.
I continued taking Tai Chi , but eventually had to quit. One’s joints loosen with pregnancy, but I’m so loose jointed that my pelvis not only loosened, by the end of my 6th month it had split.
I was in a grocery store and a (rude) woman was blocking the aisle and not moving, so after she ignored me for too long, I pushed with my foot a case of water in order to get by her, and as I did so I felt this deeply structural riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiip. And I froze, with my foot in mid air, because of that rip, because H.o.p. suddenly felt a lot heavier, and because I couldn’t quite move right any more. Actually, I couldn’t move at all, but I could tell when I was able to move again it would not be the same way I’d moved before. I stood there with that foot in mid air and the big bump of baby H.o.p. inside me probably wondering what it was that it’d just heard and why things were suddenly just a bit roomier. “Something just happened to my body,” I told Marty. He freaked. I said, no, no, the baby’s okay, this is structural, just give me a moment to get over this excruciating pain and recover my breath.
Having very painfully learned there isn’t a move we make that isn’t rooted in the pelvis, I ended up being unable to walk around much, and then with the tearing of all the connective and supporting soft tissues, all those muscles and tendons, I was unable to walk at all after H.o.p.’s birth and then not very ably for a number of more months. At six months I could still only shuffle half a block. I did my physical therapy religiously, rigging up a strengthening apparatus at home to help with specific exercises, and things began to heal. Just in time for H.o.p.’s learning how to walk, nine months after he was born I was able to get around pretty decently again.
But I never did get back to the Tai Chi.
Several months ago I tried doing some Yoga but I think what I wanted most to be doing was Tai Chi and Qigong. After years of not being able to afford a Tai Chi class, and feeling like I shouldn’t go the home DVD route because it wouldn’t be really really real, I got over it and purchased a Qigong DVD and a Tai Chi DVD, and have been using these this past week and really enjoying the Qigong this time.
Recently, H.o.p. has been watching a lot of new and old martial arts films (the past few days it’s been Jackie Chan’s delightful “Drunken Master”) and has been asking about martial arts. I asked him how he’d like to do Tai Chi and Qigong with me, fully expecting him to say, “Uh, no thanks.” But he didn’t. He said, “Yes!” So Sunday we started doing Qigong and Tai Chi together (and I purchased some other DVDs that I hope will offer some good instructional material and saw another one I would really like to buy). I stood behind H.o.p. in order to keep an eye on his proceedings. He has no idea what his body is doing in relation to what he’s seeing on the television screen, but he’s trying and enjoying it and I don’t intrude too much, thinking when it’s right to work on form then it will be evident and we will work on form, but right now just the desire to do is what’s important. Right now, it’s enough just to get his feet parallel when they’re supposed to be parallel. (“Parallel, parallel,” I say tapping his feet and then picking up one and moving it into position.) And make sure he’s breathing. Because he’ll hear how you’re supposed to exhale but not hear about inhaling and after having long since exhaled he will say, “Can I breathe now?” So, I stand behind repeating the instructions to him that are given on the television, and I augment them.
“You are now a swimming dragon…”
I elaborate on being a swimming dragon.
He loves dragons. He thinks all this is wonderful.
H.o.p. doesn’t like to practice anything (except art anythings) but (at least for now) he doesn’t seem to mind the notion of practicing Qigong and Tai Chi with me. In fact, he’s enthusiastic. I told him if he remains interested and learns some things from the DVDs, then several months down the road he can take some Tai Chi classes if he decides he’d like to do so.
I’m also hoping the physical discipline, learning how to intentionally breathe etc., will help him in pursuing interests other than his art. That the Qigong and Tai Chi will all help him with frustrations he experiences with math etc. Breathe in. Breathe out. Be flexible.
He hates frustration. He hates doing things wrong. But, magically enough, he didn’t care about whether or not he was getting the Qigong right. He just enjoyed doing it and being a swimming dragon and holding the dragon pearl and rolling his ball of Chi.
And I think this is what I was looking for and why the Yoga wasn’t doing it for me, because the Yoga DVDs (at least the ones I had) offered no room for meditation and there was no flow from one exercise to the other. There was no dancing with my Chi. No sitting still with it either, for that matter. As soon as I’d settle into a Yoga posture they’d be on to something else. I felt like I was being compelled rather than moving harmoniously with. There was no room to just be. I was competing with myself to get to the point where I could do the more strenuous positions. I felt like furniture being folded and unfolded.
I prefer instead being the swimming dragon. I enjoy relearning the Tai Chi. And I like rolling my ball of Chi around from side to side. I may do only that for fifteen minutes and still want to do more. Several times a day I stop and roll my ball of Chi. I must look somehow convincing or entertaining doing it because H.o.p. at one point Sunday evening was sitting and watching me do it and then when I was done with rolling my Chi…he applauded.
Huh? When was the last time I had anyone clap for me. Too long ago for me to remember. But it hasn’t to do with me, it’s because he enjoys the moves.
“Wow, you’re really good at this!” he said.
I’m not. I’m not! But I know just a little more than he does in this instance and that’s all that’s needed. I don’t think we need to wait to be able to afford classes and the time to get all the way across Atlanta to take them. We can try copying and practicing the forms on the DVDs and enjoy being dragons. We may not be perfect dragons, but it would seem really counterproductive to worry about that.
Anyway, I’m thinking this is a great start to the school year.
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