Sparring - settle rising Chi
In blobbed, vanillasky reports an entertaining kick-boxing workout, which, as she put it "possibly sounds a bit barbaric to a non-kickboxer". Probably any martial artist would recognise the appeal of more "live" forms of training, even a wet scholarly layabout like me.
Peter and I played with some pushing hands last week, after our meeting had freed up a nice big room which, coincidentally, had had the usual bored-room tables pushed to the edge of. We pushed each other gently around circles for a bit, trying to listen properly, before we moved to a game of trying to unbalance the other. We used peng, an, and lou with a few others thrown in. After a few goes, the senses seemed to click in, but at the same time an excitement rose - drowning out the listening skill. We calmed and settled, and found the tactics worked better. Stillness within intense movement, and all that.
Much better than a previous stab at this game I partook of a while ago, which degenerated all too rapidly into thrashing about, the Chi having risen without control.
Labels: taichi
1 Comments:
Peter posting anonymous coward...
Yeh pretty good session. The key thing is watching the liver for signs of rising angry chi, which tends to happen in physical contact. (I have a big energetic hangover from rugby league contact training here...)
The second thing is the really ridiculously difficult thing of surrendering ego, learning to invest in loss. Finally, its quite a skill to dump your baggage when your'e in push hands mode, as it tends to bring out latent emotions, yours and your partner's.
My checklist (which I try to do at the mo, and will do in about 20 years) goes:
1) Root.
2) Song (catlike relaxation of body)
3) Breathing
4) dissolve liver.
5) spine straight, head light.
6) repeat
2:15 PM
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