Immersion

I’m getting excited about Immersion Week at BTC next month, where we’ll take another look at the Spine Stretch and the Three Swings. Another look? Like we’ve done it before? Yes! Why is it exciting to go back to the same qigong sets over and over again? So-called creative people understand better than most that there is nothing new under the sun. Working with boulders of granite, with empty stages, with blank paper, they are credited with making something out of nothing, but that isn’t exactly what they do. All art is derived from what is in actuality a remarkably finite human experience. Whatever the medium, the creative person’s task is to interpret an essentially unchanging reality, a dog-eared reality pondered by Homer and Mel Brooks and everyone in between. The artist succeeds if he or she can present something familiar from an unfamiliar angle." ...

Here is my mid-week update from Tai Chi Immersion Week 2013 at Brookline Tai Chi. It’s pretty cool to see folks come from all over to train for a week, but you really have to have the right mind set to make the most of the format. See what I mean here: http://youtu.be/tBOBhSljYNo When you practice, be sure to include a clear: Warm-up: where you settle in and transition from the rest of your day. Ramp-up: where the real “training” happens and you work on specific attributes of your practice. Integration period: where you don’t try to do anything new, but let the work from the ramp-up period settle down. Buffer: where, without making an abrupt shift, you transition back into the rest of your day. Whether you practice for 20 minutes or twice a day for a week, if you look for these rhythms, you will build more energy and deepen your Tai Chi practice.