In response to Transforming Conflict with Tai Chi, many of you sent me stories of situations where you were forced into a tense encounter and you had to draw on your practice to get you through it. After, you feel relief and you can move on, but sometimes the idea slips through that, “hey, I’m a little better able to handle this kind of thing because of the way I faced it.
One of your practice goals should be to be able to make sense of other people’s movement patterns. Learning how to watch someone move, and see what’s going on, is going to give you really valuable information that you can then apply to your own practice. In the following video clip, I demonstrate two different gait patterns, with different arm swings. If you can start to see how the arm swing differs between the two, you’ll start to gain some valuable insight into how to assess and correct your own movement imbalances.
One of my students says that in medical school they were taught how to explain their clinical observations in a way that made them sound more official. For example, if you see something once, you can say that “in my experience…” The second time you’ve observed the same phenomenon, you can say that “in case after case….” Finally, if you’re seeing something more than two times, you’ve seen it “in a series of cases.
Frozen shoulder is one of those terms that people accept with resignation and it seems like a plausible explanation…until you start to poke around in your own nervous system. If you’ve ever been told you have a frozen shoulder, I urge you to look a little bit beyond the (overly) simple mechanical explanation. Obviously, I’m not diagnosing your shoulder from a YouTube video, but I just want you to ask a few more questions and try these two experiments:
And they’re all in pain! When it comes to the aches and pains of moving around, you might be in pain from your day job, your vigorous exercise routine, or even a mindfulness practice that doesn’t involve any movement. Ever wonder why? The reason is exactly the same in each case: in your pre-conscious mind, you are basically trying to outsource your own movement patterns, from a body part that should be doing the job, to one that’s willing to, even though it isn’t designed for that job!
Lower back pain can be a frustrating experience whose source may be hard to pin down and whose remedy may seem elusive. I hope that as you read through this article, you can start to understand the nature of pain a little differently. I’ll also show you some tai chi concepts that can help you unravel your lower back pain, and more importantly, how to search for a solution for your individual situation.
- You’re lazy Think about your daily movement patterns. How much variety is there? If you drive to work to sit at a desk and then relax by coming home and watching TV, you’re living your life essentially seated in front of a screen. You need to change up the patterns: stand, run, twist, bend and move, not just your body but your eyes and head too.
- You eat crap
