Tai Chi and Life
Hello Friends,
May I assist in some small way in opening your heart and mind? Most of us have been trained since we were just still small children to straighten up and fly right. Tension was the lesson and it has been repeated in families, cliques, schools and even churches.
We have been raised in time going tick-tock, tick-tock…..If time is to have a sound I imagine it is must be closer to shhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.
Tai-Chi is a meditative practice and a potentially vicious martial art(Taichichuan). Tai-Chi or it’s Warrior cousin teach one to be mindful of space. Spaces between postures. Spaces between steps. Spaces between breaths. Not such a hurry-up from point A to point B world. It encourages one to more dance their way through life mindfully.
Not in a pretend world where there is no suffering, rather in a place where beauty is truly absorbed. Flowers, trees, birds, the Sky and the Ocean experienced without words blocking the pure experience. Yin and Yang-two opposites. Tai-Chi a beautiful dance of life with the Power to transform and light one’s heart on Fire, filled with Compassion yet at the same time with the power to kill in an instant by one who has mastered it.
Those who have been fortunate to taste Mastery find themselves in a world where their need to reach out to other’s cannot be ignored. The light of enlightenment refer’s to the opening of one’s heart. the realizing of wisdom that come’s from the recognition that joy could not be experienced without pain. Compassion could not be learned without suffering.
Times are changing. For thousands of years there has been war. A new time is arriving where more people are choosing to live cooperatively instead of competively. Yet there are still those who would prefer to fight and point out all the differences in the world and fight over them. Even as the number of people that would prefer to demonstrate the similarities is growing exponentially. More people in this new World are choosing to see the world as One, after all, it is, you came from it, I came from it, your Fathers, Mothers, Brothers and Sisters came from it. We are part of a Solar System on our Spaceship Earth. There have been proven to exist trillions upon trillions of galaxies each with billions, some with trillions of stars. Just imagine going the speed of light, 186,000 miles a second, it would take 100,000 years just to get across this one spiral galaxy, the Milky Way. We come from the Stars and to the stars we shall return.
The genious that is Tai-Chi has been brewing for hundreds, many say a few thousand years. Passed down generation by generation. Maybe you are one of the lucky ones that have experienced the infinite layers of miracles that is Tai-Chi. Or maybe you are curious about this art that many claim transforms lives.
OK, if it does transform people, How? Let me ask you a strange question, How Slow does it Go?
If you move as slowly as you can you will begin to go into a trance. Even if you don’t know the movements and Postures of Tai-Chi yet. Can you remember B a t d? Beta Alpha, Theta, Delta. Usually your inner dialogue is going several hundred miles an hour and you aren’t even paying much attention to it. Take a deeep breath, slowwwly let it out. Look around slowly and notice the spaces in between things. Notice the spaces between your thoughts. When your mind is whizzing you are predominatly generating Beta waves. If you start to move and think more slowly you start to generate more alpha and theta waves. In deep sleep, totally unconscious your mind predominantly is generating delta waves.
Now though the former is a bit of a simplification, if you slowly approach a garden, or a park and you allow your eyes to focus in front of you and at the same time take in as much as you can of the scene before you, you may be able to cease the eternal chatter. I like to joke with some who choose to experience classes, lectures or meditations with me that if our internal dialog were on the outside of our heads we would all transform, and quick.
So if Tai-Chi (Taichichuan) is a deadly martial art, how come it goes sooo slow?
There was a man who came running into a room all beaten up and everyone started asking “what happened”, “what happened”? the man said, “oh, it was horrible I got beaten up by a Tai-Chi Master and it took 12 hours!” Seriously if you move 2 miles an hour you will experience and learn things that you have never noticed before. There are secrets inside of every moment and between every breath. Mostly we miss them. However they remain, forever waiting to be noticed.
Tai-Chi has been Medically proven to accellerate healing of hundreds of conditions.
- It has proven to lower high blood pressure and increase bone density.
- It has demonstrated an ability to reduce falling by as much as 70% in older adults.
- It is now known world wide for being the number one most effective method of increasing seniors Balance.Did you know that falling is the number one cause of Injury Deaths in older adults over 65? More adults in that age range die from Falls than from car accidents!
- It has been demonstrated to help alleviate pain of MS, to slow Parkinsons, disease and to ease some of the pain of Fibromyalgia. I have Fibromyalgia and it hurts like the dickens most of the time. However, when I am doing Tai-Chi the pain is close to non-existant.
- As a Martial-Art in reality it would be performed at precisely the speed of an attack. However you won’t find too many Tai-Chi Masters looking for trouble or hanging out in bars.
World Tai Chi Day
We are coming up on the Tenth Anniversary of World Tai-Chi day! Countries all around the globe sharing in the tremendous transformative wave of Tai-Chi. If you practice Tai-Chi please continue everyday for the rest of your life. You will live with a greater sense of well-being and probably live quite a number of years longer.
When our minds slow down and we experience the gaps between our thoughts, a state of bliss ensues. Please smile, it takes less muscles than frowning and it catches on like wildfire. How would you like to participate in a world wide movement that is transforming the planet. I have to warn you it has been known to cause Bliss. Not only that but there seems to be an ever increasing desire in those who practice daily to share it with others.
There are some side effects that you should know about. Like treating your self and those around you kinder and becoming truly interested in the Planet. There is more to your life than where your skin ends. There are practitioners of Tai-Chi who have had the direct experience of time stopping as the illusion of inner self and outer world melted away. Another strange question, I’m just filled with them, some would accuse me of being crazy! Meditate upon a burning candle and ask yourself where does the flame stop and the light begin?
• Tai-Chi is a great cross-training sport because it gently dissolves layers of tension so that you can move faster and with more grace and precision while lessoning the chance of injuring ourselve’s. Tai-Chi is a great sport for Baby-Boomers. As we age it is great to participate in a non-competitive sport that improves our health. Plus you can practice Tai-Chi for the rest of your life!
• Tai-Chi is the most practiced martial Art in the world. I want you, yes you who is staring at your computer screen right now to catch the wave. C’mon a little bit of Bliss will be good for you. In all seriousness, it has been my experience that those who practice this incredibly beautiful ancient Art spread happiness and cheer just about everywhere they go.
I want to assist in propagating the art and enlist your help. Many arts went to the grave with the Masters who held all their secrets. That will never happen to Tai-Chi. Everyone who experiences it blisses out and discovers things about themselves they were formerly unaware of. Help it grow so that it’s roots will grow deeper into the earth and it’s Branches will reach up into the Heavens. I look forward to talking to you again soon! Slow down and have a day filled with happiness.
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