Tai Chi Notes, March 19, 2019

I’m getting into standing practice more and more: I feel like the Lotus course taught me some interesting new possibilities, about my structure and about sinking back into my kua instead of just sideways? At work, I’ve started attending the standup of a team adjacent to the one I spend most of my time with, and honestly their standups are kind of long, so I’ve started doing standing practice during that; I feel like the extra practice is helping, and one day last week I felt super heavy, like gravity was unusually strong, which was an interesting change.

I’ve been feeling for a while that the heels on my shoes are thicker than would be ideal for doing Tai Chi (or standing meditation, for that matter), so I ordered some custom shoes, and they finally showed up last week. Seems like a good choice, though I don’t have anything concrete to report about them yet.

On Saturday, my teacher was out, and one of the senior students was leaded. She mentioned that, in the two kicks with your heel, you should have your arms open up as fists with the palm side ending out upward; it does seem to give some extra force to the move, I’ll have to try that.

While going through the form, I was thinking that, in Pat the High Horse, I should probably extend my right arm a little more; I should ask about that to confirm. And the last step in White Crane Spreads Its Wings still doesn’t feel right; I’m thinking maybe the problem is in the middle step, when you go to the left foot: I’m rounding my back there, maybe my back should be straighter? Not sure, I need to experiment with that more.