Tai Chi Notes, April 16, 2019

In the Saturday class, we talked about stretches that you can do with the help of the spear. You put the spear across your shoulders, with your arms wrapped around it, with the hands coming over from the back of the spear. The stretches are:

1. Turn your hips from side to side; but always look forward, so you’re effectively turning your neck as well.
2. Bend over from side to side, stretching the side of your body next to your rib cage.
3. Bend while making circles with the end of the spear, doing a sort of figure 8.
4. Same as 3, but with the direction reversed.
5. Fold your chest forward and back.

I led the Silk Reeling Exercises on Saturday; one of the senior students said that I should avoid having my upper hand block my field of view when doing Hand Maneuvers.

We had the Sunday class this week. In the second form, we went as far as Tame the Tiger. After Beast’s Head, you spread your hands and punch; then let your hands fall down and swing back, doing a flip like when switching sides in the Peng-Cai Silk Reeling Exercise. And then, do a shake and punch, and then you step up with the right foot and block (or punch) with your right hand, then block with your left hand, then step back and go down low, with your weight on your back foot (the right one), your right hand extended up, your left hand under your right armpit, and with your left leg extended. But don’t lean, only go down so far.

I finally got to where I can do 20 minutes in Lotus Wu Ji; not comfortable, but at least I’ve succeeded. Which was my goal before the May class; now the next question is whether to stay at 20 minutes or to keep on trying to push it up? I think I’ll probably do the latter: it’s not like it’s actually comfortable to do it for 20 minutes, but the first 10+ minutes are fine, so presumably if I keep on pushing up my total time then I’ll build up my strength.