Taking Stock of My Tai Chi Experience So Far
It's been almost two months since I began, and I'm still doing Tai Chi ... and loving it! I think it's about time to take stock.The most important thing I'd like to emphasize at this juncture is the mere fact that I haven't stopped. I'm not noteworthy for sticking with things. Especially things having to do with exercise and keeping the body in shape.
Why have I stuck with it? Tai Chi seems to be just hard enough. If it were too easy, I'd lose interest. If it were too hard, I'd also lose interest.
It's definitely a challenge. There hasn't been much about it that was easy for me to do the first time I tried.
But it also starts giving its rewards nearly right away. Just the feeling of accomplishment the second, or third, or nth time I try something and at long last get it right is great.
That's quite important to me personally. I was always, as a kid, real slow on the uptake when it came to doing physical things. I must have been ten before I got mad at my backwardness and taught myself to ride a bike. I didn't learn to swim until about age 12 or 13. At about that age I pretty much flunked using gymnastic apparatuses (apparati?) in gym class and developed such a complex about athletic pursuits that I found all sorts of excuses to get out of taking physical education. So now I'm getting my revenge. I'm actually able to do something that is physically challenging and succeed!
It's important also in a more universal sense, I think. There is something key about subjecting oneself to a discipline such as striving to do Tai Chi right, and then, albeit gradually, actually succeeding. Not that one ever masters it ... but one does see oneself getting closer to the mark than one could have managed to do before, and just making some progress toward an honorable goal is infinitely rewarding.And now for some brief editorializing: I have to think that last point about subjecting oneself to some sort of personal discipline and as a result achieving noble goals explains why so many young people pursue the martial arts so avidly in their spare time. (Tai Chi, lest anyone forget, is basically a martial art.) I wonder whether there shouldn't be martial arts study in our schools. It would seem to be one of those things which unlock the mind and soul — music study is another — so that kids can perform their best in the subjects that "really mean something." Instead of stripping such "non-essentials" out of the high school curriculum, maybe we ought to be re-emphasizing them. End of editorial.
Another reward Tai Chi steps right up with is giving one the welcome feeling of actually enjoying having a body. One way to describe the "bodily" feeling is that Tai Chi practice and exercise makes my legs and torso feel "solid," like a tree trunk. It's as if my musculature has been turned into a strong "case" around by body. This really comes in handy when I do things like go up and down stairs. A lot of the time, I don't have to rely on hand rails to keep from putting too much strain on my creaky knees.
Yet another reward is rejuvenation, as promised by the subtitle of The Dao of Taijiquan: Way to Rejuvenation. My 57-year-old body feels the way it did at 30 ... albeit with a few extra aches and pains. Even athletes get those.
Plus, my balance is much improved. There's much less worry about tipping over or falling down the steps. I have mentioned that I'm a klutz, haven't I? Well, I'm much less of a klutz since I began Tai Chi.
And, by the way, most of my earlier complaints about back, knee, and shoulder soreness have moderated considerably. I take that fact as living proof that the Tai Chi novice should press on through minor start-up woes that stem from asking the body to do things it hasn't done in a long while.
Yet another reward I've experienced from doing Tai Chi is finding the Wu Chi or Standing Meditation position to be all it's cracked up to be. It really does bring on a relaxed, meditative state, as it floods the body with warmth and a feeling of well-being.
That in turn suggests that all the talk about Chi in the body is for real. It's not terribly easy for us Westerners, given how we do medical science, to believe there's some sort of energy in the body which is no more substantial than the steamy vapor coming off a bowl of warm rice. Where is it, we're inclined to ask? Prove that it exists with instruments or X-rays, we say.
But the fact that adopting a certain posture releases Chi in ways we can know and feel personally puts such quibbles to shame.
I could also mention that Tai Chi seems to have color="#009933"brought my high blood sugar down ... I'm a sort of borderline Type-2 diabetic, and before I took up Tai Chi, my readings had gone up to around 150 mg/dL. They're back down to the mid-130's now. But it's probably too early to tell whether this is just a temporary improvement.
And, oh, yeah, I can tell that I'm much more relaxed. 'Nuff said about that.
I should also report on the few drawbacks I've encountered. One is, as I say, the activation of stiffness and soreness in the body. My experience is that this is for the most part temporary — it dissipates as you continue doing Tai Chi — but nevertheless it is something that happens.
Another minor drawback, at least for me, is the feeling that I've added one more "must do" thing to my life and routine. Tai Chi is for life. It's not something you do once, like having an appendectomy.
Then, in what seems like a contradiction of that last point, is the fact that I can't maintain the pace of doing it every day. Not yet, at least. I find that about every third day has to be a day off for me, or weariness sets in. That may change as my body continues to adjust ... or it may not.
So that's it. The rewards of Tai Chi for me so far have definitely outweighed the drawbacks, and I can recommend Tai Chi to just about anyone interested in obtaining any of the former and willing to put up with the latter.
posted by eric @ 11:30 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home