Legs, Hips, Waist – Returning to Core

In movement, advancing and retreating in your bow stance, can you distinguish your waist from your hips?  This was my first tai chi lesson with Jan and it continues to be the lesson I come back to again and again. I come back to it with my students, from my teachers, and with myself.  It seems to be one of the hardest things for any of us to do  - that is to find a way to loosen in the hips so that we may actually sit in the legs, instead of on the legs.

Why is this so important? Sam Masich has written an article: Distinguishing the Hip and Waist, (which when I am not referring to “the tai chi classics”,  then I am referring to this article). In it he reminds us that the hips move as a natural consequence of action in the legs. They are a ball and socket joint passively rotating as we shift our weight by driving down through one leg or the other – the hip receives the force of the driving leg and passively transfers the weight of the torso to the other leg’s base.  Well-positioned hips provide for the weight of the upper body to pass down into the thighs – leaving the rest of the body free for action.  [if you haven’t read Sam’s article yet, I encourage you to do so – you can find it on his website at   http://www.sammasich.com/index.php?content_id=1128&main_menu_id=2

The hips are a great place to practice awakening into awareness.  So many of us add to the hips – we add tension, keeping them stiff with legs-hips-waist forming one straight line;  some of us over-loosen, wiggling them to and fro as if to gain power by winding them up and letting them loose. Can we just let them be hips – round clear open joints through which the weight of me might sink into my legs?  Of course, other things may have to change too – the thighs will definitely grow bigger and stronger, the waist and spine more supple, the upper body more light and agile, the sense of rootedness more firm, yet more mobile. 

A great practice that Jan gave me that first lesson, was simply to stand in bow stance and move through the hip track, turning my waist at different times left, and right, inside and outside. At first it felt like chewing gum, walking, rubbing my belly and patting my head at the same time. Now it feels more and more like the best Qigong I can do  - clearing, moving, settling. It requires very little space to advance and retreat in one bow stance and the benefits to my tai chi are immeasurable.

Enjoy your hip track

Dorian

 

Of Note

Items you may be interested in –

A couple of weeks ago when I was on Bowen Island for curriculum study with Jan, George the Bowen Island TV guy came to the studio in Jan’s basement and filmed some of our work for the community television – you can see us in action on YouTube.  Here’s a  link:

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1KbHeRr-R5U>

And while I am at it, I will take a minute to rave about the latest (and first) release from JanJimJam Productions: The Yang Style Taijiquan Push Hands Curriculum reference CD. You can read all about it, sample it, and even order your own copy all on Jan’s website at www.janparkerarts.com, or ask me next time you see me.

In addition to the links on my homepage, here are some other sites if you are in the surfing mood:

www.embracethemoon.com  (my friend Karin who studies with me on Bowen with Jan also teaches tai chi at this school).

For you frequent flyers, check out  - http://flightlevel390.blogspot.com/  Sometimes I just want to know what the pilot is thinking – other times it is best left to my imagination.

My friend Rhea has a blog – she is actually trying to make a business out of blogging and if anyone can, she can – you can find her Boomer Chronicles at  http://www.thegeminiweb.com/babyboomer/index.php

And finally I leave you with http://witchywoo.wordpress.com/  - plenty of food for thought here and even a laugh or two between the tears.

And when you have surfed enough – go practice!

Enjoy your surfing

Dorian

Carry On

If you have been keeping up with this blog for the past few weeks, you may have noticed that I am struggling to write much that is interesting or meaningful or even possibly worth sharing. Nonetheless, I carry on.

And this I think is the heart of practice – carrying on.

Not every practice is another step on the stairway to enlightenment. Sometimes I feel like I am falling backwards, sometimes dilly-dallying on some landing with a view (or not). Sometimes my practice feels quite stuck in one of these concrete horrors of a staircase one finds in parking garages. It is times like these in which it is especially difficult to pick myself up and go downstairs to my studio or head over to the dojo and actually practice some more. Nonetheless, carry on I do ( most of the time)

And sometimes I take a break. I rest. I let go into awareness and notice what excites me, what motivates me, what makes me curious to start moving again in the form. And sure enough, if I stay awake, if I go to class, if I start to teach…..something interests me, something moves me to move and my practice resumes.

Everything moves in cycles – from the potential of the seed in the soil, the idea in the mind, comes new life bursting forth, the execution of the idea – growing into meaningful activity, the idea, the life comes to fruition it reaches its prime and begins to ripen, and ultimately rot and degenerate, returning to the soil, to the mind, becoming potential once again.  So too my practice cycles.  And I carry on.

For me, the trick is noticing where in the cycle I am at any given time, and trusting that it will keep moving….that I will keep moving, if I just carry on

Enjoy your practice

Dorian

Streams of Consciousness

Awareness shifts from broad external to narrow internal and back to external  - this time narrow and again internal now broad again, let your eyes follow the action.

Heart expanding conscious awareness to all of me and where I am now and now and now and now again, over and over the same breath in and out, the same questions never the same answers.

Form connects pushing sensing hands energy works warming muscles tendons ligaments fascia structure supporting intention formed deep inside through interconnection. 

The energy at the top of the head should be light and sensitive, sink the chest and raise the back, relax the waist, distinguish full and empty,  sink the shoulders and drop the elbows, use the mind not strength, unity of the upper and lower body, unity of internal and external, continuity without interruption, seek stillness in movement.

Feel the blood coursing through the veins, pulse pumping one two three, breath circulates, stomach gurgles, muscles release and a smile gently washes over shoulders broad and easy practicing form like a long river, I am the river bed, the earth, the stars the moon.

Who is practicing, and who are you practicing for?

There’s choreography and then there’s dance. There’s martial art and then there’s spirit. There’s grammar and then there’s the story and a rose is a rose is a rose

Enjoy your practice– even if it is a bit out there

Dorian

Many thanks

Oh, my Tai Chi blog……well, I have this to say about that…..sometimes there is a lot going on and not enough time in the day to write. That’s the deal today.

I do have a correction to post regarding last week’s blog: when I travel to study with Jan – I do not just fly into Vancouver- to reach my teacher, I am traveling all the way to Bowen Island, a small island off the coast of the city of Vancouver.  This is no easy feat and were it not for the kindness of my dear teacher and her husband I would struggle mightily to actually get to the island. There are no reasonably-priced shuttles, only taxis and I would have to carry my luggage to the bus, transfer in downtown Vancouver to another bus during rush hour, walk onto the ferry and meet Jan on the island. Being the Pacific Northwest (or Southwest for you Canadians reading this), I would most often have to do this in the rain.  You can only imagine how happy I am when I see Jan’s Keen-covered feet at the bottom of the escalator that brings to me baggage claim, or when I see Ken’s cowboy hat - covered head towering over the crowd near the information desk, to know how very much I appreciate their efforts and inconvenience in picking me up.

And while I am on the subject, let me extend a hearty thank you to the Americans from the South for dropping me at the airport on their way home every Sunday – Erica, Julie and Tony from Oregon, and Karin and Karen from Seattle: it makes a world of difference to be able to chat about the weekend and feel your warm goodbyes as I head home again each time.

Indeed once I get started, I have to acknowledge that my gratitude is endless  - to the many folks I have met on this path who have opened their homes and their hearts to make a space for me to stay, a ride to the airport, to share in the cooking of a meal in their home. This tai chi journey is as much about learning to move my body in ways that are healing and strong as it is about learning to open my heart and receive the kindnesses that are offered – to let others in. Thank you all  - I only hope that by my words and my actions you know my gratitude is immense and that I will do the same for you (or for the next tai chi student who comes along the path).  

Enjoy your travels –

Dorian