I really love this poem, that Jean shared with me the other day. Maybe you will like it, too.

 

The Patience of Ordinary Things

By Pat Schneider

    It is a kind of love, is it not?
    How the cup holds the tea,
    How the chair stands sturdy and foursquare,
    How the floor receives the bottoms of shoes
    Or toes. How soles of feet know
    Where they’re supposed to be.
    I’ve been thinking about the patience
    Of ordinary things, how clothes
    Wait respectfully in closets
    And soap dries quietly in the dish,
    And towels drink the wet
    From the skin of the back.
    And the lovely repetition of stairs.
    And what is more generous than a window?
     

Enjoy your life

Dorian

Classmates are Gold

 

Jan used to remind me of this often - that classmates and training partners are essential to learning tai chi and that good partners are gold. They are, like gold, precious, rare, and valuable. I am fortunate to have a group of training partners – there are about 10 of us who meet from three to six times a year on Bowen Island for two to four days at a stretch and train together under Jan’s expert instruction and masterful coaching.

 

We are known as the Rough Riders – a name apparently good enough for two football teams in Canada – the Saskatchewan Roughriders and the Ottawa Rough Riders   - of course one of those might be defunct and actually play rugby or soccer, not football-  but being from the States, I am not entirely sure.  Then there are the Frisco Rough Riders – a baseball team in Texas, a Long Island, New York Soccer team called the Rough Riders, and a Rough Riders bicycle club in Mill Valley, California. And then, of course, maybe the most famous of all, there were Teddy Roosevelt’s Rough Riders - the name bestowed on the 1st United States Volunteer Cavalry, one of three such regiments raised in 1898 for the Spanish-American War.(read more at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rough_Riders ) I am willing to bet that we are the only tai chi group known as the Rough Riders.

 

The name arose as a joke – tired of being considered less than and referred to as a mini-circle or a semi-circle - we sought a new name and struggled with every kind of circle we could imagine. Then one day  - if I recall correctly – at the lunch table we just kind of laughingly agreed that since what we do is not exactly ‘your grandma’s tai chi’ and the name was good enough for two football teams – why not take it as our own? That was maybe three years ago now and we can’t seem to shake it.

 

I guess I am writing all this because I am proud of my classmates and blessed to be able to train with them – together we are growing this art and ourselves and I am grateful for them.  Were it not for their dedication, openness, honesty, desire to learn this stuff, generosity and kindness, my best efforts would never reach beyond myself. I’d be working my form all by myself. But with their presence, listening, understanding, receiving, and steady force – my form takes on new life and I am able to grow the lessons of tai chi and life beyond anything I might conceive alone.

 

Thanks again Rough Riders – enjoy your practice

Dorian