Longwater Tai Chi - Practice Tip
Every month we intend to post a little tip that may help you with your Tai Chi or Chi Gung practice.
Start Tuning in to your Body
One of the hardest aspects of actively relaxing is not letting your mind convince you need to do more to feel better, or that in order to relax you must become unconscious or comatose. To paraphrase Bruce Frantzis, the mind is a great slave but a terrible master.
Start to prepare yourself for an health upgrade by first teaching your mind to be quiet and listen. Take a part of your body you are fairly familiar with - let's say your hands. Sit quietly, let your breathing relax and become even and smooth. Place your hands on your lap and first use your vision to take in all that you see there. Start paying attention to the little details - the main creases in your palm and the smaller tributaries that spring from them; the changes of colour just under the skin; the way the shape and patterns of the hand change when you gently wiggle your fingers or stretch and release all the joints. Don't be distracted from the task at hand!
After a few minutes, close your eyes or let them lose their focus on your hands, and start to feel what's there. First keep your hands still and try to keep your mind focused on what you feel - are they alive, or numb and disconnected; or is something not quite right? Slowly and smoothly articulate individual or groups of joints in the hands and note if what you feel changes in any way. Try and identify what doesn't feel quite right and simply have the willingness to let it soften, expand and become less obvious. Do not make a big deal of this, and be perfectly happy to leave things as they are if you cannot affect what you feel. With practice this will become natural and achievable without mental or physical strain.
When you have finished your practice and start to go about your usual business, notice if the way you are dealing with the thousand and one agendas in your life has changed in any way; if so give this change the recognition it deserves; tuning into your body with active relaxation really does help!
May 2009
