the way of wujimon

Must practice always be about moving? Something to think about.....thanks for the inspiration which prompted me to write :-

The temperature outside is hot
And hence my friend cannot practice

I’ve been sick these 2 weeks
Give it a good rest and not move-the doctor says

Yet in sitting there and not moving
I practice my intention

And gain more insights
By not moving then by moving

Hey.. good stuff ZMS :) Kind of reminds me when I was younger and my teacher would ask me if I practiced that week. Often times, I'd try to say, "In my mind" but it didn't work for me back then :)

In my sickly state of being, i sit in my chair and delusionally see the rings of qi emanate out to envelope an opponent that i see not. silently my mind sees the knife of rollback manifest and enter. even as i am pierced by a blade of illusion and the neutralizing is completed, an inch into the ground my mind goes and press begins. again and again my mind replays the delusion of me practicing without physically practicing. hush, hush, speak not too loudly for the boys at Arkham Asylum may hear and come for me tonight when the night is raging and the winds are howling................

dude.. hook me up with some of that cough medicine! :)

On a more serious note, I do find myself thinking about my forms and movements all the time. I never actually tried while being sick tho.

In my sane moments I think of form but I am really thinking of moving my hands and legs. In my moments of delusion, high on cough syrup and mind floating in the clouds my body fails me and I cannot think of moving hands and legs because my mental body is like a drunkard waving left and right even as i tried. Devoid of body, I can only activate my delusional mind. Sitting in a chair to steady myself, I project my mind. Going through the movements is an option, for taiji is but a matter of principles and the movements to learn the principles. In this state of physical helplessness, the mind moves................go through peng, go through an, go through ji, go through lu, etc. Hold back the body to move the mind and the mind has no choice but to visualize everything as if its doing it for real (p.s. there is a book that touched on this - can't remember the title but its about the mind and one of the chapters talks about athletes doing mental exercises and coming out the better even though the body is going through a stage of recovering from physical injury and not doing anything) and so imagination becomes reality. Be sick or be healthy, there is no difference in training the mind. Properly visualization is the key to unlocking the delusional mind of taiji. The principle of intention comes first does not lie. If you learn how to raise your hands with more physical than mental intention you can easily learn it. In my delusional past i have not met anybody who could go past the first raise hands movement because the set of mental intentions to go with it will boggle most ordinary learners and cause them to bog down and not able to move to the next movement. Delusions, oh delusions.

Like you, I practice at lunch. This hot weather is too much. I've cut right back.

I did a drill at a recent taiji seminar where we were asked to stand in wuji and do our form, without moving.

Interesting experience, especially as I found I was still losing my centre...

One of my teachers did much training with Dr Bisong Guo, author of "Listen to Your Body: The Wisdom of the Dao".

She teaches the period from 11am - 1pm is the time to plant the seed that will bloom at kidney time, 5pm - 7pm. That is, do "standing like a tree" at lunch time.

Hi J.

The seed planting time you reference is quite interesting. I guess it pays more to do more qigong type of activities over lunch, eh? I generally prefer to do my standing at night or when I'm at home as I have more room and openess to practice my form.

However, one of my taiji buddies told me the idea of training only 6-8 movements at a time to fully concentrate on those movements instead of breezing through the difficult parts. I'm gonna play around with that notion too ;)

[...] Forgive me father, for I have sinnned. It has been two weeks since my last taiji training session. I have no real reasons, just excuses. The weather is too hot, and I am easily distracted. I want to be better. I want to be a better taiji practitioner. I spread the taiji gospel to all those who I think could benefit from taiji, yet I do not practice myself. I feel like a fraud, father. Please forgive me.  Tell me the penance so I may repent. [...]