You got me, Universe or whatever. I’ll write about it. Mainly because I need to get it out of my brain. I can only talk about it outloud so much before people’s eyes glaze over. No, you don’t understand! I really need an outlet, so you are it, blog.

It really shouldn’t be so hard to just throw this stuff onto a page, but I have worked myself into knots thinking I’d be capable of just shutting up and silently doing my own thing. But I can’t, okay? I am not capable of that. I’ll freak out. This stuff is just so endlessly fascinating. I could talk about it for DAYSSSSSSS 😍. 

And if you want to know the truth, I’m kinda constantly thinking about my various practices. It’s always on my mind.

Sometimes it’s how they work together. Sometimes it’s just sheer confusion of how can I get better at this thing I’m still not good at? Sometimes it’s the surprise I feel when I lost something I had down. And sometimes it’s the ease with which I’m able to jump back into it and beyond. It changes.

But I guess I’ll just start by starting…

THESE THOUGHTS ARE FREEFORM RAMBLINGS BY AN AMATEUR!! I’m just gonna go off but like I can’t be thinking every two seconds about how someone is going to evaluate me on how or what I say so anyway… the grammar and my terminology and all this stuff probably needs work thanks

So, I do Ashtanga now. I remember reading this comment on instagram by Sharath Jois (head of the main school, grandson of the founder) who was {paraphrasing here} saying how sometimes you can do a certain really hard posture and sometimes you can’t. He was saying how your practice morphs and changes.

I’m kind of obsessed with certain things like tai chi. But you know really I should say internal martial arts because I practice more than tai chi. I guess I could say energy centric practice like my teacher. I just like to say “tai chi” because I think most folks have a close enough reference point. Oh, but they don’t know… 

If they only knew!

That’s so annoying to say because everyone who is new to something has no idea. Gah, where do I get off? The experience of practicing tai chi tho, it’s like… It’s just really really cool. Really eye opening like whaaat? Like this whole time this is available to us? Why? How? Wtf? Yes, I think about this hourly. Ah, if only I got paid for these thoughts I’d be like Scrooge McDuck swimming in my gold coin swimmimg pool. 

Anyway, today I was really getting down on myself because I’ve sorta been lazy and not practicing as diligently as I usually do. I get this way with writing too. I think about it all the time and then if you don’t have a project you kind of scare yourself into thinking that writing is hard and onerous and you don’t have enough time to do what you want to do with it. All true. So so so very true… 😭

I had an “ohhhhhhhh THIS is why teachers tell you to never stop practicing do something everyday even if it’s a little bit” kind of realization (not new, I have these once a month if not more frequently). Man, it sure does takes a second to get back to where you were. I think you gotta be really diligent and humble and nonexpectant about it when you jump back in.

When I went off to school for a dramatic writing program I’d been doing martial arts for a year and some change. It didn’t happen overnight, but slowly my skill, my athleticism, physique, etc., etc., began to shift because my priorities changed. I had to focus on writing and recovering from the writing. In retrospect, being more disciplined about my practice might have helped me roll with writing shit that comes up and school stuff, but ah well so it goes. I didn’t do that then.

When I moved back, I expected to jump back in with all my skill in tact like hey! READY! Nope. Did not work that way. It took months and maybe YEARS to get and surpass where I was when I left. Gah! Never again!

Things are shifting again. I no longer have a school or even a regular time that I practice at. This is a problem. I am worried about losing what I have gained through focused yet short practice. So I must get it back.

What I thought about today is how with writing whenever I feel like shit this is not working, how just doing something that I truly love –like have so much fun doing, brings me back. Recallibrates me. Today, I was like no, i HAVE to do tai chi during my lunch hour. Say what you like, but I can take at least 20-30 minutes and do a couple things with that. 

I did some of the stuff I usually do like I often start with a timed quiet standing. I time it so I don’t have to think about whether I’ve done it long enough. But really I do it so I can make sure I can still feel something when I do energy centric practice. I do 2 minutes though I feel something instantly in my forearms. Cool, checkmark. Then I just see if I can extend the feeling beyond my forearms. I try that until I figure out that my timer is going off and I’m not paying attention to it. I move on to something harder to do after this. Well, harder for me to do at least…

I ran through the whole Zheng Manqing 37 form. I usually don’t do that. I pick out a section or postures. Sometimes a sequence. I don’t always do the form as a whole because I feel more of a sustained stronger charge when I do postures or drills. When I do the whole thing, there are parts that are somewhat physically challenging while trying to do what I’m trying to do. At those points, I can lose my charge and literally be going through the motions. Not fun. I am less interested in that. It’s just not my thing to go through choreography. Which is why I do smaller sized movements and try to go deeper with them. 

So here was the learning today– I can get trapped into thinking that because I usually get what I’m looking for from the shorter practices that I should just concentrate that for my practice. Like when I’m really diligent with a certain drill or sequence, I can get a lot out of it. It’s not beginner’s luck, this happens every time I practice. Then, I go through a form and get overly critical about the parts that I’m not that great at. Like in this ZMQ37, I’m really not good at the whole Weaving Lady part AND IT PISSES ME OFF!! Okay, well, maybe it’s not that serious, but I don’t get much there energy wise as I do in other parts of the form. Which is totally fine except that I’m a perfectionist, haha… No but, going through the whole form was interesting. It got me thinking about different aspects I hadn’t considered and ways I could revamp my training.

Then I did some xingyi and so that is always been hardest for me, but I like to see where I can get with it. I did this drill from one of my teacher’s recent books and I’m like huh, I think I’m getting better at this! I feel more of what I think I’m supposed to be feeling. 

The thing is that today, while not necessarily a sort of omg I made such amazing discoveries!! 😍sort of moment, it was nice to just do the form and experience what popped up as I tried my best.

All this to say, that sometimes with getting back into practice, it’s good to just do it and pick something you either really enjoy doing or you know gets you results. 

Okay, I can pause here… For now.