This Ain't Your Taekwondo, BABY.

Am I Qigong-ing right...?

I woke up in my usual dysthymic funk, but two hours at tai chi and I walked out a different person.

Today we started with 30 minutes of Qigong that nearly broke me, which is a lot harder than it looks. After sweating like pigs doing that, we had 10 minutes to “dry our pits” as one old gal put it, and then it was right into the long form. The good news is that I started out strong: went through all my moves PERFECTLY fairly well up to where I’ve been taught (by Sifu anyway, wink, wink, I’m lookin at you, Bob) and then I belly-crawled in abject humiliation quietly made my way to the practice area. Sifu (his name is Dmitry, he’s Greek) was waiting there for me.

“Who taught you that last move?” He said.

“Which move?” I asked, locking a clear side-eye on Bob.

For twenty minutes or so, Dmitry walked me through the next steps in the form, practiced with me, corrected for balance and posture. I had a bit of a breakthrough when he said (first to me, and then more loudly to everyone because it's not already humiliating enough in a class of 15 there are about 12 of us from the same martial arts background), Dmitry said, in his Sifu voice: “Remember, those of you — this is not your taekwondo!”

It is really hard to do this in slo-mo, you guys. 

He’s been saying this for weeks, but for once it made sense. So much of what happens in taekwondo relies on momentum to carry the move through. This is not true with tai chi, where every move is very slow, very deliberate. There is momentum of a sort, but of a completely different nature.

I’ve been killing myself by tensing every muscle, by crouching too deep, by extending too far. It’s impossible to extend, crouch, tense as much as I’m doing at the slow pace of tai chi. You can’t “cheat” with forward momentum; it’s all about balance and control, baby.

Anyway, it was so much easier on my joints after that, the balance evened out and it felt really good. I’m looking forward to going on Tuesday.