TAI CHI IS LOST ON ME
By Christine Trzyna
By Christine Trzyna
If you've ever needed slow paced gentle exercise, you've probably been recommended to a Tai Chi class. Tai Chi seems to have more of a guarantee than Yoga does that it will remain slow paced and gentle. Twice now I've studied Tai Chi at low cost classes taught by dedicated devotees. The exercise is said to help you heal faster, keep aging at bay, and prevent major illnesses. Of course many people who practice Tai Chi are also dedicated to healthy lifestyles, careful of what they eat, avoiding smoking, alcohol, and drugs too, so who can say for sure it's the Tai Chi? The other benefit of Tai Chi is that it's supposed to be relaxing.
Unfortunately I've never experienced relaxation by practicing Tai Chi. I am one of those "Monkey Brained" people who gets more bored the slower it goes. "What's next?" I want to know. I quit one class after learning the form over months of time just about when we were to start learning the form backwards. I just didn't see the point. I buy that new circuits wired for Tai Chi develop in your brain after practice. I can probably still do the form years later, without practice. But I never seem to be inspired to do so.
I think mental - intellectual - stimulation is very important to my overall happiness, so I don't want to be bored. That's why it perplexes me that the crossword puzzle set is taking to Tai Chi at senior centers.
Often you hear that Tai Chi is the basis of all martial arts. It was the first monastic means to self protect without harming, a Buddhist traveler's mode. So originally it must have been practiced singularly. Maybe what appeals to the seniors is the Group Mind of it.
Watching a group practicing Tai Chi in unison, the silence of it, is more relaxing to me than being one of the group. Yet Group Mind makes me want to rankle for very Westernized individualism.
I like yoga classes where you can keep your own pace if you fall behind or want to go more slowly, where you aren't stressed or strained, and the exertion of a "good" class leaves me in a final relaxation in which my mind is shut off and I can go off somewhere out there for a spell. Five minutes of this deep rest can be energizing as well, once you come back and go off to a productive day.
C Christine Trzyna 2008
