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Jan.-April. 2016 Schedule
Date: Wednesday, Jan. 20th
Location: Crossings in Downtown Silver Spring, MD
- Beginner 1 (Postures 1-12) 6:30 - 7:30 pm
- Beginner 2 (Postures 13-24) 7:30 - 8:30 pm
- Corrections (all 37 Postures) 8:30 - 9:30 pm
Date: Thursday, Jan. 21st
Location: CityDance at Tenley Washington DC
- Beginner 1 (Postures 1-12) 6:45 - 7:45 pm
- Beginner 2 (Postures 13-24) 7:45 - 8:45 pm
- Corrections (all 37 Postures) 8:45 - 9:45 pm
Date: Sunday, Jan. 24th
Location: CityDance at Strathmore North Bethesda, MD
- Corrections (all 37 postures) 9:00 - 10:00 am
- Sensing Hands (Corrections students) 10:00 - 11:00 am
- Beginner 2 (Postures 13-24) 11:00 -12:00 pm
- Beginner 1 (Postures 1-12) 12:00 pm - 1:00 pm
- Correction Sword (Permission required) 7:00 pm - 8:30 pm
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follow Cloud Hands Tai Chi
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...feeling small and insignificant?
Contemplating the Universe got you down?
- Physicist, Stephen Hawkins, provides an illuminating answer.
The great physicist, Stephen Hawkings, was once asked if his comprehension of the Universe, given its vast, seemingly limitless size with an endless number of galaxies, stars and planets, ever made him feel small and insignificant. He replied that what he found amazing was that something so small and insignificant as one human being, living on one of those innumerable planets, could comprehend something so vast and limitless as the Universe.
Practicing T’ai Chi with a quiet heart/mind carries within it the possibility of opening and connecting that same heart/mind to the body, to the emotions, to others, to the world and, in the immortal words of Dr. Seuss, to all that lies “on beyond Zebra”.
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A Starry Night...
and the "Not-Doing" of Winter
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Back, by popular demand a reprint from 2012...(AKA, Thanks for asking, Lauretta)
Years ago I was sitting with my daughter on a sled at the top of a hill, gazing out at the setting sun. Everyone else had gone home. The cheery, squealing, delight of children at play had faded, gradually giving way to empty space and the hushing silence of falling snow. We watched as the sun’s fires slowly melted into the far side of the earth. When the last of its glowing embers blackened into darkness, a cold, quiet settled on our little corner of the world. Night had come and with it the profound silence and stillness of winter.
As the frozen night air nipped at our faces, Maya and I nestled together, surrounded by an igloo of jackets, scarves, pants, hats and mittens. Stars shone overhead, like icy diamonds, sharing a frozen light from long, long ago. We sat and watched as that empty stillness settled onto the ground, slowly spreading out with the silent stealth of fog. The very sound of breath was snatched from our mouths, disappearing into a voiceless world. The memory of Spring and all thought of dancing barefoot in the sun were swallowed up and buried, deep within the heart of the “not-doing” that is winter.
The movements of the T’ai Chi form are rooted in the concept of “wu wei”, “not-doing”. In the T’ai Chi Classics, the ancient writings that have guided the development of the art through the years, there is a saying:
“Be as still as a mountain,
move like a great river.”
In T’ai Chi we must take the quiet of winter into our own hearts and listen…. for Spring, for movement, for the timing of, “when”, … when to move. We listen for what Professor Cheng called "shr jung" *, or “right timing”. The question of when and how to move in T’ai Chi, is answered in this quieting of the mind and listening with the heart. In the T’ai Chi Classics this is what is meant by “Be as still as a mountain”. We listen for the timing that allows us to stay connected to the ease within the movement, to the “flow”… what the Classics describe as “move like a great river”. It is essentially a question of “not-doing” anything that disrupts our connection to that flow. In the words of the great Chinese philosopher, Lao Tzu, “In doing nothing, nothing is left undone”.
It is not the frontal cortex that decides when to move in T’ai Chi. We cannot reason our way to the timing of the flow. In T’ai Chi the “T” in “think” is too late. We have to feel and listen, be receptive and open, and most of all, to follow. According to Professor Cheng, we need to “invest in loss”, so that we may learn to follow. In my understanding and personal experience, this relates to a loss of ego…to be willing to invest in the loss of subtle and not-so-subtle feelings of self-importance. It relates to the rigidity of my knowledge of how to do this thing we call T’ai Chi. On the brick wall of my self-awareness, right next to the doorway to the flow, there is an indentation. This indentation is where my head has repeatedly insisted is the correct location of that doorway to the flow. Self-awareness is better found through reflection, than an inflexible determination. Looking inside our selves is like looking at the surface of a lake. We need quiet and inactivity to see an accurate reflection…in a word, we need Winter.
One of the things I love about T’ai Chi is that what I learn in practicing the form is so transferable to my life. That night, on a cold hillside with my daughter, was an example of “right-timing” in my life. In the “not-doing” of sitting in the snow, watching as day turned to night, I felt nurtured by my connection to my little Maya. I also felt connected to that cold silence that surrounded us. Little, tiny us, Maya and Michael, somewhere on the surface of the planet earth, sitting on a hillside in the dead of winter, aware and feeling connected to each other, to the season, to the world, to the setting sun, to the stars and to that within which it all resides.
Peace and all good things to each of you,
Michael
* (Professor Cheng chose "Shr Jung" as the name for his Tai Chi schools in Taipei and NYC)
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Sat. Morning Practice: Thanksgiving Parade Update
Every year on the Saturday before Thanksgiving those who attend the Saturday morning Tai Chi practice are provided with a unique challenge when attempting to "Quiet the Mind". On that particular Saturday our practice area is also the staging ground for the Montgomery County Thanksgiving Day Parade. This year did not rival the 2014 Parade warm-up, though. Still present were the simultaneously rehearsing marching bands that filled a five-story parking, as were the loudspeakers playing Christmas-themed music at the Parade reviewing stand. Missing from last year, however, were the half-dozen bagpipers (who sounded like they could blow the carbon out of large-bore 426 HEMI 'Cuda's engine), as well as the roar of the Zamboni's engine as it cleared the ice-skating rink in front of our practice area.
The magic moment this year came as the marching bands' brass sections gave way, allowing the air to fill with nothing but the sound of drums. As each drum-line completed for supremacy with all the others, the thunder echoing from the parking garage rose like a tidal wave. Just as I pictured Japanese Taiko drummers beating on drums the size of small houses, something else slipped into my ear. Somewhere, bobbing on that tidal wave of sound, slipping quietly up and down its face, was a child's voice. Faint, at first barely audible, it grew in strength and clarity, until finally, I recognized the words; words belonging to a song. A song that had bravely fought its way from the reviewing stand's loudspeakers, through the thunderous maelstrom of drumming to reach my ear. Those words were, as it turned out, also the name of the song...
"I saw Mommy kissing Santa Claus..."
Having the equivalent of Japanese Taiko drummers playing as the house band for "I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus" during a Tai Chi practice session, epitomizes why this particular Saturday practice has become my favorite on of the year.
* Saturday practice will continue outdoors through December 19th (last Saturday in the current session). Check back here for updates regarding location and dates for the Saturday practice during the break from classes.
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