Faulk TaiChi

Learn the beautiful, flowing movements for health and relaxation.

Moving Energy Together

By

On Saturday, April 27,  thousands of people across 70 countries, brought attention and intention to their breathing. It was World Tai Chi & QiGong Day, when at 10 a.m. in every time zone individuals brought intentional breathing to spread peace across the world.  Some of my Tai Chi students stopped to remember and breathe in their living rooms and some remembered when walking down the street. I took the opportunity to take a Tai Chi class planned for the morning, to be with others who would be doing Tai Chi, sending collective breath and movement throughout the world.

The next afternoon I co-led a Tai Chi workshop with Chris Cinnamon from Enso Tai Chi in Chicago. We invited our students to join us in an afternoon of moving our Qi (life-force energy), reinforcing underlying principles of Tai Chi and learning new moves from both Tai Chi and QiGong forms. The spirit in the room was calm, yet very alive. The spirit of the students was eager, but not anxious. The openness was everywhere, in everyone.

For a recap of that experience, check out Chris Cinnamon’s blog: www.chicagotaichi.org/blog

With both of these experiences, I was reminded of the power of Tai Chi and QiGong for reducing stress and anxiety, for promoting balance, for managing chronic conditions. I could go on and on. I was reminded of the amazing knowledge and wisdom of Chinese masters who so skillfully developed these movements that have the potential to heal and change lives profoundly. I was reminded that even in a classroom of people moving together, the experience is essentially an individual one. Each person starts with wherever her or his body and mind are and goes from there. The collective movement of energy serves to enhance the individual’s quality of daily life.

I think quality of our life depends, in part, on taking time to slow down, to be present, to breathe, and to be open to healthy ways of moving our bodies and clearing our minds. . . and to be passionate about something that says ‘yes’ to life. Tai Chi is one of those ‘somethings’.

Always in Motion

By

We may think of our lives in  years, decades or milestones that are memorable. We may reflect on our lives like chapters in a book — the struggle with a controlling father, confiding and relying on a best friend, the career launch, the career stall, finding true love, falling out of love, the child-rearing years, the middle-life crisis, the “golden” years. Many joys. Many disappointments. Many starts and many stops. And some of us may think of our lives as a journey, whether meandering or purposeful, moving like a river, twisting and turning around rocks, trees, always moving forward or sideways or detouring to a point unknown.

In Tai Chi we are always moving, slowly and with purpose. We don’t have sudden starts and stops. Of course, when learning a new move, we have to start, stop, do it again and again, so our body starts to remember what our mind is taking in and directing our body to do. With practice, we start to flow, shift our weight with fluidity and continual motion.

Bill, one of my teachers at the recent Tai Chi workshop I attended, said “every move has a beginning and end, but no pause. It doesn’t stop.” Tai Chi is continuous motion which creates stillness within. Most of us, in some way, would like that stillness, the calm that makes us feel really good.

Last night I saw a documentary, “Never Stand Still”, about the innovative dance school at Jacob’s Pillow in Massachusetts. It’s been an incubator for individual dancers throughout the world for decades, to experiment, to move in new ways, to develop new skills, to express the joy of life through movement. In their dance movements there was a beginning, an end and no pause.

Tai Chi and dance are good models and metaphors for all our lives. For each of us, whether we think in years, chapters or journeys, there is motion and movement, whether we feel it or not. It doesn’t stop.