Archive for April, 2009
Two Ways to Reach Out for Real
Published Thursday, April 30th, 2009 by S.Smith
You’ve used the terms: Yin and Yang. And you know, at least abstractly, what they mean.
Yin suggests things like dark and receptive and open and soft and easy and relaxed and feminine and expansive. Yang asserts stuff like light, creative, closed, rigid, tough, tense, masculine, directive.
But you knew that.
I bet you’ve explained Yin and Yang, to someone or other, once or twice.
It’s so abstract. And Yin and Yang, while you may recognize them in weird, conceptual, intellectual kinds of ways (it’s okay: these are legitimate ways)…the juice and guts of Taijiquan digest and release Yin and Yang quite concretely. (Is that a gripping metaphor?)
Try this → hold your arms out. Right now, get the feel for this. (You can do this right at your computer.) Hold your forearms out, parallel to the floor, palms down, fingertips pointing away to the horizon or the wall. Call that neutral. It’s a nice position, hands hovering over your keyboard.
Now point your fingers downward, noting the bend in the wrist. It’s flexion at the wrist joint: call it Yin.
Next, point those fingers up from neutral: extension at the wrist is called Yang. Your forearm, wrist, hand, and palm are Yang. It’s a real, concrete exploration of universal principles…and I offer you the nomenclature right now, so we can finesse this topic (a little now and a lot later).
That mini exploration explores the existence of Yin and Yang. But it’s static…moving enriches it.
The wrist that is Yang cannot act Yang. The Yang wrist creates Yin energy. Likewise, wrists that are Yin cannot act Yinnily. Yin arms offer Yang expression. Watch, I’ll show you….
One Bold Reason to Live
Published Tuesday, April 28th, 2009 by S.Smith
It’s a bold and courageous act.
It’s so courageous that few people pull it off.
It’s simple, it seems…but it’s so hard to do and—it’s even tougher to maintain. So it becomes complex.
Take off your Mask of Boredom.
People and cultures and advertising and your most intimate social network all try to trap you. Your Tai Chi school or your parish or your drinking buddies will try, one day or another, to weigh you down with…
You can’t.
It’s impossible.
You’re not ready.
You’ll hear one of those, or something like it. And the idea, coupled with your belief in it, the philosophies surrounding it, and all the circular, intellectual arguments for it, will keep you from the one bold act.
The One Bold Reason to Live….
To Experience Awe and Wonder
First: take off your Mask of Boredom.
All around you everyday, colleagues, coworkers, friends, and loved-ones act crabby, put-off, angry, submissive, and ignorant. Rude people radiate rudeness and it’s catchy. It’s easy to catch it. But it’s not brave and it’s not powerful. To reflect and refine crabbiness only reinforces it.
Removing the Boring, Submissive, Bitter Mask breaks patterns and stirs anxiety. It’s tough. It leaves a wake of emptiness. Because crabby and ignorant and submissive give you permission to bitch and complain. Removing the Boredom Mask is tough. You don’t have to… You can keep on acting ignorant and timid.
To take off the Mask of Boredom takes guts.