My post from yesterday. Lots of musing. Many years ago, my last therapist told me, “Your brain got you into trouble; it’s not going to be what gets you out.” I can’t remmeber the exact problem we were talking about, but it’s true just in general. One of my autistic friends and I have had several converastions about how our brains work. She just shared with me that she thinks of her brain as a separate entity, which really resonated with me. And it lines up with the aforementioned aphorism from my therapist.
It doesn’t help with fixing the problem, of course, but it may help with me changing the way I think about it. For most of my life, I have really harangued myself for not being able to make myself do things that I know I should do. As I said to my friend, it’s so hard when I’m sitting at my computer and literally telling myself to go to bed. And then I just…don’t. I will be staring at the screen, not doing anything particularly important, chanting to myself, “Go to bed; go to bed; go to bed,” and then I don’t. For hours. While getting progressively madder at myself.
My Taiji/Bagua teacher gave me a suggestion, which is to do the Solo (Long) Form slowly until I’m bored and then go to bed. Like, really slowly. She had me practice doing the first section in five minutes–I can usually do it in about two. When she timed me, I did it with about 17 seconds to spare, which wasn’t bad. And, yes, the theory is that it’s so boring, it’ll put you to sleep. Which it is.
Look. The Solo (Long) Form is the basis for everything we do in Taiji, so I know I should treat it with respect. If I do it at normal speed, I feel good about it. Or rather, I feel as if I’m getting something out of it. But If I’m going to be brutally honest, I feel slightly bored as I do it. It’s never been my favorite, and it still isn’t. I hated it when I first started Taiji; I’m not going to lie. Then, I became studiedly neutral about it. Now, I’m warm about it because it has had such a positive effect on me, but is it my favorite thing in Taiji? No. Is it the thing I would first choose to ppractice? Also no. Or even the fifth? Once again, no.
But. And this is very important for me to emphasize. It’s the basis for everything we do, and I do at least once section of it every day. But that doesn’t mean that I love it or want to practice it. I don’t, and I don’t. It’s like veggies (if you don’t like them). You eat them because you know they’re good for you, even if you don’t like the taste of them.
I will probably never love the Solo (Long) Form; I’ll be honest with you. As much as I’ve come to appreciate it for what it is; it’s really the vanilla of martial arts to me. It’s funny because there’s a divide between two groups in Taiji. The ones who prefer hands only combat and those who prefer the weapons. I’m in the latter camp whereas my teacher is in the former.
It’s the reason I’ve started teaching myself weapon forms–because she’s not into them. Which means she can do some of them, but they are not her primary focus. Bless her, she never shows any impatience when I want to talk ad nauseam about the weapons, and she’s always willing to ask her teacher about weapons if she doesn’t know the answers.
Back to the Solo (Long) Form. The idea is to do one section of it as slowly as possible to bore myself to sleep. I loved that my teacher told me that because it showed that while she deeply respects Taiji, she isn’t above poking a fun at it. Which is true. She loves and respects Taiji, but she doesn’t treat it as sacrosanct. She told us it’s a living breathing thing–it’s not set in stone.
I really appreciate that because I tend to see things rigidly. When her teacher was making constant changes to the form, I really struggled with it. I will say, that I do think theer’s a happy mehdium between completely static and constant change, and personally, I needed some stability. That’s why I did not teach myself the entire third section of the left side of the Solo (Long) Form–which I’m planning to rectify now.
I’m going back to the beginning again, though, because I have not done more than the first section (left side) in quite some time. Starting next week, Im going to do the second section, and I’m hoping I can do it in two months. I just pulled that number out of my ass, but it feels about right. Ok, maybe three. Then, finally, on to the third section, which is longer than the first two sections combined.
My teacher has been chill about me not learning the left side of the Solo (Long) Form, but I feel bad about it. It’s something I should have done in my second or third year studying, and I’m now five times the latter. It’s a matter of pride, quite frankly, and also if I ever go back to in-studio classes, I need to know it. My teacher will want me to tutor because I am her most senior student and because I’m actually a good teacher. One of my ex classmates talked periodically about how I teached him Cloud Hands, which is one of my least-favorite postures. He said I explained it so clearly, he was surprised to learn that it’s my least-favorite posture.
It’s not because it’s hard, by the way. It’s because it’s just so boring and sometimes awkward. Plus, it’s the one that movies always use when they want to show people are Taiji practitioners because it looks so flowy and elegant. It’s not that hard as postures go, too, and you can fudge it to make it look better than it is.
I have felt guilty about not loving the Solo (Long) Form for a long time, but I’ve made my peace with it. I don’t actively hate it, and that’s good enough for me.