When people talk about the benefits of Taiji, often they mean the health benefits–both physical and mental. Sometimes, there’s the added talk of how it helps shift your mindest becaause the basic tenet of Taiji is that you take is what is given to you and return it. It’s also known as the lazy person’s… Continue Reading
I am AFAB and a part of two different cultures that put a heavy emphasis on performing femininity. That would be American and Taiwanese. It’s insidious in both cultures, though in differing ways. Taiwanese culture, at least through my parents, is regressive, stifling, and has rigid gender expectations. Every time I’ve been there, I have… Continue Reading
Most of the time, I prefer to follow a schedul and am rather rigid in my way of thinking. This is fine until the routine becomes a rut. I love Taiji, but I will admit that for the last six months or so, I was less-than-enthused about it. I’m weird in that while I vastly… Continue Reading
After a few posts in which I went down several side paths, I finally began to talk about Bagua in the last post I wrote. I don’t know much about the history, but what I do know is that the founder, Dong Haichuan/Hai Chuan, used DeerHorn Knives (real ones, not steel ones) in his own… Continue Reading
Yesterday, I was going to write about Bagua and then went completely off the rails. Well, not completely. It was tangential to what I was talking about, but it did relate. I was writing about my mother’s ability to gaslight me about past events, but with utter sincerity on her part. Because of this, I… Continue Reading
I’m 52 years old. That’s incredible to me. Not just becuase I should be dead, but because as people smarter than I have said, time just flies by. It makes sense. When you’re ten, a year is a tenth of your life. When you’re fifty, it’s a fiftieth. Yes, it’s the same amount of time,… Continue Reading
So I have a daily martial arts routine. I used to call it my Taiji routine, but I have added Bagua to it so ‘martial arts’ routine or ‘internal martial arts’ routine is more apt. I have evolved it to the point where it’s an hour long (if I don’t stop and scroll on my… Continue Reading
Day Three of flu shot. Well, two-and-a-half, really. I got it around four on Thursday and as I’m writing this, it’s one in the afternoon on Saturday. My teacher has Covid and had to cancel the class today. I was glad because I’m exhausted. My arm is a bit sore, buthere is barely a welt.… Continue Reading
Day Two of the flu shot. And, yes, I am going to be doing areport on it, much as I did with the Covid booster. I’m very tired. My arm is sore, but not bad. And not a welt. I can’t stop holding my breath yet because it was the night of day two for… Continue Reading
This is the first day in two weeks I’ve been able to do a full Taiji/Bagua routine. And it feels really good! For the past two weeks, I’ve been doing portions of it because of my reaction to the booster shot. In the first few days after, I mostly did stretches and warm-ups. I was… Continue Reading