Let’s actually talk about burnout today (as it relates to my neurodivergence). Here’s my post from yesterday where I talked about burnout, toxic positivity, and other things. It’s been interesting to go through it, to actually realize it’s burnout in real time, and then to deal with my warring sides about it. One side of me thinks, “Just push through it. It’s no big deal. You idiot.” The other side recognizes that if I do that, I’m just going to feel worse and worse about it.
Back when I first started Taiji, I had to force myself to practice five minutes a day, and I did it by tricking my brain. First, I added two classes a week so I was going to a total of three a week. Then, I told myself than I would just do five minutes of stretching a day. I slowly started adding pieces to it, and it’s up to an hour-and-a-half now. Stretching/warmups for both Taiji and Bagua; one part of the Solo Form (Taiji) and the Swimming Dragon Form, alternating right side and left side (Bagua); then weapons for both disciplines. The stretching, warmups, and Solo Form/Swimming Dragon Form take forty-five minutes to fifty minutes, depending. The weapons take about a half hour to forty-five minutes because I’m teaching myself the Bagua Knives Form.
I’m always teaching myself a new weapon form these days, so that takes up a big part of my practice when I’m actively teaching myself a new movement or three. I’m almost done with the Bagua Knives Form, and I don’t know what I’m going to do next. I would like it to be Double Swords, but I cannot find one that is based in Taiji.
Today, for the first time, I decided not to do the Swimming Dragon Form or the Bagua Knives Form. I was exhausted because my sleep has been really shitty, and I mean really shitty. I’m always baseline tired, but I’ve been having even worse sleep problems lately. I’m trying to make sure that I get up at 2 p.m. consistently in the vain hope that it would spur me to get to bed at a consisten hour as well. So far, that has not happened, and it’s in part because I keep doing the same habits.
The last time I talked to my Taiji teacher, she was very encouraging of me varying my practice so that I wouldn’t get burnout. This is one of the things I like about her–she never pushes people to do things harder, faster, better. She encourages us to take our time and to take as much time as we need to learn things.
She likes to say that we have all the time in the world, meaning that we don’t have to get anything in any set amount of time. She will gently push people to try new things when she feels they’re ready, and in my case, not-so-gently push. That’s a plus, by the way, because I tend to drag my heels in trying something new. This is very much a part of me, and it’s not something I like about myself.
I’ve told this a million times, but when my teacher first suggested the Sword Form, I strongly rejected her. I told her I would never do weapons (ha!) and that they were repulsive to me. She told me later that many women reacted that way in part because of the strong message to women to be nice and compliant.
Side note: When I first got really into weapons, I would tweet excitedly about them on Twitter back when it wasn’t a complete cesspool of hate and vitriol, and I would get distinctly separate responses from men and women (we weren’t as aware of the nonbinary/genderfluid/agender at that time). Men would tweet me and tell me how hot it was in either explicit or implicit terms. They would talk about women bearing weapons scenes in movies in very excited tones, implying that this was what they thought of when I brought up weapons.
Female cops talk about how this is an issue when they try to date (if they’re dating men). Once the men find out the woman they’re trying to date is a cop, one of two things happens. They are either completely turned off and/or afraid of the female cop, or they are completely turned on in a creepy way. I got a lot of the latter when I tweeted about my love for weapons, and it never failed to make me sad/put me on my guard.
As for women, they went in a vastly different direction. They were appalled and horrify that I would do anything so violent. I wasn’t as put off by that because I felt the same way before I actually started doing weapons. I tried to explain, though, that it wasn’t about violence–though it was about combat. It was still Taiji, after all. I can remember one woman I had been very friendly with express her surprise and disappointment with me for getting so into weapons. I tried to explain it as best as I could, but she never really got past it. She wasn’t as friendly to me after that.
It showed how much we pressure women to be as meek and subservient as possible. Also, the misconception that being able to defend yourself is violent. Again, I’m not blaming her because I felt the same way until I started learning Taiji. It’s so ingrained in us because society, it’s really hard to unpack/get rid of.
For me, attending my teacher’s Push Hands for Women really helped. Being able to do something like Push Hands with only women made it much more relaxing. No worries about macho flexing or trying to tiptoe around fragile male egos. It was liberating!
There was also a definitive moment when my teacher first talk me how to walk the circle with Deerhorn Knives. This was back when I could not do the meditation. I would walk the circle insteead, and as I was doing so, I would imagine an opponent in the middle of the circle. As I was doing it, I had a flash of, “If it’s you or me–it’s going to be me.” Meaning, I would save myself by killing the other person.
Now, despite how it sounds, this was not about violence. It was about self-preservation, and it was the first time in my life I felt I was worthy of saving. Meaning, I felt my life meant enough to defend if when push came to shove.
This may sound minor, but it was a huge revelation to me. Up until that point (this was when I was thirty-seven or eight), I would have adamantly said that I would allow someone to kill me before I lifted a hand against them. That’s because I was taught that my life was worthless except for how I could serve other people.
I was a professed pacifist until that point, and in a flash, I shed that label. Not that I suddenly wanted to go around punching everyone in the face, but that I would defend myself and mine. (Mine meaning those I love.)
More on this tomorrow.