ouch!

it was a difficult start this morning. i was hit by a bicycle on the way to Tai Chi. yes, a bicycle thwacked the front of my car. i had stopped at the traffic lights waiting to turn left. yes, moving bicycle rides into stationary car. threatened and abused, i walked into class, the unhappy recipient of cyclist rage. why he felt i had done him wrong i still don't understand. and how he managed to ride into me, i did not see and do not understand. nonetheless i am the big bad car driver and he's gonna report me. gulp. why didn't i ride my bike to class this morning?

energy did not really settle throughout the class, despite danya's best efforts in assisting me to consolidate what i had learned for the past 4-5 lessons. i could feel my body bunch up. a nothing.

why is it that i can only ever remember as much as up to the lesson before last? it is as if everything i learned from the lesson before is erased from the memory. does everyone go through this, or is it just me?

as i left class, walking back to the car, i felt a stretchy pain down the front of my lower legs.

Unpacking

Moving house has been an enormous upheaval. Now, surrounded by boxes, i am in chaos attempting to unpack and re-order my life around a new space, a place that doesn't quite feel like home yet.

Each day i do a little bit. Unpack a couple of items here, move a pile of stuff from this room to the next, fold some clothes and put them away. All little things, which at the end of the day, seem to have made little difference to the overall disorder surrounding me. i can satisfy myself with small gains. a little more room in the study, some more plates to use in the kitchen.

Today i realise that this is how it is. For a long time it will seem like such small incremental moves, with very little change to the overall situation - still living amongst the clutter of cardboard boxes. then one day, very suddenly all these little unpacking actions will add up, and i will wake up and find myself living in an orderly and homely space with all my stuff neatly arranged around me. i'll be able to move freely from one room to the other without tripping over boxes and dodging piles of stuff in odd corners.

This is mirrored in my Tai Chi practice. Amidst the clutter of movements, i manage to piece together some little bits here and there, feeling at most disordered. There is a sense of unpacking, where each new movement that becomes integrated into my body unwinds some part of my being. Sometimes effects chaos in my life and other times it is more subtle.

Perhaps there will come a day when i wake up one morning and it all fits together effortlessly and with complete ease.

Skin Deep

Is this about Tai Chi, or is this about life?

I recently purchased some facial cleanser from the Dr Hauschka range. with this i got the spiel on how their cleanser works differently from others on the market. More surprising though i discovered that Dr Hauschka recommend no nightly application of moisturiser. why? because according to them it teaches the skin to be lazy. conventional wisdom teaches to first cleanse the skin then apply moisturiser. but no, says Dr Hauschka, just cleanse the skin and let it sit with nothing on overnight. this gives the skin time to replenish and moisturise itself by producing its own oils. something it can easily "forget" how to do if moisturiser is regularly used.

over the weekend sue and i were discussing gender roles. her view is that perhaps we woman have too high an expectation of men as partners. after all, she says, men simply aren't equipped to provide women with emotional support in a relationship, but they can be good at providing the practical stuff. this means we women have become adept at seeking emotional nurturing and support from our women friends.

but surely, i'm thinking, would it be that men could grow lazy, like the skin and "forget" how to relate on an emotional level. so in fact if we stopped relying on women for emotional support and put that expectation back on (male) partners, this would encourage men to develop that capacity within themselves.

its a thought.

and here's one from Elizabeth Sigmund:

"True beauty comes from within,
our skin reflects this beauty."