I don't know much about my body
A week ago today Daniel Lee posted a tai chi course on YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/c/MasterDanielLeeTaiChiQigong/videos. So I watched one titled "What Is Tai Chi? Finally Explained." Since then I have gone through his five-lesson course in tai chi. More precisely the beginner version of an abbreviated form of wu style tai chi. There is also an advanced version of the short form but I have not watched those videos.
I have practiced every day since, watching at most one new video per day. Yesterday I completed the sequence. It takes a couple of minutes to go through the form. The end position is the same as the start position so I usually loop through several iterations.
The first time I watched a lesson it was awkward to get the movements right. Daniel Lee does an excellent job explaining, with ample repetition, the movements in each lesson. And the movements themselves are not that demanding of agility, strength, or balance. The sequence of the movements, however, requires relaxed focus to perform gracefully. With repetition my focus improved, to where I could relax and flow from pose to pose. I still make mistakes, but I take them in stride and move on as best I can.
The morning after the first lesson I was a bit sore in my hips. The morning after the fourth lesson (single whip) I was sore in both hips and lower back, no doubt from the horse stance. That morning I did sitting zhan zhuang for over an hour, which remedied the soreness. As I sat it occurred to me that I was not impervious to injury, that the fitness level I had attained was not total, that there is no such thing as total fitness, that my body is a mystery and I don't know much about it. I suppose that holds for most everything,
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