Good Stance
<<2003-01-28 - 1:12 p.m.>>

By the end of last semester, I'd built up my leg muscles (and certain arm muscles) to the point that I no longer felt shaky and weak by the end of class, but it's been a month and I'm a noodle again.

I'm in a class now where half of the people are way beyond me in skill level—they've already finished the third section of the hand form, which is much harder and longer than the first two, which are all I've done—not even, I'm still working on the second section. Yes, the other half of the class is at my level, but still.

When we did Needle at the Sea Bottom, which involves placing basically all of your body weight on one leg and bending it, I thought I was going to collapse. I'm definitely going to be sore in the morning.

But it's a pleasant going-to-be-soreness, a living-in-my-body kind of going-to-be-soreness. I was chatting with Dave, the instructor, after class, and I mentioned that I would have to find someplace in New York to continue over the summer if I didn't want to get as worn out as I am now (except four times worse) when I come back in September. He got really excited, and told me that a friend of his teaches in New York, and one of the great masters is coming to the city in July, and another friend teaches in Jersey, etc.—and then he told me that he thought I should stick with it, that I have great form, a good stance.

Hell yeah.

That was just incredible to hear. Maybe because I always feel a little (or a lot) awkward doing physical things, a little self-conscious. But I like Tai Chi, and I enjoy the thought that my appreciation for Tai Chi translates into the appropriate sense of space that is good form. I unfurl out into my body, and that, apparently, is visible in my Ward Off, in my White Crane Cooling Its Wings, my Brush Knee and Push, my Single Whip.

I have a stable stance and a sense of space.

I want to be readable, I want people to look at my face and know what I'm thinking, I want them to look at my body and know what I feel. I want to be one tightstrung web, all the synapses firing, all the links in place. Yes, I know just a week ago I wanted to be a mystery woman.

Reading Laura. God, I am so unpoetic. I bought Elizabeth Bishop's letters today. Maybe that will help (consumption, save me).

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