I don't ask for the sights in front of me to change, only the depth of my seeing.

—Mary Oliver

Taijiquan is built on softness, yielding and spirit. We fall in love with each until they are all we are and all there is.

Zheng Manqing's famous Taiji hand. Relaxed, soft & accommodating (yielding), with space between each finger. Try to get the feet the same. Toes all separate and somewhat independent of each other.

We don't get sad anymore, we get depressed.

In more than thirty years of research, I’ve discovered a very important truth about human psychology: certainty is a cruel mindset. It hardens our minds against possibility and closes them to the world we actually live in.

—Ellen J Langer, Counterclockwise: Mindful Health and the Power of Possibility, Penguin, 2009

attentive without being obtrusive

The psychology of possibility

roots & transformations

When I die I suspect the first question I'll be asked is not how good have I been but have I actually lived.

attention, care & concern

I have had two Taiji teachers: firstly John Kells (1984-2006) and secondly Nitsan Michaeli (2007-2010). Their approaches are miles apart. John's work (and life) was all spirit whereas Nitsan works almost exclusively on the root. But they have three crucial things in common: both love Taiji, both stress that Taiji is all about connexion, and both consider Enlightenment a hoax.

The authentic life: all attention (head), gut-feelings (belly), and spirit (heart).

Eight years ago, at John's funeral, I had a little word with each family member (all of whom I knew well). His younger sister Valerie had a few years before married a Muslim and had converted to Islam. They had since divorced so I assumed that her Islam, like her previous Catholicism, would have lapsed, but there she was, clearly dressed as a Muslim woman. I said to her, I thought she would have given all that up. "Steven, it's not something you grow out of, it's something you grow more and more into!" Ah, just like Taiji, I thought.

Poetry is a pheasant disappearing in the brush.

—Wallace Stevens

Meditation: time out of the language centre

Hail-fellow-well-met

from the archaic salutation

"Hail, fellow! Well met!"

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