Make Your Life Your Work
Beautiful morning for practice on the wharf. The sun peeking through the layers of clouds, lighting up the bottom of the clouds and the top of the water with gold sparkles. After practice I went for a walk on Water St. which is the main commercial street in Port Townsend, and, as the name implies, runs along the water. A couple of blocks to the west from the wharf is a used book store. They usually have a couple of boxes of books sitting in front of the store, and people can take them for free. I usually stop and look through them.
This morning there was a book entitled “ Make Your Life Your Work”. This could be the story of my Tai Chi career. There are so many lessons that Tai Chi philosophy/training has to offer that one certainly could never know it all. I have spent the last 50 years studying and teaching this wonderful art, and it is my sincere goal to help others along a path to health and happiness, so they can also say, “I am doing my life’s work, and I love it.” Fortunate are those of us who don’t have to separate a 9 to 5 job from the activities that we really enjoy.
As I have shared with you before, each and everyone of us is born unique, with some special skill area. It is just a matter of finding this “life practice”. I was a lost soul until I came upon Master Choy and his style of Tai Chi Chuan. It set me on the path from which I have never wavered. I want you to find your “Dependable Strength”, whether it be Tai Chi or something else. I wish you the best of luck.
Special Practices Workshop
Greetings. The First Saturday Workshop is a great opportunity for instructors and students to get together to learn and practice Tai Chi related activities that will fit in the three hour workshop time frame, and whose study, will augment our primary Tai Chi form practice.
This month – Dec. 1, 1 to 4 PM, I will be sharing what I call “Special Practices”. This is a combination of solo and partner exercises, using bare hands, sticks and other implements to attain a deeper understanding of what Tai Chi is and how it is put together. This will be fun and beneficial for students of all levels as well as other instructors. Most of the exercises are ones that I have made up and evolved through the years. Lots of focus on breathing, sensitivity, awareness. Not restricted to students of our form. I guarantee you’ll come away from the workshop energized and excited to apply the learning to your own practice.