Tai Chi: A strange and powerful dance of freedom

Tai Chi: A strange and powerful dance of freedom

“The key is to be in a permanent state of connection with your inner body, to feel it all the time, and your life will rapidly deepen and change.” ~Eckhart Tolle “The Power of Now”

As I walk through my morning Tai Chi walk, I say to myself, “Relax your shoulders, keep your head high, and keep your feet on the ground.” Although still dark, he knows his movements and his arms and legs move confidently and easily.

For most of my life, I have been an anxious person. I didn’t know I had anxiety, even though it was trying to speak to me as body tension, shallow breathing, chaotic thoughts, and extreme emotions. For me, it was just a normal, basic state of life. Until one day, anxiety finally caught my attention. That afternoon, I collapsed on the floor with severe back pain, couldn’t move my legs, and had to spend some time in bed.

The pain was excruciating and debilitating. The doctor said I had a herniated disc and recommended surgery. I didn’t think surgery was right for me, so I started looking into other options.

Miraculously, I came across Thomas Hanna’s book Somatics, or Reawakening the Mind’s Control of Movement, Flexibility, and Health. The book explained the root of my problem in black and white. I had chronic muscle contractions in my lower back.

The book states that when chronic stress causes muscles to contract repeatedly over a long period of time, the tension can become so severe that the muscles can no longer relax. The tension puts pressure on the nerves, causing pain.

I started an exercise program described in the book that helped me relax the muscles in my body. Exercises are based on the development of physical awareness. I also continued to practice yoga and deep breathing, and finally decided that I needed therapy to address the root of my stress, which was living emotionally abandoned and neglected as a child.

In therapy, we did family work and forgiveness work. I also worked on building my confidence and self-esteem by taking on difficult professional tasks, learning public speaking, and traveling the world for work. The anxiety was still always present, but I could now feel it, understand its signals, and respond with somatic awareness exercises and deep breathing.

In 2016, I attended a Tai Chi class. I had no idea what I was doing and was just following the cues of my kind instructor, but something amazing happened to me. I felt like I was inside myself. My body and brain connected through a different movement than usual, and I felt a freedom of movement that I had never experienced before. At that moment, I knew I would be dancing this strange and powerful dance of freedom forever.

It takes time to learn Tai Chi forms, but I started learning them little by little, watching instructor Florinda’s classes like a hawk and practicing the movements I had memorized at home. I also asked a few women in my group if they wanted to practice with me outside of class. We danced together ancient Tai Chi moves under an ancient oak tree near Lake Pontchartrain in south Louisiana.

Over time, I began to feel more free and connected to myself and the world. This is how I felt at a young age in my childhood memories. On an average day, my anxiety started to decrease.

Tai Chi originates from Asian martial arts traditions and is translated from Mandarin as supreme ultimate, cosmic mind, or universe. It is over 2000 years old. The movements of Tai Chi are beautiful, unique, asymmetrical, rhythmic, centered, and grounded. When practicing TC, you move from side to side, back and forth, and sometimes in circles, but you rarely stand on both feet and most often balance on one foot or the other.

The best way to describe TC is that in its movement, somehow we are able to relax and move and breathe with the breath and rhythm of life. Or, perhaps, when we relax, we become one with life, which holds us and moves us, rocking us like a baby to the rhythm of her breathing.

Tai Chi is based on the principle of yin and yang, which represent the inseparable nature of life’s opposites, such as darkness and light, joy and sadness, matter and spirit. When you practice Tai Chi, you learn that opposites in life are inherently connected and that you must strive to accept it in its entirety. You may even loosen your resistance to life’s adversities.

Tai Chi is a powerful self-care tool, and at its core is a phenomenon called song, or release of internal tension. Peter Wayne, in his book The Harvard Medical School Guide to Tai Chi, calls it “rocking the baby.” Thanks to gentle, rhythmic, flowing movements and deep breathing, we literally rock our bodies like babies, calming all systems: nervous, muscular, digestive, respiratory, endocrine, etc. , comforts me.

Your inner dialogue stops, your thoughts slow down, and your emotions quiet down. As a TC practitioner in one of my groups said, suddenly we enter a calm inner space and become relaxed, alert, confident and sincere, like a “stalking cat.” move to.

Another amazing thing about Tai Chi is that groups of practitioners move together in sync. Although each person’s movements are unique, they are connected in invisible ways. There is a sense of belonging and support, and while this form lasts, the group connects with each other in a peaceful shared space, like a flock of cranes flying together in a beautiful arrangement.

What about my anxiety? It’s still on my mind a lot, but now I think of it as a friend coming to remind me to rest, breathe, do tai chi, and relax.

About Lana Bird

Lana Bird is an ATCQA and Yoga Alliance, ERYT-500 certified Tai Chi and Yoga instructor. She created a YouTube channel at YouTube.com/@smallstepstaichi to help anyone who wants to learn and practice Tai Chi.

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