Golden Pheasant Feathers Nest

[dr_pretentious]

Back in February, when I first told my Tai Chi teacher I was pregnant, I had no idea how long I'd be able to keep practicing the forms. "Oh," she said, "one of our students kept it up until the day she went into labor. Her water broke right here, while she was doing her Qi Gong exercises. This studio has produced lots of Tai Chi babies." Since I'm a slow learner at Tai Chi, and I'm resigned to being a slow learner at it indefinitely, I assumed I was also not that serious a student--that I'd bail out as soon as I reached that pinched, uncomfortable stage I'd seen people hit at the start of the third trimester. But here I am, still at it. Who knew?

There are moves I can't even attempt anymore. Anything that involves standing on one foot is right out--in one day, the day the baby dropped into his current position, I went from having a consistently good Golden Pheasant Stands On One Leg to having a somewhat comical Golden Pheasant Topples Over Sideways. All my kicks, which I'd been making real progress on, are gone. Now that my ligaments are loosening for the birth, my Single Whip Turn is unsustainably twisty in the knees, and I have to be careful not to pick up habits that will injure me if I still have them when my ligaments tighten back up.

At least I can still do Repel the Monkey. After the year and a half it took me to unlearn my big mistake and get that move right, I'd have been so annoyed at the universe if that had been one of the moves I lost. If any monkeys try to beset the baby, I'll be ready for them.

I also seem to have kept my progress at all the moves with tiger-related names. What is it with Tai Chi and tigers? I have to imagine the old Taoist masters hanging out over tea saying to each other, "How can we be sure the art really works? I know! We'll go hiking in the mountains, antagonize some tigers, and see if we get home alive." Anyhow, pregnancy notwithstanding, I can still Ride the Tiger, Strike the Tiger to the Left, Strike the Tiger to the Right, and Bend the Bow and Shoot the Tiger. Woe betide any tigers who venture menacingly into my son's nursery! (Friendly tigers, however, will be greeted with Embrace the Tiger and Return to the Mountain.)

Comments

[mystcphoenxcafe.livejournal.com]

Greetings!

*hehehehehehe* Glad to read that you and the little one both continue to be well. :-) Coming out to your neck of the woods next week or -ish, at least - Connecticut and NYC for business and friend-type things. What's the weather like over yonder these days? Been surprisingly warm here - not that I'm complaining or anything. :-D

Bright Blessings!
-Katrina

[vgnwtch.livejournal.com]

My goodness - Tai Chi has a tiger capture and release programme? I was not aware of that!

Is the Tai Chi helping with the pregnancy?

[puckmls.livejournal.com]

Woe betide any tigers who venture menacingly into my son's nursery! (Friendly tigers, however, will be greeted with Embrace the Tiger and Return to the Mountain.)

I suspect the only tigers entering the nursery will be the soft, cuddly, stuffed variety. :-)

But I am

[monotreme.livejournal.com]

Neil Gaiman has a children's story featuring a tiger who says, "Most tigers are not man-eaters, but *I* am." In his reading of it, you begin to feel reassured, but then...

[oaktavia.livejournal.com]

LOL... this made me recall the post you did on the repelling monkeys... :-D
(one of these days I'm going to flip through my archives & see if I still a copy of that) I actually use a paraphrase of that as alegory in one of my classes for why my students need to learn the foundation & reasons behind the structure of the Tradition before they can mess with -uhm - I mean 'experiment' with the form.
I discuss energy flow, why the form is the way it is, that the form is designed for a type of flow with a specific result. And then ask "If you don't learn the form as it should be in the beginning, and experience what the desired outcome is supposed to be - how will you know what you are altering may be a 'support beam' of the structure..?" I then move into a baking metaphor - "before you start tweaking a recipe, you kinda have to run it through 'by the book', so that you know what needs tweaking... if at all... sometimes the recipe is just fine just the way it is - it just needs a bit of personal 'flavor' - as in adding walnuts to a brownie recipe. But if you go and decide that you're going to take out a basic compontent, or substitute an ingredient - you need to know what the recipe is supposed to come out like in the first place, you need to know the properties of what your taking out or substituting and whether the other ingredients have a symbiotic relationship with that ingredient... because taking out the content (ex: taking out baking soda) may completely alter the end result..."
I also touch on the requirement/aspect of "unlearning" bad form in that class... I can now add "took over a year & a half" to my alegory story!

Glad you & baby are doing fine!!!
thinking of you!!!!!!!! {{{{{{{{hugs}}}}}}}}}}}

[violet-moon25.livejournal.com]

Glad you are doing well and have not lost your sense of humor. I thought you might be in the get-this-baby-out-of-me-already stage by now.