Lately I’ve been paying careful attention to how I set my intent for practicing form. Early on when I began to learn about energy psychology and energy healing, I was taught the importance of setting an intent for any given energy undertaking. By being clear about intent, both tone and focus are immediately set in motion. There may be various ways to define intent but I think of it as an alignment of mind, body and spirit that expresses through heart. I like to keep it really simple so I use one or two words to capture what I want to pay particular attention to throughout the time I’m doing form. If I want to work with hand position, for example, I say the word “hands” to myself. If I feel concerned with tempo or would simply enjoy noticing it, I might use that word or “pace” or “rhythm”. In order not to be too repetitive, I change the words often. It’s understandably impossible to run out of ways in which to set intent for learning and enjoying the practice of tai chi. I suppose that’s one of the ways tai chi is so appealing – participation means being a forever student.
Categorised in: Uncategorized
This post was written by Sifu Neddy Thompson