Loving Myself More

I logged onto Facebook this morning to check whether a co-worker from the library had posted any information about her current location and the status of a leather-working class she's attending in England. (She had.) Then I realized: Why am I spending time on the computer on such a beautiful, sunny, 50ish morning? It's crazy.

I soon logged off the computer, moved to the deck, and dived into a sun-warmed T'ai Chi Chih practice. What fun! Our wind chime rang gently, birds chirped and twittered, two squirrels chased, climbed, and followed each other over sun-hardened snow, and I moved softly through Rocking Motion, Bird Flaps Its Wings, . . .  Light at the Top of the Head, and Passing Clouds. Oh, it felt so delightful to be One with nature.

While practicing I recalled a conversation from yesterday. A patron at the library who is also an improvisational dancer talked with me about how it feels when he moves silently with another person. It's intimate and sometimes intimidating, he remarked. I concurred. I occasionally ask my TCC students to perform Push Pull and/or Working the Pulley in pairs and I often hear them say that they don't know where to focus their attention and gaze. How do we learn to be comfortable in our own skins (especially when we're face-to-face within a foot or two of another person)?

I mentioned that I'm learning how to let go of control while I'm teaching (I've heard many TCC teachers say the same). Slowly I'm learning how to let myself be gently guided by the Chi. And, I told him, I find many other benefits--most of them subtle--from my TCC practice.

I bet you love yourself a lot more than when you started, he replied. Wow! It's true ... I do. And it took a world-wise improvisational dancer to remind me of that.